Nailing Our Struggles to the Cross: A Call to Surrender

[00:08:22] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:08:22] Jesus said, A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye love one another.
[00:08:41] Welcome to our Maundy Thursday service.
[00:08:45] The word Maundy is derived from the Latin Mandatum Novum, which literally means command.
[00:08:54] It refers to Jesus' command in John's Gospel that we love one another as the children of God in the body of Christ.
[00:09:05] Hours before Jesus was arrested, mocked, scourged, and taken to the cross, he had a special meal with his disciples, the Passover.
[00:09:18] During that Passover meal, Jesus established what we call Holy Communion, or the Lord's Supper, where he gave his disciples the bread and said, This is my body. Of course, you know that represents his body.
[00:09:40] and the cup, which represented his blood, to be done in remembrance of him.
[00:09:45] Jesus said to his disciples, For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death till he comes.
[00:09:57] Would you please look and follow me this evening as we begin with a responsive reading from Psalm 28, Proverbs 28, Psalm 51 and 1 John.
[00:10:11] He that covereth his sin shall not prosper, but whoso confesseth and forsaketh him shall find mercy.
[00:10:33] Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
[00:10:50] If we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to purify us from all unrighteousness.
[00:11:00] Have a reading from 1 Corinthians, where Paul was speaking of the Lord's table.
[00:11:09] Here in 1 Corinthians 11, beginning in verse 23, he said to the church, where I received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you that the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed
[00:11:27] took bread and when he had given thanks he break it and said take it this is my body which is broken for you this do in remembrance of me after this same manner also he took the cup
[00:11:42] when he had given when he had supped this cup this is the You testament in my blood, this do ye as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.
[00:11:54] For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death till he come.
[00:12:00] May God bless the reading of his word.

[00:12:04] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:12:04] You would please stand and turn your hymnals to 134.
[00:12:17] Jesus paid it all. We'll be singing verses 1, 3, and 4.

[00:12:20] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:12:20] I want to share in communion now, and I trust as we partake of the bread and the cup,

[00:14:57] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:14:57] as you hold it in your hand, that you will remember what each element represents.
[00:15:05] Just stated a few moments ago, Paul, yes, Paul from 1 Corinthians.
[00:15:13] The bread represents his broken and battered body for you and for me.
[00:15:18] the cup represents his shed blood shed in our behalf brethren would you now come and distribute as you receive the cup hold it in your hand and we will share it together has everyone been served who desires to be served would you please take the wafer in your hand
[00:19:03] again this represents the body of Jesus Christ to us as Baptists it's representative of his body broken and battered in our behalf may we partake together and then there's the cup representative of the shed blood of Christ
[00:19:59] in our behalf no small payment no small sacrifice the early church had a tradition Often, as they shared in communion, this is what they would do.
[00:20:21] They would hold up their cups like this towards one another.
[00:20:25] Please do so. Hold it up.
[00:20:27] And they would say, till he comes, my brothers and sisters in Christ, till he comes, we will now pause for a few seconds for personal reflection and meditation.
[00:20:49] Would you please bow with me?

[00:20:50] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:20:50] Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the praetorium and gathered the whole garrison around him.
[00:22:26] And they stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him.
[00:22:29] When they had twisted a crown of thorns, they put it on his head and a reed in his right hand.
[00:22:35] And they bowed the knee before him and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews.
[00:22:39] Then they spat on him and took the reed and struck him on the head.
[00:22:43] And when they had mocked them, they took the robe off him and put his own clothes on him and led him away to be crucified.

[00:22:50] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:22:50] Please stand once more.
[00:23:03] will be in our hymnals 145 alas and did my savior bleed before talking about instruments of cruelty

[00:25:35] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:25:35] i'm going to read a little bit of scripture matthew 26 39 says and going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed saying my father if it be possible let this cup pass from me
[00:25:50] nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.
[00:26:00] Thank you, sir.
[00:26:01] I was debating tonight on exactly how I could do this justice, on exactly how I could properly cover the instruments of torture of our Lord.
[00:26:13] And as I was doing research, both in Scripture and looking at different historical accounts, I saw that these instruments were created and perfected by those who had no problem inflicting punishment on others. The Romans, for example, had no problem when it comes to how many
[00:26:33] times they would flay somebody. There was something in the Old Testament that would prevent the Jews from flaying someone a high amount of times, but I'll come back to that here in a moment. There's a little condition that is called hematidrosis. For those of you that have
[00:26:52] read the Gospel of Luke, you'll notice that it says that when Jesus was sweating, it was like he was sweating drops of blood. Hematidrosis is a condition where under extreme duress, under extreme duress, the blood vessels in your face will begin to constrict. They will then
[00:27:12] dilate, and they can even burst, during which it can come out of the pores of your skin without the skin itself actually breaking. And yes, it does look like you are sweating blood. It is very rare,
[00:27:24] but it is most certainly, most certainly possible. And that kind of begins our Savior's suffering.
[00:27:36] And of course, he was betrayed for 30 pieces of silver and a kiss. Jesus was then taken before the high priest. He was taken to so many trials that day. It was ridiculous. But he was blindfolded,
[00:27:53] perhaps with something like this, and he was then beaten. They literally blindfolded him and slapped him, punched him, beat him with a reed and various other tools and said, who hit you, Christ?
[00:28:06] Prophesy to us, who hit you? What Jesus had done at this point in time is he had taken the Sanhedrin, He had taken the Pharisees, all of these religious elites, and because he came in
[00:28:18] and was preaching the kingdom and with grace, he completely destroyed the religious system.
[00:28:25] They were going to take their time with him. This was not so much the physical punishment, this was the humiliation aspect, and they were going to humiliate him. These cultures back in the ancient times operated on what are called honor and shame cultures. America is not so much
[00:28:41] like that. But back then, honor and shame were more valuable than any currency, far more valuable than any currency. Moving forward a little bit, we have when Jesus was flogged. Now, the Roman scourge perhaps could have looked something like this. Now, it may have had a little bit more
[00:29:03] leather strands on it, and as you can see here, it's tied a bit. But imagine at the end, it could have had anything from little ball bearings to things such as bone fragments, perhaps bone
[00:29:15] fragments from the sheep's knuckle bone, for example. And I don't want to hit you guys.
[00:29:23] So whenever it was striked like that, it wasn't just a windmill motion. When it was striked, it would get stuck. I have another example right here. This one has nails in it, for example.
[00:29:38] when these scourges would strike a victim it wasn't just that they were striking the back they could literally go around to the front of part of the body and pull flesh from there what is so brutal is that in deuteronomy it talks about there being a limit on how much time someone could
[00:29:56] be flogged the romans were not jews they did not care about that one bit so they could beat jesus to their heart's content. They did not have to stop it 39 times. What ended up often happening,
[00:30:09] and we have a church historian back during these time periods who would tell us that these floggings were so bad that crowds would literally be in shock at witnessing them because they were so bloody that the person was not even recognizable. Remember that. I'll come right back to it.
[00:30:25] And it got to the point to where the Romans were so brutal that if they indulged themselves enough, the person wouldn't even be crucified because they would be dead oftentimes symptoms of this included not just ripping of the skin but ripping of the muscle and I apologize for going as in
[00:30:41] depth but perhaps even breaking bones again we are talking about perhaps ball bearings breaking bones we are talking about concussions contusions and we are even talking about the rupturing of internal organs because it gets to the point where it rips so much out that's what's left Isaiah 52 says that
[00:30:58] Jesus was pierced for our transgressions. But it also makes clear that by the end of his beating, it prophesied that he would be pretty much unrecognizable. And that's what happened.
[00:31:12] What happened later, as you can see here with the scarlet robe, two gospels talk about two different robes that were placed on Jesus, a scarlet robe and a purple robe. The first robe was a scarlet robe placed on him. Now this is after his beating. The Romans were mocking him
[00:31:25] at this point in time because red was used to symbolize power, right? Strength. They were mocking him in his extremely weakened state. And forgive me, but drip from him. It is very likely that it could have stuck to what skin he had left and to his muscles as well. After they were done
[00:31:48] mocking him, they took that off, which probably reopened the wounds. And they put on him a purple robe, which in that time period symbolized royalty. They put that on him. They placed a crown of thorns, perhaps something like this. This is actually from a region in Israel where this would
[00:32:10] have grown, so it probably would have looked something like this, digging into his head, causing severe pain. And then, of course, they would put a reed in his hand, perhaps something like this, saying to him, hail king of the Jews, kneeling before him as well as if they were giving
[00:32:31] praise to the imperator, the emperor, in a very mocking way. So at this point in time, the kind of pain that Jesus has experienced is already remarkably excruciating. But speaking of that word excruciating, when Jesus is then taken to the cross, by the way, that word excruciating
[00:32:53] comes from the cross. That's where we got that from. The nails were then placed. Some historians will argue whether they were placed in his hand, the palm like that, the bottom part of his thumb,
[00:33:05] perhaps the bottom part of his palm leading out to the back of the wrist or between the two carpal bones right there. The fact of the matter is, the Greek word used his hand, but it could mean either
[00:33:14] one of those. The fact of the matter is, though, that wherever it went, it would have lit the nerve endings beyond fire. It would have caused extreme bleeding, and it would have been remarkably painful. As the nails were driven into his hands, and he was in this position, of course there was
[00:33:27] also one in his feet, he would literally have to pull himself up in order to exhale. And keep in mind, again, as he is taken to the cross, as he is against a wooden cross, there's not as much
[00:33:45] back left. It is perhaps pure muscle and even bones against the cross itself.
[00:33:54] The Romans were known for their brutality. They were known for, and they had conquered all the way up even to what is now modern-day Britain. They took great, great pleasure in the suffering of Jesus, and the Jewish elite at that time knew that they would, and they also were very excited.
[00:34:14] they had to put Jesus to death in this way as well, because when it came to the death penalty, the Romans, as a general rule of thumbs, had to be the one to do it. Unless it was some kind of
[00:34:24] mob rule stoning situation, like with Stephen, for example, the Romans had to carry it out.
[00:34:31] And might I say, there was no one more qualified to do it. Now there is one final thing. They also put this there as well. They did it probably to mock him, but it was still true nevertheless.
[00:34:49] king of the Jews. I want us to take a moment. That was a lot. That was a lot. That was kind of graphic, I know. So I want us to just take a moment, kind of decompress from that, and just
[00:35:05] appreciate how much our Savior really loves us. So let's take just a moment.
[00:36:23] He hath no form nor comeliness, and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken,
[00:36:59] smitten of God, and afflicted. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. I'm going to be reading to you from

[00:37:51] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:37:51] John chapter 19 verses 17 through 19 and he that is Jesus bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of the skull which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha where they crucified him
[00:38:19] and the two others with him on either side and Jesus in the midst and Pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross And the writing was, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews, 28 through 30 now.
[00:38:39] After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scriptures might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst.
[00:38:50] Now there was a vessel full of vinegar, and they filled a sponge with vinegar, and put upon it hyssop, and put it to his mouth.
[00:38:58] when Jesus therefore received the vinegar he said it is finished and he bowed his head and gave up the ghost and now John 3 16 for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son
[00:39:18] that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have ever lasting life

[00:39:25] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:39:25] if you would please stand once more and our hymnals will be on page 141 the old rugged cross

[00:39:41] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:39:41] In the New Testament book of Colossians, in chapter 2, you'll find these words.

[00:44:55] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:44:55] Paul, in writing to the ancient church at Colossae, said, And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened, together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses, blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us
[00:45:17] speaks of the law that was against us which was contrary to us and took it out of the way nailing it to his cross we know as Christians we are justified by faith we stand before God
[00:45:39] clothed with the righteousness of Christ but we're still not perfect sometimes we still sin do we not Sometimes we make mistakes.
[00:45:59] Sometimes it's intentional on our part, but it's still covered by the blood of Christ, is it not?
[00:46:19] Perhaps you are like me.
[00:46:22] Again, I'm not perfect.
[00:46:25] I fail sometimes, and it may surprise you to know I've actually knowingly sinned.
[00:46:34] That too, by the way, is covered by the blood.
[00:46:41] Are you like me?
[00:46:44] There are some sins I tend to repeat.
[00:46:52] Some sins I'm prone to commit.
[00:46:59] I'm still working on them.
[00:47:04] What I'd like for us to do as we talk about the cross of our Lord tonight is this.
[00:47:11] I'm going to begin us.
[00:47:17] I'm writing down right now on a piece of paper.
[00:47:20] A sin that I still struggle with from time to time.
[00:47:31] Something that I still wrestle with.
[00:47:34] No, I've been saved a long time now.
[00:47:41] I've written it down.
[00:47:43] I could write one or two more.
[00:47:46] I'm writing down the main one.
[00:47:51] What I'm going to do is this.
[00:47:59] I'm going to nail it to the cross.
[00:48:01] Ask God to give me grace and strength to overcome that thing I still wrestle with from time to time.
[00:48:12] Is there anybody else here like that?
[00:48:13] I'm going to nail it to the cross.
[00:48:20] I've been praying about it the last few weeks more so than ever.
[00:48:23] and I'm coming tonight and I'm going to claim victory over that issue that I wrestle with and pray that God will give me the grace and the strength to overcome it because that's why he died on the cross
[00:48:41] amen and after I do it I'm going to put the notes here on the communion table along with the pens and maybe there's something here that maybe you're like me you've been saved many many years

[00:49:10] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:49:10] I want to master the sin

[00:49:45] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:49:45] rather than it mastering me is there anyone else who needs to come to do that tonight the notes are right here the pens are right here would you please play something thank you

[00:50:08] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:50:08] would like us just to take a few moments

[00:56:24] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:56:24] to stop and have a time of reflection and meditation before we have our close may we bow together our focus tonight has been on fellowship sharing in communion and looking at the cross what it entailed what you shared was deeply disturbing but we needed to see it didn't
[00:58:07] we he went to the cross paid the sin debt for you and for me to call substitutionary atonement he died in my place and your place now closing word now the god of patience and consolation
[00:58:27] grant you to be like-minded one toward another according to christ jesus that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify god even the father of our lord jesus christ now the god of hope
[00:58:41] fill you with all joy and peace in believing have a blessed evening and a blessed easter