[0:00]God created a man perfect in all of his ways name Adam. And how Adam when he was deceived by his wife and the devil, he chose to rebel against God and plunge the whole human race into sin. And as a result of that original sin spread to all human beings and it has infected the entire human race. And although we are different inside this room and in the overflows and across the camera. We are different in color, and we are different in ethnicity, and we are different in backgrounds and socio-economic status. We have different place of origin and was born in different homes and have been raised with different parents.And although there is distinction among us as human beings. We all can testify that humanity despite our distinctions, we all have been infected by a common disease that we see across the whole world. It is this disease called sin that has infected every part of the human being. It has affected our mind, has infected our intellect, and has infected our heart and our lives. It is sin that is the bane of all human existence.It is because of the fallen nature of the world and humanity is the origin of all of your pain. All of your suffering. All of your trials, all of your tribulations, all of your shame, all of your insecurities, all of the abuse you suffered when you were young, all of your relational tension. For every divorce and every marriage that's in trouble. For every teenager that is astray, is the source of all of our unforgiveness. Is the source of all of our problems, all of our wars, murder, is the source of killing and disease and famine and hurricanes and aging and back pain and death. Sin is the vein of all human experience.And as a result of the fact of what Adam did, what we all have inherited. Is not only a sinful nature, but we all have inherited the new penalty of that sin. The scripture makes it very clear theologically that because human beings were born in sin, we all have inherited eternal damnation from God. That according to these scriptures, every single person was born unrighteous in the side of God, and as a result of that unrighteousness, we were all bear headed for damnation. The Apostle Paul, who wrote the most sound theological document recorded anywhere in the history of the world, preserved for us in the New Testament. He writes about this plight of man to the church in Rome, when he begins in Romans chapter 5 and verse 12. Listen to what the Apostle Paul wrote. He said in verse 12, therefore, he's explaining the issue of sin. Just as sin came into the world through one man, who was Adam. Death through sin, and death spread to all men because all sinned. So according to the doctrine of Paul, because of Adam's sin, which is called original sin, sin nature spread to all human beings, so nobody was born righteous. He goes on to tell us in Romans chapter 3, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. So if there's any person who think they're right in the side of God because of good behavior. Or because of morality or because of piety. The scripture will call you and I a liar.And says because all human beings have sinned and because of that sense we have broken God's laws. But Paul did not stop there.He said in Romans chapter 6 and verse 23. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. I want to draw your attention to the word wages. You know that word if you've had a job. It is what you have earned for what you have done.And according to this doctrine, Paul said because we have sinned against God, because we have broken his laws and because we have been born in sin, we have earned death from God. And not just death at a funeral, but spiritual death.I, we have been separated from God because of our sin nature. And because we have been separated from our God from our sin nature, there is nothing that you and I can do to write that wrong in our own merit. No human being can earn righteousness from God and their own merit or strength, I, if we could, we will be able to boast on the day of judgment. So every human being was already born separated from God. Headed towards damnation, with no hope apart from some pardon that comes from God. Let me explain it to you like this.I've told this story before.I'm going to tell it a hundred times because good leaders are good repeaters. When I was raised in New York, my mother sent me to a day camp and consequently almost nobody in New York knows how to swim. We don't have pools.We don't have parks with water. So people in New York don't know how to swim.But my mother sends me to a day camp, and on that day camp they're trying to teach kids how to swim on that first day. And they lined all the kids up along the edge of the pool from the shortest to the tallest and I end up at the front of the line. No accident there.
[7:12]And then the instructor is walking down the line, and he's telling everybody today, you're going to learn your very first lesson and how to swim. And I can hear him on my back talking right behind me. And then he shoves me into the deep end of the pool, and because I can't swim, I go straight to the bottom of that pool.
[7:41]Now I'm trapped at the bottom of the deep. And no matter what I'm doing, I cannot get out of that pool. I'm struggling, I'm trying to get out, but because I don't know how to swim, I can't get out from the bottom of the pool. I started to feel water rushing up my nose. And I started to feel my head start to swell.And then out of nowhere, I feel this pole poking me in the side of my head.
[8:18]This pole was nudging me trying to help me while I was at the bottom of the pool. And although it was hitting me at first, I didn't have enough common sense to grab that pole.
[8:39]After enough pokes in my head.
[8:48]After enough pokes in my head, I finally had enough common sense to grab that pole. And they yanked me from the bottom of the pool.Listen, and the news that went around the camp that day was a little black boy was saved. From drowning that day.Edie finished work.
[9:25]This is what we approach in our text. It is the apex of the redemption plan of God, the Lord reaching his hand down into humanity to pull lost people from the bottom of the pool.
[9:50]Because God demands payment for sin. And his payment for sin is blood.This is why in the Old Testament when the people came out of Egypt, he gave them a sacrificial system. And that they would have to shed the blood of animals one after the other, every time they committed a sin, they had to shed the blood of animals. And that blood they were shedding for thousands of years was a foreshadow of a lamb that was coming in the future.
[10:29]And that sacrificial system was meant to teach the people that because God is holy, he demands a blood payment for sin. And where blood is not shed, the scripture says, there is no forgiveness of sins. Now God does not have a body, so you have never seen him.And the Holy Spirit does not have a body. So you've never seen it, but there is a person in the Trinity.
[11:06]The Godhead, who had a physical body. And that body came for a purpose. And the purpose of that body was for the Father to break it, then he could reach down into your life and mind and raise us from the bottom of that pool.
[11:32]This is what we approach in the text.
[11:40]God's ultimate plan of redemption. Look at me, what we about to read in the text was God's plan to save you.
[11:55]So you recall how Christ was arrested in a garden on a Thursday night. And how he was dragged out of that garden into the house of Caiaphas the high priest. And how he endured six illegal trials through the night and never got a chance to sleep. How by the time the sun raised those religious rulers had condemned him for the charge of being the king of the Jews. You remember that they could not crucify him, so they brought him to a governor name Pontius Pilot. You remember how they asked Pontius Pilot to crucify this man who has been blasphemous. You recall how Pontius Pilot did everything he could to exonerate Jesus because in the Roman trial he found Jesus not guilty. You remember how he put up another notorious criminal name Barabbas and said choose which one you want. And the people being corrupted by the religious leaders chose a murderer over the Lord Jesus. You remember how Pilate had Jesus scourge or beaten within an inch of his life and then brought him back before the people, but that was not enough for the bloodthirsty religious leaders. They said, no, we don't want that man.no.Crucify him. And you know how Pilate took a blood-beaten, lacerated, skin, body, bones hanging out the side. Face deformed.The scripture says, he was beaten to the point he was unrecognizable. And how Pilate took him and handed him over to some 200 soldiers, who then marked him. Put a crown of thorns on him, beat him in his head, spit in his face, bow a false knee, a knee they will bow in the future. They abused him in silent behind Pilate's back, when he was supposed to be in a safe place. And then they put his clothes on him, and then they finally obey they carry him out of that praetorium to be crucified. And then what we read right now is Matthew's account of what happened when they walked Jesus out of those doors. In verse 32, as they went out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name.They compelled this man to carry his cross. So Matthew tells us that as Jesus was coming out of that room, they saw a man who they forced to help Jesus carry that cross. John tells us in his writing that Jesus came out bearing his own cross. But Jesus was tired, and Jesus was weary, and Jesus was hurting. And so they found somebody to help him carry the cross on his way to crucifixion.Now crucifixion, hear me, was the most barbaric and the most torturous form of capital punishment human beings have ever invented. It was created by the Assyrians or by the Persians, it was perfected by Rome, and what would happen during persecution or execution. They would take the prisoner, they would strip the prisoner naked.They would beat that prisoner so his blood will start to leak out. Then they would put a cross beam on the prisoner, make him walk to the place of execution, usually a public place because Rome like to string up people in public as a deterrence against Roman law. They would then either with a rope or with nails, affix that person to the cross beam. They would then affix the feet to the cross beam. Then they would string up that person and all throughout the Roman Empire, you would see people on crosses on the side of the road. Now as a person hung on the cross, they would have to reach up to breathe and come back down. They would have to reach up to breathe and come back down.If they did not reach up, they would not be able to breathe. And so every time they came back down, they could feel the wood on their lacerated back. Most people would hang there for days, watch, until they died of suffocation in their own lungs. They'd be foggy in their mind, and then animals would come and pick their body they left there to rot. Now Jesus who was tired, he can't go all the way by himself. And so the Roman soldiers constrict or compel a man to follow him. There was a law that a Roman soldier if they wanted somebody to carry their armor, they can go up to a Jew and constrict him and then hand the armor to that Jew to follow him for at least one mile. This is where Jesus taught his followers if that ever happens to you, go a second mile.
[18:18]It's where we get second mile service from. It's where Chick-fil-A got that from.He says, go just go one mile, show them that you belong to me, go the second mile.Do what's necessary to be excellent and
[18:43]Not last in first out to work.First in and last out to work.
