Easter Strength - His Strength for my weakness

EASTER STRENGTH – HIS STRENGTH for MY WEAKNESS* 

Matthew 27:27-50

Introduction

• This passage is most troubling.

I don’t know about you – but I like scriptures like John 3:16 and Psalm 23.  These scriptures have a flow to them.  You don’t need a seminary education to understand them. 

This scripture is contrary to everything I want to believe about our Savior.  The truth is, I read about the first followers of Jesus, the disciples, and in our Saviors moment of greatest need, the disciples were all gone.  Jesus was left all alone.

I don’t want Him to be alone.  I want my Savior to have friends, real friends, and close friends with Him when He dies.  I want to think that I would be that kind of friend.  Scripture says, “There is a friend that is closer than a brother.”

We will come to understand that Jesus had to be alone to finish the work He came to do.  (But I still don’t like it!)

Maybe you are here this morning and you are a little frustrated with life.  Are things (persons, events) in your life moving CONTRARY to where you wanted them to move?

Has someone disappointed you?  Has someone let YOU down?  Has someone gradually or even suddenly begun to move CONTRARY to everything you once knew of them?

How does this make you feel?

It makes me feel frustrated.  It makes me wonder if I will ever understand what is going on. It makes me search for reasons.

But our reasoning is never enough, is it?  Because in our reasoning all we have is “me”.  I know that’s bad grammar.  But if the purpose of communication is to make the message clear, then that’s it. 

I don’t want anyone here today to have the feeling, “It’s just me.  That’s all I’ve got.  I can count on NO ONE.  They will all let me down like the last time.”

Jesus knows how you feel.  Jesus told his closest friends what was about to happen to Him.  Instead of listening they argued who would be the GREATEST when Jesus set up Kingdom shop here. 

And because they were afraid, because they didn’t understand, or just because what Jesus was doing was CONTRARY to everything they WANTED to believe about Him – Jesus died all alone.  Jesus died for you.  Jesus died for me.  If we can ever get our minds and hearts around that, we will be different people – the cross of Jesus Christ changes people.

That’s our message from God today. 

The CROSS of Jesus Christ can CHANGE you today!

G. Campbell Morgan said: “Nobody who has truly seen the cross of Jesus Christ can EVER AGAIN speak of HOPELESS cases.

What is SO CONTRARY about the crucifixion of Christ?

I can think of many but today let’s look at four very specific things at Calvary’s Cross that seem SO CONTRARY to us.

1. The one who is mocked as king is King.

• Jesus is given a mock crown of thorns and mocked as king. 
• To “Mock” someone is to ridicule them; to make fun of someone. 
• Like children on a playground that seems like a battlefield – the ridicule just won’t stop.  Until the teacher comes. 
• But with Jesus, there is no one.  We’ve all left Him.

He is alone listening to their insults.  Mocking.  Matthew seems to want us to get this – for three times he tells us, “And again, they mocked Him.”  Vs. 29; vs. 31; vs. 41

Jesus has no answer for his critics.  That is contrary to me, is it to you?  How do you respond when you have been wronged?

REMEMBER JESUS!

Jesus does not answer His critics.  He knows He is our King

Roman executioners had perfected the art of slow torture while keeping the victim alive. Some victims even lingered until they were eaten alive by birds of prey or wild beasts. Most hung on the cross for days before dying of exhaustion, dehydration, traumatic fever, or—most likely—suffocation. When the legs would no longer support the weight of the body, the diaphragm was constricted in a way that made breathing impossible. That is why breaking the legs would hasten death (John 19:31–33), but this was unnecessary in Jesus’ case. The hands were usually nailed through the wrists, and the feet through the instep or the Achilles tendon (sometimes using one nail for both feet). None of these wounds would be fatal, but their pain would become unbearable as the hours dragged on. The most notable feature of crucifixion was the stigma of disgrace that was attached to it (Gal. 3:13; 5:11; Heb. 12:2). One indignity was the humiliation of carrying one’s own cross, which might weigh as much as 200 pounds. Normally a quaternion, 4 soldiers, would escort the prisoner through the crowds to the place of crucifixion. A placard bearing the indictment would be hung around the person’s neck.  MacArthur Study Bible

SCOURGING

The dreadful routine of crucifixion had now begun. The last section ended by telling us that Pilate had Jesus scourged. Roman scourging was a terrible torture. The victim was stripped; his hands were tied behind him, and he was tied to a post with his back bent double and conveniently exposed to the lash. The lash itself was a long leather thong, studded at intervals with sharpened pieces of bone and pellets of lead. Such scourging always preceded crucifixion and “it reduced the naked body to strips of raw flesh, and inflamed and bleeding whelps.” Men died under it, and men lost their reason under it, and few remained conscious to the end of it..

2.  The one who is utterly powerless is ALL-Powerful.

• Crucifixion was the worst means of execution, reserved for slaves and rebels.
• Bystanders insulted Jesus as he hung there: “Come down from the cross if you are the son of God!”
  - Matthew 27:39

Have you ever wondered:  “Why did Jesus have to DIE?”

·       Jesus died for you (us) for all of us.

Jesus voluntarily took our place on the cross.  Earlier he told his men, “The GOOD Shepherd lays down his life for His sheep.” 

In the upper room, just hours from His death by crucifixion Jesus said, “This is MY BODY – given for you.”

Why did Jesus die?

·       Jesus died for us so that we could be brought NEAR to God.

To be “in sin” is to be away from God.  It means that if we choose to remain in a life of sin and never accept Christ we will always be separated from God.  The GOOD NEWS of the CROSS is that we never have to be far from God again!

Let me ask you this morning, “Are YOU far from God, today?”

You do not have to stay FAR from God.   At the Cross Jesus brings us NEAR to God.

3. The one who can’t save himself saves others.

(Matthew 27:40-44)

• Everything Jesus does is for the purpose of saving people from sin.   (say it again!)

I say that again, because if I don’t I forget that.  I really need to remember that everything Jesus did is for the purpose of saving me from destruction.

Can I make a confession to you, this morning? 

·       There have been times in my life when I wanted God to help me win a ballgame.

·       I have asked God to help me make an “A” on a test.

·       I have asked God to let me win the truck – you know those tickets we sell every year for project graduation. I have given God my list of reasons why His Kingdom could be advanced if I were to win that new truck.

You know what I’ve discovered.  Jesus came to take care of the GREATEST NEED of my Life.  Jesus came to die my death and pay the penalty for all my sins.

While the bystanders Mocked Him, while the soldiers tortured Him, while the rulers sentenced Him – He had ONE THING on His mind – Save THEM – bring him and bring her to God.

CALVARY SHOWS how far men will go in sin, and how far God will go to bring SALVATION to SINNERS.

4. The one who cries out in despair trusts God.

• Jesus’ cry reflected his deepest awareness of his abandonment and his judicial bearing of our sin.

“My God My God, WHY has thou forsaken me…”

Is it hard for you to hear that?  Does it bother you that Jesus said those words?