Sermon on “The Passion” – God’s passion for you!
i. Has anyone asked you that question yet?
ii. Or have you asked anyone that question yet?
1. The Movie: The Passion is the most talked about movie ever, and is creating opportunities for engaging people in a dialogue about Jesus Christ in a way that no other movie ever has.
2. Melissa mentioned that the day after she saw it, a co-worker came up to her out of the blue and asked her if “she had seen ‘it’.”
3. You can open up dialogue with people. In fact, we have some special handouts for you to take with you to give to people as you are discussing the movie with them, which will help explain it better to them.
i. I heard that it was very violent, that I wouldn’t want to watch it, or that it would make me sick to my stomach.
ii. I heard that it blamed the Jewish people for Jesus’ death.
iii. I heard that it was biblically inaccurate
iv. But I also heard from a few Christians who had seen it, and they said that they could only sit in stunned silence after the movie.
i. It seemed like we were in the company of Christians, so I wasn’t as uncomfortable about what we would encounter as I would had I gone in by myself.
ii. As the movie started, it began with a scene from Garden of Gethsemanie, the place where Jesus prayed the night he was arrested. There is a depiction of his agony, and of his disciple’s surprise that he would be troubled…as if Jesus was never troubled by anything, until that night.
iii. I don’t know if you can imagine what Jesus went through in the Garden, the scene at the beginning of the movie. Jesus has been telling his disciples for months now that he would suffer and die and on the third day be raised.
1. He knows why He has come. And now, he is facing the crossroads.
2. His Father has asked Him to do this. But Jesus has a choice.
3. He knows that what he will face is not just death or torture. Many men have borne that.
4. What he must bear is the weight of evil, the weight of sin, the weight of every human being’s sin, and sin is something he has never known.
5. The sinless one would have to BECOME sin so that the wrath of His Father could be poured out.
iv. While he is praying in the garden, a satanic figure comes along and begins harassing him, and a serpent slides from the satanic figure toward Jesus.
1. Those of us who are familiar with Genesis 3:15 know what will happen next, but it evoked a loud “amen” from me as Jesus steps on the snake.
2. The people in front of me turn around to see what kind of strange person is sitting behind them.
3. I apologize and decide it is time to mute my emotions.
i. I felt gratitude, relief, hope, joy, humility all packed tightly together in a jumble of tangled emotions.
i. One was by those who don’t know Jesus, don’t understand Who He is, or why He came.
1. Their response was that of someone who has just witnessed a good man suffering and experiencing a very tragic death.
2. Their response is that of sadness and regret, like someone who has witnessed a terrible accident. “That was so sad.”
3. It is the press and the media who fall into this category, who simply cannot understand why Christians are flocking to this movie.
a. To them this is simply a sad and tragically violent story.
b. To them, the violence is terribly gratuitous.
i. I have heard comments by non-Christians who call it a “torture flick.”
ii. These folks know nothing of the “why,” the “who” or the “what” of this story.
iii. You may be one of them today.
iv. You watched the movie and you saw only violence and a courageous man bearing up under it.
v. You were moved by that courage, but you are here because you wonder…
1. Why the commotion?
2. Why did He do it?
3. Why are people so moved by this act of torture?
ii. The other reaction was that by people who know who Jesus is and why Jesus went through this cruel torture.
1. They responded in a variety of ways, but almost everyone of them had a sense of APPRECIATION for what Jesus did, because they understood that He did it for them.
i. I hope that if you saw the movie, you have been reflecting on that this week.
ii. I woke up with a much different attitude toward God the day after seeing the movie.
iii. Did you?
i. They have an expectation of a messiah that will come and deliver the nation of Israel from their oppressors, an expectation that has built up over hundreds of years.
i. Jesus claims to be the messiah, but not in the sense that the nation of Israel has built its expectations for.
ii. They are expecting a military conqueror who would throw off the yoke of enemy enslavement and restore the nation to its prominence that it had during the reign of David and Solomon.
iii. But Jesus comes, and his kingdom isn’t of this world.
1. He has come to set people free, but not free in the physical sense, but free in something deeper and much more intrinsic to their nature.
2. He has come to lead them by serving them…in fact, every one of his teachings sounds upside down to conventional wisdom.
3. He trains his disciples to cast out demons, to free people from the fear and bondage to sickness, death and disease.
4. He heals the sick, raises the dead, the blind see and lame walk.
5. He exercises supernatural power everywhere He goes and talks about the Kingdom of God coming.
i. Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? (Isaiah 53:1)
ii. For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, And like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty That we should look upon Him, Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. (Isaiah 53:2)
iii. He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. (Isaiah 53:3)
iv. Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. (Isaiah 53:4)
v. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5)
vi. All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him. (Isaiah 53:6)
vii. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth; Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth. (Isaiah 53:7)
viii. By oppression and judgment He was taken away; And as for His generation, who considered That He was cut off out of the land of the living For the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due? (Isaiah 53:8)
ix. His grave was assigned with wicked men, Yet He was with a rich man in His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was there any deceit in His mouth. (Isaiah 53:9)
x. But the LORD was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, And the good pleasure of the LORD will prosper in His hand. (Isaiah 53:10)
xi. As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, As He will bear their iniquities. (Isaiah 53:11)
xii. Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great, And He will divide the booty with the strong; Because He poured out Himself to death, And was numbered with the transgressors; Yet He Himself bore the sin of many, And interceded for the transgressors. (Isaiah 53:12)
i. He admits to the religious rulers that He is not only the Messiah, but the “I AM” who had spoken to Moses.
1. He claims equality with God and proclaims that He will come on the clouds of Heaven in majesty and power.
ii. The High Priest sees this as blasphemy and tears his robes.
iii. There is only one punishment for blasphemy, (blasphemy is proclaiming oneself equal with God) and that is death.
iv. And then Jesus is taken to Pilate, who is perplexed by Jesus’ notion concerning truth. Pilate tries to take the easy way out by asking the perennial question”what is truth”?
i. He is the sinless, perfect, Son of God, He is God come in the flesh to change the world from the inside out. Fully man and fully God. He is the glory of God come in the flesh. And the bible references are to numerous to list all of them here today.
ii. The reason Jesus was sentenced to death was because He claimed to be God
1. so He is either:
2. A lunatic: A delusional, mental case who thought he was God. But if he was that, his teachings would be worthless and His teachings are recognized by scholars over the centuries as the most profound, life changing teachings by any man who has ever existed.
3. A liar: He could have been someone who pretended to be someone who was good. He may have just tried to line his life up with a bunch of prophecies. But if that were the case, the act of deception would negate all of the teachings that spoke to the contrary.
4. He could be who He said He was: Lord, God. There is not much other conclusion.
i. But the first man, Adam, chose to try to become God, and broke that relationship.
ii. In so doing, found himself naked, confused and separated from the God he had such intimacy with.
iii. But God did something that set the tone for the generations to come.
1. God took an innocent animal, killed it, and God himself clothed Adam and Eve with it.
2. It was the first “sin sacrifice” in history.
3. The word for this clothing is “atonement.”
iv. God also pronounced curses…results or consequence of the sin that had occurred.
1. (All Sin has consequences, even when it is forgiven)
2. And in these curses, we see the promise of a messiah, a deliverer, that would someday, undo this tangled web of pain, death, and sin that Adam and his descendents would weave.
3. Let me read Genesis 3:14-15 “The LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, Cursed are you more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you will go, And dust you will eat All the days of your life; And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel."
4. This was the beginning of salvation history.
5. It would unfold, step by step for generations to come, a nation would be formed, their experiences would be a prototype of the real thing that would come with the Messiah.
i. God’s holiness is unable to look upon sin (rebellion).
ii. It is His Holiness that demands that sin be destroyed.
iii. It is an affront to Who God is.
iv. Thus, God’s wrath is poured out against sin.
v. Wrath is God’s anger.”
vi. You and I have absolutely no sense of how revolting “sin” is to God.
i. In the first scene, Jesus is betrayed to those who are bothered by his call to holiness, mercy, and grace.
ii. Their comfort zone is being crowded.
iii. Just like ours was about to be as we watched the scene unfold.
iv. If you were like me, you began getting more and more uncomfortable.
i. Why would He allow His only son to come to earth and then watch Him die and stand back and do nothing to stop it!
ii. I know that question comes across the lips of many who have had a loved one die an early or tragic death.
iii. Why didn’t God do something about it? Let me explain:
i. That doesn’t sound right does it.
1. The movie was about love wasn’t it?
2. Love that would go to extremes?
3. But the movie was about sin, its horror, and its consequence.
ii. In fact, the movie is so violent, because sin is so horrible and its consequence so grave.
iii. I also believe that this is why the media dislikes this film.
1. The movie says in no uncertain terms that we are all unholy sinners, needing a radical salvation.
iv. Because Sin is what God hates. People are what He loves.
1. Imagine you as a parent. Your child does something that takes them away from your love…perhaps develops an addiction, and that addiction is destroying them. You would hate the “sin” but you love the child.
2. Wouldn’t you do anything you could to save that child from that which is destroying them…even offer yourself if you could?
3. God loves us. But He hates Sin.
4. Sin is choosing our own way, choosing less than God’s best, choosing to act like we are God instead of Him.
5. There is a penalty for Sin. It is death.
a. If there was no penalty, God would be unjust.
b. And from the first moment that mankind sinned, God saw that the penalty for sin would have to be paid.
c. An entire sacrificial system was set up by God in the Old Testament in which sin would be atoned for (covered) through the “substitution” of an innocent animal dying in the place of the guilty person.
6. This was the most evident during the Passover, in which Israelites were to each kill a spotless, perfect lamb, and cover their doorposts with its blood.
a. Then, during the night, a destroying angel went over Egypt, and killed the first born of every home EXCEPT those that had the covering (atonement) of the innocent lamb’s blood.
b. This act of “substitution” continued in temple worship for the Jews all the way up to the time of Jesus.
c. The fact that they had to offer an innocent animal each year on behalf of their sins was to show that they deserved death, but by God’s provision, they were spared because an innocent one took their place.
d. The bible says, “The wages (penalty) of sin is death”
i. The one who sins must pay the price.
ii. Adam was told that the first time he sinned.
e. Death = Separation –
i. Physical death is physical separation from our bodies
ii. Spiritual death is spiritual separation from God.
f. We suffer the consequences of both.
i. And none of us can pay the price, because we are all guilty.
ii. The price for Sin was a price that we could not pay. If we have to pay the price for our sin we will suffer eternal death.
iii. That is contrary to God’s wish…He desires an eternal relationship with each one of us.
iv. The only person who can pay the price is a spotless, innocent one.
7. And the passage in Isaiah 53 says no less than SEVEN TIMES that the Messiah will bear the sins and the iniquities of us all!
i. His beaters wear themselves out striking him mercilessly.
ii. And instead of laying down, he rises and assumes the tortured position to receive the full scourging.
1. Most of us are saying, “Aw come on Jesus, stay down. You don’t have to get up, if you do they are going to hit you some more!”
2. And sure enough, they pick up the scourge with its leather strips with pieces of metal and sharp bone in it and begin striking him again, ripping his body to shreds.
iii. After a few moments of watching this, you probably were like me…you wanted to scream “STOP!”
1. Why do we want to scream that?
2. Because the only innocent man to ever live is bearing our punishment, and he is doing it willingly, taking every last drop of evil upon his body, not stopping short of any of it. He takes every last bit of it.
3. He is emptying the cup of God’s wrath toward sin. Thank God that he took every drop!
i. No, this has to continue.
ii. We will remain in our sins if it does not reach its fullest measure…the fullness of evil poured upon the only innocent.
iii. And it is here that you and I begin to witness the ugliness of our sin.
1. Our sin is transforming the back, the ribs and the flesh of Jesus into ribbons of torn meat.
2. The bible says, “he that knew no sin, became sin’
3. Our sin…the horror of it is becoming visible in the very flesh of Jesus..
4. That invisible sin, the rebellion, the passive and the aggressive…it is no longer invisible.
5. It is taking on bodily shape.
6. It is taking on human form.
7. It is taking the holy body of Jesus and transforming it into a body of sin that was receiving God’s wrath.
8. Dale says, “It is partly because sin does not provoke our own wrath that we do not believe that it provokes the wrath of God.”
iv. This is one of the reasons that the movie is so violent.
1. But the most significant reason for the violence in the movie is that what Jesus went through, was the fact that he was experiencing God’s wrath toward sin.
2. In fact, the movie could not depict that. It is too horrible to depict.
3. Recall the evil character sliding in and out of the crowd, smiling with glee as he watched Jesus’ body being transformed into something that was scarcely recognizable as even human?
4. Evil was being heaped upon Him, and he was bearing it.
5. You and I could not even imagine bearing our own sins, and Jesus is receiving the sins of all humanity.
6. The full weight of every man and woman’s sin was being placed upon him. “he that knew no sin became sin.”
7. He is literally “bearing our iniquities (Is. 53:11). Your iniquities. Your sin. My sin. He is wearing our sin.
v. Maybe the passage, “By his stripes we are healed” ran through your mind when you saw the movie.
1. I kept repeating it as I sobbed, trying to keep the noise of my cries from being heard by others around me.
2. And what is occurring is that wrath of God is being poured out, unrequited, upon Him, upon Sin.
3. He is the spotless lamb of God bearing by substitution, the sins of all humanity.
4. The weight of the cross is the weight of the entire world upon Him.
5. He will have the anger and wrath of God, the condemnation of God upon him during the hours on the cross.
6. The sky grows dark and God turns His back, as he cannot look upon sin…and Jesus cries out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me!”
7. His cry is that of the weight and pain of being separated from His Father for the only moment in eternity.
8. It is indeed more pain that we can imagine, it reaches into the eternal realm.
9. And it is the cost of sin.
i. This passionate love He has for you led Him to give His most precious Son to absorb the righteous demand of the Law (death and separation from Himself) so you and I not only would not have to…but also so that we would return to the One who made us and paid for us.
ii. Ephesians 5:2 “Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”
iii. Galatians 2:20 “He loved me and gave himself for me.”
iv. Christ died for ME.
1. It is my sin He died for, it is your sin that He died for, and not sin in general.
2. It is my hard heartedness, it is your hard heartedness that He died for.
3. Sin in the intangible isn’t what He died for.
v. “Greater love has no man than to lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13
i. I do not think it is possible for you to take sin lightly ever again.
ii. If anything, every time you ask for God’s forgiveness for a careless sin, I hope that you picture in your mind the stripes Jesus bore.
iii. It isn’t as if a little lamb took the punishment for your sin, rather it was the spotless, blameless, only Son of the Holy God of the universe.
iv. Today, you may need to repent of your shameless tolerance of sin which has cost Jesus his life. As a Christian, you have been saved by His blood. The movie has helped you see how costly that is. Won’t you turn from that today?
v. Until you saw this movie, you had lost the capacity to weep for your sins. May our hearts be sensitized to the pain we cause our savior and may our hearts know gratitude.
i. You may never have understood what penalty your sin deserved, or that God had paid the penalty for it.
ii. Today, you now know that you are not in a right relationship with God.
iii. That you have resisted His efforts to love you.
iv. You also know that if you were to die tonight, that you would not go to heaven, because your heart is not right toward God.
v. You can make that right today.
vi. You can receive the wonderful gift of what Jesus did at the cross by admitting to Him that you are a sinner, that you need Him and that you want Him to save you from the sin that has controlled your life.
vii. The bible says, “to all who believe in Him, he gives the power to become children of God.”
viii. Won’t you turn to Him today?