The Cross, Now What?

You know, our response to tragedies is interesting. If you are a spectator or an observer of a tragedy, you may feel some kind of shock or an emotional reaction, but you quickly move on and get beyond that. There is a program on the history channel, a little bit on the history channel called, Engineering Disasters. I've seen a couple of those and they're really fascinating. What they do is they take various disasters that have happened like a gas line explosion or a plane crash or a train wreck or something really bad, a building collapse or something like that. And they describe the tragedy and show what happened and then they analyze it from an engineering perspective as to why did this happen? What caused it? What's happening and what's wrong that we need to fix? It's really fascinating. But as I've seen those, I've recognized that it can kind of desecrate you to the reality of tragedies because they do one segment and you get done with that and say, okay, I'm ready for the plane crash now. I want to see a plane and then you get down. I'm ready for the building collapse now. I want to see the building collapse. And you're just going from one tragedy to the next with no real personal involvement at all. But if a tragedy hits close to home, that's a different story. If you are personally affected, then your life is changed by that tragedy. You will never be the same because of that tragedy. There's a tremendous difference in being an interested spectator or observer of a tragedy and being the one involved that's deeply affected in whose life has changed. Last week in our journey through John, the John's Gospel, we were in chapter 19 and we saw John's account of the crucifixion. The crucifix, the cross. So now what? Well, obviously the burial. Right? Yeah, and our text today talks about the burial. John chapter 19 verses 31 to 42 describes how Jesus was removed from the cross and placed in a tomb. The burial is described, but there is more here than that than just the bare bones story that we are all too familiar with. What we have here today, this is a story of two different responses to Christ's death. For you see, there are two groups of people in this story. The first group of people is the Roman soldiers. They have a particular response to the death of Christ. And then the second group is two men who arrange for the burial of Christ. And they also have a particular response to the death of Christ. So there's more than just the description of what happens here this morning. What we're going to do this morning is look carefully at these two groups and their responses to the death of Christ. There are some fascinating insights, I believe, into their minds and hearts, but I don't want to leave it there. I don't want to leave it with just a historical observation of Roman soldiers and two men in the first century. If we leave it there and we understand the story better, then we have failed. We have failed in our interaction with the Word of God. Most important today, this story will lay bare our hearts. It will open up our hearts and lay them bare for us to honestly answer the question, how do I respond to the death of Christ? Am I just an interested spectator and observer, one who's familiar with the story so much so that I could rattle it off as well as anybody? Or am I personally involved? Am I, it's my life changed because I have embraced this story. How do you respond to the death of Christ? Let's take the first group, the Roman soldiers, verses 31 to 37. What we find described here is the response of duty. These are Roman soldiers, they are carrying out their duties. And so let's see what happens as the Bible describes it. Let's look at the duty performed. Here's what they do, verse 31. That was the day of preparation. And the next day was to be a special Sabbath. See, the special Sabbath, it's going to be a Saturday. Every Saturday is a Sabbath, but this is a special Sabbath because it's the Sabbath during Passover week. And so Friday is the day to prepare for that special Sabbath. So middle of verse 31, because the Jewish leaders did not want the bodies left on the cross during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down. The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with Jesus and then those of the other. So here's what's happening, here's the picture. The Jewish leaders don't want this special Sabbath to be desecrated by Jewish men hanging on crosses for everybody to see on that Saturday. And so they asked Pilate for permission to get the bodies down off the crosses. So what happens whenever the Roman soldiers want to hasten death and remember that crucifixion can extend over several days. It was such a long and slow and torturous kind of death as we saw last week that it could extend for several days. And these men have only been on the cross a few hours. And so the way the Romans would hasten death is they would take an instrument like a sledgehammer and literally crush the legs of the people on the cross. Now if you remember what's happening on the cross, you'll see why they would do that. Remember that as we describe the crucifixion, the arms are placed stretched out above the head which places a lot of pressure on the lungs. The fluid is gathering in the lungs anyway as a person's system is breaking down from the torture. The only hope they have of even breathing on the cross is because their knees are flexed a little bit. Their feet are pinned to the cross, nailed to the cross so that they can push up and gasp for a little breath. And then they sag back down and when they start to feel like they're asphyxiating again they push up and gasp another breath. But when the legs are broken it's not possible to do that. And so death comes quickly. That's what they're thinking. They're going to hasten the death of these three criminals on the cross by breaking their legs so that they can no longer continue that torturous up and down motion that enables them to breathe. But notice what happens when they come to Jesus in verse 33. But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead they did not break his legs. Instead one of the soldiers pierced Jesus side with a spear bringing a sudden flow of blood and water. They come to Jesus and it looks like he's dead but they have to make sure. And so in order to make sure one of the soldiers pierces his side with a spear. Now I'm not real confident of this. I've read various views from even the medical profession about what's happening here. But some say this may be just the fluid build up around the lungs that has come out. But some say that one of the physical signs of death is the separation of the red dark red corpuscles from the whitey type of serum in the blood. And that begins to separate at death and may have already begun as Jesus is close to death. And so the spear piercing is to find out is he really dead and what comes out as they pierce the sack around the heart is what looks like blood and water. The red blood cells in that white kind of serum that together may be what's being described here. But at any rate it shows for sure that Jesus is dead. And John wants people to know for sure that Jesus died. And he died of his own accord. He breathed out his spirit, Luke 23 tells us, the last thing he said on the cross, Father into thy hands, I commit my spirit and he breathed out his spirit and willingly gave his life. That's how Jesus died. Nobody's going to take his life from him. But notice John wants to make sure that everybody understands that Jesus died. Look at verse 35. The man who saw it, and remember John was the only disciple of the 11 at the cross, the man who saw it has given testimony and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth and he testifies so that you also may believe. Now that sounds like a little bit of an overkill, doesn't it sounds like John's going to tremendous lengths to just convince people that Jesus died? Why would he be doing that? Well John wrote 60 years after the death of Christ. And already in John's day, and he will address it even further in the book of 1 John, there is the first pericy or false teaching about who Jesus was, its beginning to surface. John addresses it particularly in 1 John 4. It was a denial, not of the deity of Christ, like we have in our day, but of the humanity of Christ. So 60 years after Jesus died, people were already saying, you know, Jesus didn't really have a human body. He just appeared. God cannot associate with physical things. That was Greek philosophy, by the way. And so they were combining that with Christian truth, and they were basically saying, Jesus did not have a real body. So Jesus didn't really die. Jesus left that body before death happened. So John is saying, no, I want to tell you, Jesus Christ died. I saw it, I'm telling you it's true, I know what I'm talking about. That's why he's so forceful in describing the death of Christ. But what happened in Jesus' death fulfills Old Testament scripture. Look at verse 36, these things happen so that the scripture would be fulfilled. Not one of his bones will be broken. And as another scripture says, they will look on the one they have pierced. John quotes two Old Testament scriptures. Now this makes at least eight fulfillments of scripture that John himself has referenced from the arrest on through the crucifixion. Obviously describing for us that God is in control. Jesus is in control of what's happening on the cross. But there were lots of things that were fulfilled in the Old Testament, including Jesus fulfilling the Passover Lamb. Look at these verses, if you will. Exodus chapter 12, in a description of the Passover Lamb, which is the land of Israel, I sort of eat to kill and eat before they left Egypt that night. It must be eaten. Exodus 12 says, inside the house, take none of the meat outside the house. Do not break any of the bones. And then the new generation of Israelites, later in the wilderness, would be reminded of the same thing in Numbers chapter 9 and verse 12, where Moses would remind them again, they must not leave any of it till morning or break any of its bones. When they celebrate the Passover, they must follow all the regulations. Jesus is dying as the fulfillment of the Passover Lamb, dying at Passover as the fulfillment of the Passover Lamb in the Old Testament. And just as none of its bones were broken, none of Jesus bones can be broken. And so he must die and he willingly does before the Roman soldiers come to break the legs. But John quotes from Psalm 34 and verse 20, a prophecy about the Messiah. And one of the things that would be said about the Messiah, he protects God, the Father protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken. Now Jesus has been brutally treated, brutally beaten, but on the cross not a bone is going to be broken. But his side will be pierced. And John quotes another Old Testament prophecy in Zechariah chapter 12, when Jesus comes back at the second coming, this describes Israel's response to his second coming. And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me the one they have pierced. And they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a first born son. So all these prophecies are converging here at the death of Christ. What about the soldiers though? They're just carrying out their duty. They're just doing their job. The soldiers don't have any more concern for the person dying on that middle cross than they do for the two on the end crosses, or the ones they crucified yesterday, or last week, or the month before. They're just doing their job. They're just fulfilling their duty. And their duty is to carry out orders. And so they're carrying out orders if the orders come to break the legs. Okay, come on, get the thing and break the legs. Get it done. Just carrying out their duty, it's all they're doing. And so I thought about that this week, and the response of soldiers to the death of Christ, I had to ask myself the question, is there anything in my life that mirrors that? Anything that looks the same way. And I came to the startling conclusion that for me and maybe for you too, there often is something that looks a lot like this. And it's this, the beautiful response to Christ's death. You see, it's easy for us to begin to live for Christ more out of a sense of duty than out of a joyful, passionate response of love for the one who gave himself for us. It is easy to start living out of a sense of this is what I'm supposed to do as a Christian, so let's get it done. Let's do it. And live out of a sense of duty. Sometimes we act out of duty rather than love. Now I fully understand that sometimes acting out of duty is necessary in all of life. There are times when the alarm clock goes off and I don't feel like getting up, but force yourself to get up, get about the job of the day, and later the emotions kind of catch up, and you're glad you did. And it's that way in the Christian life too. There are some things that you just don't have, your passion and heart is not really in them today, but you go ahead and do them because you're responsible to be obedient to the Lord. You can do that. But if that's the way you live, if that's all there is, then something is missing in your Christian life. I think one of the best ways to describe this is what happens in marriage. You know, you first get married and there's this excitement about being together and you've been looking forward to that, and you're excited about living together for the rest of your life, and being husband and wife and just enjoying life together, and then 10 years later. 20, 30, 40 years later. What often happens is you start acting more out of duty than out of a sense of love. Whereas you used to want to do things out of love for your mate because you wanted to show them love. Now it's just, okay, I got to iron these crazy clothes and fix up food and clean up the dishes and moldy are. I got to fix the car. And you just kind of out of duty. You get the stuff done, but there's no part behind it. And what happens is when we live out of duty, we live out of necessity, we live just out of sheer obedience all the time. It leads to complacency. It leads to apathy. And we lose our heart. It happens in marriage, it happens in the believer's life. So how do we do that in a Christian life? Well, we can become beautiful with devotions, with reading the word and prayer. Preachers always talk about how to read your Bible and I know I'm supposed to read my Bible. So, okay, I'm going to read my Bible. Here you go. Okay, chapter, let's read this chapter. Okay, got that done. Read my Bible today. Okay, I know I'm supposed to pray. I know I'm supposed to pray. So, okay, pray. Get my prayer list. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I got that done. Man, I have my prayer time. Wouldn't it good? Obedience. I'm supposed to obey the Lord. I have to obey the Lord. I better obey the Lord. I'm afraid of what will happen to me if I don't obey the Lord. So, I'm just going to gut it out and obey the Lord. I know there's some of that needed at times in our Christian life. But if you live that way and there's no desire to obey because you love him, then you're missing a key ingredient of your Christian life. It can be true of serving the Lord. We know we're supposed to love, grow, serve. Okay, I'm supposed to love the Lord, supposed to grow in him. And we're always talking about how the capstone of Christian life is to grow up is to serve. So, I need to get involved in a ministry. I know I need to do something. So, I'm going to sign up for something and I'll crank it out, man. I'll get it done. And so, we do it. There's no passion. There's no heart. But we do it. We get it done. The same thing can happen with worship. Where we come together and we just sing the songs. They're on the screen. I was singing the songs and I'm offering play. It comes by and they're a little bit in there and I got to listen to this message and man, you know, kind of slumping the food, folding my hands. Listen to this thing. And we worship. Is that worship? No. Listen, I don't care whether it's a bluegrass song or a contemporary song or an old hymn done as slow as molasses. I don't care what kind of music it is. That doesn't matter. If you have a heart to worship God, if you have a heart that is passionate to express to him, then you won't be gripping and complaining about the music. You'll say, whatever music is there, I'm going to use as a tool to express my heart, love to God. And I will sing to him. My heart cry will go out to him. I will worship him with all of my heart. That is what we need. Erwin Luther wrote a book. Here are a lot of books. Pastor Moody Church, one book he wrote was, when a nation forgets God, it was about Germany under Hitler. And in that book, he quotes a German Christian who had written out his experience after the war on a read part of it to you. This man that he quotes says, I lived in Germany during the Nazi Holocaust. I considered myself a Christian. We heard stories of what was happening to the Jews, but we tried to distance ourselves from it because we what could anyone to stop it. A railroad track ran behind our small church. And each Sunday morning we could hear the whistle in the distance and then the wheels coming over the tracks. We became disturbed when we heard the cries coming from the train as it passed by. We realized that it was carrying Jews like cattle in the cars. Week after week, the whistle would blow. We dreaded to hear the sound of those wheels because we knew that we would hear the cries of the Jews in route to a death camp. Their screams tormented us. We knew the time the train was coming and when we heard the whistle blow, we began singing hymns. By the time the train came past our church, we were singing at the top of our voices. If we heard the screams, we sang more loudly and soon we heard them no more. Years have passed, he wrote, and no one talks about it anymore. But I still hear that train whistle in my sleep. God forgive me, forgive all of us who called ourselves Christian yet did nothing to intervene. And I wonder sometimes if my songs are not the same way. My service is not the same way. I wonder if I really hear the cries of a lost world, the heart cry of people seeking for everything to fill the void that's made for God in their lives. Or if I'm just cranking out ministry and service and singing and giving and whatever else. You know what we need? We need to revisit the cross. We need to revisit the cross to reignite a passion. We need to see our Savior on the cross. The one who died for us, the one who willingly gave his life for us, who was not ashamed to go to the ultimate length of sacrifice to give his own life. We need to re-ignite that passion. That would make a difference in the way I do my devotions. It would make a difference in why I obey the Lord. It would make a difference in the way I serve the Lord. It would make a difference in the way I worship my Lord. If I had in front of me that vision of the cross, it would ignite my passion once again. Do you know there's a new alarm clock coming out in September? It's called Wake. Aren't you glad for a new alarm clock? I mean this one. Wait till you hear about this one. This is really cool. The problem with alarm clocks is that if you set an alarm clock for the time you need to get out, it wakes up everybody else in the house, you know, or at least in the room. But they have now engineered an alarm clock to overcome that obstacle. It's simply called Wake. It's being put out by Lucera Labs. It'll roll out in September. Let me read a little bit about it to you. Freshly launched on Kickstarter, Wake is a new breed of alarm that targets individual users and wakes up one sleeper without rousing others. Here's how it works. After it's mounted to the wall above the bed. I'm already starting to get a little scared here. The device uses an infrared temperature sensor and special body tracking software to discern where each person is lying without a camera. When it is time to wake one person up, Wake silently takes aim, rotates into position, and then directs a tight burst of light and sound at their face. To keep from rousing other sleepers, the device uses a set of parametric speakers capable of focusing sound into a narrow beam. Think of it as a spotlight for noise. If Wake is pointed straight at your head, you'll hear it loud and clear, but if you're outside that beam, you won't hear it. That's really cool, isn't it? I'm going to get one of those. If you get one, tell them I told you about it, okay? They'll start rolling out in September. But I need something more than Wake. I need a fresh vision of the cross that will pierce my heart in mind like a laser beam focusing the light of God's love and recognizing what Jesus did for me on the cross. So I will wake up out of my slumber and apathy and complacency. I need God's love demonstrated on the cross to focus itself like that laser beam on my heart and wake me up. That's what I need. Do you need that? I need that. There's too much beautiful response. There's too much in my heart and life and service and devotion and worship of just cranking the stuff out and going through the motions and getting or done. The response of duty. God help us to wake up from just mere duty and love Jesus with all of our hearts because of what he's done for us. There's a response of duty just like Roman soldiers. Come on, get the guy's leg and just get out of here. Too much of that response in our own lives toward serving Christ. Just get to that meeting and get the thing done and get out of here. Let's just go to that visit and get out of there. Let's just get this done. There's too much of that. Beautiful response. But there's another response on the part of two men. It's a responsive devotion and it comes from an unusual unexpected source. Two men that we don't really hear much about. One of them we don't hear anything about till it comes to this event. The other one we just get a couple of brief glimpses of. And yet these are the guys who exercise an amazing degree of devotion at the foot of the cross. I want you to see what they who they were and what they did. Let's take a look who they were and what they did. Look at verse 38. Later Joseph of air mithia asked pilot for the body of Jesus. Joseph was a disciple of Jesus but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders with pilots permission. He came and took the body away. So he got this man named Joseph of air mithia and he comes to ask for the body. The reason for that is if nobody is there to claim the body of a crucifixion victim. The Roman soldiers just take the body down and throw it in a common grave with other criminals. And that's what would have happened to Jesus. If no one was there to claim the body. And so Joseph of air mithia who is never mentioned elsewhere in the scriptures. I mean he's mentioned in the other gospels in the same account, same recording of this event. But he's not mentioned anywhere else but we have a little bit of information here about him. He was a disciple of Jesus. He was a follower of Jesus. The other gospels at least Matthew or Mark and Luke say that he was in the Sanhedrin which is the ruling body of 70 elders. Those are the people who put Jesus on trial and condemned him to death for blasphemy. But the Bible also says in those other gospels that Joseph of air mithia did not consent to that vote. Now he may not have even been there. Remember that was hastily called on a Friday morning. And if his leanings were even suspicioned he may not have been called to that meeting. I don't know. The Bible siren on that. It just says he did not consent to their vote to put Jesus to death. But he's a disciple. He's a follower. But he's a secret disciple. He has stayed underground up until this Friday. And then there's something about Jesus' death that affects him deeply. Mark's gospel says he goes boldly to pilot to ask for Jesus' body. This is not just kind of a back door sending through three parties removed somebody to ask pilot. No. Joseph of air mithia himself walks in boldly. Says I want the body of Jesus. I'm going to care for his burial. That was a statement. That was a statement to pilot. It was a statement to every Jew who saw him and knew of him taking the body of Jesus and Jesus being buried in his tomb. Maybe he felt he had not been bold enough that he had stayed silent too long. And now he will not be silenced any longer. He will not be held back any longer. And so he is going to claim the body of Jesus for a proper Jewish burial. It was important to claim the body and have a place to bury it. And on this day it had to be done quickly. So Joseph of air mithia takes that responsibility boldly, publicly takes that responsibility. But he's got a cohort. He's got a guy helping him. And this is an unusual guy as well. Verse 39. He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Remember that back in chapter 3 when Nicodemus came to Jesus and asked him admits he's a rabbi and a teacher. And you must be from God. Nobody could do these great miracles if you weren't from God. And Jesus fires back at him except you are born again. You cannot see the kingdom of God. And they have that conversation about being born again. And we see one other time in the gospels where he objects to the sandhedrin. He also, by the way, is in that ruling council of the sandhedrin. He objects to the sandhedrin's line of reasoning about wanting to kill Jesus. Other than that, we don't really know anything about him. But notice what he does. Nicodemus brought a mixture of mer and allos about 75 pounds. Now it was customary to bring spices to use in the burial process. And we'll see why in just a moment. But this amount, this is highly unusual. 75 pounds. Except for royalty. In the case of kings, this amount would be used, which gives me a little window into Nicodemus' heart. Unless you are born again, you cannot see what the kingdom of God. This is a declaration on Nicodemus' part that he believes Jesus is the king. And he has personally embraced Jesus as the king, Messiah, Savior, Lord. And he is in his kingdom. And this is a bold declaration that I am in the kingdom now. I know Jesus is the king. Notice what they do. Verse 40. Taking Jesus' body, the two of them wrapped it with the spices and strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. And obviously it is. Jewish burial customs were the first of all washed the body. And they would do that. Obviously Jesus was a bloody mess. I say that reverently. But his body was covered with blood. And so they would wash the body first. Then they would wrap it in the strips of linen cloth from the neck to the toe. Cover the face with some kind of cloth. And then mixed in with those strips of cloth, they would place spices to obviously help with the odor of decomposition. Then finally a shroud or some kind of sheet would be placed over the entire body, which the Bible tells us in the other gospels was done with Jesus. That's what they would do. Typical Jewish burial. Verse 41. At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden. And in the garden, a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid. Because it was the Jewish day of preparation. And since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there. Now you did not hastily prepare one of these tombs. They were cut out of the rock. They were cut out of the rock face. And they were used over and over again. Because it was so expensive to do this, to prepare this kind of burial place. Sometimes they would have several chambers. But most often they would be used over and over again by families. And what would happen is once the body did decompose, the family would come and gather the bones and place them in a box called an aushuari. And that would be where they would take the bones home and put it in their home. And so the slab of rock inside the tomb could be used again for another family member. But it's clear this is a tomb that Joseph of Arimathea has had carved out of the stone face of the rock for himself. At some later date. And this is where Jesus is going to be buried. So that's what they do. First 42 because it was the Jewish day of preparation. Since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there. Had to do things fairly hastily. But as I look at these two men and their obvious devotion to Christ, which is just now coming to the surface, I notice a couple of things that affect me. What does what does it mean for my devotion to Christ? How am I going to respond to his death? Well, first of all, devotion breaks us out of silence and hiding. It is clear that these two men were secret disciples, but it is now they decide to come out of hiding and say, we want everybody to know we're taking public action undeniable action to identify with Jesus Christ. And so I ask myself and I ask you this morning, are you a secret disciple? Are you hiding even from family members who you've never really let know that you're a believer? Never talk to them about your faith in Christ. Do your friends know you're a believer? Do your neighbors know that you're a Christ follower? Do your co-workers? Do your fellow school classmates know that you're a believer? Now none of this just hope and they'll kind of see it. Do they know that you're a believer? Are you trying to hide something? Are you hiding that you're a believer because maybe you're afraid of what someone else will think of you? Or you're afraid they'll say something about you or they'll have a negative opinion about you, or maybe even you would jeopardize your job or your position. So you're hiding, you're living a double life and you're not letting anybody know. Now I'm not talking about being obnoxious and using your work time that you're being paid by your employer for to just all the time be wondering around trying to find somebody to witness to. I'm not talking about that. I'm not talking about abusing what you should be doing at work, but I'm talking about when the opportunities arise. I'm talking about it the break times and the lunch times or when you're in the vehicle riding with someone to a conference or whatever, whatever, anytime the conversation turns toward the things of this life. Do they know where you stand? Do they know that you're a believer in Christ and do you ever preach the gospel to them? Do you ever share the faith with them? Or are you in hiding? I want to remind you this morning if you're a secret disciple that is underground because of fear like Joseph was possibly Nicodemus too. If that describes you, I want to remind you of the cross. I want to remind you what Jesus did for you, unashamed publicly, gave his life for you because he loved you. There's no better description of it than the writer of Hebrews gives in Hebrews 12 after challenging us to run this race of the Christian life with patience. He says, run it this way versus to fixing our eyes on Jesus. Why do you want to fix your eyes on Jesus? Here's why. The pioneer and perfector of faith for the joy that was set before him. He endured the cross, squarring its shame and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Now, I want you to think about that for a moment. Jesus endured the cross and he endured it willingly. There's a lot in that word endure. There's the spiritual separation from his father. Obviously, that was the harshest and hardest thing for him to endure. But the physical pain, suffering, agony, yes, agony that would kill people, that did kill people. It was the purpose of it. He endured all of that, squarring its shame. And there was a lot of shame involved with the cross. The fact that he was on the cross, which was a form of punishment, a form of capital punishment, deserved and reserved by the Roman government for the most cruel and outlandish of criminals. The worst criminals were the ones crucified. So just being on a cross is shameful. But as I described last week, your stripped naked and your clothes are parceled out among the soldiers. Shame. And it's on a public highway right outside the city, a place where people pass through all the time. Hundreds, maybe thousands of people are going to see you suffering on that cross. There's a lot of shame involved on the cross. Jesus did not die for you underground. Jesus did not die for you in hiding or in secrecy. He died openly, shamelessly, squarring, tossing aside the horrible shame of that death. And in during the cross, why did he do that for the joy that was set before him? And it wasn't just the joy of sitting down at the father's right hand. That's mentioned here, but the prophet Isaiah says that God would see his seed and then raise him from the dead. Part of what Jesus was looking forward to was you and me being able to go to heaven because of what he did. So Jesus says he's hanging on that cross in during all of that, throwing off the scorn, the shame of all of that. He didn't because he was thinking about how much he loved you and what he was doing to pay for your sin. So how can I dare stay underground and hide and hide my faith and be ashamed of the one who did all this publicly for me? I think that's what happened to Joseph and Nicodemus. I thought they finally, I think they finally came to a point where they thought enough is enough. Look at this. I will stay silent no longer. I will be in hiding no longer. My faith in Jesus will be worn clearly for everybody to see. And I don't have to be the case with all of us. Devotion brings us, breaks us out of silence and hiding. If I really see Jesus and what he did for me on the cross, if I'm not just an interested spectator or an observer of that, but if I have given my life to that, if it's changed my life, then I can't stay silent any longer. People at work are going to know I'm a believer. People in neighborhood are going to know I'm a believer. My friends are going to know I'm a believer. When the conversation comes up, when religious topics are going to be discussed, when things of life are going to be discussed that I can interject a biblical worldview and the gospel into I'm not going to stay tight-lipped any longer. Why? Because Jesus was looking down through the centuries that me on the cross and endured every bit of that shame publicly so that I could be saved. I dare not go underground on him. Responsive devotion breaks us out of silence and hiding, but devotion also replaces our fear with faith. Whatever you're afraid of this morning, let it go and trust God for your future. It's clear that Joseph was afraid. He stayed underground. He was secret because he feared the Jewish leaders, the text clearly says. It was fear that drove him underground and it's fear that drives us underground. It's fear that silence is us. So whatever you're afraid of, let it go and trust God for your future. Are you afraid of what people will say? Are you afraid of what they will think about you? Trust God. For your testimony among a lost world, trust God that your faithful testimony will impact that person over the long run and maybe even win them the Christ. Or trust God that whatever persecution you receive, maybe they do laugh at you, maybe they do throw you out, maybe it do lose your job. Trust God to take care of you and use whatever suffering you endure to glorify him and to strengthen you. You feel like your job or positions in jeopardy, trust that he'll provide for you. Trust that he will care for you. Trust that he will lead you into something else. You are in his hands. Can you trust him with your life? Yes. Yes. Be bold in your faith. Trust him wherever he'll lead you. How often we'd let fear stop us and we fear the wrong things rather than fearing God. We fear man. I'm going to show you three pictures. Let's do the first one, Vanda. What is that? It's a mosquito. Okay? Pesky little creatures, aren't they? Look at the second picture. Elephant. Okay? Third picture. Whoa. Jaws. Now which of those three pictures brings the most fear? That one, right? Especially after what you've been reading about in North Carolina this summer, right? I mean that causes fear. You know, sharks are responsible for 60 deaths a year worldwide. Elephants are responsible for 200 deaths a year worldwide. Mosquitoes are responsible for over 2 million deaths per year worldwide. Through mosquito-borne illnesses like malaria and others. Who should you really be afraid of? The little Pesky mosquito. That's who you ought to be afraid of. Our fears are often misplaced. Who should I really be afraid of? And I'm not using the illustration to compare size or fierce looking. Okay? That's not the point of the illustration. The point is this. We often fear the wrong thing. And what we're fearing is man. What Jesus said, do not fear man who can kill your body, but fear God who can put your soul in hell. We fear the wrong person. I want to. I don't know that this will happen. But I really want to stand before God someday and hear him say, well done. But if I stand to ground, if I stay silent, if I'm ashamed of him, there's no chance I'm going to hear that. Who am I afraid of anyway? Do I fear more what people are going to say and they're going to think and what's going to happen on my job? Or do I fear in a right way standing before God someday and what he's going to say? Gary Hogan is a gentleman who started the International Justice Mission. Maybe you've read about it. He's a great guy. He started this ministry to help people who are involved who are victims of sex trafficking and other forms of slavery across the world. He's a very high position in the Department of Justice when he decided that God was laying this ministry on his heart. And he talks about how difficult it was for him to leave his job. He says, I tried to be very brave and very safe when I went into the Department of Justice to turn in my badge. He said, I walked in and asked my bosses for a year-long leave of absence. My bosses politely refused. I was suddenly feeling very nervous. What was I really afraid of? As I thought about it, I feared humiliation. If my little justice ministry idea didn't work, no one was going to die. My kids were going to eat. We'd go live with my parents for a while. He says he goes on to say, I'd find another job. My education would find another job for me. I wouldn't have any problem with that. The fact is, as he faced his own fear squarely, I said, the fact is I would be terribly embarrassed. Having told everybody about my great idea, they would know that it was a bad idea or that I was a bad leader either way, I would be humiliated. So there it was. My boundary of fear. I sensed God inviting me to an extraordinary adventure of service, but deep inside I was afraid of looking like a fool and a loser. This was actually very helpful for me to see because it helped me get past it. Now listen to what he says next. When I am older, do I really want to look back and say, yeah, I sensed that God was calling me to lead a movement to bring rescue to people who desperately need an advocate in the world, but I was afraid of getting embarrassed and so I never even tried. What do you want to be asking yourself when you're 70 years old, 80 years old? What do you want square looking you square in the face when you stand before Jesus? Yeah, I had a neighbor that was lost and I kept feeling like I should witness to him, but I was afraid I'd be humiliated. That really what you're going to live by? I knew I needed to be involved more in serving the Lord, but I was afraid of what it would mean, what people would say about me. I was afraid to tell people at work about Jesus because I was afraid what would happen to my job, really? God was speaking to me about becoming a missionary or giving my life to serve the Lord in ministry in some way, but I was afraid I'd look like a loser. I was afraid people would make fun of me. I'll never forget when I was a senior in high school and I announced to people I was going to Piedmont to my shame with some of my friends. I was afraid to say I was going to Piedmont Bible College. I said I'm going to Piedmont. Everybody asking where you're going to college and naming these all big schools and stuff. Where you're going to put Piedmont? I remember one gal who eventually went to Harvard. She was the number one graduate, we call them valedictorian in our class. She looked at me and said, oh you're going to become an airline pilot? Remember Piedmont Airlines? That's what she thought. Right then in there I said, okay, no more backing down. I'm just going to tell people I'm going to become a pastor or I'm going to go into the ministry. I'm going to Piedmont Bible College. Are you afraid you're going to look funny? Are you afraid you're going to be called a loser? Are you afraid you're going to lose out on some nice big job? You want to tell Jesus that when you stand before him someday? Devotion replaces our fear with faith. I want to remind you the two different responses to tragedies. Observer, spectator. That didn't really affect you that much. You can move right on. But if it's touched you personally and changed your life, you'll never be the same. So when you look at the cross, how do you respond? Is it possible you are only an observer of the cross? Is it possible that you've been in church maybe all these years and you've been a spectator? You've been an observer? You've kind of looked from afar. You've been an interested spectator. It's kind of interesting. But you've never become personally involved through faith. You've never committed your life to Christ as your Savior to be saved. You need to be saved today. You need to move from interested spectator observer to fall on participant in the death of Christ through faith and Christ. You need to be saved today. But maybe you've made that step of commitment. Maybe you're not there. But maybe you've fallen into routine and duty. Is that where it is with you? You know Jesus is your Savior. But over the years you've just started cranking out the Christian life and it's more become a sense of duty for you. I'm like, hey, I'll read my Bible and I'll pray. I'll get involved with ministry. I have to keep harping on me to do that. Yeah, I'll do it. Is that what the Christian life is to you? Is that the way you want to respond to the Savior who's scorned the humiliation of the cross and died looking ahead to the fact that he would save you? Let's pray. Lord, move in hearts by your spirit. Do what only you can do. Help us to look at the cross today. Help us to get a fresh glimpse. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. God, a penetrating gaze at what you did for us, what Jesus suffered for us. What he endured for us. What he was willing to throw aside all the shame for us. And then Lord, help us to turn the search light of your word on our own hearts. How are we responding? Are we hiding? Are we silent? Oh, God, I pray. There's anyone here lost that would be saved. If there are those of us who are secret disciples, we'll be all in for you from now on in Jesus' name. Amen.