The Unexpected Cross | Your Kingdom Come - John 19:1-30 | Travis Jones (3/28/2026)

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Good to see you, church. Um, I'm glad you're here. Um, if you're watching online or the app, I want to thank you for being with us. And at this time, just want to invite all of you to get out your Bibles, Bible app, your worship guide. You can follow along and take notes. But I want you to go to John chapter 19. We're going to be looking at that today. We are in our Easter series. We began last week. It's entitled Your Kingdom Come. And the grand thing is we're learning, we're learning that Jesus Christ is King, but he's not the kind of King that many people expected. Last week we looked at the unexpected Messiah. Today we're going to look at the unexpected cross. Um studying through this, there's a lot of things that go on, and it's a very heavy passage. Um, we are going to hear today three words, three words that kind of split history in two. Those three words were uttered by Jesus Christ on the cross. Those three words are it is finished. Like I said, it's a heavy passage. Um, this is what the church has called for centuries the Passion of Christ. And this is holy ground. It's not holy ground because the dirt in Jerusalem is holy. It is holy grounds because of what the Son of God accomplished on that dirt. And as we read through this, our passage today, the aim, the goal is worship. The goal is repentance, to deepen a faith, to deepen our hearts, and just prepare us for resurrection weekend, Easter, and that will be next week, because you don't understand the empty tomb until you stand at the cross and you look at it and you see we went through Romans last year, but you see where the justice of God and the mercy of God meet. And so, thinking about this, here's what I want to do. I understand that the passage we're going through today may not be an unfamiliar passage to you. Nonetheless, it's a heavy passage. And what I want to do before we get into it is um I just want to pray. I want to pray. I want to pray for us. Let's pray. Father God, as we head into John chapter 19 and we look at the cross, I pray that we would hear it with new ears. I pray that we would see it as you have presented it, and I pray that we would understand it. That you would deepen our understanding. We want to know you as you have revealed yourself to be. And we ask this in Christ's name, our Savior. Amen. Alright, so you get to John chapter 19. John 19 really drops us into the final hours of Jesus' life here on earth. And what you find is Pilate trying to kind of, he's trying to keep the peace. He's trying to protect his career, he's trying to satisfy a mob. He's trying to avoid a conviction of Jesus, and he's doing this all at once. He has a very full plate, and he's really trying to keep the peace so he can keep his job a job. That's what he's wanting. And everybody in the passage is reaching for power, yet the real power belongs to the one who appears to be the powerless one in the text. So let's just begin. John chapter 19, verse 1. We'll begin in seeing the king scourged and mocked. Verse 1. Short verse. Short verse. But it's powerful. Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him. There's a lot to take in there, you know. John doesn't give us no warm-up, you know. He goes straight into brutality. You look at that word, you know, flogged. It's a, it's a, it's, it's not a very big word. It's not a very big word, but contained in it is a mountain of pain. And we could study what a Roman flogging is, but suffice to say, it was designed to destroy a man, to destroy his strength, shred his flesh, push his body towards shock. It was meant to weaken the victim, victim, so crucifixion would finish the job faster. But I also don't want us to miss, and I've alluded to this already, there's some politics going on here, right? Pilate is trying to manage the crowd. In his mind, if he punishes Jesus enough, maybe he can satisfy this mob and avoid executing Jesus. But the truth is, truth this, truth is, you cannot, church, you can't manage truth. You can submit to it or you can sacrifice it, but you cannot manage truth. Alright? So you get the brutality, and you go from the brutality, and now the brutality turns to mockery. Look at verse 2. This would be after the flogging, and the soldiers, it's just wickedness, twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his, that's Jesus' head, and arrayed him in a purple robe. They're not just hurting him, they're they're they're they're humiliating him, right? They dress, they dress, they dress him up like a pretend king, you know. You got a crown, check, thorns. You got a robe, got that, purple. A royal moment. Yeah, it's mockery, man. I don't want us to miss this though. Look at the thorns, man. These thorns are not random. There is some theology going on here. Oh, they didn't know there was theology embedded in here, but there's theology in their cruelty. You can go back and you think about thorns. Where did thorns come from? It comes from the curse, right? They're a symbol of the curse. You can go back to Genesis chapter 3 and see this. Back in Genesis chapter 3, when sin entered, when mankind rebelled, God said the curse. He said the ground from this point on is going to produce thorns and thistles, right? Prior to sin, there were no such thing as thorns. Thorns represent the curse. It represents sin's consequences in the world. So without even realizing it, these soldiers place on Jesus' head a symbol of the curse. They don't know it once again. But the preaching, they're preaching in their cruelty, the king. The king is identifying with the curse. And I'll tell you what, if verse one wasn't hard enough, the flogging, verse two wasn't hard enough the mockery, verse three gets even darker. It gets darker, man. Look at verse three. They came up to him, they come up to Jesus saying, Hail, King of the Jews, and struck him with their hands. Powerful, man. They salute him like he's a joke, slap him like he's nothing. There's a lot of, I don't know, revelation kind of revealing to us something about sin, you know? Something we don't like to admit. Sin, sin, sin doesn't simply disobey God. Sin despises God, right? Sin's not just breaking rules. Sin is it's it's it's it's like a it's like a heart posture, you know. You're saying, God, get out my way. Get out my way, man. And and and here's where, and I've thought about this. Verse 1, 2, and 3, it kind of, I don't know, corrects the minimizing some of us might do. When you do minimize, I've minimized sin. You know, minimize sin. Some people, perhaps even I at times have thought, I'm not that bad. I'm not that bad. When someone says that to me, I just want to say, well, then tell me, tell me why all of this. If your sin is not that bad, why verse one? Why verse two, and why verse three? If sin could be solved by a lecture, God would have sent a teacher, if it could be solved by self-help or something, I don't know, God would have sent a coach, man. If it could have been, if sin could have been solved by better habits, God maybe would have sent a, I don't know, a media influencer, you know, with the little ring light, you know, and a microphone and a discount code. I don't know, man. Here's none of those are sufficient. None of that is sufficient for my sin, man. Sin requires a substitute. It doesn't require a teacher and an influencer. It requires a substitute. And that's exactly what God sent. He sent his son to be a substitute. Peter says he, Jesus, himself, bore our sins in his body on the tree. By his wounds, you have been healed. Jesus, Jesus alone. Our problem wasn't that we needed to be better. My problem was I needed to be rescued. And God sent his son. It's a brutal three verses. I want to move on to verse four, and I want us to see a king presented and rejected. Alright? Yeah, verse 1, 2, and 3. It's not over. Now Pilate's going to bring him out. You're going to bring Jesus out like an exhibit, hoping, he's hoping that the sight of this blood, you know, will calm the crowd. Look at verse 4. Pilate went out again and said to them, the crowd, see, I am bringing him Jesus out to you, that you may know that I find no guilt in him. Of course, you didn't find no guilt in him, because there ain't no guilt to be found in him. He declares. He says, his own lippy lips. He says, I find no guilt in Jesus. The apostle John is making it very clear. There is no guilt in him. He's not a criminal dying for his crime. He is the innocent one, the sinless one, the son of God being treated like a sinner. So that a sinner can be treated like a son. John shows us a spectacle. Look at verse 5. So Jesus comes out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. And Pilate says to them, This crowd, Behold the man. Behold him, look at him, gaze upon him and the ripped fleshed and the crown of thorns. Behold him. He's trying to stir their sympathy. Look at him. Isn't this enough? Is this not enough, man? You got the blood, you got the pain, you got the humiliation. Be satisfied. But it doesn't. It doesn't satisfy them at all. Look at this, verse 6. When the chief priest and the officer saw him, that's Jesus, they cried out, this is a turn of events. Crucify him. Crucify him. Last week we saw he was walking into Jerusalem, right? And they said, Son of David. And I say, crucify him. Why? Because he's not the king they expect it. Pilate said to them, Take him yourselves and crucify him. This is the third time in scripture Pilate says this, for I find no guilt in him. Right? This is not a courtroom. This is a mob. There's no guilt in this man. And the leaders respond, we don't we don't want just. You misunderstood us, Pilate. We're not looking for justice here. We don't want justice. What we want is elimination. Here's the frightening thing. Now think about this. Frightens me. Religion can make you feel righteous, can't it? Religion can make you feel righteous while you have a rebellious heart, man. Look at these guys. You look at these, these guys are religious. They're religious men. They got their Bibles, they're religious professionals. You know, they got the vocabulary. They can spell all the big words. They can use them. They know the rituals. They can quote the Bible while they're still breaking God's heart. You know, religion can become a way to try to control God instead of surrendering to Him. They're not worshiping the king. They use religion to protect their throne. And by the way, we can still do that today. I can still do that, right, man? You know? You don't need to be looking. One of the greatest things I've learned in my life, it's helped me tremendously when reading the Bible. Early in my Christian walk, I would read all the um, I don't know, um, bad guys in the Bible. And I would look at them and I would be disgusted by them and I would say bad things about them or whatever, think all this, until I realize that every one of them is a picture of me. I can see myself in every one of them, and I can see myself in these guys, man. You can use religion to spout to be disobedient to Jesus, and that's these guys. They're using their religion to protect their own throne. Verse 7. The Jews answered him. We have a law, and according to that law, he, Jesus, ought to die because he has made himself the son of God. That's interesting. That's interesting. Their accusation intended to condemn him, but it actually tells the truth. He is the Son of God. They don't want to kill him because he's wrong. They don't want to kill him because he's incorrect. They want to kill him because he's right, and his righteousness exposes their darkness, man. You know, some would rather kill the truth than kneel to the truth. You can be close to the altar and still far from King Jesus, right? You can know the words, you can know the rituals, you can know all these things, and still not know the king. We're going to keep moving through, and next we'll see a king examined and condemned. As I study this, um one of the odd things here is you've got a pagan Roman governor, Pilate, and he's trying to release Jesus, and you got the religious dudes over here trying to kill Jesus. That's that's weird. That's weird. It's like, it's like it's like it's like the world, it's just upside down. Don't make any sense. But things aren't spinning out of control in the text here. God is still in control. This God's hand is never short. His power is never lacking, his sovereignty is never yielded. And even though we read this, you think this makes no sense. It don't, the mass, the arithmetic don't even add up, man. It don't make sense. Everything's moving according to God's plan. Verse 12. From then on, Pilate sought to release him, Jesus. But look at these guys, they're smart. These dudes are smart. But the Jews cried out, if you release this man, you, Pilate, are not Caesar's friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar. All right, so here's what they're doing. They're thinking little political maneuvering, this little pressure point. They're going to kind of push on Pilate's career. They're saying, hey, Pilate, if you don't do what we want you to do, we're going to ruin you. We're going to ruin you. You see, Pilate already managed, mismanaged several political things. He's made some blunders in his governing. Now they're going to put him in the hot seat. You've been messing up, Pilate. You've been doing things poorly, managing, I don't know, in an inadequate way. Everybody knows it. You keep blundering things. I'll tell you what, Pilate, you do this, you make yourself out to be no friend of Rome. You know what? We're going to tell the officials, man. You know, one more bad publicity on your part, man. You're going to get fired, man. You're going to get canned, man. You're going to lose all your privileges, man. You're going to, I don't know, you're just going to lose your jobby job, man. You're going to allow a man who claims to be king to not be killed. So they're kind of trying to back him into this corner, this little pressure point. And we know that this pressure point motivates him when you get to verse 13 and 14. Look, so when Pilate heard these words, when he heard the word saying, Hey, we're going to get you in trouble, man. We're going to, we're going to we're going to tell. You can't be a friend of Caesar if this man lives. It says, when he heard those words, it motivates him. It does. We see. He hears those words, so he brought Jesus out and said, hmm, we're going to talk about this one. Out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called the stone pavement and in Aramaic Gabbatha. Now it was the day of preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, Behold your king. Alright, here's what I find interesting. I don't know, it wrestled with this one, man. Pilate, it's in the text, sits on the judgment seat to judge Jesus. He's going to judge the sovereign God of the universe. That's interesting. And I thought to myself, who do you think you are, Pilate? Who do you think you are that you can sit on your throne and cast judgment on Jesus? But as I said earlier, it made me ask this question. Have I not done that? Have I not done that? You know, many people read the Bible and they read what Jesus says and then they they judge it. I've done that. And all my vast ignorance and all my massive shortcomings, I can read the word of God and then say, I'll know about that. I judge it. I judge it. That verse doesn't seem right to me. And here's the deal. I'm just, truthfully speaking, I'm not even qualified to make a judgment about what topping should go on a pizza. But yet I will read the word of God and set myself up like a judge. Who do I think I am? I remember this. Early in my Christian walk, and I'm going to church and I'm going with my buddies. Maybe this stuff still happens today. You know, we'd hear the we'd hear the word proclaimed and proclaimed well, and then we would leave. We'd all get in a car because you know we got to get the lunchy lunch in our belly, you know? And so, where do you want to eat? We just want to eat. So we're going to driving. I don't know. And as we're driving, people start asking. Either we start asking, what do you think about that message? What'd you think? What'd you think? What'd you think? Some people would make a comment about what the pastor was wearing. Some people would make a comment about a bad joke. Hey, every pastor tells bad jokes, alright? You know it. Some of you, yeah, let's not talk about that. Judging all this stuff. But it doesn't matter what we think. The right question is, was it true? Was it true? Who do we think we are that we can get together with our friends on a car ride home and then start judging our preferences? The question is, is it true? Is it true? Is it true? That's a pilot, though. He's like, you know, I'm gonna sit here and I'm gonna cast judgment on the living God. Also, let me just point this out. It says, now it was the day of preparation of the Passover. Once again, that's not a throwaway line. This is harking back to Exodus. And that's why John put it in there. He wants to, he's layering, he's layering, he's layering Old Testament, New Testament prophecy, what Jesus is doing. Right? This was a time when they brought a spotless lamb to be slaughtered and judgment passed over. Now we're to see that Jesus is indeed the perfect lamb of God. And they and they and they reply, and they reply, they reply, hey, we have no king but Caesar. Really? Really? That's what you're going to say now? You would rather serve a tyrant than a true king? The world will always offer you a Caesar if you reject Jesus. It will. There's always a Caesar to bow to. There is. But Caesars don't save. Caesars will tax you, tax you, and they will tell you to, and Caesar will tell you to smile the whole time. Caesar will get Caesar will give you what Caesar wants you to have, and then Caesar will try to convince you that you need it, but Caesar won't save you. Only Jesus can. Let's move on to verse 16. We're going to see a king crucified and caring. So he, Pilate, delivered Jesus over to them, the mob, to be crucified. So they took Jesus. That's it. That's the handoff. The scene shifts from courtroom to execution. And he went out bearing his own cross to the place called the place of skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha, right? Jesus goes out bearing his cross. The king carries his instrument of death, and we're told verse 18. And John is so succinct with this. He says, there they crucified him. And with him some additional information to others, one on either side. And so Jesus is between them, all right? John's very simple here. He says they crucified him. He doesn't go into more details. Um, the crucifixion was brutal, and it was slow, shameful, and public, designed to not just kill but to degrade. And we could very easily go into all the details of what a crucifixion was. It's horrible, it's brutal. But I want to kind of focus on something that's more horrific here. It's the spiritual side going on here. The Holy One Jesus is bearing sin. My sin, your sin, our sin. But John adds that additional thing on either side of Jesus. He was two criminals. You know, the sinner position was reserved for the very worst criminal, the chief offender, and we're told that Jesus is in the middle, numbered with the transgressors, even though he is innocent. He is completely and totally innocent. Verse 19. Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. And it read, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. Verse 20. Many of the Jews read the inscription, and for the place where Jesus was crucified, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city. And it was written in, look at this Aramaic and Latin and Greek. Three languages. Three languages. That's interesting. You get the language of religion, the language of law, and the language of culture. It is as God is shouting to the world that this king is for everyone. He's for everyone. He is for everyone. Pilate meant that to be mockery. God uses it as a proclamation. But of course, the religious leaders are going to object. Look at verse 21. So the chief priest of the Jews said to Pilate, Do not write the king of the Jews, but rather this man said, I am king of the Jews. Pilate answered, What I have written, I have written. Man, even Pilate can't erase the truth. You can't erase the truth, church. You can't do it. Neither can we, man. You can't, listen, and some do this. You can avoid Jesus. You can ignore Jesus. You can't erase him. He is king of kings, lords of lords. He is the Messiah. But we can backtrack here a little bit. Just a little bit. Just a little bit. He's like thinking of his birth. You remember when Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the wise men from the east, they come from him. They arrive in Jerusalem and they go up to Herod the Great and they say, Where is he who was born king of the Jews? The Magi acknowledged it, right? A few days earlier, Jesus came. Last week we looked at it, comes rising in on a donkey, and the people shout, Hosanna, the son of David, to the king of Israel. The people were professing it. And now Pilate puts it up on a sign on the cross. You go back to John chapter 18. Pilate asked Jesus. He asked Jesus, Are you a king? Tell me, Jesus, are you a king? Jesus said, My kingdom is not of this world. Pilate then says, So you are then a king. And Jesus replied, Well, egg, I am, I am, I am, as you say, a king. Jesus says, I was born for this. I've come into the world for this purpose to testify to the truth. Jesus was very clear over and over and over and over and over and over again. He is the king. He is the Messiah. He is the Genesis 3.15 prophecy. All through the 39 books of the Old Testament all point to him, fulfilling every prophecy, doing everything that was said that he would do. Oh, he is perfect. Oh, he is sinless. Oh, he is the king. Next, we'll see this: a king finished and victorious. We're going to get to our three words. John moves on to his final words. But I was thinking about this. Um, I kind of want to build it out a bit. I want to kind of, you got Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They all kind of have different perspectives. If you line them up, you get kind of a fuller picture as we land on our three words. On the cross, Jesus says seven things. And I want to walk through them briefly. First thing, he's on the cross. While the crowd is cursing him, in Luke, he has a word of forgiveness. He says, Father, forgive them. They do not know what they're doing. One of the criminals next to him hears this. By the grace of God, faith is awakened in him. He turns, he looks at Jesus. He says, Remember me, Jesus, when you come into your kingdom. That leads to the second thing Jesus said on the cross. It's a promise. Truly I say to you, today you will be in paradise with me. You get back to the book of John, you get the third word from the cross. It is a word of care. Jesus looks at his mother at the foot of the cross, and he says to the apostle, well, he says to her, Woman, behold your son. That's John. And John, behold your mother. So even while he's suffering, the king provides for the grieving. You get noontime, everything shifts. Mark tells us darkness covers the land. This is biblical language for judgment. From 12 o'clock to three o'clock, a holy transaction takes place. The sun bears the sin we deserve. Every evil, every secret sin, every proud thought laid on him as though he was guilty of it all. Right? But he's not. You know who's guilty of it all? Me. And you read that, and you want to, you just, you want, you want to scream? You do. You're going to say, that's due me. That's due me. But Jesus is taking it. He's taking the full wrath of a holy God so that I can spend eternity with him. Isaiah said, 700 years earlier he was pierced for our transgression. The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Then you get to the fourth words of Jesus comes from the book of Matthew. Jesus says, Oh, oh, this, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Do you know this is the only time in the Bible that Jesus refers to God as God every other time it was Father? Why has God forsaken him? The answer? Because Travis Jones is a sinner. I lie, I'm proud, I puff up, I say things I ought not say. I have been building my own throne. And for that, Jesus takes my penalty. Now we get to John verse 28. We pick the story back up. Verse 28 in the same chapter. After this, Jesus, knowing that all was finished, said to fulfill the scripture. This is going to be the fifth thing he says, I thirst. It's reaching completion. The fullness of scripture. Everything is purposeful. Verse 29. A jar full of sour wine stood there. So they put a sponge full of sour wine. Check this out on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. Once again, John is layering meanings here. This is not accidental. Hyssop was used. Go back and read the Pentateuch, the first five. You're going to see, you know, hyssop Passover rituals applied with hyssop judgment passing over. John is just layering the meanings here. Then you get the sixth word from the cross, verse 30. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, Here's our words. Here it is. Here are the words that split time in two. It is finished. And he bowed his head and he gave up his spirit. That's not a whisper of defeat, that's a shout of accomplishment. Jesus didn't say, I'm finished, that's despair. He didn't say, you're finished, that's revenge. It is finished. Once again, you know, Greek tetlestai. It's this whole ideal paid in full. Come on. Accomplished, done. Nothing else needs to be done. Jesus has satisfied it all. He is all in Jesus. The Father's plan is done, the work complete, the mission, the payment, the sacrifice, the fulfillment, the rescue. It has all been completely done because of what Jesus did, right? You ain't, yeah, come on. Yeah, thank you, Miss Faith. We'll do it. Look, we ain't gotta be walking around like we're adding to this. You can't add to it. It's done, man. It's done. It's done, man. It's finished. Your debt with God has been paid in full by Jesus Christ. Luke adds this. It's the seventh statement from the cross. Jesus called out with a loud voice and said, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. Having said this, he breathed his last breath. Once again, nobody took his life. He laid it down. The good news in all of this is salvation isn't you and I climbing up and trying harder. Salvation is God coming down. You can't add to this, you can't improve it, you don't upgrade it like you upgrade an app overnight. It is Jesus and Jesus alone. So then, what do we do with John chapter 19? We could have said a lot of more things going through that. For me, one of the big takeaways is this. We need to stop treating sin like it's cute. We need to stop treating grace like it's cheap. Stop treating Jesus like he's a consultant. He is the king. But we'll see this next week. He did not stay dead. We're going to celebrate an empty tomb next week. He died, he defeated Satan's sin and death, and he rose again, so that today whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. But like the thief on the cross, you have to repent and believe. Church, it is finished. Come on, let's pray. Father God, thank you for John chapter 19. It's heavy. I pray that we would be a people who do not treat sin lightly. That we understand what Christ accomplished. And that we align our life under the truths of the Bible and your revelation. Father God, we ask these things in Christ's name, our Savior. Amen.