I don't know the future for any one of you, but one thing all of us have in common, one thing I know for certain about you is all of us are going to die someday. And on that day, the most important question, really the only one that matters, is going to be what you decided about Jesus. Thanks for joining us for the Summit Life podcast with JD Greer. We're so thankful for you and it's an honor to encourage you weekly with this program. But did you know there are other ways to stay connected with Pastor JD and keep growing in your faith throughout the week?
One of the best places to do that is on our YouTube channel. Every single week, you'll find these same podcasts in video form, along with other helpful content designed to keep you rooted in God's Word. Just open YouTube and search for JD Greer. And for daily encouragement, you can also follow Pastor JD on social media. Just search for Pastor J.D.
Greer on Facebook and Instagram. When you celebrated Easter last week, did you see it as something simply to reflect on and celebrate? Or is it actually a moment that called for a decision? Luke 23 shows us very clearly that the cross isn't just an event of the past. It's actually the dividing line of history, forcing each one of us to answer this simple question: Are we with Jesus or not?
Here's Pastor JD with a message titled, Eternity's Dividing Line. Luke's Gospels chapter 24 says that on the first day of the week, Very early in the morning, they came to the tomb, bringing the spices they had prepared. But they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. They went in. But they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
Uh While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men, angels of course, Stood by them in dazzling clothes.
So the women were terrified and bowed down to the ground. Why are you looking for the living among the dead? asked the men. He is not here, but he has risen. Remember?
Remember how he spoke to you when he was still in Galilee, saying, It's necessary that the Son of Man be betrayed into the hands of sinful men. It's necessary that he be crucified and rise again on the third day. And they were like... Oh yeah. Oh yeah, he did talk about that a lot.
They remembered his words. One sentence uttered by an angel that changed the course. of history. He is not here, but he is risen just like he said. You know, there's a tradition dating all the way back to the early, earliest days of the church.
Little house churches, groups of believers scattered all across the Roman Empire. On Easter Sunday, the pastor would stand and he would say, Christ is risen. Hmm. And the congregation would repeat, he is risen indeed. It's pretty awesome to think about doing something that connects.
to literally two millennia of church history, right?
So I want us to do that right now. Joining with 2,000 years of believers from nations and all cultures. In all generations all over the world. Can we do that? I'll say Christ is risen, and you'll say He is risen indeed.
Christ is risen. Yeah. Once again, like you mean it, Christ is risen. If you believe that summit, church, put your hands together one more time right now. That is our declaration of faith.
And let me just say that if you are one of those people who has not been here since last Easter, well, first, welcome back. It is good to see you again. Listen, I know it can take a lot of courage just to walk into a church, and so I just want to say that I'm really glad that you're here. Thank you for trusting us enough that you would come back. Second, I can understand if this is the only week that you come, why you may not feel compelled to come back on other weeks because you're like, look, every time I go, he preaches on the exact same thing.
It's always his resurrection deal. Yeah, listen, I get it. We actually talk about a lot more throughout the year. You should come and check it out. But do understand.
Do understand that the core of your faith, the core of our faith, is what we celebrate today. that Jesus Christ actually came just like all the prophecies said he would. He actually lived. He died. And he resurrected from the dead and then was seen alive by hundreds of witnesses who went around the globe swearing upon pain of their death that they had seen him risen with their own eyes.
And so for 2,000 years now, The center of Christianity is Not been a new perspective on life. It's not been a new moral code to live by. It's not been a new political program. Christians have gotten a lot of things wrong over the years. But the center of Christianity is an empty tomb.
Because, see, if the tomb was not really empty, then Christianity is one religious perspective, one social experiment among many. But if the tomb really is empty and Jesus is alive, then literally everything has changed. If Jesus is alive and the tomb is empty, that means that sins can be forgiven. It means that addictions can be broken. It means that captives can really be set free.
It means that death is not the end and that life can be made new.
So that's why this day is such a big deal. I did hear about one young pastor, a true story, by the way. Who decided that if this was the only weekend that a lot of people were going to come to church, then he was just going to tell them everything they needed to know about Christianity in one queen mother of all sermons. He preached for 90 minutes. True story.
The next year, Easter was the lowest attended Sunday of the year.
So I am not going to do that this morning. I am going to try to get right to the point. Luke 23, if you have your Bibles and you want to follow along with me, Luke 23 marks the dividing line. of history. If you've ever driven along the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina, you might have seen a little sign on the parkway, it's actually at several places, that says Eastern Continental Divide.
It marks the ridge that divides the eastward and the westward slopes of our continent. Every raindrop that falls on the eastern side of that divide flows down into the Atlantic Ocean. Every raindrop that falls on the western side of that divide flows down toward the Gulf of Mexico or America or whatever we call it now. That means that two little raindrop friends. Conceived together in the same cloud.
Casually falling together from the sky, just chatting it up on the way down, having a big time. They can land a fraction of an inch apart on either side of that divide and end up literally on opposite sides of the planet. I share that because Luke 23 marks that dividing line for humanity. In Luke 23, we're going to meet five people or groups of people whose different responses to the cross literally divide them for eternity.
Some going on to everlasting life and others going on to everlasting death. I'm going to call these five people or these five groups of people our persons of interest. You see, Luke records their stories for us, not just because they are part of the historical record. He records their stories for us because their stories are emblematic of how all people in all places and at all times respond to Jesus. You should be able to see your own response to Jesus in these stories.
And where you see yourself in relation to them can answer an important question that maybe you've had at some point in your life. Maybe you have it now. The question of how can you know for sure what will happen to you when you die? Maybe you've wondered that. In fact, let me ask you a question that I've asked lots of people.
In airplanes and Uber rides and crowds of people just like this. Here's the question: on a scale of zero to 10. With zero meaning you are sure that you're not. And 10 meaning that you're sure that you are. How sure are you right now that if you died right now?
How sure are you that you would go to heaven? In fact, let me just ask you to do something. Let's do a little experiment here. Can I get everybody to bow their heads on all of our campuses? Bow your heads.
This is not the end of the sermon. I'm not giving an invitation, okay? Just for a moment. On a scale of zero to ten. Zero meaning you are sure that you're not.
You're like, I'm surprised I didn't burst into flames, just step bepping foot in this place. And 10 mean you're sure that you are. How sure are you that if you died, you would go to heaven? If you're in the zero to three category, put your hand up. Zero to three.
Okay, how about four to six? Put your hand up if you're in that category. All right, how about seven to nine?
Okay. How about Tim?
Okay, everybody put their hands down. And you can look up here at me, okay. I want to tell you. How you, regardless of how you walk into this place, wherever you put yourself on that scale. I want to tell you how you can be a 10 by the end of this message.
Or zero. Simply By making sure that you're on the right side of Jesus. Luke 23, verse 1. Person of interest, number one. Then their whole assembly rose up and brought him before Pilate.
They began to accuse him, saying, We found this man misleading our nation, opposing. Payment of taxes to Caesar and saying that he himself is a Messiah. He's a king.
So Pilate asked him, Are you the king of the Jews? And Jesus responded by saying, You say so. Verse 13, Pilate then called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people. And said to them, You brought me this man as one who was misleading the people. But after examining before you, behold, I didn't find this man guilty of any of the charges that you made against him.
Look, nothing deserving of death has been done by him. I will therefore punish him. which means whip them. And then I will release him. Person of interest, number one, is Pilate.
And we'll call Pilot the preoccupied. Pontius Pilate was the Roman governor of Judea, and in order to execute Jesus, or really anybody. The Jewish leaders had to go through Pilate. What you see here in Pilate is a certain Ambivalence toward Jesus. Pilate doesn't really want to make a decision about who Jesus actually is.
In fact, three times in this chapter, Pilate says that he believes Jesus to be innocent. And yet he cannot bring himself to let Jesus go because that would have been way too unpopular with the people. And so in verse 16, he says, Here's what I'll do: I'll punish Jesus by having him beaten, and then I'll let him go, which, of course, does not make any sense. Because if Jesus is innocent, then he should let him go free. If he's guilty, then he should be punished.
What Pilate is doing and trying to have it both ways, I'm going to sort of split the middle here. I punched him a little bit, but not all the way. What you see in that is Pilate is not actually concerned with whether or not Jesus is the promised Jewish Messiah or not. Pilate is mainly concerned with keeping the peace. That's what he's solving for.
You see, historians tell us that at this point in his career, Pilate was on pretty thin ice with Caesar. Several riots had broken out in Jerusalem under Pilate's watch, and Emperor Tiberius, who was the Caesar at the time, had told him, Pilate, one more blow-up. One more and you're finished. In fact, we know that shortly after these events were over, Pilate mishandled another disturbance in the region, and as punishment, Caesar banished him to Gaul, where he eventually committed suicide. The point is that Pilate was so preoccupied.
with earthly pressures. that he didn't have time to consider a question like who Jesus actually was. That is not rejection of Jesus, friend. That is indifference to Jesus. And honestly, it's probably worse than outright rejection.
You see, at least with rejection, you're thinking seriously about the question. With indifference, you're saying the question doesn't really even deserve your full attention. Listen to me, friend. Distraction sends far more people to hell than disbelief ever did. Pilate represents that husband that is too distracted.
By his career, he's too engulfed. And the cares of this life, too focused on trying to get ahead. to give serious thought to Jesus right now. He's focused on paying bills and parenting and getting his kids into the right school and preparing for his retirement, all very important things. Pilot is the young lady who was so focused on getting ahead in school that church is just not a priority for her right now.
Or she's so focused on getting married that she doesn't have time to think about these things. She'll think about that later. He's the high school student, so focused on sports and what his friends think that he never stops to ask, What have I decided about Jesus? But see, when you think about it, it's crazy not to think seriously about this question. Because one thing is for sure.
I don't know the future for any one of you, but one thing all of us have in common, one thing I know for certain about you, is all of us are going to die someday. And on that day, the most important question, really the only one that matters, is going to be what you decided about Jesus. Recent study from UNC School of Medicine, just released, shows that the death rate in America holds steady at 100%. Was totally unaffected by the tariffs being imposed and then withdrawn. Which means it is crazy not to think about this.
The French philosopher Blaise Pascal famously said that the most insane thing the human race does. Religious or not, the most insane thing we do is live as if death is not a sure and certain reality. It would be like being on the Titanic after it hit an iceberg, after it hit that iceberg. You know, they say that it was about an hour before people really knew they were in serious trouble. They just kept partying and.
Having a good time while the ship was literally sinking. Imagine if you had been one of the few people who knew the ship was in dire trouble. You knew it was certain to sink. You knew that everybody in the matter of a couple of hours who was not on a lifeboat was going to be dead. But you said, hey, who's got time to think morbid thoughts like that?
This party is way too much fun. This food is too good. This view is too beautiful. This setting is too serene to disturb myself with those kinds of thoughts. That would be criminally crazy because, in about an hour, you know, the only thing that's going to matter is if you're ready for what comes next after the ship goes down.
Pilate is the preoccupied, so focused on important earthly things that he never thinks about. Absolutely supreme. Eternal things. Let's keep reading because we're about to meet person of interest number two in verse five. After Pilate declares his belief that Jesus is innocent, They, the chief priests, keep insisting, but he stirs up the people.
He's teaching throughout all of Judea from Galilee, where he started, even to here. Oh, when Pilate heard this. He asked if the man was a Galilean. Finding that he was under Herod's jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, who was also in Jerusalem during those days.
Now, again, Pilate, who just wants to resolve this issue and move on, he finds what he thinks is a loophole that gets him off the hook. He's like, oh, he's a Galilean? Oh, this is my lucky day. That puts him officially under Herod's jurisdiction.
So I'll just make Herod deal with him.
So he sends Jesus over to Herod, who happened to be across town at the time. In verse 8, Herod was actually very glad to see Jesus because for a long time Herod had heard about Jesus but never met him. He wanted to see him because he heard about him and was hoping to see some miracle performed by him.
So he kept asking Jesus questions, but watch this, Jesus would not answer him. Person of interest number two is Herod, and we will call Herod the superficial. This was the Herod, by the way, who'd had John the Baptist beheaded after John had confronted him about having an affair with his sister-in-law.
Now he's curious about Jesus. He's heard people talking about Jesus and he wants to see him do some miracle. He wants to hear Jesus teach one of these parables that he's famous for. Of course, Herod is not really interested in pressing in too much with Jesus' teaching. Because that would require reckoning with his messed up life.
his parties and his affairs and his unchecked ambition.
So he wants to learn about Jesus, but he wants to do so with a little bit of an arm's length. That's why I call Herod the superficial. Herod represents the person today who Enjoys coming to church. Right, you come on Christmas and Easter. Maybe you come more often than that.
You're into the Bible and spiritual things. You believe in prayer. You ask for prayer from other people. You even love a lot of the worship music. He asks great questions in Bible study, but he never gets really serious about Jesus because that would require way too radical a life change.
He is interested in Jesus, but only up to a point. He wants religion to be a part of his life, but he never wants to go on to full commitment. He is what we would call a fan of Jesus, but not a follower of Jesus. But here's the thing. Coming to Jesus.
Discerning the truth about Jesus. Requires a willingness to let him completely change your life and a willingness to follow him wherever he leads. I want you to notice that Luke says, verse 9, that Jesus never even answers Aaron. To the superficial, to those who want to investigate Jesus and keep him at arm's length and not really fully follow him, Jesus. Doesn't matter.
Respond. Jesus only reveals himself to those who are ready to follow him. And by the way, when I say follow, I mean ready to surrender their will and their pride and completely trust in him. You see, unfortunately, the word follow in our parlance has taken on different implications. than it meant back then.
For example, I have told you this, on social media, my wife and I follow Andrew Huberman.
Now, if you don't know, Andrew Huberman is a brilliant American neuroscientist at Stanford who makes all of these out-of-the-box health suggestions. My wife and I enjoy following him, and we implement many of his suggestions. I put collagen protein powder in my coffee in the morning, and I have no idea why, but he says that I should do it. I take berberine supplements, which supposedly is ground up tree bark at night because he says that's what I should do. But Andrew Huberman also recommends a number of things I don't do.
Like he says that we should take at least 100 milligrams of lion's mane mushrooms every day. We should delay drinking any coffee until you've been up for at least two hours. He also says that you should light the interior of your home exclusively with red party lights after 7 p.m. And he says that you should sit outside in a bucket of ice water for at least 11 minutes a week. I got no problem saying that I follow Andrew Huberman and yet ignoring some of those recommendations.
And maybe I shouldn't, okay? Please do not send me any articles. I have read enough, okay? But some of his stuff I just don't want to do. I'm pretty sure he recommends lions made mushrooms just because the name sounds cool.
And I want my coffee ready when I open my eyes in the morning, and I don't want my home to look like a Miami nightclub after 7 o'clock each night. But bottom line, I feel perfectly fine saying I follow Andrew Huriman and yet choosing not to follow some of his prescriptives. My guess is that there are people in your life like that too, people you say you follow, and yet you feel perfect freedom to take some things from them that you want and leave behind the things you don't. But see, friend, it was different with Jesus. To follow Jesus meant total submission of your will to His, which is why He said to a bunch of would-be followers in Luke 6:46, Hey, why would you call me Lord, Lord, and then not do the things that I say?
Right, it is a contradiction within a sentence. You can't call me Lord and then not do what I say. The Bible compares it to marriage. When I got married, I did not say, Veronica, I hereby take you as my wife, and I hereby surrendered 95% of my romantic life to you. If I had said that, she wouldn't have said, well, I mean, that's a majority, clear majority.
That qualifies as an A in most colleges. Lucky me, you be. No, if I was not willing to give 100% of that part of my heart to her, she wouldn't have wanted any of it. It's the same with Jesus. If you're not willing for him to be Lord of all in your life, then he doesn't want to be Lord at all.
Yeah. So how are you approaching Jesus? You're approaching him as a fan or are you approaching him as a follower? Let's be honest, many of us follow Jesus like I do, Andrew Huberman. You're like, hey, yeah, he's a really smart guy with a lot of great suggestions, and I'll do these and I'll do these.
Oh, I feel better already. But what he says over here about relationships or money. Yeah, I'm not ready for those yet. Jesus has no answer for the superficial. He reveals himself, Deuteronomy says, only to those who seek him with all their hearts and all their souls.
Right now, the church in North America is facing a critical moment. More people than ever say they have no faith at all. Many churches are struggling and fewer than 1% are truly sharing their faith.
So what's the answer? It's not bigger events. It's not bigger marketing. It's the same way the church has always grown. Multiplication, disciples making disciples, churches planting churches.
Ordinary believers taking the gospel seriously, right where they are. And that's the vision behind Summit Life. Through clear, gospel-centered teaching on radio, podcasts, and other digital platforms, Summit Life exists to equip believers and churches to multiply so the gospel can reach neighbors, cities, and nations. When you support this ministry, you're not just funding a broadcast. You're investing in the future of the church.
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So you got Pilate the Preoccupied. You've got Herod the superficial. The third person's of interest, we're going to meet in verse 10. The chief priests and the scribes stood by, vehemently accusing him. Persons of interest, number three, are the chief priests, and we'll call them.
The proud. The chief priest had spent a lifetime distinguishing themselves from the masses. They'd gotten all the degrees. They climbed to the top of the spiritual, religious, and social ladder, proving that they were the creme de la creme. Living in ways that they thought deserved God's blessing, and Jesus.
repeatedly challenged. and insulted that pride. You see, Jesus has said that these religious leaders, despite their lofty status, were no better in God's eyes than any other sinner. And that they needed to be forgiven just like the tax collectors and the prostitutes did, and they hated Jesus for saying that. And not just a little bit either.
They vehemently, verse 10, accused him. Their opposition to Jesus is the strongest of any group in this chapter because, see, listen, when you spent your whole lifetime trying to set yourself apart. When you spent your whole lifetime trying to show that you're in the upper 20%, to show that you're better, that you deserve good things, you hate anybody who challenges that. Listen, one of the things that you will find as you read the gospels, and it is counterintuitive for most newcomers. The greatest resistance to Jesus often comes from within the religious community.
From those who seemingly have their lives together, and that's because coming to Jesus requires an abject humility and a total surrender that most people, particularly proud religious people, are unwilling to show. You see, to come to Jesus, you have to admit that there's nothing about you. Nothing that you've done and accomplished, or as good as you've been, there's nothing about you that makes you more worthy of God's grace than anybody else. The prophet Isaiah said that even for the best of us on our best day, our righteousness to God is like a filthy, diseased rag. And the word that Isaiah uses to describe that.
Kind of cloth he's talking about is the rag that you would have used to wrap a leper's open sores that got filled with all kinds of blood and pus and decay and all kinds of infectious bacteria. I mean, imagine showing up to enter heaven. and you're dressed in a filthy, bloody, pus-filled rag. Our only hope, Jesus said, is to cast ourselves completely and totally on God's grace and say, I have no hope at all. Except for your mercy.
You see, most people don't want to do that. Because it would require divesting yourself of any pride that you have in things you've done that set you apart from others and make you. worthy of honor. And second, it means surrendering your whole life to Jesus without reservation or condition. Most people don't want to do that.
Instead, what they'd much rather do is play church. Focus on being good people who are respectable and who obey the rules, and they feel fairly confident that they'll get into heaven as long as God grades on the curve. And surely he has to rate on the curve. Sure, they're not perfect, but surely they're in at least the upper 35%.
So their chances are pretty good. Listen to me, churches today are full of chief priests. They're hard to spot. Because they show up faithfully every week. They know every word, every song.
Sometimes they they even Sing on the worship team. They serve in leadership in the church sometimes, but in their hearts, they've never really reckoned. But how sinful they are in God's eyes. And they've never surrendered themselves without condition or reservation to the mercy of Jesus. Billy Graham famously said, it's not most people's sin that ends up sending them to hell.
It's their good works. It's their false sense of righteousness. that keeps them from throwing themselves on the mercy of God.
So you've got Pilate the preoccupied. You've got Herod the superficial. You've got the chief priest, the proud. In verse 18, we're going to see our. fourth person of interest.
His name is Barabbas. Here's the setup to the Bratis story in verse 18. Pilate's still trying to figure out a way to get out of his Jesus dilemma. Pilate knows that Jesus is innocent. He just wants to get things back to the status quo so he can move on with his political program.
So he has Jesus whipped, and then he says to the crowd, is that enough? Thinking surely they'll be mollified when they see the broken, bloody body of Jesus. But the crowd, who's now being manipulated by the chief priests, starts to shout back, no, crucify Jesus, crucify Jesus. And they begin to chant that louder and louder. And Pilate didn't know what to do.
But then, but then, but then suddenly he remembers. He remembers an old custom. We're on the Passover, the governor of Jerusalem. Releases one prisoner as a show of goodwill. And he thinks, well, that's my way out right there.
So he goes into his dungeon and he drags out the worst prisoner he can find, this scoundrel Barabbas, a thief, a murderer. He stands him up beside Jesus. Scholars say that he would have been a domestic terrorist, a real menace to society. He had harmed lots of people, including his fellow Jews. And so Pilate presents the easiest choice in the world to these people.
He says, which one of these shall I release to you? Thinking for sure they will choose Jesus over this rap scallion Barabbas. But verse 18, they all cry out together: take this man away, take Jesus away, release Barabbas to us. Person of interest, number four, is Barabbas, who is Be guilty. See, here's where the story becomes really personal for me and for you.
You see, of all the people that we are supposed to identify with in this story. The one we're supposed to identify most with is... Barabbas. You said, well, wait a minute, JD. I mean, I'm not a murderer or a rascallian or whatever words you said a minute ago.
And that's probably true. But the point is that Barabbas was rightfully condemned in his sin, as are. We, because you see, scripture says all have sinned. And all fall short of the glory of God, Paul says. There is none righteous, no, not one.
There's none who understandeth, there's none who seeketh after God. Barabbas is simply the first in a long line of guilty people who are going to be set free because Jesus dies in their place. By the way, something interesting you should note about Barabbas. Remember about his name? His name is Aramaic, and in Aramaic Barabbas is literally son of a dad.
Bar, son of Abba Adad, son of Adad. Could you come up with a more generic name? It's like some parents like naming your son dude or broke. This guy is just son of a dad because He represents all of us. Barabbas's story is my story.
I'm the child of a human dad, so are you. All of human history comes to a head. In this one moment, in this one man. You're seeing the entire fate of the human race epitomized in the story of one man. Think about it.
One of the most interesting things about this trial is that at several points, Jesus remains silent as these accusations are hurled against him. Why would Jesus do that? Why would he stay silent, especially when it's so obvious this trial is a sham? Clearly the charges against Jesus are made up. Jesus wasn't a blasphemer.
He wasn't a lawbreaker. He wasn't a terrorist. He didn't teach people not to pay taxes to Caesar like they're saying.
So why didn't Jesus speak up to defend himself? Why not say, hey, this whole thing is a sham and I'm not true of that?
Well, ask yourself this. When you stand in a courtroom silent, While others make accusations against you, And when the judge turns to you and says, What do you have to say for yourself? And you say nothing in your defense, but you just stand there silently, what are you conceding? Guilt. Jesus stood silently in the face of accusation because he was conceding guilt.
But why? Why do you say he wasn't guilty of these charges? It was because at that very moment Watch this. As the chief priests are pointing their lying fingers at Jesus and accusing him of these false charges, watch. Jesus perceives behind their fingers the righteous finger of God the Father pointing at him, accusing him of J.D.
Greer's sin. And Jesus stood silent before that accusation because he was pleading guilty. to my sin. You see, this whole trial is about me. I was preoccupied like Pilate, thinking more about daily trivialities than eternal realities.
I was superficial like Herod, more interested in what Jesus could do for me than what I owed to him. I was proud, like the chief priest, refusing to admit my utter and complete need of God's grace. All the profiles in this chapter are all about me and they come to a head in Barabbas. I am the guilty one. That old Negro spiritual had it right.
Were you there when they crucified my Lord? And the answer is a profound yes, I was there. I was there in Pilate. I was there in Herod. I was there in the chief priest.
And most of all, I was there in Barabbas. Guilty, vile, and helpless, we. Spotless Lamb of God was He. Full atonement, can it be? Hallelujah.
What a Savior. because the innocent died in the place of the guilty. There's one more individual. One more person of interest I want to show you really quickly before we close. You're going to see him in verse 26.
As they led Jesus away to be crucified, they see Simon. A Cyrenian. Who was coming in from the country? He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. They grabbed him and they laid the cross on him to carry behind Jesus because Jesus had fallen under the weight of the cross.
Person of interest, number five, is Simon the Cyrenian, and we'll call him. The disciple. Quick question. Why do you think Luke? Tells us this man's name.
And not just his name, but also where he's from. I mean, I get it. If Luke wanted to tell us about the moment when the cross got so heavy that Jesus staggers under the weight of it, that would help us understand Jesus' suffering. But why give us his name? And not just his name, but also where he's from.
By the way, in the Gospel right before this one, the Gospel of Mark. In Mark's account of it, Mark also mentions the name. of Simon's two sons, Rufus and Alexander. Why would you include all these personal details, random details about Simon? Scholars say it's because Simon of Cyrene was known in the early church.
The first readers of Luke's gospel would have been like, oh, Simon of Cyrene, the dad of Rufus and Alexander, I know him. I didn't realize he was there for all this. In fact, you ever notice this? Paul ends his letter to the Romans by greeting a bunch of people by name, 26 in total. And one of those 26 is Greet Rufus.
Who is chosen in the Lord? And also his mother By the way, his mother would have been Simon's wife, who's been a mother to me also. Scholars say it is almost for certain that this is the same Rufus that is mentioned in Mark's gospel as the son of Simon of Cyrene. That means that Simon went on to become a follower of Jesus, and not only that. He led his wife and two sons to faith in Christ.
By the way. of the 26 people that Paul greets by names in the Romans 16, Rufus is the only one who is described as chosen in the Lord.
Now, does that mean that they are the only ones that are chosen in the Lord? No, Paul is making a point here. Watch this. Paul is saying that on the road to Calvary. Even as Jesus' body staggers under the weight of the cross, Jesus is still sovereignly choosing a man to become his disciple.
He is showing love for somebody that he is dying for. He is still loving and calling sinners to come home. That's what he was thinking about on the road to Calvary. In 2008. Tragedy struck the home of Stephen Curtis Chapman, who If you don't know that name, it was one of my generation's most famous Christian musicians.
Stephen Curtis Chapman's 17-year-old son was pulling their SUV back into their driveway. He just didn't notice when his five-year-old little sister ran out of the garage and darted in front of him to try to come and greet him. He ran over her with that Chevy suburban and And just crushed her. The place, as you can imagine, descended into chaos. Stephen Curtis Chapman said he was in the backyard when he suddenly heard his wife start wailing, and he ran up to find his wife crumpled over the crushed body of their little girl.
Stephen said that when he picked up his little daughter, he said there was so much blood, and her body was so mangled that he knew that she wasn't going to make it. When the ambulance finally got there, the And the EMTs took over. They put her in the back of the ambulance to rush her to the hospital to try to get her on a life flight. She had just a sliver of life left in her, and Stephen got into a police car. He and his wife got on the back of a police car so they could follow the ambulance to the hospital.
But as they were pulling out, As they were pulling out, he noticed. This 17-year-old son who had been driving the suburban He noticed him off to the side there. In the chaos, everybody just kind of forgotten about him and he was... lying there, Stephen said, in a heap on the edge of the driveway. Overwhelmed by grief and guilt, His older brother was literally just laying over him, covering him.
And Stephen told the policeman, he said, stop, stop the car. And the policeman said, but we got to follow that ambulance. He said, just for a second, stop the car. Stephen Curtis Chapman got out and he stood up on the door jam and he pointed at his son. and yelled out across the crowd, he said, Will Franklin Your father loves you.
Then he got back into the police car and they rushed on to the hospital where his little girl died in his arms. What always got me about that story is that here in a father's worst imaginable moment of pain, what he was thinking about was the needs of his son. He was not blaming him. He was loving him. He was restoring him.
Here on the road to Calvary in Jesus' worst moment of pain. What does he do? He stops to extend love to a man that he came to save. What Jesus is showing us, what Luke is showing us, is that he never stopped loving you, not for one second. From the cross, he prayed, Father, forgive them because they know not what they do.
As the nails were making pain right through his body, he was thinking about you and restoring you. This is not a weak, stumbling victim that is needing help. This is a strong, sovereign savior extending salvation to those that he came for. And see, that leads me to my last little bit of good news. Simon of Cyrene's story is an invitation to you.
You and I may indeed be guilty. But on the road to Calvary, Jesus stopped the car, so to speak. They called your name and he said, hey, JD. Your father loves you. See, that's his voice that has been stirring in your soul as I've been up here talking.
That's not the result of the music. That's not my voice. He is calling you. Not just to pray some ritual prayer, not to take Easter Communion and go on your way and, hey, see you again at next Christmas. He's calling you to follow him.
To become his disciple, to carry his cross into the world, and for you to lead your family and friends to Jesus just like Simon did. Have you picked up that cross? See, that's the invitation to you today. is to consider the cross. And follow Jesus.
The events of this trial mark the dividing line of eternity. Two people who grew up together in the same community, in the same church, in the same Bible study from the same family, react differently to Jesus and end up. eternities apart. One in everlasting paradise and the other in everlasting torment. The most important question you will ever consider in your whole life is this.
Which side of Jesus? Are you on? Which brings me back to the assurance question I presented at the beginning. How sure are you on a scale of zeros to ten that if you died you'd go to heaven? See, you can know that you are a 10.
If you're on the right side of Jesus. You say, well, what does that mean exactly? The right side of you. Is that like a certain amount of times you got to come to church and. The list of things you gotta do?
No, Romans 10, 9 and 10 makes it crystal clear. says it involves two things. Repentance? Good faith. Repentance simply means acknowledging that Jesus is Lord.
Does that mean that you don't have any more problems in your life or that you just suddenly stop sinning? And no, it just means that you recognize and you submit to the fact that he is the unquestioned authority in your life. Listen, like I told you, surrender is one of those things that it's got to be total for it to mean anything. If you're going to follow Jesus, he's got to be Lord of everything, where you go, what you do, who you date, what you believe. If you are not totally surrendered, then surrender, lordship doesn't mean anything.
It's like we say: if he's not Lord of all, he's not Lord. Apples. The other side of that coin, think of it as a two-sided coin: one side is repentance, the other side is faith. Faith means believing that Jesus died in your place, that he bore the full punishment for your sin. Those two things, repentance and faith, those are what it means to be on the right side of Jesus.
A few weeks ago, I compared it to them. Sitting down in a chair. When it comes to sitting down in a chair, you either are or you aren't, right? There's no real halfway point. The weight is either resting on your legs or it's resting on the chair.
Well, when it comes to Jesus, You're either surrendered to him or you're still standing in control of your own life. You're either trusting in him as your sin-bearer, Or you're trusting that you can be good enough to earn heaven on your own. If you're seated in him this afternoon, Then the answer to the question of how sure you are that if you died, you go to heaven. It can be a 10. If not, I don't care how good and religious you are, you can be sure it's a zero.
You see, right now, if you ask me on a scale of 0 to 10, how sure I am. But if I died, I would go to heaven. I'd say 10. And that's not because I think I've lived such a good life that I deserve it, quite the opposite. It's because I recognize, like Barabbas, that Jesus died in my place and I've put my trust in him.
And when I get to heaven, if an angel stops me at the gate, if that's how it works up there, and he says, Hey, why should we let you in here? We know lots of things you did back on earth that would make you unfit to come in here. I'll point down on earth to that cross and I'll say, Yeah, but down there, Jesus paid the full measure of my penalty. He died in my place like he did for Barabbas. And because he did, there's no penalty left for me.
There's nothing left to punish me for. And if the angel says to one of his associate angels, well, I don't know.
Somebody go get the book that contains all JD's sins. We better review it to see what he missed. And he sends some angel down to the heavenly record room to get the book of my sins. That angel will come back from that record and say, There is no more book. I couldn't find his book.
I couldn't find Barabbas' book. God the Father threw that book at Jesus, so there's not one page with one sin left for JD to account for. I'm not going to show up to the banquet of heaven dressed in the filthy lepers' rags of my own righteousness. I'm not going to be boasting about this church or what a good father I tried to be. No, those are just filthy lepers' rags.
When I show up, I'll be dressed in a spotless robe that's been washed white by the blood of the Lamb, not my righteousness, but His. And see, that's because when I was 16 years old, With a lot of questions. And a lot of doubts and a lot of inconsistencies. that remain to this day. I sat down.
In the chair of Jesus. What about you? See, you can sit down in him today. If you never have, you can do it right now. In fact, I want to give you a chance to do that right now.
You can use my words. They got to come from your heart though. Say, Jesus, I believe you're Lord and I surrender to you. Say, Jesus, I believe you died for my sin. And I receive you as my Savior.
Say that to him right now. Repentance. I acknowledge you as the Lord. Faith, I receive you as my Savior. In Luke 23, we see several responses to Jesus, but ultimately the question is the same for all of us.
What will we do with him? If today's message stirred questions or you'd like to learn more about following Jesus, we'd love to connect with you. Just visit gdgreer.com. See you next time. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D.
Greer Ministries. Yeah.
