The Cross of Christ | John 19:16-37
Brian Hedges | April 10, 2022
Let me invite you to turn in your Bibles to John 19; we’re going to be reading from verses 16-37.
My hope this morning is that we will learn together what the old Puritan Isaac Ambrose called “the gospel art of looking unto Jesus.” Isaac Ambrose wrote perhaps one fo the greatest devotional masterpieces in the history of the church. It was called Looking Unto Jesus, some 700 or 800 pages of meditations on Christ and his person and work. He did this following a serious sickness in 1653, and originally he wrote these for his own spiritual comfort and help. In doing so he discovered what he called the duty of duties, the essential part of all other duties, because he learned that it was only through looking to Christ, trusting in Christ, that we receive spiritual help and grace from him.
He described this looking unto Jesus in terms of knowing him and considering him, desiring him, hoping in him, believing in him, loving him, enjoying him, and conforming ourselves to his example. He said, “I beseech you, come warm your heart at this blessed fire. O come and smell the precious ointments of Jesus Christ. O come and sit under his shadow with great delight. O that all men would presently fall upon the practice of this gospel art of looking unto Jesus!”
It is the key to transformation in the Christian life, beholding the glory of the Lord, Paul says, we are transformed into the same glory, from one degree of glory to the next. We are transformed into his image by the Spirit of the Lord.
Really, what we’re trying to do in this series in the Gospel of John, especially as we work through the Passion narratives—we’ve been doing that for several weeks now, leading up to Good Friday, and then Easter Sunday we’ll be in John 20—we’ve been looking intently at every step Jesus takes to the cross, and today we’re finally there, where Jesus is crucified in John 19:16-37.
Now, there’s a lot here; this is a lengthy passage. There’s no way to cover everything. But John pays attention and brings to focus some very specific things; in fact, some things that are not included in the other Gospel narratives. So I want to read the passage, and then I want to point out three things that we see at the cross as we fix our hearts and our minds on Jesus. We’re reading John 19:16b-37. You can follow along in your own copy of God’s word or on the screen.
“So they took Jesus, and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them. Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, ‘Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.’ Many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic, in Latin, and in Greek. So the chief priests 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.’
“When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his garments and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier; also his tunic. But the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom, so they said to one another, ‘Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be.’ This was to fulfill the Scripture which says,
‘They divided my garments among them,
and for my clothing they cast lots.’
So the soldiers did these things, but standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, behold, your son!’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother!’ And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.
“After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), ‘I thirst.’ A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, ‘It is finished,’ and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
“Since it was the day of Preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away. So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who had been crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water. He who saw it has borne witness—his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth—that you also may believe. For these things took place that the Scripture might be fulfilled: ‘Not one of his bones will be broken.’ And again another Scripture says, ‘They will look on him whom they have pierced.’”
This is God’s word.
We read this passage, and we could see there in those last several verses that we are reading the eyewitness testimony of the beloved disciple, who we have very good reason to believe was the apostle John, the disciple of Jesus. We see John’s intent in writing this passage; it is that we might believe. He wants to persuade his readers that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the true King of Israel and indeed the King of the world. As he writes this narrative, he is including all kinds of eyewitness detail and connecting that with the narrative of Scripture, the Old Testament Scriptures, to help us see that Jesus is the Christ, so that we will believe in him, that we will trust in him. He wants us to look to Jesus, so he quotes there at the end from Zechariah 12, “They will look on him whom they have pierced.” He wants us to learn what Ambrose called that “gospel art of looking unto Jesus.”
So that’s our focus this morning, is to look at Jesus, the crucified Jesus, Jesus on the cross, and to see him. As we do, I believe we will see three things:
1. Christ’s Character Is Revealed at the Cross
2. The Scriptures Were Fulfilled at the Cross
3. Our Salvation Was Accomplished at the Cross
I want to take each one of those things in turn.
1. Christ’s Character Is Revealed at the Cross
In some ways, I’m just continuing the theme of Brad’s wonderful message last week, where from Exodus 34 and some other passages of Scripture and then ending with a focus on the cross he looked at how the justice and the mercy of God are revealed in the cross of Jesus Christ. The heart of God is revealed in and through Jesus and his crucifixion. I appreciate very much his exposition of Scripture.
It’s true that at the cross we see the fullest revelation of God and we see the fullest revelation of Christ. This is right at the center of our theology and our understanding of Scripture. You remember how the apostle Paul said, “I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” He meant by that not that the crucifixion was the only doctrine he would ever talk about, the only thing he would ever say, but that everything related to the crucifixion of Christ, Jesus Christ and him crucified, is right at the heart of Christianity.
Martin Luther said, “In Christ crucified is the true theology and knowledge of God. As long as a man does not know Christ, he does not know the true God, the God hidden in sufferings.”
When we look at this passage we see the revelation of Christ’s character and of his heart. We see, of course, the justice and the mercy of God, as Brad brought out last week, but we also see his kingship and his compassion. You see the kingship in verses 16-22. I won’t read it again, but Jesus there is taken to Golgotha and he’s crucified. The focus is not so much on the physical sufferings here as it is on who Jesus is. You see it especially in the inscription, the title placed over the cross: “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.”
D.A. Carson in his commentary says that this is really working or functioning on three levels. First of all, it’s showing us the reason for which Jesus was actually crucified. The only charge that really stuck, as far as Pilate was concerned (and he only did it reluctantly) was the charge of sedition, that Jesus here is a king that the Jews are saying would be a threat to the rule of Caesar. So Pilate, as we saw in the last couple of messages from John, Pilate is backed into a corner where he essentially has to choose to crucify Jesus in order to prove his allegiance to Caesar.
The reason Pilate then places the inscription over the cross is because that is the charge, but also it’s really to stick it to the Jews. It’s his last act of contempt for them. They denied that he was their king. “He came unto his own and his own received him not.” They rejected his kingship. But, as if to insult them further, he puts this inscription above the cross. In fact, they object to it, and you can see that in verse 21, when they say, “Don’t write ‘The King of the Jews,’ but rather, ‘This man said, “I am the king of the Jews.”’” Pilate, of course, does not change it.
But on an even deeper level, the apostle John, writing under the guidance and the inspiration of God’s Spirit, is telling us something about Jesus. He is telling us that Jesus really is the true king—a paradoxical king, a king unlike what anyone would have expected, but he is the king, and this is the moment in which he is exalted, he is lifted up.
In fact, in the Gospel of John that phrase “lifted up” is a key phrase that has a double meaning when it is used in this Gospel. It means, on one hand, that he will be exalted, lifted up in the sense of exaltation, but also that he will be lifted up in the sense of being hung on the cross. You see it in John 3:14 when Jesus says that “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.”
Then, on Palm Sunday, following the triumphal entry in John 12, Jesus says, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” John comments that “he said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die.”
This is the moment where the king is exalted, and how is he exalted? He is exalted by being lifted up on the cross. He is the crucified king, the exalted king, and he is the universal king. I think one significance of this title, King of the Jews, written in Greek, Latin, and Aramaic is that Jesus is the universal king. He’s the king of the world. These were three of the most important languages in the ancient world—Hebrew, the language of God’s revealed religion for the Jews; Latin, the official language of Rome; and Greek was the common language of many people in the Roman provinces. So Jesus here is being hailed as king of all. But he is a crucified king.
As F.F. Bruce puts it, “The crucified one is the true king, the kingliest king of all, because it is he who is stretched on the cross. He turns an obscene instrument of torture into a throne of glory and reigns from the tree.” He’s the king.
But we also see here that he is full of compassion and care. Even in the moment of his great suffering he shows his care and compassion for others. We see it, of course, throughout, as he is dying for our sins, but John includes an episode that’s only found here in this Gospel. It’s in verses 25-27, where you have these women standing around the cross. There are either three or four of them, depending on how you read the sentence here, but Jesus’ mother and his mother’s sister, who may have been Mary the wife of Clopas, or that could be a third person; and then Mary Magdalene, out of whom Jesus had cast out seven demons, Luke tells us. So these three or four women are standing around the cross, and then the beloved disciple, John—there he is, standing there, and Jesus, in this moment of great pain and suffering, he’s thinking about caring for his mother. So he says, “Woman, behold your son,” and he looks to John and he says, “Behold your mother.” And from that very hour the disciple took her to his own home.
It shows the deep care and compassion of Jesus, this concern for his family, for his mother. You can only imagine what she was going through in this moment. I suppose that any parent who has ever lost a child will know something of the agony that you would feel in a moment when you lose one of your children. Simeon had prophesied that a sword would pierce Mary’s soul, and here is Mary, who endures seeing her son crucified, and he is concerned for her. It shows his care, it shows his compassion. We see his kingship.
We could keep going in showing the many diverse attributes, the characteristics of Jesus displayed on the cross. We see his holiness; we also see his grace. We see justice, we see mercy, we see sovereignty, we see humility.
Jonathan Edwards once preached a whole sermon on this, called “The Excellency of Jesus Christ,” and he talked about the diverse conjunction of excellencies that we see in Christ, and especially at the cross at this moment, where you see all of these things coming together in the character of Jesus.
I love the way that old hymn writer put it:
On the mount of crucifixion
Fountains opened, deep and wide;
Through the floodgates of God’s mercy
Flowed a vast and gracious tide.
Grace and love, like mighty rivers,
Flowed incessant from above;
And heaven’s peace and perfect justice
Kissed a guilty world in love.
The heart of God displayed, the character of Christ revealed in this moment, the moment of crucifixion. Do you see it? Is this at the center of your theology? When you think of God, do you think of this God? It’s so easy for us to think of God in kind of an abstract way, an invisible being far removed from human affairs. But the God that is revealed in Scripture is the God who takes flesh upon himself. It is the God who goes all the way to the cross. It is the God with thorns piercing his brow, with the spittle of the soldiers on his face, with his body bloodied and bruised and bleeding, with nails through his hands, the spear in his side. It’s this God who is suffering, and why is he suffering? He’s suffering for the sins of the world. Is that your understanding of God? Jesus shows us the heart of God; he shows us what God is really like. Jesus, the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, the word made flesh and crucified for us. We see his heart, we see his character right here at the cross.
2. The Scriptures Were Fulfilled at the Cross
This was just as the Scriptures said it would be, which leads us to the second point. We see that the Scriptures are fulfilled at the cross. Of course, the whole life of Jesus was fulfillment of prophecy. From his birth all the way to his resurrection and ascension Jesus was fulfilling prophecies. Spurgeon once said, “Our prince steps along a pathway paved with prophecies.” But John, in this passage of Scripture, very specifically draws out four specific prophecies and says, “The Scriptures were fulfilled.”
If you look at some of the allusions and read between the lines, there are even more, but I want you to see these four in particular. I’m not going to read all of this, but you can see this in a chart, how these four episodes that happen at the cross are specific fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies.
When the soldiers divide the garments of Jesus, they gamble for his garments and then they divide those garments between them, it is a fulfillment of Psalm 22:18.
Then, when Jesus says, “I thirst,” he says that knowing that the completion of his work is almost come, and he does this in order to fulfill the Scriptures. He says, “I thirst,” so that they will give him something to drink. So Jesus here is self-consciously fulfilling the Scriptures in these moments. Indeed, they give him sour wine to quench his thirst, and it is a fulfillment of Psalm 69:21, “They gave me vinegar for my thirst.”
Then, after Jesus has died and the soldiers come along to break the legs of these crucified men and they discover that Jesus is already dead so his legs are not broken, it is a fulfillment of Exodus 12:46, where the Passover lamb’s legs were not to be broken. It is to show us that Jesus is the true Passover lamb.
Then the soldier pierces the side of Jesus so that blood and water flow, and John says that this is to fulfill the Scripture which says, “They will look on him whom they have pierced,” Zechariah 12:10.
There are also allusions, I think, to Isaiah 53 and Genesis 22 and maybe more, but all of this teaches us something very important, something I think is very practical, and that is how we are to read our Bibles. We might put it this way: We need to learn to read our Bibles through the Jesus lens, where we are looking at Scripture, reading Scripture, studying Scripture in order to see Jesus and to see how Jesus is the fulfillment of Scripture.
I think for most of us, maybe that’s not our first impulse. Maybe we just kind of treat the Scripture haphazardly, as a collection of moral sayings and inspirational quotations and we just kind of read the Scriptures like that, taking verses out of context, trying to get some inspiration for the day. Maybe we read the Scriptures as interesting history, and we’re interested in the unfolding history of Israel. Or maybe we’re reading it theologically, looking for proof texts for our preferred system of systematic theology. Or maybe we read it in order to get practical, moral guidance for life.
Now, I’m not denying that any of those things are useful. Certainly the Scripture teaches us theology, and I care about systematic theology. If you know me, you know that I care about that. I’m not dissing that. And certainly the Bible tells us how to live. But at the heart of Scripture there’s a story, and it’s a story about Jesus, and the climax of that story is the death and the resurrection of Christ, and everything in Scripture either leads to that moment or flows from it.
I think that’s why Paul said, “I have determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” He was not saying that he would never tell the churches how to live—read his letters; they’re full of exhortation, but they are exhortations that flow from their union with the crucified and risen Christ. This is the central thing.
Even Jesus in the Gospel of John, in John 5, had said to people who knew their Bibles well but had missed the main point, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is they that testify of me, and you will not come to me that you may have life.”
Listen, you can know a lot of Bible and miss Jesus. You may be able to recite for me the kings of Israel and of Judah and the dates in which they reigned and do it all in chronological order, know all of that; you may have all that down pat—I couldn’t do that, but if you can do that, that’s great, kudos to you. But listen, you can know all that, but if you read 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings and 1 and 2 Chronicles and all you see is some historical interest about these ancient kings and you don’t see that the main message is we need a better king, this is all pointing us to King Jesus, then you missed the main point.
You may be able to detail the seven different sacrifices described in Leviticus and talk about all the intricacies of the Day of Atonement and the role and the vesture and the garments of the high priest, but if you don’t read those passages and see that Jesus is our great high priest who fulfills all of those types and shadows, then you’ve missed the main point. We need to read the Scriptures with a focus on Jesus.
I think what happened for these disciples and apostles who wrote the New Testament is that when they saw it, when they understood, when it finally clicked for them that Jesus, the crucified and risen one, is the Messiah, they are so gripped by that that their reticular activating system was just focused on Jesus.
You know what the reticular activating system is? It’s that part of your brain that causes you to focus on certain things and you screen out other things, you filter out other things. Here’s the common illustration for how it works. You get a new car, right; it’s a certain make, it’s a certain model; you love the color; you love this car. You drive it off the lot, and then, for the next six months, every time you go out driving you notice every time somebody else has that car. You never noticed it before, but all of a sudden now you’re focused on this car and you see it everywhere.
I think this is what happens when it clicks for you, that Jesus, the crucified, risen Messiah is at the center of Scriptures—when you see that, you start reading your Bible with a new set of glasses. You start seeing things you never saw before. You see the connections. You see how Jesus is the fulfillment of the Scriptures.
Philip understood this, and this is the way he shared the gospel with people; it’s the way we should share the gospel with people as well. You remember when Philip in Acts 8 is talking to the Ethiopian eunuch, and he’s reading from Isaiah 53, and he’s wondering, “Is this man describing his own sufferings or the sufferings of someone else?” Acts 8:35 says, “Then Philip opened his mouth and, beginning with this Scripture [Isaiah 53], he told him the good news about Jesus.”
Let me read to you a statement from John Calvin that I think says this as well as anyone could say it. This is from Calvin’s preface to his cousin Olivatan’s translation of the New Testament. He said, “Christ is Isaac, the beloved Son of the Father, who is offered as a sacrifice but nevertheless did not succumb to the power of death. He is Jacob, the watchful shepherd, who has such great care for the sheep which he guards. He is the good and compassionate brother Joseph, who in his glory was not ashamed to acknowledge his brothers, however lowly and abject their condition. He is the great sacrificer and bishop Melchizedek, who has offered an eternal sacrifice once for all. He is the sovereign law-giver Moses, writing his law on the tables of our hearts by his Spirit. He is the faithful captain and guide Joshua, to lead us to the promised land. He is the victorious and noble King David, bringing by his hand all rebellious power to subjection. He is the magnificent and triumphant King Solomon, governing his kingdom in peace and prosperity. He is the strong and powerful Samson, who by his death has overwhelmed all his enemies. This is what we should, in short, seek in the whole of Scripture: truly to know Jesus Christ and the infinite riches that are comprised in him and are offered to us by him from God the Father. If one were to sift thoroughly the law and the prophets he would not find a single word which would not draw and bring us to him. Therefore rightly does St. Paul say in another passage that he would know nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”
If you want to learn the gospel art of looking unto Jesus, your main instrument, your main tool for doing that is the Bible. It’s reading the Bible regularly, systematically, devotionally through the Jesus lens. Read your Bibles and see the glory of Jesus Christ.
Isaac Watts understood this, and we sometimes sing these words.
Laden with guilt and full of fears
I fly to thee, my Lord,
And not a glimpse of hope appears
But in thy written word.
Get what he’s saying. “I’m full of guilt, I’m full of fears. I’m looking for hope, and the only glimpse of hope that I get is in the written word of God.” How does the word of God give us hope when we feel guilty and fearful? Here’s how:
The volumes of my Father’s grace
Dost all my fears assuage;
Here I behold my Savior’s face
In every page.
Brothers and sisters, do you read your Bible like that? Are you reading your Bible so that you’re seeing the face of Jesus on every page? That’s how John read the Scriptures, and as he weaves together this narrative of the crucifixion of Jesus, he’s doing it in such a way to show us that Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the Scriptures.
3. Our Salvation Was Accomplished at the Cross
One more thing to say, and that’s the third point, that our salvation was accomplished at the cross. Not only is the heart of God and the character of Christ revealed at the cross and not only were the Scriptures fulfilled at the cross, but our salvation was accomplished through the crucifixion of Jesus at the cross.
You see this in verses 28-30. I’ll read this. It’s not quite as transparent in English as it is in Greek, so I’ve underlined the key words.
“After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished [the word is tetelestai, which carries the idea of being completed, coming to completion], said (to fulfill [teleo] the Scripture), ‘I thirst.’ A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, ‘It is finished [tetelestai],’ and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”
This is a word that carries the idea of not just fulfillment, but completion. I think it was F.W. Borham who said that it was the artist’s word, who, after he had put the last stroke of paint on the painting and it was all day, he would step back and he would say, “Tetelestai.” It’s done. There’s nothing to add.
When Jesus died on the cross, he completed the accomplishment of our redemption. Now, we do have to distinguish between redemption accomplished and applied. The application of redemption is the work of the Holy Spirit by which he takes what Christ has done and applies it personally to us. But listen, the actual work of redemption, the work of keeping the law, the work of obedience to God, the work of atoning for sin, the work of offering a sacrifice to God, all of that was done, and it was completed by Jesus Christ on the cross. He completed the work that his Father gave him to do.
Over and over in the Gospel of John Jesus is talking about the work the Father gave him to do. “My food,” he says, “is to do the will of him that sent me and to accomplish his work” (John 4:34). Then when Jesus prays that great high priestly prayer in John 17, what does he say? “I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.” He came to accomplish redemption, and he did it! He fully completed the work that was necessary, the work of salvation. So he said, “It is finished.”
I think we get a hint at the result of this saving work in verse 34 when the soldier pierces the side of Jesus with a spear and the water and the blood flow out. This really struck John the apostle, because he said in 1 John 5:6, “This is he who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not by the water only, but by the water and the blood.”
There has been all kinds of scholarly debate about exactly what that means; I’m not going to go into the details. But I think probably it is a subtle reference to Zechariah 13:1: “On that day there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness.” The water and blood then represent the cleansing from the guilt of sin as well as the defilement of sin; and perhaps, also, the gift of the Holy Spirit.
One more quote. Sinclair Ferguson, in his wonderful book on the Holy Spirit, says, “Christ’s death is to be seen both as a sacrifice for sins and as the means by which the water of new life in the Spirit flows to us. Within the Johannine context it is through Jesus’ death that the Spirit is seen as coming to the church. Christ as crucified will give the Spirit; from his side both water and blood flow, the blood of forgiveness, the water of the Spirit. Only as the crucified one can he give the Messianic Spirit.”
Let the water and the blood,
From thy wounded side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure;
Save from wrath and make me pure.
What’s our response? Our response is to trust in this finished work. It’s one of our core values at Redeemer, “Trusting Jesus and his finished work with all of our hearts.” What does that mean? What does it mean to trust in the finished work of Christ? It means to really believe, and to believe with all our hearts, that he’s done everything that’s necessary to be done for our salvation. We’re no longer working to try to save ourselves; instead, by faith we grasp hold of what he has done, and his Spirit then applies the resources and the riches of Christ’s salvation to our hearts and our lives.
I think this is John’s aim, because in verse 35 he tells us his aim when he says, “He who saw it has borne witness—his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth—that you also may believe.” That’s the whole point of this Gospel. John 20:31, “These things are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
What does it mean to believe in Christ? I think one of the best illustrations of this comes from 19th century Scottish missionary John Paton, who was a missionary to the South Seas islands, the New Hebrides. These were islands that were inhabited by cannibals, and when he was to go the elders of the church where Paton worshiped said, “If you go there, they’re going to kill you, they’re going to eat you; they’re cannibals.” Paton didn’t care. He said, “Someday worms are going to eat your body; it doesn’t really matter whether I’m eaten by worms or by cannibals. I’m going!”
So he went, and he labored for years—for decades, really—on these two different islands. By the end of his life, almost every single person on one of the islands had come to Christ. But early in his ministry, John Paton was trying to translate the Bible into their language, he was trying to communicate the Gospel, and these were tribes of people who didn’t trust anybody. There was no word for “trust” in their language, no word for “believe” in their language. So how was he going to translate John 3:16, right?
He’s praying, he’s trying to figure this out, and one day one of the natives, who had been running really hard, came into his little hut and he flopped down in a large chair and he said, “It is so good to rest my weight in this chair!”
At that moment, Paton thought, That’s it. That’s how I’ll translate belief. “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever rests his weight on Jesus will not perish, but have eternal life.”
When you’re resting your weight on another, you’re not supporting yourself. When you’re trusting in Jesus, you’re not supporting yourself. You’re not saving yourself, you’re not depending on yourself, you’re not looking to your works, you’re not looking to your morality, you’re not looking to your law-keeping. You’re not even looking to your sanctification; you’re looking to Jesus! It’s the gospel art of looking to Jesus!
Listen, it’s in seeing that that the real power for transformation comes. When you see Jesus and you hold onto Jesus, you grasp Jesus and you entrust yourself to him and to his finished work with all of your hearts, that’s when he is glorified, and that’s when we are saved, changed, transformed.
What are you trusting in this morning? Maybe today you have recognized that you’ve never really believed in Christ. Maybe you’ve believed in God kind of abstractly, theoretically; maybe you’ve been coming to church for a long time; but you’ve never really seen the sufficiency of what Jesus Christ has done to save you from your sins. If you have not done that this morning, I invite you, look to Jesus, depend on Jesus, trust in Jesus, rest your weight on Jesus, declare yourself a bankrupt sinner without hope save in God’s sovereign mercy, trust in Christ.
If you are a believer, if you are a Christian, then this morning I invite you and encourage you and exhort you, as I do myself, to learn this gospel art of looking to Jesus; to read the Bible with eyes peeled for Jesus; to get our eyes off of ourselves and onto Jesus Christ and him crucified. Let’s pray together.
Gracious God, how we thank you for your word. Really, we’ve only scratched the surface this morning of what this wonderful passage teaches us and of what your Son, the Lord Jesus, has done for us. But we thank you that he has fulfilled all that the prophets had written of him, we thank you that he is the crucified King who cares for his people, we thank you that he was obedient to death, even death on a cross, and therefore you have highly exalted him and given him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. We now bow in your presence and we confess that Christ Lord. We thank you for this king; such a good, lowly, humble king; one that we can trust, one who has already given the greatest possible gift.
I pray, Lord, this morning that for anyone who does not know Christ that today would be the day of salvation; that he would in these moments look to Christ crucified, find forgiveness of sins, healing for his soul, and transformation for his life.
Father, for every one of us, as we come to the Lord’s table this morning, may we come with our eyes fixed on Jesus, our hearts, our affections set on Christ. May we come to these elements looking beyond them, through them, to Jesus Christ, who is the living bread, who gave his flesh for the life of the world. May we come in faith, trusting in what Christ has done; may we come with repentant hearts, turning from our sins and trusting in your mercy. May you draw near to us, meet with us, Lord, we pray in Jesus’ name, amen.
Brian G. Hedges
