I believe No.6 Jesus died for me

Now the readings taken from Philippians 2, 1 to 11. If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.

Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who being in the very nature of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross.

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth. And every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. It's amazing how the Lord ties things together, you know, because that reading goes very well with what we're going to bring to you tonight.

One of the amazing things about the Christian gospel is that we don't have to find God, that he took the trouble to come and find us, that as that reading said, he didn't count equality with God to be grasped, to be held on to, but he made himself of no reputation and became in the form of a man. And the reason why he did it? Because he loves us. And this first song tells about how it could be without him, and that his love for us made him come.

And then the second one tells how it can be with him. Try again. Take a look, take a good long look at me And tell me what you see, my friend Cause all I've shown is the shining crow That I wear from nine till five It looks pretty good, but underneath The rust is coming through You'll find to your surprise This life of mine just isn't worth a thing Love, love, love alone That made King Jesus leave his throne Love, love, love alone That made King Jesus leave his throne Love, love, love alone That made King Jesus leave his throne Love, love, love alone That made King Jesus leave his throne You'll never reach God, though howling screams To all who pass that way And shake their heads and wander on Cause they have tried and failed It's yours the failure, yes I know Don't rub it in, my friend It seems that only God can reach me And God only knows it's true T'was love, love, love alone That made King Jesus leave his throne Love, love, love alone That made King Jesus leave his throne T'was love, love, love alone That made King Jesus leave his throne Love, love, love alone That made King Jesus leave his throne T'was love, love, love alone That made King Jesus leave his throne Love, love, love alone That made King Jesus leave his throne The second song is called It's A New Life.

It's a new life, oh how it changed me, a new life. We rearranged me, a new life. Richer and fuller, this wonderful wonderful life.

God in the Bible has shown me my state. Satan possessed me and death was my fate. Sin was my master, I could not break free.

A more a savior to liberate me. It's a new life, oh how it changed me, a new life. He rearranged me, a new life.

Richer and fuller, this wonderful wonderful life. God loves a sinner, says so in his word. His Holy Spirit made sure that I heard.

That Jesus died in my place I could see. Crucified, buried and prisoned for me. It's a new life, oh how it changed me, a new life.

He rearranged me, a new life. Richer and fuller, this wonderful wonderful life. Gone is the old life and gone are the strains.

Gone are the fetters and gone are the chains. Gone is the darkness and gone is the night. I have found Jesus, the truth and the light.

It's a new life, oh how it changed me, a new life. He rearranged me, a new life. Richer and fuller, this wonderful wonderful life.

In the Apostles Creed, I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.

He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. He descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again.

He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.

Amen. Let's pray. Father, we offer these moments to you and ask once again for an increasing awareness of your Spirit playing upon our minds so that it's not so difficult to take in what is shared in summary fashion from your most holy and inerrant word.

And this we ask for Jesus' sake. Amen. Well, we come to another of our studies in presenting the gospel message.

As we look into the creed and the simple statement that we have to look at this evening, and if you have your supplement and want to keep referring to it, then obviously you'll find it on that first page, is simply this. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. He suffered, the Lord Jesus, under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried.

As you know from what I've been sharing with you so far this evening, the creed is a summary. It's the outline, no more than that. It's the skeleton of what Christian people down the centuries and around the world cling to as being the essence of the gospel.

And I think it's brilliant. I do believe that when the apostles' creed was put together in the early centuries, it knew the inspiration of the Spirit. And that's not heresy.

I'm not advancing upon the Old or New Testament at all, because this is just a bringing together of all the main facets of truth that are located, that are deposited in the Bible. And what I want us to do, very briefly this evening, because it's so hot and I'm aware that concentration may not be too easy to sustain. What I want to do is, looking at this particular sentence, the fourth sentence in the creed, is to think about three specific things.

A person, and a passion, and a problem. My argument is that that fourth sentence in the creed revolves around those three. The first two are obvious.

The third will become obvious as I explain its significance to you. First of all, then, the person. Our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom reference was made last week in the miracle of his incarnation, born of the Virgin Mary as a result of the operation of the Spirit upon her, our Lord Jesus Christ was to suffer.

And he was to suffer at the hand of a man whose name is in the creed. We will remember, if this world is to continue centuries hence, which I doubt, we will always remember the name of Adolf Hitler as being the one who gassed so many Jews. And in history, the insignificant person of Pontius Pilate is linked.

And as long as human history lasts, it will always be linked to the name of Jesus. For it was Pontius Pilate who, at the human level, was responsible for his death. Let me talk to you about him just for a couple of minutes.

First, historically, and then symbolically. Historically, it's interesting to know a little bit about Pilate. He was the procurator.

That means to say that he was in charge, a sort of Mrs. Thatcher, but he didn't get the popular vote of the people. Looking after affairs, headed up in Jerusalem, his influence spilling out into Judah. He wasn't exactly the most important person in the Middle East.

Actually, his boss was a man who looked after the country of Syria. But Pontius Pilate was in Jerusalem, in Palestine, between the years 26 and 36 Anno Domini. Ten years, and they were disastrous years in the life of Pontius Pilate.

He was one of the most undiplomatic people that I think history has any record of. The Jews were a little difficult, to say the least, in those days. When Pilate got the idea that he was moving to Judah, he couldn't exactly have done a dance, because the Jews were known as being one of the most troublesome areas in the whole of the Roman Empire.

He just went from one disastrous decision to another. When he arrived in Caesarea, decides that he'll move his headquarters from that port on the coast, and he'll move into Jerusalem with his Roman army. He does it at night, and they carry the Roman flags, and when the Jews the following day recognize that Roman flags depicting something of Roman religion are in Jerusalem, well, it is hardly an exaggeration to say that all hell was let loose.

And Pontius Pilate had to backtrack on his decision. But he went from one mistake, as I say, to another. Later on he had some shields in his palace in Jerusalem put up on the wall, and those shields had certain representations of Roman gods.

And when the Jews heard that there was a graven image in the holy city near to the temple, once again they got about making life so unpleasant for Pontius Pilate, that when Tiberius the emperor got to know of what the clown was doing there in Jerusalem, he sent him a reprimand and told him to pull his socks up. Only he expressed it a little differently than my English idiom has just conveyed it to you. And then he not only made those two gaffes, he tried something which was reasonably a good idea, and that was to bring some water into Jerusalem, because Jerusalem is sometimes short of its own water supply.

And so he erected a great aqueduct, and the Jews were very pleased. Cheap water at the expense of the Roman empire, until Pontius Pilate deflected the monies that were coming into the temple to pay for the enterprise. And once again there was so much bloodshed, that probably Luke 13 and verse 1 makes reference to that occasion, and what I've just shared is the context behind it.

Here is a very undiplomatic man who is featured in the creed, under whose hand Jesus Christ was to suffer so badly. But also he was an unstable man. Not only undiplomatic, but unstable.

In what sense? Well, you remember how James defines an unstable man. If you try and go two ways at the same time, you fall over and you could give the impression of being intoxicated. An unstable man, a man who cannot make up his mind, a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.

And that was Pontius Pilate to a T. He knew that Jesus was innocent. We read this again and again in scripture, John 19, 12. He sought to release the Lord Jesus.

He speaks of his innocence in Luke 23 and verse 4. And he took certain measures to try to save Jesus, or so it seemed. At least he tried to pass off his responsibilities, sent the Lord on one occasion to Herod and said, would you mind sorting him out? After all, he comes from Galilee, not from Judea. He points out that subtle distinction in geography to get him off the hook.

And then Pontius Pilate endeavours to suggest to the Jews that maybe at this particular holy festival period they could have released a prisoner, an upstanding prisoner, someone who hasn't really done much that could be considered bad. And so he gets the worst rogue in the jail, Barabbas, the best man, the Lord Jesus, puts them side by side, tries to tilt the balances in the favor of Jesus. And the crowd, as you know, they cry for Barabbas.

Again, the instability of the man, undiplomatic, unstable. And when the Jews, who were better psychologists than ever, Pontius Pilate was, when Caiaphas and his henchmen came along and said, if you let this man go, you're not Caesar's friend. Well, it was just a puppet on a string.

And they were pulling it. And Pilate was the puppet. That's the person.

Jacob said of his sons, Israel said of his sons, that one of them was as unstable as water. Water, when it's spilt on the ground, you don't know which way it's going to go, particularly if it's dry ground. And that's like Pilate.

That's him historically, but that's him also symbolically. What do I mean? Well, in one sense, and please don't feel I'm being rude in suggesting this, there may be that in your character that is like Pilate. Let me approach it from a different angle.

Pilate has to determine what he's going to do with Jesus at a legal level, or so he thinks. And in one respect, at one level, you have to make a decision as to how you react to the Lord Jesus Christ and what I shall share about the following part of this creedal statement, his death on the cross. When Pilate realized that he wasn't going to get himself off the hook, he sent for a bowl of water and did one of the daftest things that history records.

He washes his hands with the water and then he flicks the water on the Jews, as though you can absolve yourself, Pilate, of responsibility for the death of Jesus Christ by passing it on to someone else. But that's no more stupid than people in the 20th century in this sophisticated southern coast, south coast town of Worthing who listen and dare to come along to a place like the Tab for years and are confronted with the challenge of the gospel and every time they put it off or wash their hands as though it's got nothing to do with them at all. Pilate is not just historical, he's symbolical.

The tribe of Pilate is still with us today and that, I think, is brought out in this creedal statement. Jesus suffered under Pontius Pilate and in one sense he suffers again. When people are confronted with his gospel and they turn a blind eye or they send for the bowl of water and say, you know, it's not my responsibility, I've got no comment to make.

The person. But I said I'd rush on this evening. Let's move to the second P. The passion.

The passion. He suffered under Pontius Pilate. Our Catholic friends and Anglo-Catholic friends speak more of the passion of Jesus than we tend to in Evangelical Protestant circles.

It's really because they derive a great deal of their church history from the Latin tongue and the word passus is the Latin translated in the creed as suffered under Pontius Pilate. In other words, the passion of Jesus came about under the governorship of Pontius Pilate and it's this passion that seems to be summed up in that further expression in our sentence when it says of Jesus he was crucified, died and was buried. Crucified, died, buried.

Almost Wimbledon theology. Game, set, match. That's the end of it.

He suffers. The passion is awful. His life is eliminated and as a result there's nothing else to say.

Well, you will see later on as we follow this series through that there is a great deal more to say. But I digress. I bring you back to this second focal point for our attention in this creedal sentence.

Not only the person Pontius Pilate but the passion, the suffering that he along with others inflicted on Jesus Christ. And there are two things about the passion of Jesus which need to be remembered always by Bible-believing sensitive Christians and they're obvious. Number one, it was painful.

And number two, it was shameful. Crucified. That is the interpretation of the word passion.

But the crucifixion was not all that this remarkable God-man had to go through at the hands of Pilate. Because you remember, prior to him being crucified, he was whipped. They got that terrible Roman whip with its metal tongue and they would have put Jesus on a stake, bound him there and they whipped him.

A terrible, terrible piece of punishment which very often sent the victim mad. And having done that, he's forced to pick up the stake, hoist it on his back with someone else probably bringing the cross piece trailing alongside and he moves up to the scene where he is going to be executed. Painful.

No more vile death was ever concocted by man to rob his fellow of life than crucifixion. And when you talk about the passion of Jesus, then maybe you need to feel that word a little bit more. Passion, if it's correctly defined in the English language, means what someone inflicts on you.

What someone inflicts on you. And this is what our Lord has to endure as his body is pinned to the cross. Probably no more than two feet from the ground.

Visible for all who pass by to look at. According to the legend of Christendom, Jesus is hoisted high on the top of a hill. But as Ron Wayland, back recently with his wife from the Garden Tomb, will tell you, most probably Jesus was crucified at the base of Calvary.

At a passing point where there's a path, a road that's well used so that all who go by can have a look at this man. All those who pass by can insult him and hurl their abuse, as was often the case in the cruel and callous world of the first century A.D. Pinned to the cross. Can you bear the description anymore? I try to use delicate terms and not to go too far.

But so far I have to go to make the horror and the pain stand out as you think about what this man, this unique man, went through. Nails through his hands. Some little saddle probably centered halfway down the supporting strut of the cross so that some weight can be leaned on that or else the body would tear itself away from the nails holding the hands.

Maybe his feet were bound. Maybe they were pierced. We don't know.

Thomas is just shown and asked to see the print of the nails in the hands and the wound in the side. But enough has been said for you to be aware, as though you're ignorant in any case, that the passion of Christ was a vile thing for anyone to have to go through. It was painful.

And what's more, it was shameful. The Old Testament has no concept of crucifixion apart from some prophetic reference, because crucifixion had got nothing to do with the Jewish way of life. They had four ways of bringing in capital punishment, but crucifixion was not one of the four.

And you find in Exodus, or Deuteronomy rather, the reference, cursed is anyone who hangs on a tree. And crucifixion is near enough to hanging for the curse to apply to God's own son who dies in his passion at Calvary. As for the Romans, although they were very, very quick to crucify people, they recognized the shame of the cross.

And one of their writers says, don't let even the word of the cross ever fall from the lips of a Roman citizen. Although there were times when probably 100,000 people were crucified within a matter of a few days around the precincts of Jerusalem in A.D. 120. It was shameful.

And when you think, and when you say that sentence in the creed, he suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. Don't let the speed of the flow cause you to falter at the fathomless depths that is implanted in each one of those verbs. The passion of Christ, he died on the cross.

But the day will come when the cross becomes not just an emblem of shame, but an emblem of hope for Christian people. But more of that in a moment. The person, Pontius Pilate, the passion that the Lord Jesus was crucified, died, and was buried.

And now, and more briefly, the problem. If the first part of my little address asks the question, who? And answers it, who was responsible for the death of Jesus at one level? If the second answers the question, how did Jesus die? The third one poses the difficulty, why? Why? Why did he suffer under Pontius Pilate? Why was he crucified? Why did he die? Why was he buried? And in the creed you'd have to drop right down almost to the last statement. For there you get two or three little phrases which include one which refers to the forgiveness of sins.

The forgiveness of sins. That starts to answer the question. It starts to resolve the problem.

Why did they nail him to Calvary's tree? Why, tell me, why, tell me, why? So often in our hymns, so often our soloists will put that question in one form or another. Alas, and did my sovereign bleed, and did my saviour die? Was it for crimes that he had done, he hung upon the tree? Why did he die? Why the passion? Why is Pontius Pilate allowed to sentence Jesus to such a painful, shameful death? And the answers come flowing from the pens of theologians. And perhaps all the main schools have got something to say.

A number emphasize the fact that it was a mighty illustration of the love of God. For God so loved the world. Here we see love.

God sending his Son and ministering amongst men and ultimately dealing with the thing that frightens most honest men and women more than anything else, death. And so you see an illustration of the love of God. And there are others who say, no, it's not just the love of God that's demonstrated.

Rather we have here a demonstration of Jesus' triumph over Satan. Because in Colossians chapter 1 there's reference, or chapter 2, there's reference to Jesus spoiling the principalities and powers of Satan. Game, set, and match.

He's got Jesus just where he wants him on the cross. But the match isn't over. There's another set.

And Jesus is going to win it. And he is going to extinguish every proud boast that Satan ever could have to be Lord of this earth. And Lord of the destinies of believing mankind.

Death could not keep its prey. Jesus my Savior. He tore the bars away.

Jesus my Lord. There's life yet in Jesus. Life that will be brought about by an action of the Holy Spirit.

And this is all encased at Calvary. Not just an illustration of the love of God, but a demonstration of the power of Christ over the evil of the devil. But it seems to me that the last school of thought has most biblical evidence to justify the position.

Here is substitution. He died as a substitution. There was no other good enough to pay the price of sin.

He only could unlock the gate of heaven and let us in. When Paul is preaching in the Acts of the Apostles, he says of Jesus, he purchased the church through his blood. Paul doesn't blush to use the language of commerce.

The blood of Jesus cleanses us from our sins. It purchases our redemption. I was brought up in a church where you heard much more preaching about the blood of our Lord Jesus than what perhaps one is prone to preach on it again, prone to preach it these days.

And I think we are right to emphasize the power that there is in the blood of Christ. Because he died, he made it possible for you and for me to live. He was substituted for us.

The wrath of God is deflected from believing humanity to him like a lightning flash is deflected from the farmhouse and is taken by the conductor and safely the charge is deposited in Mother Earth. So the Lord Jesus is our lightning conductor. He takes our penalty for the sins that we have committed.

I said I wouldn't preach for long, so here are my three points again. The person, Pontius Pilate, responsible at the human level for the death of Jesus. The passion, crucified, dead and buried.

The problem, why did he die? For you, for me. The time was when the mother of Constantine, emperor of Rome, like her son became a Christian. And she set off to Jerusalem and they dug and they dug and they discovered what purported to be the actual timber on which Jesus was crucified.

And according to legend, as the timber was broken up and sent all over the world, there are so many pieces around these days, you could almost make a forest out of them. The legend was that the wood multiplied. There was a sort of power in the wood.

Well, I think that that could be pushed on one side, it's pure legend, pure fancy. But let me tell you something you can't push aside. There's power in the blood.

And Jesus' death has been multiplied 10,000 times 10,000. As having the ability to cleanse the heart and the life of every man, every woman, every boy, every girl who will come to him and say, I believe that you were cruelly treated by Pontius Pilate, done to death on my behalf. And I confess my need of you.

And I give you my sin, Lord Jesus. And receive from you your pardon. Because there's so much power in your shed blood that you can eliminate me of the consequences of the vilest thing that I've ever done in my life.

That's what the Creed states, in summary fashion, about our Lord Jesus, conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. Let us pray. Father, we've broken off, having only touched on what is to come.

And the thought of that excites us even more than the incredible love and courage of Jesus dying at the cross. The thought of that mighty resurrection. You will not leave your Holy One to see corruption.

His body will never decompose in that tomb. You'll bring him back in the power of an endless life and demonstrate that he is who he claimed to be, Son of God and Son of Man, the Redeemer of all who believe. Help folk who've come into this tabernacle this night to confess that Jesus is Lord.

And not to wash their hands in a futile action. Suggesting they've no responsibility for his death, no responsibility for their own sins. Help us all to realize what has been achieved for us through the great offering of Jesus, under the procuratorship of Pontius Pilate, as he suffered passionately for us on the cross.

Amen. Then sings my soul, my Savior, God to thee, how great thou art. 298.

And thank you, Lord God, for allowing one to suffer under Pontius Pilate and as a result to redeem the believing world. Amen. Amen.

Amen. Amen. Amen.

Amen. Amen. Amen.

Amen.