About this sermon
The Roman soldiers dress Jesus in purple, crown him with thorns, and mock him as King of the Jews, and the chief priests and passersby jeer at him on the cross: ‘He saved others; he cannot save himself.’ Jesus refuses the drugged wine and endures the cross with his senses clear. He could have come down, and he stayed so that he could fully atone for our sins. One of the criminals crucified beside him repents and receives the promise, ‘Today you shall be with me in paradise.’
Sermon transcript
Amen. Please remain standing for the reading of God’s Word as we continue our consideration of the Gospel of Mark and we are reaching the end of our study of Mark. This morning we consider a passage in Mark chapter 15 verses 16 through 32. Let us hear God’s holy word. And remember the setting, our Lord Jesus has undergone both phases of his trial, his trial before the religious authorities and as well as his trial before the secular authority represented in the person of Pontius Pilate. And now Jesus is delivered up to be mocked and scourged and crucified. Let us hear God’s holy word, Mark chapter 15, beginning at verse 16. The soldiers took him away into the palace, that is the praetorium, and they called together the whole Roman cohort. They dressed him up in purple, and after twisting a crown of thorns, they put it on him.
And they began to accuse him, hail, king of the Jews. They kept beating his head with a reed and spitting on him and kneeling and bowing before him. After they had mocked him, they took the purple robe off him and put his own garments on him, and they led him out to crucify him. They pressed into service a passerby coming from the country, Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear his cross. Then they brought him to the place Golgotha, which is translated place of a skull. They tried to give him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. And they crucified him and divided up his garments among themselves, casting lots for them to decide what each man should take. It was the third hour when they crucified him.
The inscription of the charge against him read, the King of the Jews. They crucified two robbers with him, one on his right and one on his left. And the scripture was fulfilled, which says, and he was numbered with the transgressors. Those passing by were hurling abuse at Him, wagging their heads and saying, ha, you who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself and come down from the cross. In the same way, the chief priests also, along with the scribes, were mocking him among themselves and saying, he saved others, he cannot save himself. Let this Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross so that we may see and believe. Those who were crucified with him were also insulting him. Dear friends, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever.
Please join me in prayer. Our Lord and Father in heaven, we thank you for your holy, God-breathed, inerrant, infallible word. It is indeed a lamp unto our feet, a light unto our path, a guide to our way. And Lord, as we approach this very solemn and somber portion of your word, we pray that your spirit would open our minds and our hearts to behold wondrous things from your word. Be present this day, Lord God, as you are present in the reading of the word. Be present by your spirit in the proclamation of your word. Grant unto me, your unworthy servant, the grace to speak forth and declare your word with faithfulness, with power, and with the assistance and grace of your Holy Spirit, for the salvation of the lost, the building up of your saints, and as a powerful witness for the gospel of Jesus Christ.
For it is in his name that we pray, and all of God’s people said. Amen. You may be seated. The title of my sermon this morning is Mocking the King. And if you have your sermon outline, I encourage the children to choose a few of these key words to be listening for as a guide and help to listening and paying attention to the sermon. The words are mockery, king, love, cruelty, gospel, hope, and salvation. Well, friends, when I was a young person, I learned a very common saying that adults tended to teach young people in my day, and that was, sticks and stones may break my bones. Perhaps you’ve heard the saying, right? Sticks and stones may break my bones, but what? But words can never hurt me. Now, in hindsight, I understand why adults would often teach us young people this saying.
After all, you know, basically the idea is, look, your friends are gonna tease you. Don’t take that too seriously. Let that kind of roll off your shoulders. But think about the saying itself. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me. Friends, is that actually true? Is it true that words can never hurt you? I would suggest to you that that is absolutely false. In fact, hurtful words, especially words of cruel mockery and vicious ridicule, can profoundly wound a person’s soul and cause long-term psychological and emotional damage. Sure, it’s true that sticks and stones can break our bones, but broken bones can often heal in a relatively short period of time, and they can often heal back stronger than they were before. But vicious, cruel words can often leave a wound in the soul that can take years to heal, or which may never be completely healed.
Dear ones, our passage for this Lord’s Day morning records for us some of the vicious, cruel words of mockery and ridicule that Jesus Christ, our Messianic King, endured from both the Roman soldiers as well as from his fellow Jews. Now, in past weeks, we’ve considered the events of our Lord’s arrest and the various phases of his trial. First, his trial before the Jewish religious authorities, the Sanhedrin, which took place during the night, and then his early morning trial before the secular authority represented in the person of Pontius Pilate. Jesus also had a hearing before Herod. which other gospel accounts record and so forth. But we considered the various phases of the trial and what Jesus endured through all of that. We considered, for example, how Pontius Pilate, under pressure from the Jewish religious authorities and the crowds, released a violent insurrectionist named Barabbas under pressure at the request of the crowd, and how he condemned Jesus to death, again, under pressure from the religious authorities and from the crowds.
Well, after having Jesus scourged, Pilate handed him over to be crucified, as it says in verse 15. Wishing to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas for them, which is like releasing a terrorist, right? Pilate released Barabbas to them, and after having Jesus scourged, he handed him over to be crucified. And by the way, it’s interesting how simple and straightforward Mark is in speaking about these events. Scourging was a horrible torture. The Roman scourge included several whips with pieces of bone and metal on them. And if you were subject to a Roman scourge, it is likely that your entire back area, your buttocks, and the parts of your upper legs would be entirely shredded. Your skin would be shredded, oftentimes exposing muscle, even bone. And many victims of scourging, Roman scourging, died from the torture. But Jesus was handed over to be scourged, and then after his scourging, Jesus was handed over to be crucified.
Well, our passage for this Lord’s Day morning continues Mark’s narrative of our Lord’s passion of His suffering and death upon the cross. As Mark here records, our Lord’s mistreatment by the Roman soldiers who guarded Him, His crucifixion, and the mockery He endured from His fellow countrymen as He hung upon the cross to pay the penalty for our sin. So let’s dive into our passage for today, beloved, and I want you to consider first of all, and this is the first point in your outline if you’re following along, consider the incredible love of Christ for us sinners. A love which compelled him to endure such shame and mockery from the wicked. This passage of Holy Scripture, this solemn, somber passage of God’s Word highlights and displays the incredible love of Jesus Christ for us sinners. Consider the incredible love of Christ for us sinners, a love which compelled him to endure such shame and mockery from the wicked.
We see an example of the ridicule that Christ endured in these verses. I want to focus especially on verses 16 through 20, and then verses 29 through 32 at this point. Let’s go through these portions of this passage. And first of all, we see that Jesus endured shame and mockery from the pagans, from these unbelieving Gentile soldiers. Look at verse 16, it says, the soldiers took him away into the palace, that is the praetorium, and they called together the whole Roman cohort, or it could be translated as battalion. Now, what was this palace or praetorium? Well, it was probably, this probably refers to the official residence of the governor. And so Jesus was taken there and it says the whole battalion came together to mock the Lord Jesus Christ. Now the word in the Greek for battalion or cohort is spera.
And since Aspera, the 10th part of a legion, consisted of 200 to 600 men, as one commentator points out, the word is probably used loosely here by Mark to include only the soldiers that were immediately at hand. But the point is, here is Jesus all alone, surrounded by these scoffing pagans. Now, these soldiers had probably had a lot of experience putting to death Jewish insurrectionists, those who among the Jews would be messiahs and would be insurrectionists who sought to overturn Roman rule. And so they probably figured this guy, Jesus of Nazareth, was just another Messianic pretender, just another one of these zealots, Jewish zealots, who was trying to overturn Roman rule. That was their view. But nonetheless, here is Jesus all alone as he is surrounded by these scoffers, these mockers. And what do they do to him?
It says, verse 17, they dressed him up in purple. Purple was a royal color. He’s charged with political insurrection. That was the civil charge brought against him. A civil charge, by the way, as we discovered on the last Lord’s Day, that Pilate himself rejected. Pilate said, I find no fault in this man. Pilate knew that the Jewish authorities brought Jesus before him out of envy. Pilate knew that the charges against Jesus were, that there was nothing to them, but nevertheless, in order to save his own political career, and under pressure from the crowds, Pilate gave Jesus over to their whims, their desire that he be crucified. And so they put on him a purple robe, perhaps an old soldier’s cape. And then what else do they do? It says, they dressed him up in purple and after twisting a crown of thorns, they put it on him.
Regarding this crown of thorns, one commentator points out, Jesus bore the divine curse on the ground which produced thorns after Adam sinned. Remember I read that passage from Genesis chapter three earlier in the service where after Adam and Eve had disobeyed God’s command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God confronted them, judicially confronted them in the garden And he pronounced the curse. He pronounced the curse upon the serpent, which contains the proto-evangel. He will crush your head. You will wound his heel. But in the curse pronounced upon Adam, what does God say? He says the ground will bring forth thorns and thistles. Well, here is Jesus, and he has placed on his head A crown of thorns. I believe we are intended to understand this as having redemptive historical significance because what this points to is that Jesus Christ bore the divine curse that God had placed upon the ground.
He bore that curse upon himself. And then this commentator goes on to say, the soldiers used the crown to ridicule the idea that Jesus was the king. Not only the crown, but the purple robe. So here is Jesus, all bloodied up because of the scourging, and a crown of thorns is put on his head. And what goes on next, verse 18, they began to acclaim him. Hail, King of the Jews, as they said, in jest and mockery. And what else did they do to honor this king? They kept beating his head with a reed and spitting on him and kneeling and bowing before him. The kind of mockery that our Lord endured, the ridicule, not only the physical agony and pain, but the mental torment and agony that Jesus endured through the mockery of these soldiers was more than any of us could even begin to imagine.
Oh, how alone our Lord Jesus must have felt. But Jesus, the Son of God incarnate, underwent this suffering for you and for me, dear brother and sister in Christ. But not only, and then if we skip along to verse 29. It says, those passing by were hurling abuse at him, wagging their heads and saying, ha, you who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself and come down from the cross. In the same way, the chief priests also, along with the scribes, were mocking him among themselves and saying he saved others. He cannot save Himself. Here we see Jesus enduring shame and mockery from His own fellow Jews. It’s one thing for these, for Jesus to endure such mockery from these Gentile soldiers who, you know, they didn’t understand the Jewish faith.
They didn’t understand the Jewish religion, at least not to the extent that they, they weren’t familiar with the Scriptures. So, in a sense, it’s understandable that pagan unbelievers would mock Jesus. After all, in their view, he’s just another one of these would-be messiahs, another one of these Jewish zealots that’s trying to overthrow Rome. But Jesus experiences mockery from the people who ought to have recognized Him as the true Messiah. This mockery by His own people must have hurt Him even more than the mockery He had received from the soldiers. But in all of this, brothers and sisters, we see the love of Christ displayed. let’s focus on that as we focus on verses 21 through 30. It says in verse 21, after Jesus, verse 20, let me start at verse 20, after they had mocked Him, they took the purple robe off Him, which must have been incredibly painful, because remember, His back had been shredded from the scourging, and with the purple robe being put on His back, imagine, I mean, what happens when you tear off a band-aid that has been applied inappropriately or not carefully.
It hurts. Imagine the robe being ripped off his back. That must have caused incredible pain. But they take off the purple robe, and then they put his garments back on him. And they led him out to crucify him. And as they led him out, he had to carry his own crossbeam. The crossbeam typically weighed about 30 to 40 pounds. So Jesus, with his shredded back, carrying this crossbeam, He couldn’t handle it. And so what happens? Look at verse 21. They pressed into service a passerby coming from the country. And then this passerby whom the soldiers pressed into service to carry Jesus’s crossbeam is named. He’s Simon of Cyrene. And then Mark goes further to identify him. He’s the father of Alexander and Rufus. to bear his cross.” Now Simon of Cyrene, where is Cyrene? Cyrene was in northern Africa where there was a significant Jewish population at that time.
Alexander and Rufus are probably mentioned here because they were likely known to the church in Rome and Mark according to early church tradition, Mark’s gospel was originally written to the church in Rome. And so this Rufus, this Alexander and Rufus are probably mentioned because they were likely known to this church in Rome. And we see that, for example, let’s take a look at Romans 16 verse 13, which may be referring to the very same Rufus mentioned in this passage. In Romans chapter 16, verse 13, we read these words. Paul writes, “‘Greet Rufus, a choice man in the Lord, also his mother and mine.’” Now what does this point us to? Well this underscores the claim, beloved, that Mark’s gospel is derived from eyewitness testimony. According to the United Testimony of the early church, Mark was written, John Mark was a disciple of the apostle Peter.
And so what we have in Mark’s gospel is likely a representation of Peter’s preaching. And in any case, Mark bases his gospel on eyewitness testimony, and of course the Holy Spirit inspired Mark to write precisely what he wrote. And as I mentioned, the crosspiece that condemned criminals were forced to carry could be 30 to 40 pounds. Since Jesus was too exhausted to carry his own crosspiece, Simon was involuntarily conscripted by the soldiers to carry the cross of our Lord. And that was something that anyone could be subjected to. If you lived back in those days and you happened to be walking down the street and a very common sight was Roman soldiers carrying off criminals to a place of execution. If you were an able-bodied man, the soldiers might call on you and say, hey you, pick up this guy’s cross, and you would have no choice, you’d have to do it.
So that’s what Simon of Cyrene was pressed into service to do. And then verse 22, it says, then they brought him to the place Golgotha, which is translated place of a skull. Now think about it, why was it called place of a skull? It might have been called Place of a Skull because perhaps this hill was shaped like a skull, or perhaps it was named that way because perhaps this was a place where many had been executed by the Roman government for their crimes against Rome. In any case, isn’t it ironic? Here, Jesus dies on the cross at the place of a skull, and the skull represents death. Jesus died on Golgotha to deliver God’s people from death. But when he arrives there, when he arrives at Golgotha, what do they do before they crucify him?
Look at verse 23. They tried to give him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. This would have had an anesthetic effect which would have somewhat dulled the pain. Now if it was the soldiers who offered our Lord this wine, this cheap wine, then this serves to show that even these hardened soldiers who had likely crucified many victims, even these soldiers were not entirely devoid of humanitarian concern for their victims. But nevertheless, Jesus refuses it. Jesus refuses this wine that would have helped to dull the pain. Jesus our Lord chose to face the agony of crucifixion with his senses fully intact. Was he insane? Why did he do this? He chose to endure the agony of the cross without any mitigation of his pain. Why did he do this? He did this because he was going to the cross to pay the penalty for our sin.
And the only way he could do that was with all of his senses intact. In other words, Jesus did this out of love for us sinners. And then we have this display of what was going on at the foot of the cross. It says in verse 24, it says they crucified Him. Again, Mark, a very straightforward record of what they did. Doesn’t go into any of the details about the horrors of crucifixion because Mark’s readers would have been very familiar with the torture of crucifixion. And they crucified him and divided up his garments among themselves as the soldiers, the executioners had the right according to Roman custom to take the spoil from their victims. And so they casted lots for them to decide what each man should take. This is very significant because it is a fulfillment of Psalm 22 verse 18.
If you look at that passage, and I know we read that together earlier in the service, but Psalm 22 verse 18. One of the most often quoted passages from the Old Testament quoted in the New Testament, it says, they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots. So this is a fulfillment of this messianic prophecy recorded in Psalm 22, verse 18. And then something amazing happens, it says this. They tried to give him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it, and they crucified him and divided up his garments among themselves, casting lots for them to decide what each man should take. It was the third hour when they crucified him.” Now, by Roman reckoning, the third hour, the first hour started at 6 a.m., so the third hour would be around 9 a.m. in the morning.
And then verse 26, the inscription of the charge against him read, the King of the Jews. That was the civil charge brought against the Lord Jesus. And then it says in verse 27, they crucified two robbers with him, one on his right and one on his left. Now again, verse 26, typically the charge against the victim of crucifixion was put on a placard and hung above the head of the victim as a public witness to the crime of the crucified as well as a warning and deterrent to the public. And so here is Jesus, falsely accused. And He is indeed the King of the Jews. He’s King of Kings and Lord of Lords. They crucified two robbers with him, we’re told. Now the term robbers there could more accurately be translated as insurrectionists. These weren’t just some thieves.
These were men who were involved in a crime against the Roman government, an attempt to overthrow the government. Perhaps they had participated with Barabbas in the insurrection that he was involved in. In any case, verse 27, what does this underscore? It underscores the fact that Jesus as the suffering servant was indeed numbered with the transgressors just as Isaiah 53 verse 12 predicted that he would be. And then verses 29 and 30, those passing by were hurling abuse at him, wagging their heads and saying, ha, you who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself and come down from the cross. Come down from the cross. Come down from the cross. Do you think Jesus desired in his humanity to come down from the cross? Who wouldn’t desire that? This was not just cruel mockery of Jesus on the part of those who were hurling this abuse.
This was not only cruel mockery as our Lord was writhing in the agonies of crucifixion, it was also a great temptation to Jesus. This was, in a sense, Satan tempting Jesus through the mockery of the crowd to indeed come down from the cross Understand, beloved, that our Lord Jesus Christ could have ended his suffering at any moment if he had chosen to do so. He had the authority as the divine Son of God incarnate. He had the authority to call legions of angels to his aid and to miraculously come off the cross and to immediately crush and judge those who were his tormentors. But instead of doing that, he chose to stay on the cross He endured all of this unimaginable agony, ridicule, and shame. You see, if Jesus had come off the cross at the instigation of this temptation, if he had said, that’s it, no more, what that would have meant is that our sins would not have been fully atoned for.
What that would mean is that we would be unredeemed. We would remain unredeemed and lost and dead in our sins. But because Jesus willingly, voluntarily stayed on the cross, sin has been atoned for. Our forgiveness and salvation has been won. Jesus endured all of this for us and for our salvation. What a great, amazing display of God’s love and mercy to us in Christ. So we’ve considered the incredible love of Christ for us sinners that is demonstrated by our Lord’s sufferings on the cross and all of the mockery and ridicule that he endured. But next consider the depths of human cruelty and hardness of heart displayed in these events. We’re so used to hearing this passion story that we sometimes miss the power of it. You say, yeah, I’ve heard this. Been there, done that.
Heard this story before. Yeah, ho-hum. No. This account should drive home to our hearts not only the incredible love of Christ for us sinners, but it should also drive home to us the human capacity for cruelty and hardness of heart. We see the cruelty of insensitive, harsh mockery. What hardness of heart on the part of both the Roman soldiers and on the part of the Jewish crowds to mock someone who is suffering such horrific agony as our Lord was suffering then. What incredible hardness of heart that takes. I mean, yes, some would say, well, yeah, but the Roman soldiers believed Jesus deserved this, and certainly the Jewish religious authorities believed that Jesus deserved this. In their view, Jesus was a blasphemer, and the penalty for blasphemy under the old covenant law was death, execution. But nevertheless, even if Jesus was a man who deserved the treatment that he got, how wicked to gloat over the sufferings, the horrible sufferings of a fellow human being.
So we see the cruelty of their insensitive, harsh mockery. We also see the cruelty of their inhumane treatment of the Lord Jesus Christ. Dear friends, few tortures invented by the sick, perverse mind of sinful man are as cruel, as brutal, and as inhumane as the torture of crucifixion. Now, Jesus endured an eternity of suffering, if you will, in the brief six hours or so that he was on the cross, but many victims of crucifixion could linger two, even three days before finally expiring. It was a horrible torture, and you think about it. Jesus suspended with these large spikes through his wrists and his feet. The only way, if you were a crucifixion victim, the only way that you could get a breath would be to pull yourself up on the spikes that were driven through your hands and feet.
And as Jesus pulls himself up for each and every breath, His shredded back, shredded from the horrors of his scourging, would have rubbed against the rough wood of the cross. It was a horrible, horrible torture. What is the root of this hardness and cruelty that leads sinful man to treat their fellow human beings in such a way? Well, the answer is our sin nature. I remember many years ago I was a seminary student at Gordon-Conwell in the Boston area. I remember this was back in the early 90s. We were watching the news one evening and I remember hearing a story about a young lady who I believe she had been traveling in Israel and she had been tragically murdered. And I remember the news team was interviewing, I believe it was her father, and her father made an interesting comment about his daughter who, again, had been tragically murdered.
Her father said, you know, my daughter never stopped believing in the basic goodness of humanity. What an ironic and sad thing. His daughter had been tragically murdered in cold blood And yet, his daughter had believed in the basic goodness of humanity, and it seems like her father did, still did, too. Contrary to popular belief, man is not basically good. The events recorded in our passage for today demonstrate that. You see, brothers and sisters, it was our sin that nailed Jesus to the cross. And every time you and I sin, It’s as if we are holding that hammer and driving it down into the spikes one more time. But Jesus endured this for us and for our salvation. And so even as we consider the horror of the human capacity for evil and cruelty, We see finally here, and this is the final point of your sermon outline, consider finally the hope which our Lord’s passion offers to a sinful, hardened humanity.
The hope which our Lord’s passion offers to a sinful, hardened humanity. Look at verse 31. It says, in the same way the chief priests also, who should have known better, by the way, and along with the scribes, who also should have known better, they were mocking him among themselves, saying, He saved others, He cannot save Himself. Let this Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross so that we may see and believe those who were crucified with Him were also insulting Him. Verse 31 is so ironic. These chief priests, these scribes who should have recognized Jesus as the Messiah, what do they say as they’re mocking Jesus amongst themselves? They say, well, He saved others, but Himself He cannot save. Now, of course, Jesus could have saved Himself from that suffering if He’d wanted to, but He didn’t, thankfully.
It was all part of God’s sovereign plan that He would drink down the dregs of the holy wrath of God for us and for our salvation. But notice, they say, He saved others. Even our Lord’s enemies recognized that Christ had the power to save others. This was a power that was abundantly demonstrated during our Lord’s earthly ministry by His many miraculous acts, acts such as His healing of the sick, giving sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf and speech to the dumb. raising up those who were paralyzed and so forth. He demonstrated his power to save through healing the sick, through raising the dead. Remember Lazarus? Through his casting out of demons, his multiplying of the loaves and the fishes, his walking on the water, his calming of the storm. All of these bore testimony to the almighty, divine, sovereign, saving power of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The hope which our Lord’s passion offers to a sinful humanity is not simply the hope of physical healing or freedom from demonic possession. It is the hope of eternal salvation, nothing less than the hope of eternal salvation. And not just the hope in the sense of a mere wish. Remember that biblical hope is a certainty but is still yet in the future. For in Christ, salvation is not only accomplished, but it is absolutely secured. And we see how Christ’s saving grace shines forth even in these dark moments. As verse 32 tells us, it says, those who were crucified with him were also insulting him. Remember, Jesus was crucified between two insurrectionists, two thieves or criminals. Even the two criminals crucified with Jesus initially joined with the crowds in insulting and mocking our Lord. However, this is where it’s important to compare scripture with scripture.
As Luke’s gospel tells us, at some point, one of these criminals has a change of heart. The Holy Spirit begins working in the heart of one of these criminals, and he is brought to repentance. Let’s compare this passage with Luke 23, verses 39 to 43. Let me just read that for you. I’d invite you to turn to Luke 23, verses 39 to 43. We read these words. One of the criminals who were hanged there was hurling abuse at him saying, are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us. But the other answered and rebuking him said, do you not even fear God since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed are suffering justly for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds. But this man has done nothing wrong. And he was saying, Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingdom.
It was definitely the work of the Holy Spirit bringing this man to recognize that this crucified man beside him was indeed the king of the Jews, indeed the messianic king. And what does Jesus say to him? Verse 43, He said to him, truly I say to you, today you shall be with me in paradise. Dear listener, what about you? Will you join with the crowds and the one criminal on the cross who mocked Jesus, the Messianic King? Or will you, like this repentant criminal on the cross, turn to Jesus Christ in penitent faith and recognize him as your Messianic King? If you, by grace, turn to Christ in faith and repentance, trusting Him for your salvation from sin, then what Jesus said to this criminal on the cross, He says to you. He says that you will be with me in paradise.
Maybe not today, But indeed, you will be with him in paradise because God’s word promises that if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you will be saved. Repent and believe the good news. Do not mock the Savior. Embrace the Savior by faith as your very own Lord and Savior. And God will forgive your sins through the blood of Christ, renew you by his spirit, and secure you for eternity. For there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Amen. Let us pray. Our gracious Lord and Father in heaven, we thank you for the sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ, which were followed by His glorious resurrection victory. Lord Jesus, how we thank you that you loved us unto death, that you stretched out your arms upon the hardwood of the cross to bear our sin in your body on the cross.
And Heavenly Father, we thank you that out of love for us sinners, you gave the greatest gift of all, you gave the gift of your son Jesus, who came willingly and voluntarily and submitted himself to death on the cross, that he might win our redemption. And so we pray, Heavenly Father, that these truths would find a lodging place in our souls and bear fruit in our lives, fruit of gratitude and praise and obedience for all that you have done for us. We pray these things through Christ our Lord and all of God’s people said, amen. As we close our time in worship, let’s rise and we’ll sing together number 342, Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted, 342.
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