[0:00] Jesus said, do this in remembrance of me. What does it mean to remember? Usually in the Bible, it doesn't mean to recollect.
[0:16] Paul writing to Timothy in 2 Timothy says, remember Jesus Christ raised from the dead, descended from David. The whole book of 2 Timothy is Paul's trying to encourage Timothy.
[0:33] He's saying, teach others, Timothy, encourage, endure hardship, don't get involved in civilian affairs, run to win the crown, work like a hardworking farmer.
[0:49] Then he says, remember Jesus Christ. Remembering means grounding yourself again in who Jesus is.
[1:03] Like an electrician attaches the wire to the ground. That's how this is going to work. Remembering means grounding yourself again to Jesus.
[1:18] That's where we get the power. That's where we get the life. That's where we get the zeal. That's where we get the power to be courageous, to be bold, to be hardworking, to be a zealous pastor.
[1:34] In Timothy's case, to be a zealous Christian. It's when you're grounded in Jesus Christ. And that's what we're doing tonight.
[1:44] We are, in a way, attaching ourselves again to Jesus. Again to Christ.
[1:56] Tying ourselves into him. To remember what he was all about. To remember his sufferings. Why he suffered.
[2:08] And what does that mean for me? What does that mean for me? This is not meant to be just a mental exercise in remembering Jesus' death.
[2:19] It is meant to be a transformative remembering of who Jesus is. So that your Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursdays are different. Because you, in a fresh way, remembered who Jesus was.
[2:36] What he did. Why he died. We heard last Sunday, two messages on zeal. On zeal for evangelism. And on zeal for praying.
[2:48] For spending. For being spent. For the lost. And in the morning message, I said that we lose our zeal when we lose our hope. And, but we also lose our hope and our zeal when we are detached from Jesus.
[3:07] When we're not ground in him. We're forgetting him. He's not weighing on our hearts. And then when we forget him. And so that's really, that's why we need to remember tonight.
[3:22] So that we do live the kind of lives that we're, that God has called us to do. To live. And so tonight I have a question I want to ponder together.
[3:35] And I understand it might not be grammatically correct. I'm not sure. But the question I want us to ponder together is, what got Jesus killed?
[3:48] What got Jesus killed? What took Jesus to the cross? And there's probably lots of answers.
[3:59] But I want to look at what was his internal motivation. That set him on a collision course with the cross. And he couldn't, he wouldn't be turned away from it.
[4:14] So take your Bibles and turn to Psalm 69. Psalm 69. This psalm is a messianic psalm.
[4:28] It's six times in the New Testament. Psalm 69 is quoted as being about Jesus. So six times it's about Jesus.
[4:43] It says that. And so when we read it, we're reading not just what happened to David. But, but what happened to Jesus? What was driving David?
[4:56] And what was driving Jesus? John 19, 28. This is just one example. Later knowing that all was now completed. And so that the scripture, that the scripture would be fulfilled.
[5:09] Jesus said, I am thirsty. And a jar of wine vinegar was there. And so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant and lifted it to Jesus' lips.
[5:22] Jesus was given vinegar to drink. In order that the scripture might be fulfilled. What scripture needed to be fulfilled.
[5:35] It was Psalm 69, verse 21. They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst. And that's just one, one place.
[5:45] So what got Jesus killed? Psalm 69 tells us. And so I want you to follow along as I just read the first nine verses. Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck.
[6:05] I want you to imagine Jesus. And this is something of his internal dialogue with the Lord as he's now on the cross.
[6:16] Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in the miry depths where there is no foothold. I've come into the deep waters.
[6:28] The floods engulf me. I am worn out calling for help. My throat is parched. My eyes fail looking for my God. Those who hate me without reason outnumber the hairs of my head.
[6:43] Many are my enemies without cause. Those who seek to destroy me. I'm forced to restore what I did not steal. You know my folly, O God.
[6:55] My guilt is not hidden from you. May those who hope in you not be disgraced because of me. O Lord, the Lord Almighty. May those who seek you not be put to shame because of me, O God of Israel.
[7:09] For I endure scorn for your sake. And shame covers my face. I'm a stranger to my brothers. An alien to my own mother's sons.
[7:21] For zeal for your house consumes me. And the insults of those who insult you fall on me.
[7:32] Well, you see his suffering in this psalm. The cross was a drowning in sorrow.
[7:43] The waters have come up to my neck. It was like sinking into mud. I sink into the miry depths. And so you see his suffering. I call and I call and I call until my voice gives out.
[7:58] And I can't call anymore. My throat is parched. My voice fails me. My eyes fail me looking. And so why is he there? Well, it's not for any good reason.
[8:12] He doesn't deserve this. Verse 4. For those who hate me without reason outnumber the hairs of my head. Many are my enemies without cost. And so remember Pilate.
[8:24] He gave the judgment. He had examined him. I have examined him in your presence and have found no basis for your charges against him. Neither has Herod. As you can see, he has done nothing to deserve death.
[8:38] So whatever got Jesus killed, it wasn't because of his guilt. It wasn't because he deserved to be there. So there's no good reason.
[8:51] The Sanhedrin went on a fishing expedition when he came before them. The chief priests in the whole Sanhedrin, it says, were looking for evidence against Jesus so that they could put him to death.
[9:06] But they did not find any. He was put on trial. And the outcome, the verdict, had already been decided before the evidence had been seen.
[9:17] And they were just looking for evidence to get the result they wanted. The end was already decided. Now, where do we find some evidence? And they brought people before him.
[9:27] And even those people, the witnesses, couldn't agree for so long. It says he was punished as an innocent man. I'm forced to restore what I did not steal.
[9:38] So I'm being punished for something I didn't do. But why this hostility then? Why this hostility?
[9:51] What got Jesus killed? Why did they shame him? Why did they shame him? And scorn him? And hate him so much?
[10:02] Why is his countrymen turning away from him? Well, verse 7, for I endure scorn for your sake.
[10:15] He's doing this for God's sake. And then verse 9 is what I really want to focus on. For zeal for your house consumes me.
[10:26] And the insults of those who insult you fall on me. What got Jesus killed? It was his zeal for God's house.
[10:41] His zeal for God's worship. For God's glory. For God's name. It was his passionate, faithfulness, and earnest desire to please the Lord.
[10:53] That's what got him killed. A zeal to see people come to God. To meet with God. To have fellowship with God. In order that God and man might come together.
[11:05] It was that zeal in his own heart that drove him. It was his own zeal for the worship of God.
[11:16] That people everywhere might worship God. And have that opportunity. And be able to participate in that. That got him killed.
[11:26] It was that that drove him. And motivated him. And so when we're remembering Jesus Christ tonight, we need to be clear of why did he die?
[11:39] There might be lots of answers, but it was this. He was passionate. He was zealous for the worship of God.
[11:50] To see people on the outside be able to come inside and worship in the Lord's house. So in John 2, we have a quote from Psalm 69.
[12:03] He visited the temple and he made a whip out of cords and he drove out all the sellers and the animals and he scattered the coins of the money changers and he overturned their tables.
[12:16] And he says, get these out of here. How dare you turn my father's house into a market? How dare you?
[12:26] Do you hear the zeal in that? Do you hear the passion? He's not milquetoast about the worship of God. He's not milquetoast about the temple and God being worshipped.
[12:38] Luke 19 probably tells us the same event. It might be another one, but this is the last week of Jesus' life. This is early on in the week that is going to end in Friday in his crucifixion.
[12:56] And it says, Jesus entered the temple area and he began driving out those who were selling. And the question is why?
[13:08] And it's because it is written, my house will be a house of prayer, Jesus says, but you have made it into a den of robbers. He's quoting Isaiah chapter 56 there, which says, foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord to serve him, to love the name of the Lord and to worship him, I will bring them to my holy mountain and give them joy in the house of prayer.
[13:35] Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations. That's the vision that Jesus has.
[13:49] His heart is completely lined up. That's what God is doing. That is what I'm here for. I want to see the nations come to God.
[14:01] That the temple, that God's worship might be a place of prayer, that might be a place of gladness and joy for all nations. And so Jesus clears the temple because right there in the only part, the only part of the temple complex area where Gentiles could go and in some measure participate in the worship of the Lord right there and the only place they were allowed to get close to God.
[14:30] There were animals and there were money changers. They traveled over land and sea like the Ethiopian eunuch for this event.
[14:42] And for most of them, this would have been a one time, at least a rare occasion for them. And instead of having this experience of worshiping God, they're met with a market.
[14:58] And Jesus, Jesus' love for them, his desire for people to, from all over the world to worship God, it lit a fire in his soul and that's why he's saying, how dare you?
[15:14] All of this that you are doing is incomplete against the grain of what God is doing, of what the Lord is doing in the world.
[15:25] And so he bends all of his holy anger into action and it's a zeal. This is what the disciples remembered, zeal for the Lord's house consumed him. You see, it's a picture of a fire burning and there's a fire burning inside of the Lord and it's burning him up until it consumes him.
[15:44] He couldn't let it go. He wouldn't let it go. He wouldn't walk away. He wanted man and God to come together. And that happened in the temple.
[15:59] And he wanted to see men worshiping his father in joy and in gladness like Isaiah says. In the John 2 passage, he says, he calls himself the temple because he is the place.
[16:15] Where God and men meet. Where a sacrifice is made and sinners are forgiven. And so he says, destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it. And as the New Testament says, as we're joined to him, we are joined into this living temple.
[16:31] He takes these stones and he's building this temple where God and man come together. and even you are called the temple of the Holy Spirit. The place where the Holy Spirit dwells.
[16:45] Why is that? It's because of what Jesus has done. And so he went to the earth looking for worshipers. That's why his father had sent him to make worshipers.
[16:56] Remember the Samaritan woman. And the father is looking for worshipers. And so there he was. He's looking and he's on this mission that men and women everywhere could come out of their sin and come to God.
[17:14] Could leave their life of sin and meet their God. And it was zeal for that that consumed him. But his zeal ran into hostility.
[17:29] And that's a very important thing. We're asking the question what got Jesus killed? It wasn't enough that he had this zeal and this vision.
[17:42] This zeal ran into hostility. Who ran the temple in Jesus' day? Well the high priest and the Sanhedrin did.
[17:54] And we need to think culturally. We need to think economically. We need to think what this is socially. They had a good thing going. The temple was their source of power.
[18:08] The temple was their source of influence. This was their source of wealth even. We all know about Jesus' ongoing sort of running battles with the Pharisees.
[18:21] It started early in his ministry and they continued throughout. But historically the Pharisees were not the elite of the elite.
[18:32] They were more the rural they were a rural local power. They would run the local synagogue. They were important in small town politics so to speak. But they weren't the elite of the elite.
[18:44] They were not the Harvard and the Goldman Sachs and things like that. Only a very few of these Pharisees rose to the top. Some did. Some certainly did.
[18:56] But for the most part they didn't. The elite of the elite of Jesus' day were these high priests. And they were part of this ongoing existing power structure.
[19:10] They were from the old royal power. They were tied in with Herod and Philip the Tetrarch and they were the children and the grandchildren and the nephews of these old kings that had ruled right before Rome took over.
[19:27] So these are the existing power brokers in Palestine. They're the 1%. And they are in charge of the temple and the temple is their thing. And it's only when Jesus came to the temple and says, how dare you?
[19:45] How dare you? And he's overturning. And he's coming right into their house so to speak. And overturning their power and confronting them with their sin.
[19:58] And he says, my father's house will be a house of joy and gladness, a house of prayer for all nations. And it was at that point that the high priest said, you know what? He's got to go. He's got to go. And they had their hands on the levers of power.
[20:12] They had Pilate's ear. They could get Pilate up early in the morning. And they could get audiences with Herod and Pilate. They could rouse a rabble crowd.
[20:22] They could get the whole Sanhedrin together to work against him. And do you see what it was? It was a clash between two worlds. It was a clash between two ways of living.
[20:35] It was a clash between two visions for God's people. It was a clash between Satan's world of pride and power and wealth. And crashing into that was God's coming kingdom where poor Samaritan women could come and worship.
[20:56] Where unclean Gentiles would worship God. And so the high priests were all about selfish ambition and excluding people and they only care for themselves.
[21:07] But here is Jesus and his heart is burning up inside of him and he can't let this go and he won't let it go. He is here to save. He is here to glorify his father.
[21:21] He wants to see God worshipped. He wants to see people saved. He wants to bring God and man together in peace in himself. And these two visions can't coexist.
[21:35] and so they struck him down and they insulted him. Jesus stood for God and what God God's purposes and plans and they and that was intolerable.
[21:56] He was a threat to their world and he was a threat to them and so he had to die. And it it was his zeal it was his zeal for God.
[22:10] It was his love for people. It was his desire to see people saved. It was his desire to see people safe and sound in the father's house brought out of Satan's house and built into this temple to God.
[22:24] And that's what got him killed. Historically that's what got him killed. Theologically that's what took him to the cross. It was his own heart. His own love for God.
[22:36] His own love for men. And it set him on a collision course with the powers to be. And ultimately it set him on a collision course with the cross where men could be saved.
[22:51] Where Gentiles and Samaritan women could leave their sin and through the cross come to God and worship him in gladness.
[23:05] If he would have tipped the hat if he would have got in line if he would have put his message under theirs he would have lived.
[23:16] If he wouldn't have crossed the wrong people if he would have looked after himself and just went along it would have all been fine. But the mission was too important.
[23:30] God was too important. My soul your soul the soul of all that the father had given him all those souls it was too important and he's I must bring them to God.
[23:43] I must cleanse them and I must make them into a temple and so in dying he brought us to God and it was mission accomplished. And now that temple is spreading all over the world and he is bringing people to God and you know what he is doing it with as much zeal and stubbornness in the best possible way that word can be interpreted with as much zeal and stubbornness as he did before.
[24:15] The Lord of the harvest is on the move. He was zealously pursuing the mission then and it took him to the cross and now that he has risen it's not completely finished.
[24:26] The work is still going on and he suffered for his prize and he's going to get it and now he's taking it. And that's why Paul said to Timothy remember Jesus Christ Timothy Timothy that's what you have to be about.
[24:44] That that zeal that earnestness that passion for God and his kingdom that's what you need to be about that's what Jesus was about Paul in 2nd Timothy in that passage says that's why I'm chained like a criminal that's why my life is the way it is because that's what Jesus was doing for me and so tonight I want you to remember Jesus Christ what did he die for what got him killed well it was his burning sacrificial love his all consuming love for God and man and it put him on a collision course with the cross and it was a course he would not turn away from so he endured the scorn and the shame and so it begs the question then what am
[25:51] I going to do how should I live because just remembering Jesus Christ it always has this echo it's supposed to have this echo in my life if that's what Jesus thought was so worthy and so valuable and so worth dying for then what am I going to do how should I live you know will I live for mine and me my comfort my ease my glory that's what the high priests were all about but Jesus wanted sinners saved and he wanted God worshipped so tonight remember Jesus Christ ground yourself he did this for God he did this for you and so what will you do for him this week shouldn't the same zeal be burning in us that's what remembering him would look like where you ground yourself you say this is what this is what he was about this is what he is about this is why he died well then what am
[27:06] I going to do is my life going to be in harmony with his or not so what will you do for him this week that's what remembering Jesus Christ is about for tonight let's ask ourselves that question and let's be thinking about the answer