Jesus paid for sin. Justice required it. The Son was bruised. He was led away by evil hands. He was clothed with our shame and then crowned with thorns. He was mocked and spat upon. Now we are rich and blessed and honored because He was served justice. Mark 15:16-20; Isaiah 53:10

Speaker: Thomas Schaller

Sermon 12529
11AM on 6/18/2023

P. Schaller –

Hello. Praise the Lord. Jesus. We are here in Jesus’ name. We are here in the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Huh, isn’t
that good? We are here praising God. Beautiful way to start our Sunday, isn’t it? Just praising
God and thanking him.

Two parts to the message. The first part, simple principle while we are listening. We just
worshipped. The Spirit of God here. Actually, before I start, I want to welcome certain people
here that I see in the audience. Just thank you for coming to the Convention. There’s P. Tony
there, right? P. Tony. Is that P. David? Wow! Man! And Matt. Good. From Pittsfield. Would you
stand the Pittsfield group? We want to welcome you guys. Then, thank you. How about you are
here from Poland. Would you stand up?

France. You’re here from France. Would you like to stand up. Oleg. Okay. The girls here. Yes.
And then Morocco, Dario and Anique. There they are. Wow! Finland. You’re from Finland. You
want to stand up. Finland. Wow. Beautiful. Awesome. How about Brazil? Brazil. P. Gerardo and
his wife. Indonesia. There’s P. Cliff and Marcie. Albania. You’re here from Albania. Here we go.
Wow! Isn’t that amazing. If you’re from anywhere in Latin America, Peru, Chile, would you stand
up? Latin America. There we go. And then let’s see. China. You’re here from China. How about
it? No. India? India. There we go. Good to have you. That’s excellent. Cyrpus. Mediterranean. P.
Larry and Bev. We are so thankful for this coming week, and just we are seeking God. Amen.
We are seeking God in our hearts and relating to him. Okay.

Father’s Day. Congratulations to all the fathers. We have slim jims out there in the foyer or beef
jerkey or something for the dads on the way out. We just want to honor the dads. Seriously, we
could. We’re not going to preach about fathers today but we could. We just love the idea God is
our Father.

I want to tell a short story. I’ll put the word up here “justice.” Have you ever loaned out your car?
Anybody? And it was full of gas when you loaned it out, and it came back and there wasn’t much
gas in it. Huh? Somebody has to pay. Right? Who? Dad. Dad has to pay. I have to put gas in it. I
loaned it out. Or you loaned out your car and they wrecked it a little bit. Two thousand dollars
worth of damage. They wrecked the car. They bring it back home, and what do they say? Yeah.
It wasn’t my fault. They say, do you have insurance? What’s the point? Somebody pays. Let’s
put the word here. Somebody pays. Yes or no?

Think about it. Does somebody pay? The person who borrowed the car, you say to them you
don’t have to pay. Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it. So, who takes care of it? I take care of
it. That could be done. Somebody pays. Insurance company. I make a claim. The insurance
company pays. Somebody pays. How about having a child, raising a family? Does somebody
pay? How about when something goes wrong in the family? Does somebody pay? How about a
sleepless night or some form of suffering? It happens. Your son goes to jail or sadly, something
worse happens. There’s somebody paying. Life is like that.

Look at the first story. Genesis 3, we have Adam and Eve driven out of the Garden. I’m sure we’ll all
have a serious talk with Adam and Eve when we get to heaven. What are you doing? What
have you done? Okay. vs. 21. We have sin. You know what we want to think. Just forgive it. Just
forgive the sin. They sinned. Just forgive it. What’s the big deal? Just forgive it. Just forgive the
sin. Just pretend it didn’t happen. You are God. Just forget about it. God says when they return
your car, and they broke your car, somebody has to pay. Either you pay or they pay. Somehow
when something is wrong, it has to be fixed. Something has to be done. There is an injustice.
And you know, the interesting thing about sin, the more it happens to you, the more you realize
there has to be somebody paying. Has your husband or wife ever abandoned you? Has
somebody taken you your life fortune? Have you ever lost a child or been hurt badly in life? Yes,
maybe. Not for me but, a person could say yeah.

Then God says sin and so I kill animals and clothe you. I clothe you, but it cost something. The
clothing of an animal – to get the skin, you have to kill the animal. There’s no way you can skin it
alive. Okay. You have to kill the animal and get the skin. That’s the first picture we have of a
payment. You have to pay. Somebody has to pay, and it’s going to be God that’s going to pay.
God is going to pay. Remember that. That’s important.

Notice something about that idea. Just forgiving sin. Just forgive it. Like don’t even care about it.
Don’t worry about it. Just forgive it. When it happens to you, you don’t talk like that, cause
$2,000 is $2,000 for your car. Or if somebody you love is in jail, and you’re sad about it and that
they have to pay for your crime, that’s serious. Or somebody gets drunk, walks down –
remember the NFL quarterback in Florida? He was just drafted. He was drunk walking down 95
and killed by a truck. He had his whole future. His sin and nobody delights in this. Nobody.
Listen to me. Nobody is happy about this. Nobody is happy about it, and God is not. God is not
happy about it. He does not – he did not design for us to pay for our sins. He had the pleasure,
the deliberate, intentional plan to pay for our sin and he paid. That’s what we’ll talk about in the
next part of the message.

I want to make another point about this. About sin. It’s serious. It’s very deceptive. Another thing
about it is there’s two ways people talk about it. It’s serious and then it is not serious. I’ll put it
differently here. It’s very serious. When it happens to you, it’s very serious.

And then the other view is it’s not serious. It’s a proverb. “Fools make a mock of sin.” They mock
it. They have no gravity about it. But when it happens to you, it’s very serious. When your wife
leaves you, betrays you or cheats on you, that’s – you’re very angry because it violates the
marriage. It’s betrayal. It’s cheating. It’s lying. It’s deceit. But if you interviewed her, she would
say something like this: I fell in love. Everybody does it. It’s not that important. It’s not that
serious. I love you. And you’re like saying you love me? Is that what love is? You love me? Is
that what it is? See, there’s two views, isn’t there?

And when you are drinking alcohol, and you just are saying it’s nothing. But then when there is a
car accident and somebody is dead because of it, it’s suddenly serious. It’s a crime. The guy
goes to jail, cause he was drinking or he’s buried in the cemetary because of drinking. Or the
guy jumped off the ship in the Caribbean and was eaten by sharks. A high school senior was
drunk on the ship and they taunted him, and he jumped off into the shark-infested waters and
disappeared. He’s gone. That’s a joke, right? Yeah, it’s a joke. We’re having fun. We’re drinking.
Yeah, on one hand it’s not serious, because that’s the way we are as people. We are deceitful
and we don’t get it. But God does. God gets both realities.

He gets the seriousness of it, and he says the payment, somebody is going to pay, and it’s going to be him that’s going to pay. So, it’s a serious message. I don’t mind sharing that with you, because let me tell you one other
thing about Father’s Day. I had a great father and a great mother and our family. There were six
kids. And it was old school. My parents never asked me how I felt. Let me repeat it. My parents
never asked me how I felt. How about it? How many are in that generation? You grew up like
that? Okay. Why don’t you turn to your neighbor and just listen to what they have to say about it.
Did your parents ever ask you how you felt? Okay. Okay. Hey, I see you like to talk? Okay. Let
me finish.

What is the meaning of that? Maybe our parents were thinking it’s more important you would
understand how life is. Life can be hard. Are you going to be loyal? Are you going to be faithful?
Are you going to be honest? Are you going to be an honest person or are you going to lie? Are
you going to be committed? Or how are you going to live your life? It was always according to
something more, some moral principle or something higher than us. I don’t feel good. You got to
go to school. Get up and stop complaining and get to school. Well, I failed my spelling test.
Yeah? What are you going to do about it? Why don’t you study harder? Why don’t you work at
it? Why don’t you get help? Why don’t you admit that you need help? What’s your problem?
Shape up. Become an adult. Grow up. It’s not about our feelings. Life is not about our feelings.

Look at where our society goes when people are concerned about our feelings. Why do I bring
this up? Because, because God is like this. He understands. He understands what we need. He
understands how slippery we are and how much we need him, the God of all truth. And hear
him and relate to him and walk with him. He also knows that our sin easily removes us from
what’s most important. We actually need this relationship with truth. And he’s very serious about
it. So, that’s the introduction. Amen.

Okay. Hey. How are you? Okay. So, you may turn in your Bibles. I’ll give you the outline for our
message right up front. We’ll have a good message by God’s grace. It’s incredible. It’s
incredible. Really. We’ll go back and forth a little bit. Turn to Mark 15. We have an outline, a
simple outline. Mark 15. Four words. vs. 16. Mark. 15:16, They’re going to have a party with Jesus
in the middle. Like sharks circling a raft stranded in the ocean. They are soldiers and they led
him away. vs. 17-18. We’re going to read down to vs. 20. vs. 19-20. The brief outline goes this
way. vs. 16 and we can put that back up on the screen. The soldiers “led” him. The second word
is they “clothed” him. Next word, they “crowned” him. And then they “mocked” him. Under
mocking there’s subpoints like saluted him. They smote him. They spit upon him, and bowed
down their knees and worshipped him. So, there’s four subpoints in the “mocked” category. But
this is enough, those four words. This is what I want you to see today.

Did Jesus pay for our sin? Did Jesus become a curse for us? What happened with these four
words, and what do these four words mean to you and I? How does it affect us? What does it
mean? If these things happened to him, does it have any meaning for my life today? Does it
mean anything to me? Does it change my life? Is there a reality behind this that is
transcendental. Not purely logical and reasonable, but actually spiritual. Is it real? What
happened to him, is it a payment for my sin? And did it please God to do this?

Look at Isaiah 53. We have that well-known chapter in vs. 10. Now, the fact that the Father and
the Son had a plan to pay for our sin, as I said earlier; there’s no religion in the world that really
has any payment, that has any transcendental authority. I mean the house with the two floors,
and there’s a reality behind this reality. The reality of the first floor of the house. The reality of all
the laws and truths in the first floor like guilt. That’s a reality. And like failure and shame. And
actually these four words here in the middle. Led away. What does that mean, led away?

This was the Father’s plan. So, you could say the Father led him. Did the Father lead him to the
cross? Yes, but in the meaning here, the soldiers led him. And actually, he had been lead all his
life up to this point in perfect victory and perfect success. A manifestation of a sinless man. But
now we have the manifestation of a sinful man. This is what is happening. He said I will not
speak much more with you, because now is the hour of the power of darkness. Now, they will
have authority over me. I will be a sheep lead to the slaughter. This is a leading that is evil. They
led him to the cross or led him to the hall where they could abuse him. They led him.

Listen. There is an evil leading. We read it in Prov. 1. Maybe verse 14. Do not go with the evil.
Do not be led in the pathway. Psalm 17:4, you delivered me from the path of the destroyer. There is
a pathway that is evil, and Jesus is led in that pathway. Why? Because he has to pay for our sin.
The evil hands, Acts 2:23. He was crucified by the determinate counsel, and was taken by evil
hands. It was the devil that was leading him. You would say all his life he was not lead by the
devil. No, he wasn’t. But now he is. He’s been given up to be like us who are lead in an evil way.
All these four words we know what they mean, because we live in them as sinful people. We live
as sinners in a world, but yes. We’ll get to that in our message.

Yes, we are born again. Yes, we have a new life. Yes, it’s for real. But, so is our sin for real. We don’t pay for it, but our sin has brought us to this penalty that Jesus is paying and the mindset of it you may experience it every
once in a while. I don’t hope or wish this on any of us, but it can happen that you can feel these
words. Led. How did you get in the bar room? How did you end up in the bed with that person?
How did you get into a business relationship with that person that’s destroying your life? How
did it happen that you were lead. Were you lead. Was that a leading of another spirit? Was it the
leading of the world. Were we led?

Jesus was led into the hall. He had no authority except what the Father would give him. We
understand the Father is delivering him up to evil as a payment. Now, the interesting thing about
these words is that we know them on a human level, but because they are happening to Jesus,
there’s a level here. There’s a level and a meaning here that transcends our understanding. It’s
absolutely phenomenal. If he was just a man, we understand a man is led to judgment. He’s
judged. He’s put in prison. He goes to the electric chair, and he pays for his sin. We understand
that as people. But that’s not the case here. This is God, isn’t it? This is God. This is God. So,
we can’t even touch that. What does it mean for God to do this and pay for our sin? What does
that mean for all sin, for all the world.

You know, usually because we are thinking of payment. There’s a crime and then there’s years.
Seven years or fifteen years or life in prison or death penalty or whatever it might mean. But
these are people. What does it mean for God to pay for our sin? Is it work? Does God when he
pays for our sin, does he really take the sin away? Does he really take it away? Is this God?
We have a record. The guy has been in jail for seven years, and he has that as his record. This
is different. This is God paying, and there’s no record. I cannot remember your sin anymore,
Hebrew 8:12. I mean he cannot remember our sin, and he knows all things.

That’s a contradiction. Almighty God who has all knowledge would have course know our sin, but he has decided in
himself that he forgets our sin for his Son paid for our sin. I remember your sin no more. Yeah.
So, here’s a – let’s go to a couple points before we get to the main one here. Psalm 56. We’re
going to have a great week, Lord willing, and I mean it by prayer. And thanks for your prayers.
You come with hungry hearts flying across the globe. And even across the street with a hungry
heart. Thank you for coming. We’ll have a good week by God’s grace in our fellowship.
Look at Psalm 56:12. Let’s write that word down. I’ll put it in this list here, “vows.” I know some of
you English is not your language. You don’t know how to say this letter V too well. Wows! We
say V. Vows. Say it any way you want to! We’re happy you’re here. You’re trying and God bless
you.

Another word is “promises.” Your promises, God, are upon me. Your vows are upon me. Your
promise. Your commitment is to me. But notice something. The commitment to you and I –
remember at the beginning of the service we said that the car has to be paid for. When you
wreck the car, somebody has to pay. When somebody sins, God has to, there has to be
something to take it away. And when he takes our sin away, he is saying I make promise not
based on your feeling. Remember I said in the service here my parents never asked me how I
felt. They might see me crying over my homework.

They might see me struggling. They might see me in a kind of depression as a teenager. Remember, teenage boys stop talking. I did. I didn’t talk. I grunted. I didn’t talk. I didn’t know how to talk. I didn’t want to talk to any girls.
I had issues of all kinds – my parents never said how are you feeling. They never said– that’s
ridiculous. What do you mean, how do you feel? Do you think God is in heaven saying, how are
you feeling? That’s what the world is saying all the time. And look at the mess the human race is
in cause we’ve lost truth, we’ve lost reality. It’s not how you feel. It is how are you processing
reality. And when it hurts, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to hide, excuse
yourself, complain? How are you going to face it?

I’m just enjoying – this is useful, but it’s not my message. But it relates. God is a just God. And when sin is sin and it’s serious and there’s death, he is serious. And when he says it’s serious and we go to the Gospels and we see these
four words, let’s take note of them and have a meditation on them. He was led by evil. And you
just do – turn with me to 2 Corinthians 8:9. We’ll go right to this. We’re almost done. The service is not a
long one, but we have something to say here.

Look at 2 Corinthians 8:9. Let’s put here the word “poor.” He became poor. What does it mean? It
means he was led by evil for you. He was led. He became lost. He went into the congregation of
the dead. He was judged. And this is beyond us. But we know enough to grasp something. That he becames poor for our sakes though he was rich. We’ll put here the word “rich.” He was so
rich. He was with the Father. He had everything at the right hand of the Father, Psalm 16. He was
in the pathway of life. Now, he is in the pathway of death. He was lead by the Father. Now, he is
led by the devil and the devil loves it. He loves it. This is the Son of God, and he did it for us.
Look at vs. 9. Let’s put over here the word “rich.” You. Who? You might be rich. How? You are
not led by the devil.

The opposite here. You are lead by God the Father. You are led by the Holy
Spirit. You have an opportunity now to be led by God. You have an opportunity to be led into the
house of God. You have opportunity to be led in the Spirit of God. You are led in the Scriptures
by God. You are led in the presence of your enemies in Psalm 23. He prepares a table. You are led
in liberty. You are led in God. Because he was led into judgment, we are led into grace. We have
the God of all grace.

Clothed. He was one time clothed with majesty. Now, he’s clothed with our sins. He is clothed
with a curse. Remember Psalm 109. it’s a great verse. It says as you delighted in cursing, so be
that cursing go in your bones. Sometimes, I think of that when I hear men and women, primarily
men, I just hear how angry they are about life. And how bitter they can be. How much they can
curse all the time. I just wonder, did that cursing go in their bones? Is there bitterness and
cursing in their bones.

Bones are like the core. It says about Jesus that none of his bones were broken. What I
understand about that is Jesus was broken and crucified and mutilated and tortured, but there
was something about Jesus that was not broken. That was his trust in the Father. You cannot
take me away from the Father. I will trust him. Though I am cursed, I trust him. May that be a
picture for us I think for life. He was clothed with this curse, so that we could be clothed with the
blessing of God. It says in Revelation 19, we are clothed with the righteousnesses. The white linen is
the righteousnesses. It’s plural. Righteousnesses of God. All our good works that come as a
result of being Spirit filled. We are clothed with that now.

And then the third one here, crowned. Crowned with thorns, so we could be crowned with –
Proverbs says we are crowned with lovingkindness. We are crowned with his glory and his
honor. I’ll put down here the word “honor.” In some countries and some cultures, the hat, the hat
is like, you know, it’s actually in history with people. The hat kind of crowns us. You know, the
policeman’s hat. A military hat. A religious hat. The Pope maybe or a bishop. The football helmet
is a hat. It has a function, but also is like crowning the player. There is the whole idea of the
head. The priest in the Old Testament had a gold plate on the turban that he wore. He had like a
head dressing and a turban and gold plate that was there that crowned him.

In the Bible, in the end in Revelation 22 it says that the name of God will be on our forehead. I like it
there. Why do you like it there? I like the idea that the mind – the crowning. We have two ends.
We have our feet and our head. Our feet is like our physical life. And our head is our mental life,
our spiritual life. Our mind is important. And Jesus is under this amazing curse. Maybe you have
felt it. I have. These are the thoughts I have. I felt the shame. I hang my head low. They said
that prisoners in prison don’t ever look up. They are always looking down. I feel unable. I feel
stupid. I feel insufficient. I feel easily intimidated. I feel like hiding. I feel like a turtle drawing back
inside. Escaping the trouble that is out there or the shame that I could have as a person. That is
how people live. They live like that. Their crown isn’t a good crown. Their crown fades or the
crown changes. I’m sorry for that. We’re all people. But we’re trying to say is we’re people, but
he became poor so we could become rich.

And you know where you get real honor from? When somebody that is highly respected like
honors you or loves you or pays attention to you. Somebody highly respected in your life.
Maybe it’s a relative or a teacher or a pastor or a friend that you have that you have a lot of
respect or honor for that person. When they recognize you, that’s honor. Like in high school at
the graduation, who is honored? And who honors them? The school honors them. They have
achieved. It’s like an honor.

Do you realize that we are made to be honored? That’s what a birthday party is. When the child
is one year’s old. And there’s a big birthday party, and the family does a big deal. The balloons
and you know, the whole thing. The cake. The singing. That’s a birthday party.

How about when you’re an adult and you don’t have that? The people that you love and respect
have rejected you. The people that you look for honor, dishonor you. What happens to you
psychologically? What happened to Jesus on this day. God is dishonored by the world. The
world rejects him. Kind of crawl into that a little bit. Like live in it. The world rejected him. Have
you ever been rejected? You know. Get into that for a minute.

Cause when I can get into Jesus in these hours that he had, and I can feel it. I can identify and
feel and what is he – so, when I am in it again, I start to look. I look for help. I start to say God
did not make me to shame me and dishonor me. It says in Psalm 8:5, you have crowned me with
glory and honor. What is it? “What is man that you are mindful of him or the son of man that you
would visit him? You have crowned me with glory and honor.” That’s the will of God. That may
not be my community or my family or it might not be my society. They might shame me or throw
me away. But that’s not God. Those are just the people. Isaiah 2:22 “cease from man whose breath
is in his nostrils.” Like we pay too much attention to man who is just like breathing. You just take
the breath away and he’s dead. That’s what it means.

I know it’s not funny. I’m laughing about it. But let’s think about it. What, I honor men too much if
they can destroy my life. I honor individual people whose breath is in their nostrils. The meaning
of their lives is nothing compared to what God means. What does God mean? When he honors
you, he honors you. And his vows or his promises are on you. And he’s promised this to us. He
crowned us, because his Son was shamed and discredited. Do you see that?

And then the fourth one. Mocking. And I’ll put here there were four subpoints but for the sake of
the message, I want to finish here. Spitting. There is a very interesting verse I want to draw your
attention to. Maybe you know it. I think P. Dave Stambovsky knows it. He’s like a rabbi. I mean
not like one. He is a rabbi. He’s amazing. Do you know this portion, P. Dave, with Miriam? Numbers
12:14. This is just a subpoint but very fascinating. Miriam judged her brother for marrying an
Ethiopian woman, and she got leprosy as a judgment for judging her brother. She got leprosy.
There was a judgment on her. So they tried – Moses prayed for her, and God said she’s
forgiven, but she has to be outside the camp for seven days to be clean. This is what God says.
It’s shocking. I read it years ago, and I always have it in the back of my mind. I want you to have
it in the back of your mind.

This is how you read the Bible by the way. You learn something from the Bible, and the Holy
Spirit will have you carry that thing. And it will be fascinating to you. The Spirit will show you
something about it. Then you will enjoy it. It’s like eating food. You will enjoy it. This is what he
said, vs. 14. Who’s talking? God. What does it mean? In Jewish law, the body fluids generally
are unclean. Body fluids generally unclean. Not a mother breastfeeding her child. I don’t know
exactly the Jewish law on that. But of course, it was necessary and important. But I don’t need
to go into it, but I just want to say that spitting is unclean. And spitting in somebody’s face is an
incredible offense, you know. They did that to Jesus.

God said about Miriam, if her father had spit in her face, then she would be unclean. Right? Vs.
14. He’s comparing like her sin is, her sin with regards to her brother was serious. And
something like God is saying I want you to know if her father spit in her face, she would be
unclean for seven days according to Jewish law and that’s how I see it. This is God. This is God
dealing with a situation. Somebody has to pay. Somebody has to pay. She is unclean for seven
days.

When Jesus was tried and goes through this, and they mock him and they spit upon him,
remember that about you and I. That all should have happened to us and more. Because our
sin has an eternal consequence. Thank God that God designed it that the eternal consequence
is removed by the person that came to remove it. He did it. He did this for us, so that we don’t have God spitting in our face and judging us. It actually happened to Jesus. We have a face-to-
face relationship with our heavenly Father who says I’m always with you. I am always for you. I will never leave you. Never forsake you. Why God? Why? Because of my Son.

He paid so you don’t pay. You can’t pay. You’re free. You don’t pay. You don’t pay. You’re not to pay. Your to be
crowned with glory and honor. You are to be set free. You are led by the Spirit. You are not to be
mocked. You’re to be edified. You’re to be built up. You’re to be honored.
That the angels would honor us, cause we’re made in the image of God. We’re called by God’s
name. That we are called by God’s name? Jeremiah 15:16. How could we be called by God’s name
except we are married to him. That’s how it goes. Adam and Eve are called Adam. One name.
We are married to Christ. We are called by God’s name. I dare not say it. We are called by the
name of Christ. We are belonging to him. This is the work of Christ done for us. Amazing. Amen.

 

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