He Came. He Saw. He Was Conquered.

Please note: Due to technical difficulties, sermon starts abruptly (2-3 minutes into the sermon). We apologize for the inconvenience.

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“Sin is not a mistake. A mistake is taking the wrong exit on the highway. A sin is treason against a Holy God. A mistake is a logical misstep. Sin lurks in our hearts and grabs us by the throat to do its bidding.”

~Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, English professor and author

“Little sins often slide into the soul, and breed, and work secretly and undiscernibly in the soul, till they come to be so strong as to trample upon the soul, and to cut the throat of the soul. There is oftentimes greatest danger to our bodies in the least diseases that hang upon us, because we are apt to make light of them, and to neglect the timely use of means for removing of them, till they are grown so strong that they prove mortal to us. So there is most danger often in the least sins.”

“Death is the heir of the least sin…. In a strict sense, there is no little sin, because no little God to sin against.”

~Thomas Brooks (1608-1680) in Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices

“…to set our will against the will of God is to dethrone God and make ourselves supreme in the little kingdom of [self]. This is sin at its evil root.”

~A.W. Tozer (1897-1963) in Knowledge of the Holy

“Unbelief doesn’t see God as the ultimate good. So it can’t see sin as the ultimate evil.”

~Jackie Hill Perry, writer and hip-hop artist

“Grace changes the nature of [a person], but nothing can change the nature of sin.”

~John Owen (1616-1683), English theologian and Oxford academic

“Before we can begin to see the cross as something done for us, we have to see it as something done by us.”

~John Stott (1921-2011), English clergyman and theologian

“Where sin multiplied, grace multiplied all the more.”

~Romans 5:20

SERMON PASSAGE

John 19:28-42 (ESV)

John 19

28 After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” 29 A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. 30 When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

31 Since it was the day of Preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away. 32 So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who had been crucified with him. 33 But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. 34 But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water. 35 He who saw it has borne witness—his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth—that you also may believe. 36 For these things took place that the Scripture might be fulfilled: “Not one of his bones will be broken.” 37 And again another Scripture says, “They will look on him whom they have pierced.”

38 After these things Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission. So he came and took away his body. 39 Nicodemus also, who earlier had come to Jesus by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds in weight. 40 So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews. 41 Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. 42 So because of the Jewish day of Preparation, since the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there.

Zechariah 12-13

10 “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn….

1 “On that day there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness….”