Shownotes
How does a crown of thorns turn into a symbol of exaltation? Will Sevier reveals the profound irony woven into Jesus' ultimate sacrifice.
About Springhouse
If you’re looking for a church in Smyrna, TN that is focused on Loving Big, Living Truth, and Healthy Family, we’d love to connect with you. We are home to a vibrant children’s ministry, powerful middle school and youth ministries, and incredible ministries for men and women of all ages. Our local and global outreaches include partnerships with missionaries in the US and abroad, Isaiah 117 House, local retirement communities, and more.
Additionally, we are home to Springhouse Theatre, an award-winning theatre in the Nashville area. Through the theatre, we serve both the greater Nashville theatre community, and thousands of patrons each year, and we are expanding our vision to impact the culture through the arts into additional mediums and through an expanding network of relationships.
We would love it if you would consider joining us in person for one of our Sunday gatherings.
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Contact Info
Springhouse Church
14119 Old Nashville Highway
Smyrna TN 37167
Transcripts
I think everybody, even Russell, knows who I am.
Speaker:I'm on staff here as the Arts Outreach Pastor.
Speaker:And today I'm going to be sharing about the Crown of Thorns.
Speaker:And I had a, just to let you know how my day is going,
Speaker:I had a, I had a prop.
Speaker:I had a prop ready for today.
Speaker:And I didn't get to it in all the Sunday morning.
Speaker:And so it's, it's in my office.
Speaker:Do you mind? Do you remember the code to my?
Speaker:It's in a box on the dresser thing.
Speaker:It's in a box.
Speaker:It's in a box.
Speaker:And bring it, but don't get it out yet.
Speaker:You can open it, but don't, don't.
Speaker:We'll pass it around in a little bit.
Speaker:Is it okay if we're a little informal?
Speaker:Okay, praise the Lord.
Speaker:You guys, I appreciate your patience with me.
Speaker:I'm not, I'm not normally a teacher in this style,
Speaker:but I've so much enjoyed the study part of it
Speaker:that it takes to be ready for today.
Speaker:And if I go on a tangent, somebody would just flag me down,
Speaker:just say, "You're on a, you're off the rails, Will."
Speaker:Just flag me down because I am, thank you.
Speaker:I do have a buddy in the room who's going to flag me down
Speaker:if I, if I get off the rails.
Speaker:But I just want to warn you,
Speaker:this may not be somebody else's take on the crown of thorns.
Speaker:This may not be what you've heard.
Speaker:You might've heard this a thousand times.
Speaker:Humor me, please.
Speaker:Because I really enjoyed this.
Speaker:Some of this I had not quite connected the dots for.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:And it's like last week, Pastor Jonathan told me afterward,
Speaker:he said, "I just should tell everybody,
Speaker:all of this is for me,
Speaker:and you get to just take the journey with me."
Speaker:So that's, that's, yeah, I'll say that.
Speaker:All of this is for me,
Speaker:and you can just take the journey with me.
Speaker:It's probably not going to be as dramatic
Speaker:as you might think for somebody who has a history
Speaker:in so much dramatical theater.
Speaker:I think dramatical is the technical term.
Speaker:So like the narrative of a film with nonlinear storytelling,
Speaker:I want to start at the end and then back it up a little bit,
Speaker:and then we'll go all the way back to the beginning.
Speaker:I'll set up a few things
Speaker:and I'll try to pay them off at the end.
Speaker:But disclaimer, oh, thank you.
Speaker:Before you clap, disclaimer, like most films,
Speaker:I'll likely come up short.
Speaker:[laughs]
Speaker:Yes, yes, thank you.
Speaker:So let's read this together.
Speaker:You'll notice that the title is on the backside.
Speaker:This is what happens when you allow your 13-year-old
Speaker:to put the three-hole punch in your paperwork.
Speaker:So it's three-hole punched on the wrong side,
Speaker:but start on the side with the scripture
Speaker:and let's read it together, okay?
Speaker:I might call on you to take over reading at any point.
Speaker:This is great, thank you.
Speaker:Yeah, I was going to have like one of those,
Speaker:we have these fake Greek podiums.
Speaker:You know, they're like fluted columns.
Speaker:I was going to have it all set up.
Speaker:Don't even worry about that.
Speaker:Merlin, it's so good to see your face, buddy.
Speaker:Oh, I'm so glad you're here.
Speaker:Hey, Diane.
Speaker:Let's read this together, John 19, 1 through 15.
Speaker:"Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged.
Speaker:The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns
Speaker:and put it on his head.
Speaker:They clothed him in a purple robe
Speaker:and went up to him again and again, saying,
Speaker:'Hail, King of the Jews!'
Speaker:And they slapped him in the face.
Speaker:Once more Pilate came out and said to the Jews gathered there,
Speaker:'Look, I am bringing him out to you
Speaker:to let you know that I find no basis
Speaker:for a charge against him.'
Speaker:When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns
Speaker:and the purple robe,
Speaker:Pilate said to them, 'Here is the man.'
Speaker:As soon as the chief priests and their officials saw him,
Speaker:they shouted, 'Crucify! Crucify!'
Speaker:But Pilate answered, 'You take him and crucify him.
Speaker:As for me, I find no basis for a charge against him.'
Speaker:The Jewish leaders insisted, 'We have a law,
Speaker:and according to that law he must die
Speaker:because he claimed to be the Son of God.'
Speaker:When Pilate heard this, he was even more afraid,
Speaker:and he went back inside the palace.
Speaker:'Where do you come from?' he asked Jesus,
Speaker:but Jesus gave him no answer.
Speaker:'Do you refuse to speak to me?' Pilate said.
Speaker:'Don't you realize I have power
Speaker:either to free you or to crucify you?'
Speaker:Jesus answered, 'You would have no power over me
Speaker:if it were not given to you from above.
Speaker:Therefore, the one who handed me over to you
Speaker:is guilty of a greater sin.'
Speaker:From then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free,
Speaker:but the Jewish leaders kept shouting,
Speaker:'If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar.
Speaker:Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar.'
Speaker:When Pilate heard this, he brought Jesus out
Speaker:and sat down on the judge's seat at a place known
Speaker:as the Stone Pavement, which in Aramaic is Gabbatha.
Speaker:It was the day of preparation of the Passover.
Speaker:It was about noon.
Speaker:'Here is your king,' Pilate said to the Jews,
Speaker:but they shouted, 'Take him away, take him away,
Speaker:crucify him.'
Speaker:'Shall I crucify your king?' Pilate asked.
Speaker:'We have no king but Caesar,' the chief priests answered."
Speaker:Normally in here we don't ask everybody to read.
Speaker:We like to read the Scripture.
Speaker:Sometimes we read it once or we take turns reading,
Speaker:but there's something about hearing,
Speaker:even if it's a this-size group,
Speaker:there's something about hearing the crowd say,
Speaker:"Take him away, crucify him."
Speaker:Because we like to read in the Passion story
Speaker:just as last week before this crucifixion
Speaker:about this triumphant entry,
Speaker:and we picture ourselves in the crowd saying,
Speaker:"Hosanna, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes
Speaker:in the name of the Lord," and raising our voice
Speaker:and just this triumphant feeling.
Speaker:And so often we forget to put ourselves in that crowd
Speaker:that says, "Crucify him," and turns on him.
Speaker:And we are one of those. We do that.
Speaker:Let's focus on Jesus in this moment.
Speaker:And then, what about now?
Speaker:Who is Jesus now?
Speaker:So focus your mind on Jesus in this moment.
Speaker:He is beaten.
Speaker:He is mocked.
Speaker:He is tired.
Speaker:Help me out. He's bleeding.
Speaker:He's been flogged. Cat of nine tails.
Speaker:This is the very heavy part of our faith
Speaker:that our Savior would go through this.
Speaker:So let's move forward.
Speaker:This is El Greco's Jesus carrying the cross.
Speaker:And this is a Caravaggio that I did not know.
Speaker:I've never seen it in person.
Speaker:And the way that he depicts Jesus not being recognized
Speaker:was he depicts Him having shaved His beard.
Speaker:And then when He blesses the food,
Speaker:He realizes Jesus and He disappears.
Speaker:Suddenly He is no longer with them.
Speaker:I don't know if "disappears" is the word that's used in Scripture.
Speaker:You know, at some point after His death,
Speaker:He was in paradise, right?
Speaker:What does paradise mean? Is that heaven?
Speaker:Yes, I think so, but don't ask me to teach on that.
Speaker:Is it a different paradise than was after He resurrected?
Speaker:Don't ask me to explain it.
Speaker:I really like that I don't know, but you know what I believe?
Speaker:I believe what Jesus said, which is,
Speaker:"Today you'll be with Me in paradise."
Speaker:So whatever that means, I believe that happened.
Speaker:And we know that He took the keys of death, hell, and the grave
Speaker:from the enemy at some point before the resurrection.
Speaker:And then He resurrected and He showed Himself
Speaker:many, many times to hundreds of followers.
Speaker:And then He ascended, and when He did,
Speaker:He told the disciples, "Go and make disciples,"
Speaker:which is what we're doing here,
Speaker:where we get together and we learn from each other.
Speaker:And iron sharpens iron, and we challenge each other,
Speaker:because each of us have our own perspective with our faith.
Speaker:And I can't challenge you the way somebody else in this room would challenge you.
Speaker:But somebody else can't be will, right? It's important.
Speaker:Where each of us an important piece of this discipleship.
Speaker:When I find myself in a small group
Speaker:and I'm sharing wisdom of a faith of walking this journey
Speaker:for over two decades, and I'm with somebody who has been walking this journey for a couple of years,
Speaker:I think about how important it is to me that I have Pastor Wayne and Pastor Ronnie
Speaker:and different ones that have walked this journey of pastoring and service,
Speaker:edifying the body and growing them up into spiritual maturity.
Speaker:I have that discipleship, and it works.
Speaker:And it's messy sometimes, but it's important to the faith.
Speaker:What Jesus started with the disciples is spread like a wildfire.
Speaker:It changed the world within just a few hundred years.
Speaker:And then we are who we are because of that moment.
Speaker:And so we should continue that.
Speaker:My question I have for you for number one is who is Jesus now?
Speaker:I say he is. When Jesus ascended, we know from Scripture that he's sitting at the right hand of the Father
Speaker:interceding on our behalf, right?
Speaker:So help me. I want this to be back and forth.
Speaker:Call out who is Jesus.
Speaker:One word or a sentence. Anything.
Speaker:Savior. Intercessor.
Speaker:Healer. Comforter.
Speaker:Victor. I missed some.
Speaker:My hearing is, yes, Messiah.
Speaker:A very simple question can have a very complicated answer.
Speaker:I might suggest that if we broke this down,
Speaker:and we had like homework sessions, and all of us went home and worked up
Speaker:some sort of essay about who is Jesus, and we put them all together,
Speaker:we would all have a true correct answer,
Speaker:but we would all have enough to put together, and we would still somehow come up short.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:The intricate beauty of God, who is God, but God incarnate, becoming man,
Speaker:becoming as much man as God, and as much God as man,
Speaker:it's... what did I say last time? It's above my pay grade.
Speaker:He's certainly the second person in our triune God.
Speaker:He is the Son of God, the second person in the Trinity,
Speaker:God who became man. He's the Savior of mankind, having paid the price for our sin,
Speaker:redeeming us for eternity. He conquered death and resurrection,
Speaker:and He now sits at the right hand of the Father, interceding on our behalf.
Speaker:He is our King.
Speaker:I find it interesting, an infinite and eternal triune God,
Speaker:who exists outside of the boundaries of space and time.
Speaker:No, we're not going to go there. We don't have time.
Speaker:But, who exists outside the boundaries of space and time,
Speaker:who chooses to commune with and speak to us His creation.
Speaker:We who are bound by space and time, with limited amounts of understanding,
Speaker:in His grace, He speaks anyway.
Speaker:And God uses things that we have some level of understanding about,
Speaker:to give us insights and glimpses of eternal things,
Speaker:so that dumb humans, like myself,
Speaker:can have some level of understanding about God and His kingdom.
Speaker:I say that tongue in cheek, but compared to the infinite knowledge of our Lord,
Speaker:we only understand by His grace.
Speaker:And when the Holy Spirit reveals to us that this is truth,
Speaker:then we can hold to that.
Speaker:I'll talk about that further.
Speaker:Now, some of the stories in the Old Testament Scriptures...
Speaker:I want to be careful with how I say this, okay?
Speaker:Some of the stories in the Old Testament Scriptures should be read like parables,
Speaker:using metaphor, symbolism, imagery for examples,
Speaker:so that it speaks to us in ways that we can understand.
Speaker:I'm not suggesting that the stories didn't take place.
Speaker:I will say that whether or not you believe that some of those stories are parables,
Speaker:allegories, or literal history,
Speaker:it does not negate the fact that they are truth,
Speaker:and they are for you, and they are for me.
Speaker:Now, I like learning about cognitive bias.
Speaker:And I actually... we'll get there.
Speaker:Cognitive bias. This is the Bader-Meinhof phenomenon.
Speaker:The Bader-Meinhof gang was a murderous, bank robbing gang
Speaker:that was not good at what they liked to do, so they got caught.
Speaker:And it didn't work out great for them,
Speaker:and they're not very well known, and people haven't heard of them.
Speaker:Not many people have heard of them.
Speaker:And a scientist in the 90s was reading an old article from a decade before
Speaker:about the Bader-Meinhof gang, and then over the next two days,
Speaker:he heard about the Bader-Meinhof gang in two other forms of media.
Speaker:And he had never heard them before.
Speaker:We're talking about a very high-level, intelligent person.
Speaker:And he thought, "This happens all the time."
Speaker:What about the times when you have never seen a particular color of a car,
Speaker:and you go by that color, and you drive it off the lot,
Speaker:and over the next two weeks you're going to see three of them?
Speaker:Okay. All right. That's called frequency illusion.
Speaker:This was coined by a scientist. Anyway.
Speaker:I'm sorry, I got lost.
Speaker:Have you ever learned about something for the first time in an article
Speaker:only to soon hear about that same thing on the radio or on a podcast?
Speaker:It is a cognitive and psychological illusion.
Speaker:It actually does not exist.
Speaker:What it is, is cognitive bias.
Speaker:It is selective attention.
Speaker:Something you didn't notice before.
Speaker:You started to notice when you became aware of it.
Speaker:That color vehicle was always on the road, you just didn't see it.
Speaker:Confirmation bias means that you will look for anything
Speaker:that will connect or confirm the assumptions that you already hold.
Speaker:I'm getting somewhere with this, so bear with me.
Speaker:Recency illusion, which is fun to think about.
Speaker:Recency illusion is when someone notices something recently,
Speaker:or learns about something recently,
Speaker:and they carry that illusion, and we sometimes do this as human beings,
Speaker:we carry the illusion that it originated recently as well.
Speaker:Okay?
Speaker:We as believers carry cognitive bias.
Speaker:When you believe that Jesus is Lord,
Speaker:you are a believer and you carry that within you.
Speaker:I believe this is a good thing.
Speaker:It's also good to know that you're carrying that bias,
Speaker:so that you don't judge someone that doesn't hold that truth.
Speaker:Okay?
Speaker:It's good to ask questions about your faith.
Speaker:It's good to hold up questions to the light like a prism to the sun,
Speaker:and watch the colors change, and see how it reacts.
Speaker:All of us, many of us in this room, probably not a few,
Speaker:but many of us in this room have heard Pastor Wayne teach
Speaker:about having an open hand with your faith.
Speaker:And that doesn't mean don't have core values.
Speaker:Have your core values, it's super important.
Speaker:But give the Holy Spirit room for you to grow and mature.
Speaker:This week, a friend of mine shared with me about a disagreement
Speaker:between a scientist and a public figure.
Speaker:And the scientist had accused the other famous figure
Speaker:of being an example of the Dunning-Kruger effect,
Speaker:which is another cognitive bias.
Speaker:Now this cognitive bias in which people with limited competence
Speaker:in a particular domain overestimate their abilities,
Speaker:which causes an incorrect assessment or false results.
Speaker:Now, the best way I heard it explained was,
Speaker:someone knowing just enough about a subject
Speaker:to be confident that they are right.
Speaker:But not enough about that subject to realize where they are wrong.
Speaker:It's also fascinating that the opposite effect happens
Speaker:when you have experts in a field that underestimate their skills
Speaker:or put themselves down.
Speaker:I believe that I have been guilty of both of those,
Speaker:both sides of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Speaker:Now, the reason why I say that,
Speaker:I don't ever want to put myself in a place where I'm overconfident
Speaker:to the point where I might be mistaken.
Speaker:So when I present things in a manner that says,
Speaker:"Hey, I could be wrong on this.
Speaker:This is just from my heart.
Speaker:Give me grace on that."
Speaker:I think it's really good for me to have that heart posture in this setting
Speaker:because in this room we have young believers
Speaker:who could probably learn a lot from me.
Speaker:We have believers who have walked with Jesus for many decades.
Speaker:And then we have wise elders who have decades of teaching experience
Speaker:that I don't carry, but everyone can learn from asking questions.
Speaker:We can all glean from each other.
Speaker:Someone defined the word "parable" for me.
Speaker:Story works.
Speaker:Diane?
Speaker:Oh, sorry. Parable.
Speaker:We're defining the word "parable."
Speaker:Morality tale.
Speaker:A story that teaches a lesson,
Speaker:perhaps a spiritual lesson.
Speaker:That's good.
Speaker:In His earthly ministry, Jesus taught in parables.
Speaker:And He often used what people knew and could see and picture.
Speaker:Think about that for a minute.
Speaker:He gave insight to the kingdom by telling the story of a sower
Speaker:in a field, among other parables.
Speaker:He explained faith using a tiny mustard seed and a giant mountain.
Speaker:He taught about eternity using a wedding feast.
Speaker:These are things that they knew about.
Speaker:He taught about how to love others with the story of a good Samaritan
Speaker:who binds up the wounds of a man who hated him.
Speaker:We have a tendency to put ourselves in stories as the hero.
Speaker:Just know that when Jesus told that parable,
Speaker:we are not the good Samaritan.
Speaker:We are not.
Speaker:When you place yourself in the story, don't put yourself in as the good Samaritan.
Speaker:You are the broken and the beaten one who is passed along the side of the road
Speaker:by three people that you should connect with,
Speaker:that have a similar faith as you,
Speaker:that might be a pastor, that might be a priest.
Speaker:And then the person who saves us is someone we hate,
Speaker:someone we mistreat, someone we have exiled,
Speaker:and someone we have banished for being different than we are.
Speaker:Matthew 13, 13, "This is why I speak to them in parables.
Speaker:Though seeing, they do not see. Though hearing, they do not hear or understand."
Speaker:Perhaps a case could be made that these scriptures,
Speaker:these, what is it, 66 books,
Speaker:this love letter from God,
Speaker:I know so much of it is cautionary,
Speaker:but this love letter from God, from our all-knowing God,
Speaker:it's written in a way that even I can learn from it,
Speaker:that even I can hear what God is saying at different times.
Speaker:Pastor Wayne told me this week about a--
Speaker:I won't say who, but reading a young pastor 15, 20 years ago,
Speaker:and Wayne's internal response was,
Speaker:"This is good, but he'll have a more mature understanding of this in a few decades."
Speaker:Yeah, I took it easy. I took it easy on your quote.
Speaker:And so now he has read some of this pastor's writing,
Speaker:and the man has matured in his understanding and his teaching of the faith.
Speaker:The beauty of this is number four, and I don't know if I gave you the others.
Speaker:I'm at number four, y'all. We can go back if we need to, okay?
Speaker:"I cannot now see what I will see in the years of study to come."
Speaker:This is will. This is will, okay?
Speaker:"I cannot now see what I will see in the years of study to come.
Speaker:Therefore, I must remain diligent in the search for what God is saying to me through His Word."
Speaker:Let's--forgive me for trying to use lingo.
Speaker:Let's now take the way back machine to the moments before our Savior was crucified.
Speaker:The crown of thorns was to be a joke.
Speaker:It was an act of irony. It was sarcasm.
Speaker:The purpose of the crown was mockery.
Speaker:Wait a minute. Keep that in mind.
Speaker:Let's take the way back machine even farther than that.
Speaker:What are the chances that God has been using imagery that we can understand on some level
Speaker:throughout the Scriptures?
Speaker:If you have your Bibles, turn to Genesis 3.
Speaker:I believe this is starting in verse 17.
Speaker:We'll start--the Lord first addresses, if I remember correctly, the serpent.
Speaker:And then the Lord addresses the woman, and this is what He says to Adam.
Speaker:He says, "Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you,
Speaker:you must not eat it.
Speaker:Cursed is the ground because of you. Through painful toil, you will eat food from it all the days of your life.
Speaker:It will produce thorns and thistles for you.
Speaker:And you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow, you will eat food.
Speaker:You will eat your--by the sweat of your brow, you will eat your food until you return to the ground
Speaker:since from it you were taken. For dust you are, and to dust you will return."
Speaker:Here's the object lesson this week. It'll be will opening a box.
Speaker:Often when studying something in Scripture, it's good to find the first mention of a concept.
Speaker:The first mention of thorns and thistles is right here in this passage.
Speaker:The first mention shows and declares that thorns and thistles are a consequence of sin.
Speaker:That when Adam and Eve and even their ancestors gardened from then on, they had to remove thorns from the garden
Speaker:or deal with them. They were forced to feel the prick, and those pricks reminded them of the sin that brought them away from the garden.
Speaker:These thorns and thistles are not real. They're a prop. But they're also painful, I just figured out.
Speaker:I'm going to let you, if you want to hold this, I'm sure it would have been more rudimentary.
Speaker:And this is, I know, fascinating intellectually, just watching me remove the plastic.
Speaker:But the thought, the thought that I know, I'm sorry.
Speaker:You think they were laughing while they were doing this? They got to take it out of this.
Speaker:You know, even though it's a prop, it actually does look real. I think it might be actual thorns that's been...
Speaker:Take a look at that. You mind passing that around?
Speaker:I don't know that I had quite connected the dots between the thistles of the garden and the crown of thorns.
Speaker:I am not an outdoorsman. I am not an outdoorsman. I might be what could be called an indoorsman,
Speaker:which my spell check is telling me is not a word, but I'll make it up. From henceforth, I am an indoorsman.
Speaker:I detest thorns, but I do try to live in some level of harmony with the natural world that God created.
Speaker:Thorns I could do without.
Speaker:In our nonlinear narrative, let's jump ahead to Paul's second letter to the Corinthians chapter 12.
Speaker:Therefore, in order to keep me from being conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh,
Speaker:a messenger of Satan to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me,
Speaker:but he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.
Speaker:Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses so that Christ's power may rest on me."
Speaker:That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions,
Speaker:in difficulties, for when I am weak, then I am strong.
Speaker:Number five, if Paul, after all these years of ministry and spiritual growth,
Speaker:and even praying earnestly that it go away, still felt the prick of the thorn of sin in his life,
Speaker:then certainly I can expect to feel that prick along this life.
Speaker:The crown of thorns was placed on Jesus's head not to exalt him, but to mock him.
Speaker:So let's talk about crowns for a minute.
Speaker:Sure, thank you.
Speaker:We can set it right here by this mountain of keys in my pocket.
Speaker:Put it right here.
Speaker:Donate that to the props department.
Speaker:The word crown is sometimes referred to as the top of the head.
Speaker:Think about it. Historically the most vulnerable place of the body,
Speaker:but also is the highest place of the body.
Speaker:But when you think about how vulnerable the crown is, Jack fell down and broke his crown.
Speaker:Then Jill came tumbling after. We learn it as children.
Speaker:Most of the time a crown is referring to an object that sits on that area of the head.
Speaker:They sit on that place for a reason. It is the highest place on a person.
Speaker:It is the place of honor.
Speaker:There are formal crowns and informal crowns.
Speaker:In scripture the concept of crown originates from the word cap,
Speaker:which is what much of the planet would call a turban.
Speaker:This is keeping the heat off your head.
Speaker:There's also a more formal metallic crown that was decorated with jewels.
Speaker:Its placement on one's head indicated that one was set apart for a particular task or calling.
Speaker:Such crowns were used for the high priest, for the kings of Israel.
Speaker:The crown indicated the consecrated role of its wearer.
Speaker:Consecrated, that which is set apart for holy acts of service since it could be profaned.
Speaker:In the case of the king, it also reflected his exalted position.
Speaker:Besides the concept of consecration and exaltation,
Speaker:a second term for crown in the Old Testament indicated the presence of honor.
Speaker:In some cases it pictured the reception of honor because of one's special position
Speaker:or entering into a position. Such as wives who were crowned with honor to show their new status of marriage.
Speaker:Before and during Jesus' day, the Romans would bestow a civic crown on one who saved the life of a citizen.
Speaker:And it was made of the leaves of oak. The pretty part.
Speaker:I read this quote this week by Dr. John Beck and I can't vouch for him.
Speaker:I have no idea. I don't know. Who knows?
Speaker:But he said, "When I encounter the idea of thorns on Jesus' head,
Speaker:I'm transported all the way back to Genesis 3,
Speaker:and I'm reminded the consequences of sin linger around thorns."
Speaker:These thorns are a reminder of and a representation of sin in this world.
Speaker:Jesus, he didn't carry it on his shoulders. He carried it on his head, on the crown of his head.
Speaker:The intent was to dishonor our Lord, to injure him at his most physically vulnerable place,
Speaker:to mock him with a fake and dishonorable crown, to try to show the world that he was nothing.
Speaker:The irony is this crown did set him apart and consecrate our Lord for this holy act of service to mankind.
Speaker:As we think of our Savior suffering for our sake, he chose this crown,
Speaker:this crown of honor as he entered into this special position and the status of our crucified King.
Speaker:Remember what I said before about how the Romans would bestow a civic crown of oak leaves for saving the life of a citizen?
Speaker:Imagine the honor of saving the lives of mankind.
Speaker:For this he wore a crown of thorns, humbling himself to death on the cross,
Speaker:only to be exalted by God the Father, becoming our King and offering redemption to anyone who so will.
Speaker:The beauty of this image to me is what the enemy meant for evil. He turned it for our good.
Speaker:Any other comments or questions? Yeah, Jan?
Speaker:Yeah, very powerful. And sometimes we think sin, think of it as the metaphor for sin.
Speaker:We think, oh, just, okay, it's just that, it's just that small sin and we don't realize when we succumb to the temptation,
Speaker:because the Lord always gives us a way out.
Speaker:But when we find ourselves in sin, it tears at us spiritually.
Speaker:It's so much stronger than we give it credit for.
Speaker:And Rich Mullins wrote a song a long time ago called "We are not as strong as we think we are."
Speaker:We need the Lord. He is made perfect in our weaknesses.
Speaker:Anybody else? All right, well, I'm 10 minutes ahead of time.
Speaker:I love you guys. This is where I am. This is just, I'm not bringing you, this is not theological.
Speaker:It is theological, but this is not like, I don't have a PhD and anything.
Speaker:I'm not backing, okay, I shouldn't back up. Thank you, number eight.
Speaker:Linger.
Speaker:Some level of understanding about to give us insights and glimpses of eternal things maybe.
Speaker:I think it's the eternal.
Speaker:Any other questions about the paperwork? I can go through them real quick.
Speaker:Number two. I didn't put the numbers in my notes until I got to number four.
Speaker:Sorry, sorry everybody. Yes.
Speaker:At some point, I guess I have a very simple question.
Speaker:An infinite and eternal triune God who exists without the boundaries of time and space,
Speaker:who chooses to commune with us, to commune with and speak to us His creation.
Speaker:We who are bound, we who are bound by time and space with limited amounts of understanding,
Speaker:and in His grace, He speaks anyway.
Speaker:That one's will too.
Speaker:Thank you all.
Speaker:Please.
Speaker:You said morality.
Speaker:Inside the church, believers, believers.
Speaker:When we take stuff from scripture, that is scriptural for us.
Speaker:That's the end of the conversation.
Speaker:In the church, it doesn't exist outside the church. It's not right or wrong. That's the way we see it.
Speaker:The parables are not scriptural.
Speaker:The parables are a part of a lyrical narrative device to make a point or prove a point.
Speaker:It's sort of like analyses, but they're not analyses.
Speaker:It's a way of saying something to make something else believable.
Speaker:The reason I'm saying that is going back to what you were talking about earlier about asking questions
Speaker:and being willing to learn and be a contributor to the prime minister.
Speaker:We need to stop thinking that the Bible is just meant for believers to have Bible.
Speaker:But then breath.
Speaker:Careful think this.
Speaker:An atheist that writes a brilliant screenplay for a motion picture that makes a significant dollar
Speaker:and changes the price of the doctor's real life. Maybe a parabolic screenplay.
Speaker:He may not even know how to spell Jesus.
Speaker:That's not the point.
Speaker:The point is the use of the parable is to accomplish something which is why it exists.
Speaker:So we narrow it down and go, well, if it's a parable, it doesn't have something to do with Jesus.
Speaker:No, it only has something to do with Jesus, but Jesus does mean parable.
Speaker:It was hard for me to understand.
Speaker:That's good.
Speaker:Oh, wow.
Speaker:You got to dig.
Speaker:That's good. You got to dig.
Speaker:And sometimes it's the third or fourth dig in the same area.
Speaker:Or at least it is for me.
Speaker:Am I too transparent here? Sorry.
Speaker:Oh goodness.
Speaker:Well, let's pray. God, thank you so much for your grace.
Speaker:Thank you for speaking to us. Thank you for having a plan from the very beginning.
Speaker:Thank you for your choice to redeem us.
Speaker:Thank you for your choice to commune with us, to want time with us.
Speaker:And God, we're grateful for that.
Speaker:We don't hold it lightly and we love you and praise you and have your way in this building,
Speaker:on this campus, with this fellowship today in Jesus' name. Amen.
