2819 Church - CROSS TO COMMISSION | The King They Mocked | Matthew 27:27-31 | Philip Anthony Mitchell

Episode Date: February 16, 2026

In week 11 of CROSS TO COMMISSION, Pastor Philip Anthony Mitchell taught from Matthew 27:27–31, confronting us with Christ’s obedience under suffering and the glory revealed through submission to the Father.This message calls every disciple to repentance, reverence, and the humility of bowing before Jesus, the King of Kings.

Be seated. If you are guests, we want to welcome you to 2819 to these sacred holy gatherings where we are a church that's serious about the spread of the gospel and the multiplying of disciples. And what we believe are the final hours of the church age to all of our digital disciples watching live across the nation around the world. Our global family on continents all around the world behind prison bars wherever you are. You are family. We thank you for being a part. of this global family we pray for you we love you wherever you are you are representative of the

kingdom and an extension of 2819 and whatever city you are in or whatever continent you're in we welcome you and if you are not a follower of jesus christ you crept into this room or crept into this chat we want you to believe that you're not here by accident and we want you to know that you are welcome here you can belong before you believe you can be amongst us before you believe in our prayer for you is that in a moment during one of these sacred holy gatherings, you will feel the tug of the Holy Spirit, wooing you to the Lord Jesus, and you will surrender your life to him

and come aboard the Ark of Safety before time has run out. Family, we are in the final maybe seven messages in our three-year journey through the book of Matthew. I've seen some people criticize me for spending three years in Matthew. Yeah. So I'll take this moment to not do that. defend myself, but just brag on Jesus for just a second. I just want to remind those of you who are ignorant that our teaching through Matthew in which the Holy Spirit told me, take my time.

That was supposed to only be one year, but he said, take your time. A teaching that began with 183 disciples. A journey that began with 183 disciples. But it was Jesus who said, if I be lifted up, It's why we got to learn to tone down all of our attention to ignorant people and check for fruit. So yes, we are in the final few messages in our three-year journey through the book of Matthew. But we are studying Matthew 26 to 28 together in our last series in the book of Matthew called Cross to Commission, in which we are studying the final hours and the final days of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. our text today is a very short one very short only a few verses it's coming from Matthew 27 verses 27 through 31 eternal God and ever wise father we approach your throne

in humility just acknowledging our weakness our frailties even the person with the microphone but thanking you for the opportunity you've given us to lean into your word and help us to never take that for granted Lord you know the tears that I shed that this week over this text has made me emotional. I pray you would help me to communicate its truths to these, my brothers and sisters, and even the unbeliever. I ask in the mighty and the majestic,

in the matchless name of our soon-coming king, the Lord Jesus Christ. And all God's people said, amen. Yeah, I hear you. Family was two weeks ago, my family and I were walking through the Vatican Museum in Rome. And as we're walking through the Vatican Museum in Rome, I came upon one of the most iconic paintings inside the Vatican. It was a depiction of the Lord Jesus Christ on the night before he was crucified,

before he was crucified with his closest followers seated at a table in an upper room and what has been known to us throughout history of the last supper and it was in that room at the last supper we know historically how the lord began to speak about his impending death and transition out of his life he began to speak to his followers about the coming of the ministry of the holy spirit he began to pray for them and talk to them about things that were coming after that night. He washed feet that night and was also on that sacred night that he instituted the perpetual ordinance of what we call communion, this holy meal that he gave us of bread and wine to remember the sacrifice that he made to pay the price for your sin and

mine that redeemed a people back to the Father and gave us an escape from being hellbound for all eternity. It is one of the most sacred and holy and important moments recorded in the history of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. A very significant moment in the final hours of his life. And yet, in 2024, at the opening of the Paris Olympic, We saw globally the desecration of that holy moment when the world watched with disgust of a now condemned parity that stirred up believers from around the world and what would become the mockery and one of the most sacred moments in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. Give me the picture control room. This is what the world saw for the opening.

of the Paris Olympics, a video of drag queens seated at a table mocking the Lord Jesus, mocking his followers, and mocking one of the most important, holy, sacred moments in the life of the Lord. What they turned into a joke was the desecration, the desecration of one of the most celebrated incidents in the life of the Lord. And what resulted in that parody was an outrage, a cry from the church around the world, an outrage of what happened. They would never talk about Muhammad like this. Never talk about Joseph Smith like this. Well, why would they? For the devil would never attack what belongs to him.

How Satan only attacks that which is a threat to him. That's why he's constantly on the attack against Jesus and the church. and for the church, the body of Christ, for those of us around the world, this was the mockery of something we hold dear, something that is revered in Christendom, something that we look at when we think about that night for Christians, we think about that night with a sense of reverence and respect. And yet these drag queens and ignorance, God helped them. At the opening of the Paris Olympics, this is the mockery they made of the Lord Jesus Christ. I dare not show you the video in the gathering. So I freeze the frame so you just see the imagery of what happened that day. Now, family, the mockery of Jesus, I mean, this is all too common in our society.

How we see all across our society men have this kind of dangerous fixation on mocking Jesus. from the mockery of Christ in movies, to the mockery of Christ in commercials, to the mockery of Christ in music videos, men putting themselves on the cross, comedians on stages mocking Christ, men fully depraved and ignorant seems to have this weird desire to take shots and mock the son of the living God. God help those who die in their mockery. For that mockery will come to an end when they take their last breath. When they wake up on the other side of eternity and realize the man they mocked has now become the judge they must stand before. And I want to tell you the mockery of Christ, or it is popular in our society. It did not begin with the 24 Paris Olympics. It did not begin with comedians.

It did not begin with music videos. It did not begin with television or people standing on platforms. It did not begin with all of that. But the mockery of Christ, the Son of God, finds its origins in our text. In an incident that reveals the evil of mankind, the wickedness of human beings, the depravity of the heart of people apart from the Holy Spirit. You remember, you recall in our series how Christ, was arrested by the religious leaders of Israel,

how he was illegally tried and found guilty of blasphemy, how he was brought to a man named Pilot, the governor of Judea for the agency of capital punishment. How then Pilate tried Christ in a Roman court, and at the end of that trial, he found Christ innocent and not guilty. Yet because of a bloodthirsty mob and a jealous religious leaders, they cried out all the more. No, we don't want to crucify him.

And how Pilate made every attempt to exonerate Jesus, that mob, and those religious leaders cried out all the more, crucify him. Pilot attempted to play his last card, brought out an infamous prisoner named Barabbas, presents Barabbas and Jesus to the the mob, choose which one I would release, and they're depraved, manipulated minds. They choose a murderer, an insurrectionist, and a thief. Pilot has Jesus scourged, beaten within an inch of his life. You saw the imagery of that the last time I spoke to you. He brings Jesus back to the people hoping this will satisfy their thirst, and still they cry out, crucify him. The fact that he's standing there a lump of flesh, according to Isaiah, not recognizable. His body open with wounds, his bones showing organs ripped up to shreds from the flagealum. They look at this big lump of flesh

blusted and bleeding and you would think that this would be enough to satisfy them. But know that the brave hearts of men looks upon this lump of flesh and say, no, we don't want him. Crucify him. And what happens next in our text? For me, as I wept over this passage, could only be described as inhumane, dehumanizing treatment of a man who could barely stand up on his two legs. After Jesus is flogged and beaten and sentenced to be executed, we come to our text in Matthew chapter 27, beginning in verse 27. Then the soldiers of the governor who was pilot took Jesus into the governor's headquarters or the Praetorium. And they gathered the whole battalion before him. Now, Pilate sentenced Jesus to be executed.

I want to believe at that moment, Pilate who was dealing with guilt and pressure who washed his hands and says, I want nothing to do with this man walks off. And then I want to believe behind his back, these men now who had the orders to take Jesus to the cross, they do not immediately take him to the cross. Instead, they take them to a place where there is a gathering spot for Roman soldiers. Now, the Roman Senate had passed a law saying anyone sentenced to death would get at least 10 days deferment before they was executed.

But the Lord Jesus did not get those 10 days. Instead, he's carried into this back room. And Matthew tells us that he is surrounded by a battalion of men. That is a very important detail in the text. A Roman battalion average anywhere from 200 to 600 men. And if we take this one detail of Matthew seriously, then we can reconstruct a scene in our minds. there is Christ

bloodied and bruised weak, limp, almost beaten within the inch of his life. He is now in a large room surrounded by a minimum of 200 bloodthirsty men. Roman soldiers in the first century was known to be brutal

and have no mercy. And there is Christ standing in the middle of those men anywhere from 200 to 600 men, they are staring at him like sharks in the water sniffing blood. Now family, I'm from the hood. And if you've ever been in a circumstance when you knew you was about to get jumped, then some of you know the tension of this moment. If you've ever been surrounded what felt like warfare on every side, then a lot of you know the tension of this moment. If you've ever been surrounded by people who don't have your best interest at heart,

then you kind of know in your heart the tension of this moment when you know something is about to happen to you and you know the pain that is coming. And this is where we find Christ in verse 27. And then verse 28, they come for him and they stripped him and they put a scarlet robe on him and twisting together a crown of thorns. They put it on his head. And they put a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him, they mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews. These soldiers knew that Christ was about to be executed for the crime of being called the king of the Jews. So they use his accusation to create a parody of mockery.

Since you are the king of the Jews, they use this secret moment to create a evil parody to mock this man as a king. And so the scripture says they stripped him. That is, they left him naked. for a moment. It is symbolic of what sin did to Adam and Eve. God, this is so powerful. Just watch all the symbolism in the text.

Symbolic of what happened to Adam and Eve when they sinned against God and they realized they were naked, there is Jesus naked before these men symbolic of the sin of the original man and woman. Then they said they put a scarlet cloak on him. so powerful to me. Another writer says purple.

Maybe it's faded. I don't know. But watch, they put a scarlet cloak on him. On his wounds. They put this heavy garment on his wounds. A scarlet cloak, which only would have been the robe of an emperor. And they find an old robe

laying around on the floor, and they put that old heavy robe on a welled up, lacerated back. But peep the symbolism in the text. In the In Old Testament, our sins are described as scarlet. And there is Christ, who was first naked representing sins, and now wearing a scarlet robe symbolic of carrying sins.

And then they platt a crown of thorns. And they put that thorn on his head, that crown. And if you've ever walked through a rose bush and you've ever been pricked in your finger, then you know the pain of that thorn on his head. They're not doing that just to be kind. They're doing that to inflict more. pain on the son of God, but peep the symbolism in the text. For us in Genesis, when the scripture tells us God cursed the ground. And he says thorns and thistles it will bring forth.

And there is Christ carrying on his head, symbolically the curse of creation. Oh my God, this is insane to me. That although they're mocking him as a mocking, symbolically he is walking out. the redemption story of God. First naked representing the sins of man. Then carrying that cloak representing the sins of man in Scarlet. So he's now carrying the crown of thorns representing the curse of creation. The curse of humanity and sin. The curse of creation in society.

He's symbolically carrying all of it. That although they're making a mockery of God in the flesh, the Holy Spirit weaving into the narrative, the symbolism of one man carrying the sins of all. And one man carrying the curse of creation. One man getting ready to redeem creation and redeemed man permanently in the end. And then they put a reed in his right hand, a mock scepter that they would later use to inflict harm on him. And then they bow down. And they mock him saying, hail.

King of the Jews. And they mock him. And why did they do all of that to the Lord Jesus Christ? What is the purpose of all of that? Man, in their mind, they're trying to strip him of his humanity. Watch. They're trying to strip him of his dignity. But notice Christ says nothing.

And notice Christ does not defend himself. And Christ is not shaken in this moment because Christ knows his identity. And Christ knows his mission. And this is why it's very important that you have to know your identity in Christ. And you've got to know your purpose in Christ. So not even mockery can shake you from what God has called you to do or called you to be. That when identity is tattooed to your heart, there is no mockery of Christianity towards you. Not even mockery that leads to social persecution or death can phase you on the inside

where you hear men and women talking trash about you. or even people in your family, but when you are secure in your identity in Christ, man, you can stand firm in the face of that mockery. The Lord says nothing. And I see in them the same behavior of your adversary, the devil. Does not the devil try to do the same thing to you? I just want to mind all of you who always condemn yourself, always beating yourself up, always thinking about your past,

always crying over something God already for you. forgave you for, not realize that some of those thoughts are not yours. Lord, help your people. Is this not what the enemy does? He tries to strip us of our identity in Christ. He tried to derob you from what God is giving you. How the scripture teaches us we've been clothed in righteousness and how the devil always comes and try to strip you out that garment, how he tries to put on you a garment of shame. Don't nobody know nothing about that?

I know I'm not the only one who post salvation has felt shame or has condemned yourself. I know I'm not the only one post salvation who has beat myself up for something the Lord already forgave me for. I'm just trying to help some of you know, man, that those thoughts are not coming from God. But the devil behaves the same way. He'll surround you. He'll try to strip you of dignity. strict you of your righteous robes and try to clothe you again in condemnation and clothe you again in shame and clothe you again in regret and mock you the devil behaves the same way but when you know your identity in christ watch you will be reminded of your past and scripture will come up in your heart this one thing i do i say this to the enemy i forget what is behind I press on to the high mark.

You're always doing wrong. Dang, I feel bad for a moment. And then the scripture comes up in my heart. There is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ. And I find it ironic that the man they put on a crown of thorns in just a few hours, he will be crowned in glory. And I find it ironic that the man they kneeled down, they knelt down and said, Hail, King of the Jews

Was about to be exalted To be King of Kings Man I find it ironic That they took a false knee In mockery But a day is coming for all those men Who are dead

Where they're going to take a real knee by force For when the scripture says Every knee will bow And those same men Every tongue will confess that Jesus is the son of Almighty God. They took a mockery knee on earth. They will take a real knee in the judgment.

They mock that king on earth. They will be afraid of him in the judgment. They took advantage of that king in earth. He will have the last laugh in the judgment. Y'all think this is a joke. those men, they're dead already. I feel sorry for where they are right now in hell. I feel sorry for their time of judgment that is coming. They took a knee in mockery. They will take a knee in humility. And every Muslim will take a knee and every Buddhist will take a knee. And every atheist will take a knee.

And every Hindu will take a knee. And every Jehovah's Witness will take a knee. And every Mormon will take a knee. And every unbeliever would take a knee, and every agnostic will take a knee, and every fake Christian would take a knee, every false prophet will take a knee, every false apostle will take a knee. Every knee will bow. Ign him now, but they will bow. They mock him now, but they will bow. They mistreat him now, but they will bow. They are fake now, but they will bow. They will bow. prayers that they bow in this life voluntarily. So we will not be forced to a knee involuntarily in the judgment. This is evil. This is wicked. This is cruel.

This is demonic. This is the influence of Satan. This is a glimpse at the depravity of men who saw this bloody, lumped up men and that was not enough for them. Verse 30. I don't know if I could do this. And they spit on him. The Lord better than me. And they took a reed and they struck him on the head. Look at me. They hawk in phlegm and spitting on him. And there is the Lord with 200 plus men spitting on him. hand bound and his face covered in phleg and spit is running off of his lip and is dripping past his bloodied eye it's on his air and it's on his head and it's on his forehead is running into his mouth he has that crown of thorns on his head and they take that reed and they strike him on the head bashing that crown in even deeper into his skull striking him one after the other on his head

This is evil. This is wicked. This is depraved. And I got to believe that they're doing this probably without pilots knowing. Watch. Pilots said, go and crucify him. supposed to be safe. A home, a family, a church.

All the times we were supposed to be in a safe place. And the enemy abused us in that safe place. And I see the behavior of these men. And I want to go deeper. It reminds me of those of us it is akin to people. Watch, who deviate from the words of a leader. I ain't tell you to do that. That don't represent the organization.

That don't represent our church. Ain't tell you to mistreat that person in the parking lot. We didn't tell you to strip him and crown him and beat him and spit on him. PILA and give none of those orders. It's just like all of us, man, who deviate from the orders of leadership. Oh, my God. Deviate from clear instructions. And then we blame the organization instead of taking responsibility for not carrying out your SOP.

at your job. Woe is the job. No, woe is the employee. I'm going to go deeper than that, but we do the same thing to God. What about all of these SOPs I got in my hand? Call the scriptures. Oh, my God in heaven. I feel the spirit of God in this place.

I got a handful of SOPs that came to us from heaven. Clear instructions from God that his people don't follow. We post them and we put them. on clothing, but we don't obey them. The scripture says, forgive, we don't do that. The scripture says love deeply, we don't do that. The scripture says, be generous. We don't do that.

The scripture says, be humble. We are not that. What about all of the deviation from these SOPs, from the highest leader the world has ever known? You've got a whole New Testament full of red, a whole book full of God's commands, that we don't, we don't, and then you wonder why people mock the church. Now, don't be mad at Druski, we should be mad at ourselves.

Don't be mad at that man. He only mocking what he sees. Why are we mad at him for? Where you got a people that call themselves Christians and don't do what their Lord says. But then you got other people who follow demon spirits and are more disciplined and devoted to demon spirits of false religions and they have more dedication than those of us who have the truth.

And then we wonder why people have no respect for our Lord and no respect for the church and why they make a mockery of him not only because of their evil but because of what we do. Evidence that they probably did this behind pilots back is in the last verse, verse 31. And when they had mocked him, E.D. finished, they stripped them of all of that stuff. They put back on his own clothes. It's all done in secret. And now they follow instructions. Now they want to follow instructions after they've been deviant in the dark.

Looks like anybody you know? You want to follow instructions in the gathering where we can see. deviant in the dark. They come out to the light. Scripture never says they took off his crown. And the Lord says nothing. Wipes no spit off of his face. No defense of himself.

I want to show you what he demonstrates for us. He demonstrates for us like his full submission to the father. This bothers me in Western church. We love to dance and shout. come to church. We don't come to church. You are the church. We come to gathering.

I don't understand this. And then when it's time to actually appropriate things we learn, we don't do that. But here is the Lord modeling for you what it is to be surrendered and submitted to the father, even at the expense of being mocked and humiliated. The evidence of that is just seen in the Old Testament. I'm going to read you two passages. Isaiah 50, verse 6. This is Isaiah, a 20-year-old prophet, a young man writing 700 years before Christ was even born.

He prophesies about the future affliction of Christ. And Isaiah 50 in verse 6, he says, this is Christ in the future. I gave my back to those who strike me. And my cheeks to those who pull out my beard. They took his beard from his face and ripped it out of his skin. I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting. So because the word said this about him, it must happen that way. He does not break the scriptures.

He is so surrendered to the word that the word even covers his emotions and his decision making. What an example for you and I. But Isaiah didn't stop there. Isaiah 52, verse 14. As many were astonished at you. His appearance was marred. You know what that is? Mard, beaten beyond human semblance.

They beat him so bad in that moment. He was not recognizable. And from his form beyond that of the children of mankind, they beat him so he was not recognized. I was reading this text this week and I thought about how many times I pushed away from my death and I cried. I cried because I had the imagery of how they disgraced my Lord, how they vandalized his body. I can't even imagine keeping my composure of somebody spit in my face and my hands was not handcuffed. I might get at you and repent later.

But yet in this moment, no, look at me. I'm serious. Christ models for us. Watch this. Like humility is not weakness. Look, he models for all of us, all of us. This is what strength under control looks like. To not feel the need to have to retaliate and fight back all the time. He models for us what submission to the Father looks like. He model for us what it is to be surrendered to the Word of God. I mean, how many times will he set an example for us that we will not follow. Look at me. But I want to just lean on you for just a few more moments. And I just want to encourage all of you who have ever been mocked, ever been made fun of all of you right now who have family members that don't understand your sacrifice,

don't understand why you attend a gathering, don't understand why you give, don't understand why you serve, don't understand why you're not walling out in the street. for all of you who are being marked on social media and condemned by people who got your last name, the Lord models for us what it is to not have to give them a defense for why you are faithful to the Lord. He models for us one of the greatest flex. Like sometimes silence is a flex. Just let them keep watching you and see the fruit of your life. And let the fruit convince them that something has happened in your life.

that the Lord knows how to vindicate you in time, just like he would be vindicated in glory. But I just want to lead on you just a little bit more. Just like they mock Christ in that moment. So you and I, a lot of us are guilty of mocking Christ. I'm talking to you, man. I'm talking to all of us who all we do is post-Christian things and don't live that way. We sit under this teaching and you don't live it.

You read and you don't obey. I'm talking to all of you who you have a poor witness before other people. You're on your job and you have a poor witness and before other people we make a mockery of Christ. I'm talking to all of you. I know you're going like this. Who you enjoy your sinful patterns. But you say you love Jesus. This is crazy to me.

You say you love Jesus, but you don't live a life that represents that confession. And when we do that, people watch you, and we make a mockery of the one we say we love. You love this man, but you don't follow what he says. We make a mockery of Christ. When we have mouths and lives that don't match, I'm going to say this to you one more time. I'm going to tattoo this to your heart. You. And I make a mockery of Christ when we have a mouth and a life that does not match.

And when people watch that, we make a mockery of the one we call Lord and Savior. Like he's not strong enough to keep you. He didn't give you the Holy Spirit that gave you strength and the power over sin and all of the evils that we want to do. I'm not talking about perfection. I'm talking about trying. I'm talking about getting up every morning and say, man, I want to live holy. I want to live right. I want to serve him.

I want him to be proud when he looks at me. I'm talking about I'm done with a sinful life. And at some point in time, we got to not look at those Roman soldiers like they're guilty. We guilty too. We strip him too. We crown him with thorns too. We beat him too. And we got to learn to revere him, love him, honor him, bow our need to him now, turn from our wicked ways.

Like, live the kind of life that we don't even have to say I'm a Christian. People just see the way that you live and sense that something is different about you So that believers are not constantly making a mockery of Jesus Give me that camera But for you The macker Your mockery will come to an end I pray now

Let me read something to the macker Galatians chapter 6 And verse 7 Do not be deceived That's what grace does to people. People who mock Christ now are deceived by grace. Because they're still waking up in their mockery. They think God does not care. Grace has deceived them.

They don't know that they're riding on that grace until they die, and then that grace will run out, and they will meet the wrathful person they've been mocking. So yet too many people in society, they think they tough, because they love to mock God. No, they have been deceived by grace. They've been deceived by the fact that God is withholding. wrath just enough time to deal with them after they die.

So they can trash Jesus and wake up the next day. And make parodies about him and wake up the next day and clown him and clown his people and wake up the next day. No, they're riding on grace. It's only God allowing them to breathe, giving them an opportunity to repent. But God says through the Apostle, Paul, do not be deceived. God is not mocked for whatever one souls, that will he also reap. That is no man is going to get away with the mockery of Christ. No man.

So may we pray for those who are mockers. And may we turn from mockery ourselves. Eternal God and other wise father. I pray, Father, for the sons and daughters. You will turn our heart away from mockery. I pray, Father, Lord, you will pour out on the church globally a spirit of reverence and respect for Yahshua. I will soon come in king. And we pray for the mockers, God, in our society, that in mercy you will save them and redeem them and turn them from their mockery. I pray, Father, for the brothers and sisters of 2019 that there would be an explosion.

of awe and wonder over Christ, of deep reverence and respect, and that we would remember what he suffered for us and respond with lives fully surrendered to him. That is my prayer in the mighty and the majestic, in the matchless name of our soon-coming king, the Lord Jesus Christ and all God's people said, amen. If you received that, put your hands together,

give God praise. Thank you.