Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Mocking Jesus

Episode Date: March 24, 2023

In the first half of the crucifixion account, there’s a theme. That theme is the fact that Jesus is mocked, insulted, jeered at, laughed at, humiliated, and shamed. The soldiers are jeering at him, spitting on him. He is stripped naked and crucified naked. The passersby are insulting him. The religious leaders are mocking him. And at the very end, even the thieves on the crosses beside him are making fun of him, insulting him. Jesus didn’t only get killed on the cross—he also got shamed and humiliated. This is important because it teaches us three things: 1) the mocking tells us about our own hearts, 2) the mocking reveals Jesus’ heart, and 3) if we let it, the mocking can change our hearts so ours become like his.  This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on March 18, 2007. Series: King's Cross: The Gospel of Mark, Part 2: The Journey to the Cross. Scripture: Mark 15:16-32. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel and Life. Many religious teachers sought to live as good examples. Only Jesus explicitly stated that his purpose was to die. Today on Gospel and Life, Tim Keller is teaching through Mark's account of Jesus' final days and ultimate death on the cross and how that can change us from the inside out. Scriptureing is found on page 8 of Ebolitan. I'll be reading Mark chapter 15 verses 16 through 32. The soldiers led Jesus away into the palace, that is, the Praetorium, and called together

the whole company of soldiers. They put a purple robe on him, then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him. And they began to call out to him, hail King of the Jews. Again and again, they struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him. Following on their knees, they paid homage to him. And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they let him out to crucify him. A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on

his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross. They brought Jesus to the place called Galgotha, which means the place of the skull. Then they offered him wine mixed with mure, but he did not take it. And they crucified him. Dividing up his clothes, they cast lots to see what each would get. It was the third hour when they crucified him.

The written notice of the charge against him read, the king of the Jews. They crucified two robbers with him, one on his right and one on his left. Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, so you who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, come down from the cross and save yourself.

In the same way, the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. He saved others, they said, but he cannot save himself. Let this Christ, this King of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe. Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him. This is the word of the Lord. We're looking at the gospel of Mark, and we've come to finally the account of the crucifixion. And this is the first half of the crucifixion account.

But you'll see there's a theme that runs through it all. And that theme is the fact that Jesus is mocked, insulted, jeered at, laughed at, humiliated and shamed. It runs all the way through. Look, so verse 16 to 20, the soldiers are mocking Him, making fun of Him, spitting on Him, jeering at him. Then you head down to verse 24 and we see the stripping because part of, we'll get to this in a minute, part of what made crucifixion so horrible was a stripping of all dignity

and he stripped naked, he's crucified naked. And then verse 27, we had this ironic statement over him, the King of the Jews. It's something you put over a throne, but not over a man dying on the cross. And then you get down to verse 29 and 30 and you have the passerby's insulting him. And then you get down to 31 and 32 and you have the religious leaders mocking him and insulting him. And at the very end, we see that even the thieves on the crosses on both sides of him are making fun of him and insulting him. Mark wants us to see that Jesus didn't, didn't, on the cross, only get killed. He also got shamed and

humiliated. Why that's so important? And it's important because, well, we'll see how it's important. If we ask the question, why is it so important? We'll see it's important because, well, we'll see how it's important. If we ask the question, why is it so important? We'll see it's because we learn three things here. One is the mocking tells us about our own hearts. We look at the mocking, we're going to learn something about our own hearts. Secondly, the mocking reveals Jesus' heart. We see something about what makes him tick, what he came to do? And then lastly, if we let it, the mocking can change our hearts so that they're like his.

So, first of all, we'll learn about our hearts. Secondly, the mocking shows us about Jesus heart and thirdly. The mocking can actually change our hearts so they become like his. So, let's say, first of all, how does the mocking show us our own hearts? Now in two ways, the mocking reveals our hearts. First of all, he reveals our absolute hostility to his claims. We hate the claims. Look, what are they making fun of him for?

Are they mocking him for the sermon on the mount? Are they making fun of him for being a wise teacher? No, they're making fun of him for these incredibly huge claims that he was the king, that he was the savior, that he was going to replace the temple. You said you're going to replace the temple, you're going to replace the temple so that you're the way we're going to get to God now. Those are incredible claims and that's what they hate. And that's what they're mocking and that's what they're deriding.

And I want you to consider for a moment that the magnitude of those claims brings out in all of our hearts a hostility. We can't stand the size of those claims. If he didn't say that, it would be different, but he says that. If you want a contemporary expression of it, a very interesting contemporary example of what you see here on the text is Anne Rice, who wrote interview with an empire. She's a pretty well-known literary, artistic type person who had been secular person for years and years and years, and recently became a Christian. And one of the reasons she became a Christian

was she was a novelist and she was going to write a novel about Jesus. And like good novelists do today, she started studying the background. She started to study the historical background of Jesus. Because novelists do that. They're going to write about a period of time.

They do lots and lots of historical research. So she started studying the historical scholarship about Jesus. For the last 100 years, there's been lots and lots of scholarship trying to get behind the gospels. You know, the Da Vinci code and the Jesus tomb and the Nostocospels. A lot of that is historical scholarship for years

has been trying to say, well, you gotta get behind the gospels and find the real historical Jesus who really didn't make these horrible claims. He never claimed that he was king and savior. He was just a nice guy, a teacher of righteousness. So she began to study this historical scholarship and what she found stunned her.

And if you want to read it, it's the afterward to her latest book out of Egypt. And here's what she says. She says, the skeptical arguments that insisted that the gospels were suspect or written too late to be eyewitnesses. All those arguments like coherence, and we're full of conjecture. Some of the books I read were no more than the assumptions piled upon assumptions. Observed conclusions were reached on the basis of little or no data at all. The whole case for the non-Divine Jesus who stumbled into Jerusalem and somehow got crucified

and had nothing to do with the Christianity's founding, which came later. That whole picture which floated in liberal circles I had frequented for 30 years. That case was never made, but not only was the case not made, I found something even more surprising. I discovered that these scholars, some many of them, that devoted their life to New Testament scholarship, disliked Jesus. Some pitted him as a helpless failure, others sneered at him. Some showed outright contempt.

Now I'd never come across this in any other field of research that I'd ever studied. For example, the people who go into Elizabethan studies are not out to prove that Queen Elizabeth was an idiot. People in Elizabethan studies don't make snickering remarks about her or spend their careers trying to pick a part her historical reputation. Occasionally, scholars will study a villain in history. Yes, but even then they tend to argue for the importance of his or her place in history, but in general scholars don't spend their lives in the company of historic figures who they openly despise, but these New Testament scholars detest and despise Jesus Christ.

Now, unquote, now what what what's what's stunned her was, why would there be this whole area of scholarship, the only area of San Sargal scholarship she'd ever seen, which so many of the scholars were mocking Jesus and despising Jesus and sneering at Jesus? Why would they do that? The answer is in your text. The claims that Jesus made, we hate, and we'll do everything we possibly can to undermine them or try to get rid of them. That's the reason why the Da Vinci code and the Gospels stuff and all this stuff you

know here about all the time was an expression of that contempt. We can't stand those claims. And you know why? Because they force us into an all or nothing decision. And oh, we hate that. They force us into an all or nothing decision. If he says, I'm a teacher and I'm pointing the way to God, then we can say, well, maybe you are, maybe you aren't, maybe part of it's true, maybe part of it's not true.

But he says, I'm the son of God, I'm the unique son of God. I am the Savior, I'm the world, I'm the king. Then it's not true. But when he says, I'm the son of God, I'm the unique son of God, I am the Savior, I'm the world, I'm the King. Then it's all or nothing. You can't like him. You have to completely adore him or you have to despise him. And we don't want that, see. We don't, we don't, we want to keep our options open.

Flannery O'Connor wrote a book, wrote a short story, a good man is hard to find. And in the short story, there is a criminal, the misfit, who is talking with the grandmother, who he is apprehended, along with her family, to rob them. And he's killing the whole family one at a time. It's quite a short story. And the grandmother is basically pleading for her life. And the misfit and the grandmother had this dialogue.

And the grandmother is very religious and she's talking about, you need to pray more and you're really a good boy, I'm sure you're a really good boy. I know you're good. And at one point, she says, you need to pray to Jesus. And he says, Jesus, and here's what the misfit says. Jesus threw everything off balance. If he did what he said, then it's nothing for you to do, but throw away everything and follow him.

But if he didn't, then there's nothing to do, but to enjoy the few minutes you got left, the best way you can, by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him. No pleasure but meanness. He says, Jesus threw everything off balance. And some years later, Flannery O'Connor wrote a friend in a letter to try to explain that dialogue between the grandmother and the misfit. And he says this, she says, the story is a duel of sorts between the grandmother and

her superficial beliefs and the misfits more profoundly felt involvement with Christ's action, which set the world off balance for him. See, the grandmother is like so many of us. She's just religious. She's just nice. But the misfit knows it's all or nothing. It's been thrown off balance.

You can't stay on the fence. Jesus threw everything off balance. You can't stay on the fence. Jesus threw everything off balance. And that's what we can't stand. We don't want to have to despise Him or totally worship Him. We want to just kind of like listen to Him and kind of make up our own minds. But no, Jesus threw everything off balance.

And we hate that. And the hostility in our heart is drawn out by the magnitude of His claims and the exclusiveness of his claims. You know, remember a couple of weeks ago, we talked about Santa Gustin and Santa Gustin at one point in his confessions is trying to figure out why when he was a young man, he broke into a pair orchard and stole pairs. And it's very interesting to listen to him.

He says, now why did I break into the pair orchard when I was young man and still pairs when A, I wasn't hungry, and B, I didn't like pairs. He's trying to figure out why did he do it. And he realized it was C because somebody told me, couldn't. He says, I wouldn't have any interest in the pairs except they were forbidden. And so he did some reflection and he realized that at the core of his heart and therefore at the core of all of our hearts, there is something that says, nobody tells me how to live through clenched teeth.

There's something in our heart that says, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul. And when Jesus comes near us, it comes out. The mockery shows us that we are hostile, we can't stand the magnitude of his claims. And we don't like the all or nothing decision that it shows us that we have to take. And listen, friends, if you are like the grandmother,

or just, you know, in other words, if you don't, you say, I don't really despise them. I don't mock them. I don't hate them. But I also, I don't totally center my life around him. If it's not one of the other, friends, either you have no integrity. Are you really still don't know who he is or what he said? Listen to him and you'll see the same thing happen to your heart. We don't like it, but it's all or nothing.

So the mockery shows us our hostility to the magnitude of his claims, but secondly, the mockery shows us also our blindness to the weakness of his ways, because Jesus on the one hand is great in his claims, but he's always weak in his ways. He comes humbly, he comes without a horse, you know, without an army and without power, he comes in weakness and the second thread I see going through the mockery. Look at it and you'll see the second thread

that comes through is they're saying, you couldn't be the king, you couldn't be the savior, you're too weak. If you were the king, I couldn't do this to you and this to you, see? If God was really with you, you'd be strong. He would be protecting you. He wouldn't let us be doing what we're doing. You couldn't be the savior. You couldn't be the king because God wouldn't work with such weakness and he wouldn't work through such vulnerability and suffering and pain.

Now this is, the mockery shows that we absolutely can't stand when anything week comes into our life, when suffering comes into our life, we tend to get very hard, we tend to mock. You know, when blow after blow after blow comes into your life. When disappointment after disappointment after disappointment comes into your life. You start to mock the idea of the love of God. He's like, loving God, you say. Yeah. I, sorry, I don't think I can survive much more of your love, God.

You know, loving God. This is happening and that's happening. Now, what's happening to you? What are you doing? What are you doing? You're mocking. You're getting hard. You're starting to despise.

And you know why? Because you have an era of superiority. mockery always requires superiority. And the only way you can get hard and angry and cynical toward God because bad things are happening to you is if you know better than He does how your life ought to go. You know exactly what ought to be happening and He's not getting it right. So oh, you know, you can see the end from the beginning, you know, right? But you know what the mockery is showing us?

The mockery is showing us that God does work like this. And the mockery shows us that if you absolutely insist God can't be working in my life in difficulty, he can't be working in my life through weakness, he couldn't be. He couldn't be present with me or he wouldn't let this and this and this happen. If you keep that up, you're going gonna miss the biggest things God's doing. Because you know what the real irony is here? Mark is a very ironic writer, because here these people are being ironic.

You say you're the king. You say you're the savior. They're being ironic, but guess what? The ironic is ironic. Here's what's ironic. They're saying God couldn't be saving the world like through somebody like you. God couldn't be saving the world like through somebody like you. God couldn't be saving the world through weakness.

God couldn't be saving the world through you staying on the cross, but He was. God was. These people were looking at the greatest thing that God had ever done in the history of the world, never would do, and it wouldn't fit into the categories of their little brains, and they missed it. And when I'm worried for you, I'm worried for me because right now you're probably looking at some pretty bad stuff that's happening in your life or has happened to you and you're saying the same thing.

If God was with me, he wouldn't let that happen. God couldn't be working through this. Don't make that mistake. Don't be a mocker. Don't let when bad stuff comes in, don't you dare think that God couldn't be working through this. So the mockery, the mockery of Jesus Christ shows on the one hand our hostility to the greatness of his claims and our blindness to the weakness of his ways. So that shows what's in our hearts and it's really pretty revealing and it's pretty scary.

It's pretty scary. But the sermon doesn't end there, fortunately for you. Point two. The mockery also shows us not only our hearts, but his heart. This Jesus Christ taking this shame and humiliation shows us what he is all about. Actually it really wasn't stupid for them to say what they said. If you are the Son of God, if you are Christ's King of Israel, come down from that cross. Now, these are people who probably saw a lot of blockbuster movies. Because if you go to movies that make a lot of money, you know exactly what happens.

It gets worse and worse and worse. And this is the spot where the hero looks like he's a goner. And he's in prison or he's about to be executed or he's about to be shot or this is it. But in all blockbuster movies, they're going to make any money. If this doesn't, by the way, if you want a movie not to make any money, you just let the guy die. And then we'll say, we got to play that in the village, it's an indie film. And it'll make $24.85.

Yeah, grand total. No, no, no, the movies that work, the movies that the world understands, see, the movies understand. People understand that at this point in the movie, the hero turns the tables. He comes down off the cross, see. He finds a chink in the armor, he finds a weakness in the defense, he turns the table and he gets off out of his handcuffs and he jumps on the villain and he turns the tables and he destroys his antagonist and the movie ends happily. So they're looking at Jesus and they say, okay, we understand.

You say you're the hero of the story. This is where the hero does his thing. If you really are the Savior, if you really are, if you've got God with you, come down off the cross. This is the time. We're waiting. But down off the cross. This is the time we're waiting. But here's the problem. They don't realize how great He really is.

This is the Almighty, Creator of the universe, and therefore they're saying, if you're the hero, express your heroism and your greatness by coming down off the cross. But you and I know that He is so infinitely great that he expressed his greatness and his heroism by not coming down off the cross because in the greatest act of self-control in the history of the universe, the all-powerful God became weak and stayed weak under these circumstances and didn't flinch and took it out of love. He was being humiliated and he was being shamed and he took it. Why? Hi, I'm Tim Keller.

You know there is no greater joy in hope possible than that which comes from the belief that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. The apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 13 verse 4, although Christ was crucified in weakness, he now lives by the power of God. If you grasp this life altering fact of history, then even if you find things going dark in your life, this hope becomes a light for you when all other lights go out. With Easter approaching, I want you to know the hope that stays with you no matter the circumstance, the hope that comes from the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In my book, which is entitled Hope in Times of Fear,

the resurrection and the meaning of Easter, you'll find why the true meaning of Easter is transformative and how it gives us unclenchable hope and joy even when we face the trials and difficulties of this life which can be considerable. Hope in Times of Fear is our thank you for your gift this month, to help gospel in life reach more people with the hope and joy of Christ's love. You can request your copy today by going to gospelandlife.com slash give. That is gospelandlife.com slash give. Thank you so much for your generosity. And as we prepare to reflect on

the amazing love of Christ, demonstrated when he went to the cross to save us, I pray you will find renewed hope and comfort in the historical fact of his resurrection. Well, listen, before I answer the question why we just need to do a little bit of historical context background. This was a shame culture. And in a shame culture, your name was the most important thing. In fact, in ancient cultures, having a good name was the main way you lived on. You had a good name, you had a family name, and that's how you lived on. It was everything.

Your reputation, your name was everything. And to have your name turn into a laughing stock. To have your name turn into a by word was essentially to go to hell for eternity. To have your name destroyed was the ultimate thing. And that's the reason why the crucifixion was the worst of all executions because it was not just killing your body, it was killing your name. You were stripped naked, all dignity was taken away from you. You were a laughing stock.

And on the cross, Jesus was not just being killed, he was being shamed. He was having his name destroyed and he took it. Why? Okay, here's why. One of the best movies you could ever possibly watch Is a 1938 movie called Angels with 30 faces starring Jimmy Cagney James Cagney and Patrick O'Brien and

Jimmy Cagney plays and Patrick O'Brien are two young kids who grew up in Hell's Kitchen in the slums Okay, and one of them grows up to be Rocky Sullivan, a gangster. And that's Jimmy Cagney, of course, who plays incredibly great gangsters. And he's a braggered and he's full of himself and he's snarling and he's violent and he's a celebrity gangster.

And he kills people at the whim. Anybody that shows him any kind of disrespect, you know? And he's a celebrity and all of the young kids of the city look up to him. See? The other boy that grows up, their friends, and one grows up, Rocky Sullivan, to be a gangster. The other one is Jerry Connolly, and he grows up to be a priest. And he works in the slums. And he works with at-risk kids.

He works with all these kids who are poor and who are going in a bad direction. They're going into crime and they're going into all kinds of terrible stuff. And one of the reasons is because they're looking up to Rocky. And he's got a bunch of them living in a basement of his parish house and he's trying to get him to go into programs and go straight and go and they're not, they're not. So finally Rocky is caught by the police, there's this great shootout in a warehouse somewhere in Hell's Kitchen and Rocky kills people but he's wounded and they capture him and they put him in jail and they he's tried and he's found guilty and he's gone to the electric chair.

And the night before he's executed, Father Jerry comes to see Rocky. And Rocky says, you know, you've always been a friend and I really appreciate you coming to see me on the night before, you know, they're going to execute me. And Father Jerry says, well, I've got a favorite ask. And Rocky says, you got a favorite ask. I'll be like, what could I do at this point? But sure, ask away. And here's the dialogue.

And Father Jerry says, Rocky, suppose I asked you tomorrow to be scared. Suppose at the last minute the guards dragged you out of here screaming for mercy. Suppose you went to the chair, yellow, a coward. And Rocky says, Jerry, yellow, me, die, yellow, what's the matter with you, Jerry? And Jerry says, I want you to have courage, but I want a different kind of courage, Rocky. I want the kind that's well that's born in heaven, not your swagger in bravado. I want the kind of courage that only you and I and God will ever know about. I want you to let the boys in my neighborhood down.

You've been a hero to these kids and hundreds of others all through your life. And now you're going to be glorified, a glorified hero in death and I want to prevent that rocky. They've got to despise your memory. That's their only hope. They've got to be ashamed of you. And rocky looks at him and says, you're asking me to pull an act, the turn yellow. So those kids will think I'm no good.

You're asking me to throw away the only thing I've got left. You're asking me to crawl in my belly, the last thing I do in life, nothing doing. You're asking too much. You want to help those kids, Jerry, you're going to have to think of some other way. Why is Jerry? Why is Father Jerry coming to Rocky and saying this? You know what he's saying?

He's saying, Rocky, it's them or you. If you go out in glory, they're gonna go down into a life of shame. But if you're willing to go down to the life of shame, if you're willing to through your whole life away, your whole reputation away, and go out in horrible humiliation and shame, they could be saved. Will you do that for them, Jerry? Rocky, and what does Rocky say?

No, no, that's all I got left. Are you kidding? So the next morning at dawn, execution, and the priest, Father Jerry, comes with the guards and they bring Rocky out of the cell and he comes out with a snarl as only Jimmy Kegney could snarl. Oh my gosh. Who gave him those lips? I don't know. And he's smiling and he's snarling. And when one of the guards actually, you know, kind of insults him, he slugs the guard. You know, on the way to his execution, he's showing him, he's saying, hey, I'm going to

go out the way I came in. You know, that's what you think. And when he gets to the door of the death chamber, suddenly he begins to squeal like a child. And he begins to cry, and he begins to cry out, and he begins to snivel, get sniveling and cowardly, and he says, no, I don't want to die, I don't want to die, please don't burn me, I don't want to die. And he goes, he completely melts down, and he becomes an absolute coward. And they grab him and they pull him into the chair, and he just cry it out and scream

and like a child to the minute that they pull the switch. And Father Jerry, when he sees that happening, looks to heaven, and I'm stunned every single time I watch it. And I think almost anybody who's ever watched the thing, I must be stunned. And I want to be a better person when I see that. I don't want to live the same old way. And yet, I'm just an outside observer, you know? And I'm just looking in on it. You know, I'm not in this story. It's not about me. And yet I want to be, I want to be a better person. Oh, but guess what?

The gospel says, you and I are in this story. We're those boys. We're those kids whose whole lives are about to go down the toilet. It's Jesus or us. If He holds on to His glory, we're going to live, we're going to go down into eternal shame. But if Jesus goes down into eternal shame, see Psalm chapter 2 talks about what we deserve. Psalm 2 is a very interesting Psalm. It talks about the fact that the human race thinks it knows how to run the world.

And it throws off the bonds of God. And it says, oh, we know how to run the world. And it's a laughable thing. In Psalm 2, it's visible that that human race thinks that they can run things that they don't need God. It's a laughable thing. And you know what one there's a rest of the teeth in Handel's Messiah that is based on Psalm 2 and it says he shall laugh them to scorn. He shall have them in derision. We deserve shame. We deserve to be laughed at, we deserve to be mocked, but Jesus Christ is the suffering servant. And in Isaiah 53 it says, when the servant of the Lord comes, he will be despised

and rejected and he will not, we will not esteem him. And it says in Isaiah 50 verse 6, he will not turn away from the mocking and the spitting. Jesus didn't just die, he was shamed. Why? God made him sin, who knew no sin that we might become the righteousness of God and him. Jesus Christ took the shame. He had his reputation destroyed. He had his name destroyed so that we could have a name with God forever.

Revelation chapter 2 says, everybody that bleeds in Jesus Christ gets a little white stone and on it a name written, a secret name and all that means is it doesn't matter anymore what anybody says about you. It doesn't matter what anybody else thinks. God loves you. You have the applause of God. You have the accolades of God. Jesus Christ took the shame we deserve so we could have the glory of God forever.

If you don't understand that He didn't just die for you, but He was shamed for you, you don't understand all that He gives to you and all that it means to be a Christian. Now look, lastly, we said, if you not only see your heart and Jesus' heart, but the mocking can actually help our hearts become like Jesus' heart, how? Like this, first of all. Let's go back to the first thing, one of the things we talked about. We don't know how to deal with suffering. When suffering comes into our life, it tends to make us

hard. It tends to make us mock to say, yeah, sure, loving God. And it just makes us harder. But St. Paul, in 2 Corinthians 12 says this, he says, there was given me a thorn in my flesh. He had a, some kind of problem. We don't know, he called it a thorn. It was a weakness, a suffering. He said, there was giving me a thorn in my flesh to torment me, and three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, God, that is, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.

Therefore Paul says, I delight in weaknesses for when I am weak, then I am strong. The thorn. How did Paul keep from suffering is making him hard? Why was it that when sufferings came to him he could be patient and courageous and even joyful? Why was it that actually sufferings made him softer and more tender to other people? Why did it happen? Because he remembered Jesus' thorns. He remembered the ultimate thorns, the crown of thorns, and he remembered that just as he said, oh Lord, please take this thorn away. What's Paul said? He remembers that Jesus Christ in the garden, he asked God, please take away this cup. Please take away this weakness. And the father said to Jesus,

my power has made perfect in weakness. What God was saying to Jesus Christ in the garden of Gesemini is, only through your weakness can my power be released into the world. My resurrection power through your weakness. And Paul says, oh, if Jesus Christ could suffer uncomplainingly that ultimate suffering for me, for me, then I can suffer for him. If Jesus Christ's suffering actually released power into the world, if his weakness released power in the world, then I know that if I receive my weakness in patience and gratitude,

somehow that's going to release God's grace into my life and the lives of other people around me. And so Paul, remembering what Jesus Christ went through, the weakness he went through, changes his heart. So now when weakness comes to him, he can embrace it without it making him hard and mocking. But here's the other thing. How do you deal with people reviling you? How do you deal with people who misunderstand you, people who tear down your reputation, people that dishonor you, people that hurt your reputation and your dignity. What are you supposed to do? You know, we live in a society in which what we're

supposed to do is protest. Take to the streets. How dare you dishonor us? My friend Dick Kaufman, who used to be this executive pastor here, tells a story. On every of the tales that it makes him cry, and because I've heard it a couple of times, it's changed my life because I can't forget it. And he says he remembers a time in his life in which he was just struggling so enormously with the fact that with certain people

that had vilified him unfairly and had painted a picture of him unfairly, and ruined his reputation. And he was struggling with bitterness. He's turning into a maca, turning into a hard person. He was struggling with bitterness until he came across Philippians where it said, he made himself of no reputation. Jesus Christ made himself of no reputation.

He lost the ultimate name so that I could have a name with God forever, and he said it broke. You have to expect people to misunderstand you if you're a Christian. Look, here's a Christian. A Christian says, I understand the gospel. You're saved by grace, not by works. And here's a non-Christian. Non-Christian say, well, if there is a God, you get to God by being a good person. You're saved by works. Okay? So when a non-Christian, here's a Christian

saying, I have a relationship with God, they immediately assume that you must think you're awfully good. You must think you're better than everybody else. Well, you say, no, no, no, no. You don't understand the gospel. Of course, they don't understand the gospel. They're not Christians. Well, but they don't understand the gospel, they're not Christians. But they don't understand. They will never look. Jesus saved you by taking insults with that paying back. Jesus saved you by being shamed. Jesus saved you by being misunderstood.

And so now when you're misunderstood, you share in his disgrace. And it's part of your witness because you love people. We're gonna love our city and we're gonna pour us all that for our city and regularly people on our city are gonna misunderstand our motives. So what? We're not gonna protest.

We're not gonna say, how dare you misunderstand it. They're gonna have to misunderstand our motives. That's all right. Because we walk in the footsteps of the one that when he was reviled, reviled not again, because we've got that little white stone. We know we've got a name with God and it's all right now. He was shamed so we could have the glory of God. And now who cares who else says anything about it?

Let the mocking of Jesus Christ turn you into somebody that can handle weakness, that can handle being misunderstood. Let it turn you into Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen, let's pray. Our father, we ask that you would help the mocking and the knowledge of what your son went through

change us so that we know that your power is made perfect in weakness, so that when we were weak, we're strong to know that we're gonna be misunderstood, but it's all right because we have a name with God, we just ask in every way that you would help us understand these things so that we could have the deep comfort that comes from them.

Comfort us until we're like your son Jesus Christ. We wanna be like him because we love what he did for us. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Thanks for listening to today's teaching from Dr. Keller. If you're encouraged by this podcast, we invite you to consider becoming a Gospel and Life monthly partner. Your partnership helps more people access this resource. Just visit gospelandlife.com slash partner to learn more. This month's sermons were recorded in 2006 and 2007. The sermons and talks

you here on the Gospel and Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. you