Sugar Land Bible Church

Building on the details you provided, here is the clean verbatim transcript of the sermon "The Great Misunderstanding" by Dr. Wayne House at Sugar Land Bible Church.

Dr. Andy Woods: Dr. House is a research professor of theology, apologetics, and biblical archaeology at Faith International University and Seminary. He helps students understand how theology connects with the real-world issues, making complex ideas accessible and meaningful for today's challenges.

Dr. House and his wife, Irina, share a deep interest in biblical archaeology, and both have contributed to the field through their work at Tell el-Hammam excavation site in Jordan. Dr. House has also written many theological books, including *Reasons for Our Hope: An Introduction to Christian Apologetics*, *The Christian and American Law*, *The Jesus Who Never Lived*, and *Israel: The Land and the People: An Evangelical Affirmation of God's Promises*. So, Dr. House, please come and address us.

Dr. Wayne House: Well, good morning. It's very good to be here and have an opportunity to speak to you from the Word of God. I always enjoy as well as I think I grow by going through scripture more and more, and so I appreciate this opportunity.

Before I begin, I have different books that I didn't bring a bunch to sell or anything, but I just wanted you to be aware of something today. One of my favorite books is one called *The Jesus Who Never Lived*. Now, what an interesting title, because you think, "What?" You've got to read the subtitle: *Exposing False Christs and Finding the Real Jesus*. You see, there's a lot of Jesuses that never existed, and yet they're the theology of all sorts of people's minds as well as groups. That Jesus never existed. It's the one the Bible presents that's the truth.

So, we're going to be talking about this today. Let me get my little notes out here. I didn't get this set up before we came. By the way, I've never stood before a group of people with a protection that I have here. When they start shooting, I suggest you duck. I'm going to. No, I was appreciating our discussion this morning. I used to be a deputy sheriff years and years ago, just for a short time, but I've spent most of my time teaching, and so I know how that works.

You try to think what are you going to preach on if they ask you, and I thought about that a little bit—what should I do? It's actually this book that got me onto the sermon today. When I was at Caesarea Philippi one day—and I go to Israel quite often—Irina, my wife, by the way, you might wave your hand there, there she is—we do Israel quite a few times. I've been about 45 times so far, but I like to travel and show people the places of the Bible and history and so forth.

But usually I take time when we're at Caesarea Philippi to teach from Matthew chapter 16 particularly, but elsewhere, because Jesus posed an issue to his disciples: "Whom do men say that I am?" It's quite a thought because they thought, "Let's see. Some say you're Elijah, some say you're this person, some say you're that." Even John the Baptist, who's already gone. Can you imagine all the ones they gave him are not around anymore? So, you're wondering what is in the minds of people when he says, "Whom do men say that I am?"

But then he asks Peter a question. He says, "Whom do you say that I am?" Now, that's a good question because he's been teaching these 12 people for some time. They travel with him all the time. This is different from being in a classroom where the 12 people come in once a week. He lived with these people, he experienced these people, he did miracles in front of these people. These men became the disciples.

It's not enough to just believe in Jesus and what we call being saved. It's important that we also are discipled by Jesus and we have a place that that occurs. These men had a regular connection to Jesus himself in all sorts of situations—situations where he did a healing, or somewhere else he made a statement, somewhere he did a miracle, some place he showed his attitude toward the people in feeding them and caring for them, sometimes showing his weakness when he has to go away and take a nap every so often he's so tired.

They never saw the one in the Garden of Gethsemane; they didn't visit him when he went by himself and he said, "Father, can I get out of this?" He didn't say those exact words. But he is now God in the flesh. Remember, Jesus is different than anything else that's ever been done. There's a concept of the Kenosis that's used that term, which says, "In what way is Jesus God and man, human and divine?" See, that's different from some people's theology. You didn't amalgamate it; you didn't float into one another. There's actually two natures in one human being. And there's also in that two natures that shares with God as Son. So, that's a unique reality in the Bible and in the world.

So, when I sit there usually at Caesarea Philippi in front of the place that Jesus actually asked these questions, "Flesh and blood," he said to Peter, "has not revealed this unto you. You will not be able to figure it out on your own. You can't necessarily come to the correct view by guessing it." That's what he's doing. Flesh and blood cannot reveal this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. A divine revelation is needed in order to embrace the truth that Jesus is teaching. And that's what he told Peter.

Now, just because Peter said at one point he got it right—"You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God"—he did okay at that point, but Jesus said, "You got that through God. You wouldn't have come up with it on your own." And of course, we know after they left Caesarea Philippi they went to other places and you find Peter even saying when Jesus starts talking about the fact that he's going to be put to death, Peter says, "No, no, not you, Lord." He thinks he has better understanding of his life than Jesus did.

A little presumptuous, I would say. Wouldn't you hate that you be the one that Jesus says, "I'm going to do this; this is going to happen to me," and he says, "No, that's not going to happen to you." I think Peter go back to school, the divine school. And that's what we're dealing with. I'm setting the stage for you here because the fact that this is where this occurred when he gave a statement of "Whom do men say that I am?" and there are a lot of viewpoints. Even in modern-day Christendom, there's a lot of viewpoints. "Whom do you say that I am?" And Peter got it right.

Well, this was one of my favorite books. If you'll go to hwhouse.com, I think the things are out there. Did anybody get handouts for this today? I had a Sunday school class; we gave out different handouts, but this one right here I wanted you to have because this is going to be the basis of where I'm going with this talk. Because you have Peter and his disciples there, and even after they have that kind of experience, they go elsewhere and Jesus says, "Let me give you more insight into what's happening to me."

He's trying to prepare them for when it happens, and Peter says, "No, no, Lord, not you." He says, "Get behind me, Satan." Now, Satan would have had plans, but they don't spoil God's plan. I know we've got to think about that just a moment, but the fact is Satan's not in charge. God allows Satan to do what he does, even as he did in the Garden, because he tests believers to see what they're going to do. On the other hand, he already knew that as well, but he has to interact with us in person.

I did a book called *Does God Feel Your Pain?* is one of the 40-something I've done. And that book actually—part of that I tried to get to the heart of God on this. Does God feel pain when we do? When we have pain and distress? And I thought, "Well, he can't in one sense," because God is not a physical being. He doesn't have these things that feel pain like we feel. Emotionally there's something. And the fact is, God, he has an association with us because he made us after his image. And so, he can get inside where we are as he observes. But physically, obviously, he doesn't have it. But he does emote with us. I think God cares when we hurt.

And so, when Jesus encountered Peter on this question, it moves me to what I wanted to do in the book. Because—and you'll see why I'm doing this in a moment—but I didn't deal with what we have today in the sermon. But I did try to say how do people in various contexts, various religions and social situations and attitude and philosophy and all these things, how do they deal with Jesus is what I deal with. And I say the point of it is all these Jesuses that certain people in Hollywood and people in different religions and all these kinds of things have never gotten it right because they've departed from the place that we find out about it.

If you want to know Jesus, this is where you—no, not this, the Bible. Well, you could go here too if you want to, because I talk about it, but we go to the Word of God and we discover what Jesus did and what Jesus said and we get it straight in our heads. Now, that's what I want to do today. I have a heading and if any of you who picked up the handout up there as you did it, it says "The Great Misunderstanding," and I actually decided to do that for this talk because of this book.

I was thinking about that one day and I thought, "What could I say that would be informative and it would help those who listen to it?" And the fact is I think understanding what I'm calling the great misunderstanding, because people oftentimes have come down with ideas that don't fit what we know in scripture. And so, there you have it. I'm ready to go on another one. Okay, now here's where we are. So, there's a lot of misinformation and, boy, in America we've got it—a lot of disinformation and misunderstanding, not only among individuals but among various church groups and certainly those that are not Christian or even close.

So, the fact is what do we find out about Jesus that scripture gives us that people who knew Jesus didn't understand? And you've already seen from me talking about Peter and the disciples that this has happened. This happened in real life and Jesus had to try to help them to be more understanding about who he is. If there's anything I can accomplish today, it's when you walk out of here you know something more and helpful about who our Lord is. That's why we get together.

And so, the fact is 2,000 years have passed and they still misunderstand, people misunderstand what he taught and why he came. And so, notice certain examples of this, and that's why I've written you a long thing. I hope you have this handout because you can follow along. I started thinking who misunderstood Jesus? And if there's anything I want to do in life, I want to know him more. I want to know more about him. I want to understand him. Because as I am able to do so, I will do better for him. I will fulfill my task that he set for me, but when I come to know him.

So, the point of it is who misunderstood him? Well, his family misunderstood him. You realize that? Jesus had a family. We think about the virgin birth all the time, but the point of it is he had a mother and he had a stepfather, but his Heavenly Father is obviously not there. But two brothers that were born from Joseph and Mary—one by the name of Jude, one by the name of James. And later on they write books. But at the time that Jesus walked this earth, they were going through the Jewish rituals, but they said, "We'll go on our own; you go by yourself."

And we don't find any evidence that James and Jude actually had an association or were interested in Jesus. I think he thought maybe their mom and dad's favorite or who knows what's going through their head. But the point of it is his own family did not understand exactly who he was or why he came, and like these people, even what he taught. So, those are the three categories that we're dealing with today. We're dealing with the issue as the fact is who is Jesus to begin with when we talk about him? And why did Jesus actually come down? And what is he actually saying in his teaching?

So, that's what we're trying to do. We find out that his hometown misunderstood Jesus. You're going to find looking at the listing, that's why I called this the great misunderstanding. The sermon title picks it up. The fact is in all the contexts of life that Jesus had, he seemed to be by himself. Understand me? He seemed to be elsewhere. He was not part of the group. He had a different calling, he had a different personality, he had a different association, he had a close relationship with God.

There's so many things about Jesus that are in the text that are not understood at this period of time and even today. His hometown misunderstood him. Now, I talk about that in just a moment for more, but as we've already talked about his disciples misunderstood who Jesus was. It's only we get to Peter—and by the way, I want to say good for you, Peter, you finally got something right. Peter was always making mistakes. And the point of it is Jesus even indicated to Peter, "You wouldn't have gotten this. I asked this question and you guys can't figure it out, and Peter you got it dead center. How did you do that? It had to come be and revealed from the Father. You would not have come up with it."

May I suggest that you take our current situation in this world, particularly in America or maybe even in Texas or wherever, the point of it is people have all sorts of strange ideas about Jesus. And we'll say some more about that. But you will actually find that, for example, among the cults there are a variety of ways to look at Jesus. I did a big charts book on the cults. You'd be surprised on the viewpoints that people have in all sorts of groups in this country, even some that are very prominent, like Mormon and Jehovah Witness, and there are other groups too that hold very unique views of Jesus.

And so, they're misunderstood in the context that we have here. And the crowds oftentimes misunderstood him because here's this guy that's coming along and we just trail him. You know, that's what they did a lot of times. It's not that they really embraced him as Savior or embraced him as someone who came from God. They embraced him because he's a meal ticket. I mean, it wasn't a deep appreciation; it wasn't taking him into their hearts. They followed him because they knew where the money was, they knew where the feeding was, and they followed him by the thousands to hear him because they had an opportunity to have someone take care of them, I think.

So, they misunderstood Jesus too. And you go back and read, they didn't fully understand what's happened. I mean, let's face it, if you take two or three things and feed 5,000 people, you've done pretty well, couple fish, few loaves of bread and everybody's taken care of. And yet they didn't stick with him when he wasn't feeding them. If you'll follow through things, it was the crowds that accepted him, later groups like him that were in Jerusalem that were part of the same people that also got Jesus's teaching. When the time came, they were yelling on the other side.

So, it's not that they'd embraced him. And I know people like that—they change very quickly when the money changes or when the opportunity changes or when they've got something else to do. There's many things that cause people to embrace Jesus so to speak. And so, the religious leaders also misunderstood him. And I find this interesting; I could have connected that with his hometown, but I thought I'd put them together right now. Can you imagine Jesus—I don't know, have you ever been into a synagogue, anybody? Well, if you ever go with me on Israel, I'll take you into a synagogue.

So, the fact is if you went into a synagogue, there was a place for the reading of the Word for the day at Shabbat, at the day of worship. And so they would bring that and put you in front and then you read what's in front of it. In other words, you didn't pick yourself. They had readers. And so the guy in charge of the synagogue, he would unroll it and they keep rolling, they keep rolling. It's like turning pages; they keep rolling the forward. So, they had a portion of scripture to read.

And so Jesus was asked to read the scripture, and he finished reading it about Messiah. And he says, "This day this has been fulfilled in front of you." And they looked at him and said, "Where'd we get this guy? He's part of the town. He comes here for synagogue. He thinks he's something he's not. I mean, this passage is about Messiah. He thinks he's Messiah, maybe the Son of God. He's the Son of Man." In other words, they could not get past that idea that this guy is taking it upon himself to claim something for himself.

And they viewed it as blasphemy. And so they took Jesus—and by the way, I was thinking about trying to put pictures in this presentation. I had some great pictures of things, but one is the place that they would have thrown him off the mountain, the edge. And the point of it is they took him out to actually throw him off the mountain. What they would do, they throw a person out—James had this done to him at the temple years after Jesus had gone back to heaven as he became leader of the church.

They threw him off the side of the pinnacle of the temple, and then they throw stones on you, big stones to kill you. If the fall didn't kill you, they kill you another way. And so they were going to throw Jesus off and probably stone him to death or whatever, and he slipped out of their midst. How did that happen? They got this guy they want to get rid of and they're going to throw him off. Next thing they look and they said, "Where'd he go?" And of course, he decided this is not the way that I'm going to die.

And so the religious leaders misunderstood him, even though they should have been able to have greater insight, right? But you have the disciples that couldn't figure it out, and they spent day with him after day with him. And so we have Jesus as enigmatic figure that has never happened before. Think on this with me. Jesus comes as a unique being in the middle of the entire population of Palestine or the area of Israel. And they begin to see more and more they couldn't figure out how to deal with him, how to control him, how to teach him.

Now initially, remember the biblical text tells us that he actually studied Torah. He grew in wisdom of God and man. In other words, he was a human as well as being divine. You've got to keep that in your head when you think about Jesus. He's fully human in his nature. He's fully divine in his nature. He is one person of three in reference to his relationship with God. So, he is both God and man in the fullness of what that means.

And so, he actually has to learn the Bible just like you would. He had to read Torah; he had to go through. He had to become what he is and he didn't just, I guess he could have said, "Listen, I don't want to study, just simply God the Father," he says, "I don't want to study, just sort of fill my head with what I need." No, what he had to do is go through the process just like you do. If he didn't know these passages of scripture, he couldn't have mentioned them. Think on that. God in the flesh, if he hadn't studied scripture, wouldn't have anything to say to people. At the same time, he wrote the book. You figure that out sometime for me, write me a note.

Now, the fact is religious leaders didn't understand. And then you have political rulers who did not understand. Do you get my drifting that Jesus was an enigma? You understand the focus of the text here today and it relates to the Bible because I'm going to show you more examples. The fact is Jesus is growing as a man but he's God, he doesn't grow at all. And he's going through and people don't understand what he is.

But see, they did not understand who he was and someone wrote the passage this morning from Matthew. They did not know who he was; they could not figure out what he's talking about because he's talking over their head because they don't know what they should know. They have their own doctrine they can't hear anything else. There are people that I can't hear you, because they've got their mind made up.

But lastly, they did not know why he came. Those are the three whys and the three whos and the misunderstanding relates to those three points. Even political rulers misunderstood him. A lot of people that are in political areas in that day were actually religious people. They were called the Sanhedrin. And they were mainly a group of Sadducees—I know you that sad you see, yeah, Sadducees. And then you had Pharisees. But largely the Sanhedrin was controlled by the Sadducees.

And Jesus said a lot of things around the temple that bothered them. They were the basic instigators, not the Pharisees—people misunderstand that, they don't read enough about ancient Israel and how it works. The fact is that the Pharisees largely and Jesus agreed in the basic theology; they agreed in the same theology. They had certain viewpoints regarding different questions, and they would have been right along with Jesus. The only problem was this: they agreed in the basic theology of the Bible because the Pharisees were the teachers of the law.

And Jesus had learned the law and he had actually written the law initially. And so in his contact with them in general, their problem was they had built—and this is true, I'm giving you information maybe you haven't heard—the fact is they had all these law rules, the rules. And that's okay, it's okay to observe the Sabbath. I mean, Jesus wasn't against observing the Sabbath. But they built a fence around that particular law and other laws, figuring that if you abide by our rule, our viewpoint that we have made beyond the law, then you'll never break the law.

You catch it? If I build a fence—they call this a fence around the law—if you can't get through the fence, then you'll never break the law. Does that make sense? And that's how they did it. But that's the thing that Jesus was against. He wasn't against obeying the laws of Shabbat, Sabbath, but against the man-made additions that went with it, where the Pharisees went beyond what their obligations were. So, that's what happened historically.

Sadducees were a different group. They were more politically oriented. They're the ones that stirred up the people. They're the ones that actually took Jesus before Pilate. It was not the Pharisees. And now you've got that information maybe you didn't know. But the point of it is you have political rulers, they largely became—the Pharisees weren't interested in politics. It was the Sadducees who wanted to control, and control the temple mount and control what was going on in the Jewish community. And so the political rulers misunderstood him too.

They really hadn't got a clue. Let me give you an example of that. You can find this in Mark 14 if you ever want to read it. It's an interesting passage. But Jesus when he was finally arrested and brought before the people, the High Priest, part of the Sadducees, the High Priest said, "Tell us plainly, are you the Son of the Blessed One?" They didn't want to say God because they tried not to say the name God, guarding it very carefully.

"Are you actually the Son of the Blessed One? Tell us plainly." And from one of the few times Jesus ever said, "Okay, I'll tell you. Yes, I am the Son of the Blessed One." And he says, "And you will see the Son of Man"—go to Daniel 7, Daniel 7, I can't preach it today—but he says if you'll go to Daniel 7, the Son of Man was in fact equated with divine being in Daniel, in Daniel 7. Go read it. But he says, "And you will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory."

Now, I read that passage and I thought, "What is he getting at here?" And I thought, "You know, that must have really hit the chief priest in the head because he knew Daniel 7." Son of Man, that was never used by anyone but Jesus. Nobody ever called Jesus Son of Man. Read Daniel 7, you'll know why. But that's a special term. And this High Priest would have known who he was and what he did. And so what happened is that he got hit very hard because he says, "The Son of Man is going to come in power and great glory, and guess who I'm going to judge." Because see, he's saying he's judging Jesus now. He says, "Okay, I am the Son of the Blessed One, and I'll be the Son of Man coming in judgment." He said, "Boy, that's tough." But he didn't want to hear anymore.

So, there you have so many things going on. So, I want to move to the fact that these things are happening, as I talked about many times, different people that could be assigned certain tasks, certain viewpoints, certain places of responsibility to fill Jesus, who he was. But what is the modern misunderstanding of Jesus, not just his way? Well, think about our culture right now. When do most people get excited about the name Christ? Around Christmas time. Meek and mild lowly Jesus, can't hurt you. He's connected to presents.

And they develop an idea of Jesus that comes in Christ—notice, Christ-mass, Christmas. And so there is a view of Jesus and people think about Jesus as not very frightful; they don't think of him as troublesome. He's connected to a day of everybody's happy and giving gifts and so forth. That was not the whole idea that was going on when Jesus came into the earth. I've told people sometimes you've got to understand something about Jesus and who he was. At the time he was at Mary's, in Mary's arms, being rocked as a little bitty baby, he was actually controlling the entire universe with his power. Now you work on that and figure it out for me.

Jesus is weak and mild and meek and he's filling out Christmas and giving gifts. God gave Mary and Joseph a gift so to speak. But what is not known is that one who's a gift is also the God of the universe. What an difficult kind of idea to work with, but we can do it. So, other people have seen Jesus as a social reformer. Can you think of that? How have people used the concept of Christ and the idea of Christians as people that change the culture?

When that—what Jesus has done—has very little to do with that. Would Jesus be a Republican or a Democrat? Well, there's no question, I'll tell you after church. And the fact is, let's just say I don't think the guy is bald. Anyway, so the point of it is you have that kind of idea that people think they can use the name of Christ, they can use the idea of Jesus as a means by which to push a program, a perspective.

But Jesus, even though I am a conservative, I always call the Left Coast is where I used to live back out in Oregon and Washington area—I'm in Texas now, obviously, that's holy land. And so, the fact is, what is Jesus interested in? Is he interested in the political concepts that we often talk about? You'd have to think through that. I think it relates to questions that are more theological in reference to what we find in the epistles really.

But anyway, Jesus was not a social reformer; he did not come to change things that people wanted changed. You know what they thought Jesus was going to be if he was who he says he is? He's going to be a warrior like Bar Kokhba that happens in the next century, Simon Bar Kokhba, who fights against Rome. They wanted Jesus because if he was the Messiah, he would take up arms and defeat their enemies. Jesus could have done it. Can you imagine Jesus on the battlefield? There comes the 10,000 Roman soldiers and he just said, "Poof," and that's it.

He did not come to function that. He came with a different message, a different place, a different responsibility. And even for him, and my wife and I were working on this idea on a dissertation she was finishing, and I hadn't thought about it before, but you know, Jesus was a human being, right? He's a human being like we are a human being without sin, but he's a human being like anybody else. You could take him to the doctor's office, he would qualify. Okay? What's going on in his life?

Jesus had to rest. Do you ever see that? He's tired of all these people talking and walking and doing stuff. He goes off and sleeps for a few hours. That's being human. You find Jesus also having issues, the Garden of Gethsemane, and this is one thing we worked on, we—I'm trying to think because I have, you know, the book *Does God Feel Your Pain?* and I was thinking, Jesus in his humanity, what would he have said? And I'm trying to work through this in my head.

And I see him in the Garden of Gethsemane when he tells his disciples, "You go over there and just do whatever you're going to do, I'm going to go be by myself." And what he means, he and God are going to have a talk. Now God and the Father, who is the Father of Jesus, they've had association for the entire Jesus time he's been around. But he goes by himself and there is a conversation with God: "God, is there any way? I'm human." It's not a question of sin, because let me tell you something, not wanting to die is sort of a built-in. You know, the desire to maintain life is a built-in; it comes with being human.

I don't know many humans except for the fact that those who commit suicide do that mainly because they can't deal with life anymore. But the point of it is Jesus is saying, "Father, if there's any way that I can get out of this, I would like to do it." Have you ever thought of that? But he knows what Roman crucifixion means. I mean, this is not a reprimand. The Romans tried to do as painful a death as possible, a lot of painful experiences before the point of death. And he, I'm sure, has seen this because the Romans would tend to actually have crosses up and down the roadways as you come into the city of people that they are crucifying, where everybody can understand what it means.

That's supposed to ward off the possibility of trying to fight Rome. And Jesus is in the Garden and he says, "Father, is there some way that I can not have to do this? Can we achieve this in another way?" But see, he recognizes because he knows the Old Testament, he recognizes because he talks to the Father, he recognizes there is no other way to save humanity than the way that we're going to do. I've got to face death. I've got to face pain. And he recognizes after two or three times and his sweat is turning like blood and he's prayed and he's prayed and he's prayed, and he takes and he says, "You know, there's no other way." And so he gives into it before he comes to his disciples.

So, each of these concepts have a measure of truth in some respect, but the fact is it's what's happening at Calvary that becomes the big example. I've talked about family and other people and so forth. But the point of when he's dealt with the fact of sin and he's dealt with the question of pain and he hasn't sinned to not want to die, but he says, "You know, in the volume of the book it's written," other words, "I'm going to be obedient to the Word of God. I'm going to be obedient to why I came."

And so, the greatest misunderstanding that occurs, occurs at Calvary itself as he was outside the wall and he was going through excruciating pain. I can't tell you, I don't know, some of you may have had some pain of various sorts, but it's hard to imagine more excruciating pain than having a big whipping with things that rip your back up and the blood and all the pain connected and you're sick and you're tired and you're going through this, and all of a sudden you find yourself where a place they put nails right through here. By the way, the nails did not go through the floor; this is still the hand in Greek, by the way, the first portion. They put a nail through here, and then they nail you to a cross and you're there in suffering, but not only in suffering, you're there in ignominy.

You're there when your mother comes up, can you imagine that, when friends come up. But then you have people that don't bless you; they curse you and they make fun of you and all the things that are going on emotionally and physically. He didn't want to do it, but he said, "I understand what I have to do." And then the crowd came. They misunderstood what Jesus taught. See, a lot of time you find this in reading and people don't really understand the fact that many of the things that Jesus talked about, they just didn't catch on to them. They didn't understand what he said.

His teaching about responsibilities, they didn't know to follow them. The Pharisees certainly didn't follow the teaching of Jesus regarding the Shabbat, the Sabbath. See, people who told him to love neighbors as you love yourself, a lot of these people, how do you do that? And we could go through all the various things that Jesus taught people, not only about how to act but the heart that we should have. He used parables talking about caring for people. And Jesus is going through in every way he can to cause people to think godly in how they act.

And so they misunderstood this. Oftentimes it's spiritual blindness of those who uttered him. Now think about Peter for a moment. When Peter tells Jesus, "Oh, by the way, you don't understand, Jesus, this can't happen to you," and then of course Peter says, "I got you covered." How well did that work out by the way? When Peter said, "I've got you covered, this not going to happen to you, I'll take care of you," he ran as fast as he could. Can you imagine depending on someone like that?

But the point of it is no one was really willing to come to his side as people think about. Even Judas, can you imagine being a person like Judas who's been with Jesus for three years and for a pitifully little amount of money—it could have been a lot more but even the pitiful amount of money he received—to turn in the person that has treated you right and taught you and been with you and cared for you for over three years, and you turn him in. I mean, we see these actions on the part of the other disciples begin to depart. They weren't willing to stay there in the midst of it.

How many came to the cross? Can you think right now, by the way, what time I quit here by the way? It says 12:12. 12:20? 12:30? 12:30. Okay, I just want to be sure. Okay, because I have some more things to say. So the fact is that you have Jesus having treated people a certain way and yet they were not willing to stick with him. Now you would hope they would have picked a better group of people that had more staying power. But Jesus picked actually what is true of all of us in the situations of life.

You'll never know how you're going to deal with issues until you come to them. But I know this is true: if we maintain a heart for God and keep in prayer and our heart's given to God, when the time comes we'll have the strength. But when we live in our own strength, we may be the ones that are high-tailing it out. And so Jesus had these guys that he had spent so much time with. And by the way, some of the things he did would have to me would sort of have got my attention. How many of you think you would have more confidence in a person who could still a storm, walk on water, and things like that?

Wouldn't that sort of make you think I better stick with this guy? For some reason, it didn't stay hold with him. What they viewed as weakness of Jesus was actually done through divine power. So, here's a statement at the cross. And this is what we want to finish up today with the cross. A statement was made, "If you're the Son of God, come down from the cross." Now that was made by a person in derision, by the way. This is not—these are not the statements from the two people being crucified with him. I'm going to get to them in just a moment.

But you've got the people who are the rulers who wanted to have Pilate crucify Jesus—and he did—they pressed him and he finally gave in. And so they go out to sort of make fun of it all. They're going to say, "See, you didn't do well after all." They made fun of him, they ridiculed him, they criticized him. They stood around to mock and to make it more difficult. It had to go for them more than just simply we know he's being crucified is they want to be out there to be a participant in the punishment. That's what they were doing.

Okay, so he says, "Listen, if you're the Son of God, come down from the cross. If you did that," it says, "if you'll do that, we'll believe in you." Do you think they would have? If he had actually come down from the cross and stood there, these guys with their heart of stone, would they have said, "Well, you finally convinced me over"? I think they would find some excuse, some excuse. The unbelieving don't want to believe. And by the way, believing has a lot to do with God's work in your heart, but we won't go there; that's another theological discussion.

Notice who also said this. I've put this in here just help you remember. Right at the beginning of Jesus's ministry, after the baptism, he had a visit by Satan. And Satan has this statement: "If you are the Son of God." You don't think Satan didn't know this? I mean, Satan's not a good person—person's not the right word. Satan's not good, but he certainly knows that Jesus is the Son of God. And so the fact is one of their statements, "Oh, if you were only the Son of God and came down from the cross, we would believe, we'd be your disciples." You think that would do it? It wouldn't have done it.

The crowd around now, you have the leaders, these are the Sadducees probably, you have these leaders around there around the cross. They came out to see it. Other people did too. Now, you know, if they were having crucifixions, quite honestly, I would not be one that was hanging around. I would not want to go see that. You know, but some of these people have a really weird attitude and they want to go out and see the story for the day with the local football game kind of thing.

So they go out there and he has people not only of the leadership but the general population who are standing there looking at the cross of these three people and they are repeating the same thing: "Come down and prove who you are." No, sonship is not proved by miraculous displays. Jesus did that a lot of times. He did plenty of miracles to cause people to believe if a miracle would be the thing to do it. See, we think naturally if you do something miraculous that would surely win a person over. It doesn't. And these are examples of it.

By obedience to the Father, Jesus refused Satan's temptation at the three temptations he had and now refuses those of the people in charge and also the people. So, here's another thing: "If he is the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross." Now who is he thinking about? This is a term for Messiah. Messiah was going to come in all the thinking after the time of David and afterwards his son, through the years they've been conquered by this group and that group and now the Romans.

And they kept looking for a Messiah, but not a Messiah to save them from their sin. A Messiah to run off the Roman soldiers and get rid of them. That's what was in their heart. They saw King of Israel to be the same as Messiah, the one who would deliver them from their enemies. You know what? Jesus is going to deliver his people, and we will be taken to be with him, but he's not going to function as Messiah as thought of here until millennial period to come. And you guys, I know, have been taught that no doubt by your pastor.

So Jesus came to provide liberation from sin, not liberation from Rome. Not by military conquest but through sacrificial death. Look at the other thing: who Jesus was. "He trusted in God; let God deliver him now if he desires him." Hey, if he trusts in God, God'll take care of him. God has his own plans for your life. Do you know that? There are things you don't know that are coming into your life that God has brought into your life because he knows what it will do in making you a better person.

But we don't think it's better. I mean, I think God, if God really wants to take care of me, give me 50 million dollars and I'm good, I'll be a better Christian, right? I mean, if God makes everything better, it would be better for me and I'll do better things for God. No, God sometimes takes people and he uses those things that are not going to promote you and make it easier for you to make you who you need to be. Keep that in mind. The fact is Jesus is going through something very terrible, God is providing for it to happen because he knows the benefits and what comes from it.

What does God know that these people don't know? That if Jesus dies, he fulfills Genesis 3:15, the fact that Jesus will in fact—he will not be biting the heel but he'll be crushing the head of Satan himself. See, that's why he was—because he brought a way to be saved, something that overrides something that Satan does not want is for people to embrace Christ. So scripture repeatedly teaches that God's servants often suffer before they are exalted.

And I say this for you today because you need to remember we all come into trials and difficulties. Jesus did too, and others did too. The point of it is remember that this is going to make you a better Christian, a better person of more use and benefit to God, and even bring rewards in the kingdom to come. And so Paul understood this and he talks about the fact that I've got my mind on Jesus and I'm doing the race, I'm doing the race because a crown of righteousness will be given to me. So that may not be what we're thinking in the present time, but God has other plans.

Psalm 22:8 is fulfilled here: mockers unknowingly fulfilling prophecy. And so, we're going to move on, I'm watching the time. Misunderstanding before the cross: Is this not Joseph's son? His brothers didn't believe. All these things that I mentioned these before and I'm not going to go into. The fact is that there is a misunderstanding of who Jesus is. So in view of the time I'm watching it, I've already gone through most of this.

What Jesus taught, we've basically given you, I think. The fact is that Jesus teaches things that are sometimes beyond and different from what we have learned from other people. And some of the things that Jesus taught to people probably changed their heart in time. And so, the fact is I think about one example among many, but Jesus actually lived in the city of Capernaum. It means the city of Nahum, the prophet.

And this is where they had Jesus and Peter, John and other, they lived, and a man who was a Roman soldier in power, he sends for Jesus to come and heal his servant. And Jesus decides to do so. And the Roman soldier said, "I am a person that's in power in Rome. All you've got to do—now this is a Roman, not a Jew—he says, "all you've got to do is just say the word and he'll be healed." Jesus said, "I have not seen faith like this in any of these areas." Other words, he's been around Jewish believers and people adherent to him as disciples; he says, "this Roman soldier has better faith than all of you." And that's an amazing statement. But the point of it is it makes a difference what God is trying to do for us. We can be like a Roman soldier and believing.

The crowd misunderstood Jesus's relationship to the Father. I've already said enough on that. I've got other things but I'm watching my time. Nicodemus, you know, he had problems; the woman at the well had problems. I'm leaving these out. And what he's taught, I've sort of gone into that. I want to get to the last one here. Why did Jesus come? Now, the people around him who—some who were derisive, other Roman soldiers saying, "Ha, ha, you got yours," or something like that. All these individuals, including people are at the cross with Jesus and his mother, and of course Jesus talks to John and his mother there, all these people have certain aspects of what Jesus was doing. But they really had not embraced yet something that's most important.

Jesus in the Garden says, "Father, can't I do it another way?" God basically says no, there's not but one way. Only by the shedding of blood—the sacrifices that are known throughout the history of Israel that began by God's design—only by the shedding of blood fulfills what God planned with the fall of Adam and Eve. Paul tells us about this in Romans. The fact is it was necessary for there to be shedding of blood for salvation to come. And so Jesus knew precisely why he had to die. "Lo, I have come to do your will, O God."

Don't you know that was difficult? See, it was difficult. I want you to remember it's not a sin to want to live. It's a sin not to continue on and fulfill God's law, fulfill God's plans. It's a sin not to follow God's spirit. And Jesus finally got hold of that and said, "I know what I have to do." And here he is at the cross, and he fulfills this statement basically: "I want to do your will." Now how do you feel about that? What's happening in your life? What problems do you have? What are things that God has said it's necessary for you as a Christian to learn and to do?

And if you say, "You know God, I'm in the game, I will fulfill the things that are yours." So "Not my will but yours be done" embraces the Father and embraces exactly what's happening here. We find in a statement of John: "It's expedient that one man die for the people." And so we have Jesus actually dying for us, each and every one. Paul says, "I don't want to know anything about among you except one thing: Christ and him crucified."

Another statement from Paul: "God forbid that I should glory except in the cross." See, the point of it is we don't work our way to heaven, but we only can fulfill it through God. We don't have to do anything other than what he said to do. If you haven't actually come to know Jesus, then this is the way you do it. You can't do it by your works, you can't do it by your knowledge, you can't be smarter than someone else, you can't do it by anything except doing what God says and that is believing in him through the death of Christ. Christ paid it all; you have to embrace that truth and believe God saves through Christ.

And if you do that, it's so simple that some people say it's too simple to—I mean, it's got to be something more difficult. No, it's—this is why I want to sort of close with this last thing. There were two thieves on the cross. Initially both of them apparently derided Christ. But as you watch it, and the one who says, "You know, you're up here like us," the other one says, "You know, Jesus, when you come into your kingdom, remember me." What was the statement? "Today you will be with me in paradise."

Jonathan Edwards says something that I've carried with me a long time. It's sort of simple. Jonathan Edwards, a great evangelist and person, theologian in American history, he says this: "A simple glance at the cross is sufficient to save." It's so easy that some people never make the jump. It's so simple that it's got to be something else that I can do as though they've got to add to it. The point of it is it's simple and the fact that you're like the thief on the cross and what you do is you look to Jesus and say, "Lord, hear me and save me." Let's pray.

Lord, we give you thanks for all the things you do for us. And we pray, Lord, that we would be people that believe. Not works salvation, Lord, although we should do works, but in order to have a relationship with you, believe in the death of Christ and his forgiveness of sins. And Lord, I just pray that you work in the hearts of every person here today and bring us to where we need to be, whether it be a better Christian life to serve you, whether it be opportunity to come to you and know you as Savior.

And Lord, we just thank you and thank you for all the goodness and all the Word of God we have to deal with on a most misunderstood thing by some people. And bring them, Lord. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

Dr. Andy Woods: Amen. Thank you, Dr. House. Praise the Lord. Well, let's take a quick 10-minute break. We'll be back at about 12:40 for our Q&A session. Thank you.