John 19

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Father, we thank you for this day that you have given us. We thank you for your blessings and your mercy and all of your goodness. Lord, thank you for bringing us together today to worship you and to hear from your word.

And I pray as we do so that you will hide us behind your cross, that we may not be distracted by the world around us, but that our attention can be on you. I pray, Father, as we hear your words today, that we will be moved and changed by your holy spirit. In Jesus name, amen. All right, we're going to continue our study through the book of John. I can't believe we're almost done with it.

We only have just a couple chapters left, and it feels. It's been a while. But we have three chapters left, including the one we're starting tonight. So we'll be gearing up here shortly to begin our new series. But as we continue tonight, I want to remind everyone what happened in chapter 18.

Jesus was arrested in the garden of Gethsemane. He was taken to trial, first to the father in law of the high priest. Then he was taken to Caiaphas, the current acting high priest. And when they could find no wrong against him, they brought him before Pilate, the governor over the region in front of Pilate, you'll remember that he asked them, what charge do you bring against this man? And they had nothing.

They couldn't charge. And the response was, if he weren't guilty, he wouldn't be here. Here. Kind of reminds me about the preconception of some jurors today in our legal system. A lot of jurors, they don't care whether you're innocent or guilty.

Their attitude is, if you weren't guilty, you wouldn't be brought before them for trial. And that was the attitude of the Pharisees, the Sanhedrin, when they brought Jesus before Pilate. After the trial of Pilate, he brings him back to the people and he says to them, I have found nothing to condemn this man for. He has done nothing. He is not guilty of anything.

And then he gave them a choice. This is up until this point, remember, Pilate was a fair man. Up until now, Pilate was fair to Jesus. He was fair in the trial. He did everything the way that we would expect a good governor to act until verse 38 or verse 39.

In verse 39, he gives the Jews the option to let loose a sinner, a lawbreaker. It said here that he was a revolutionary. He was a rebellious one. And he gave the Jews the choice to let free a rebellious lawbreaker or somebody who was tried and found to be innocent. And that is where Pilate had gone astray.

And they say in verse 40, they say to release barabbas and keep Jesus. So that catches us up. Verse 19, the trial of Jesus is over. Now we're going to look at the. His punishment, beginning with verses one through three.

It says, pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. The soldiers also twisted together a crown of thorns, put it on his head, and clothed him in a purple robe. And they kept coming up to him and saying, hail, king of the Jews. And were slapping his face. Okay, so the Jesus punishment takes the form of a whipping, right?

It says that he is flogged. And in the book of John, it doesn't specify the extent to which he was flogged. However, there are things that we know about flogging. We know that the Jews made it. They reduced flogging to 39 stripes.

We can see that in two corinthians. Eleven, we can also see. So let me back up. I'm getting ahead of myself, I guess. Jewish law restricted the amount of stripes you could receive in a flogging to 40, according to Deuteronomy 25 three, however, first corinthians two corinthians.

Sorry. Makes it seem as if the Jews had actually reduced it to 39 stripes. We also know that this flogging done by the Jews, if you ever get a chance, if I had thought ahead for this, I actually would have put it in the slides so Shawnee could show you, so we could put it up. But I didn't think about it. So if you ever get a chance, look up the whips that they used for flogging people 2000 years ago.

Look up the roman whip. Okay? This thing was bruised. It wasn't just a whip, like a belt that. That your parents might have hit you with when they were disciplining you.

This was a whip that at the end of the cord, it split into many, many different heads. Right? They. They braided on multiple heads. So when you got hit, you didn't get hit with just one whip, but you got hit with five, six, seven whips.

And then on the ends of these heads, they tied in bone fragments, glass fragments, shards, so that when it hit you, it would rip your flesh off. This punishment was brutal and often resulted in the death of the victim.

It was a horrible, horrible way to the Romans. If you look at the Romans, I actually was listening to a guy who talked about this about an hour ago. I was in another service with somebody else and he was talking about how brutal the Romans were. The Romans were brutal in everything. The way crucification, the way they killed their worst offenders, flogging.

They were inventors. You know how the Bible says that we weren't content to just be evil, but we had to invent new ways to be evil? That applies to the roman nation very, very well. The Romans were inventors of evil. They were really good at finding ways to torture people, to not just kill them and get rid of the problem, but to cause a.

The most amount of pain possible before the point of death. They were so good at torture and causing pain, they could make it extend for hours without allowing you to pass out or die before ultimately killing you. So the Romans were just brutal. They were ruthless, and Jesus was flawed with this whip for the most. In roman law, there's a tradition that you cannot be double punished.

So if you were whipped, you could not also be crucified. For as ruthless and brutal as they were, they had some decency. If you survived the whipping, you could not also be crucified. Right. You only could be punished with one form of punishment.

So Jesus just endured this brutal whipping. He didn't just get hit with the end of one whip. But he got hit with five, six, seven whips, all with shards and fragments designed to rip his flesh of muscle with each stroke. And then after he endures that, it says that. That they twisted together a crown of thorns.

Remember what they charged him? What they charged him. In verse 39, Pilate says he's charging him for being the king of the Jews. So they mock his kingship, they mock his sovereignty by making this crown of thorns and putting it on his head. Now, I don't.

I can't read this. I know how brutal the Romans are, and I can't read this as they just put it on his head, right? This is the Romans we're talking about. And I'm stepping outside of scripture to say this, but I envision that they pushed it down on his head. But they didn't just set it there, but they pushed it.

They caused those thorns to pierce his head and caused him to bleed. And then they mock him, and they're slapping his face. They're joking. Hail to the king of the Jews. They're laughing at him.

They're spitting on him.

We haven't even gotten to the worst part.

The worst has yet to come. But I want you to think for a moment about what Jesus is going through right here.

He came with the purpose of dying for us, with the purpose of bearing mine and your sins upon the cross.

But this is more than just dying for us here.

This is the definition of what we would call in the United States cruel and unusual punishment. This isn't just. You're getting whipped on the back. They're tearing his flesh out. They're piercing his skull.

They are literally bringing him, just barely, to the brink of death while allowing him to live. This is more than Jesus just came to die for us. He came and was tortured on the behalf of us. Look at verses four through seven. It says that Pilate went outside again and said to them, look, I'm bringing him out to you to let you know I find no grounds for charging him.

Then Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. And Pilate said to them, here is the man. And when the chief priest and temple servants saw him, they shouted, crucify. Crucify. Pilate responded, take him and crucify him.

Youre. I find no grounds for charging him. And they said, we have a law. The Jews replied to him, and according to that law, he ought to die because he made himself the son of God.

Okay, so at the beginning of tonight's message, I had told you that Pilate was fair and just right up until he gave them the choice on who to release. From that moment, Pilate took it to the extreme. In verses one through three, we read about the torture of Jesus. The flogging, the crown, the mocking, the slapping. And then he comes out and he tells them.

In verse four, he says, I find no grounds for charging him. He's an innocent man. What kind of fear and just judge. Will flog someone to the very point of death that he finds innocent?

For as great as Pilate may have seemed prior. As Pharisee may have seen. Pilate is no righteous man. Pilate does no sane. And he is not just.

Pilate subjected someone he knew to be innocent. He has said it three times. He said it in chapter 18. That he found nothing to charge him with. He says it in verse four.

And then he will say it again in verse. In verse six, he'll say it again three times. He says, this man is innocent. And yet he subjected him to the torture we read about. And then Jesus, he comes out and he's wearing.

Look what he's wearing. We have more details than the first three verses. So he's wearing the crown of thorns upon his head. But they also put on him a purple robe. What's the significance here?

A purple robe? This is the mark, the sign of royalty. The royals would walk around in a purple robe. And they're mocking him here. They're laughing at him for being the king of the Jews.

So they not only give him a crown. But they dress him up in royalty. As they not only humiliate him, but torture him.

Then the chief priest and the temple servants see him. And they're looking at him with this crown on. With this robe on. And look what they chant. They chant, crucify him.

Crucify him.

For the Jews, it wasn't enough to torture the man. It wasn't enough. It wasn't enough that someone they knew had committed no sin. Pilate knew not only had he not committed sin, but he had not broken any law. It wasn't enough to torture him to the extent in which they did.

Where most people may die. But now they are chanting, you know, shouting to crucify the Christ.

Now, Pilate, he's not having any of this. He says, take him and crucify him yourselves. I find this interesting because the Romans have a law. We talked about this last week. That only the roman guards can crucify a mandeh.

The crucification was such a horrible and torturous way of death. That the Romans mandated only they could carry it out. And Pilate tells them, crucify him yourselves. I find no grounds for charging him. This is so.

I find not only the aspect of telling them to crucify him when it restricted only to the guards in arrest and. But I find if you find him innocent, why are you even granting permission for them to crucify him? If I'm a judge and I find someone innocent, not only will I not condemn them to death, but I am not going to give anyone else permission to condemn him to death. He's innocent. But Pilate doesn't care.

Look what Pilate is doing here. He is catering to the loudest group of people. That's what he's doing.

And to bring politics slightly into it without getting political. If you look at both sides of the aisle, the conservatives, the democrats, whatever, it would almost seem like as a world, as a nation, we're moving more and more and more to the wrong, and the government's allowing it, and we are because the government's allowing it. But if you look, people would say the majority. The majority support LGBTQ. The majority support this transgenders, and the majority support abortion.

But if you actually really look at it, it's a minority that support it. But the minority is the loudest, and the government caters to the loudest. If you look here, the priests, the Pharisees, right now, they are a minority. The people have come to a point of loving Jesus. You see that he attracts wherever he goes, crowd who follow him, who seek just to touch him, who sit for his teachings.

But the minority here is making the loudest voice. And in the face of the loudest voice, morality, justice, legality, flies out the window to quiet them down. We see that same thing today is in the face of the loudest voice. Our governments throw out morality. They throw it out because a group of people are loud.

And this has been the way of human tendency from the beginning. From the beginning, those with the loudest voice have always gotten what they want, and Pilate caves to that pressure. Pilate says, I want to satisfy the people that I govern. If he has a whole bunch of unhappy people and they make enough noise, then Pilate's boss will hear about it. And if Pilate's boss hears about it, he might say, pilate's not capable of governing, and Pilate might be out of a job.

So Pilate says, who cares what the law says? Who cares if he's innocent or not? You go and crucify him. You know, just shut up. Crucify him already.

What a horrible man.

And then they say, we have a law. The Jews replied to him, and according to that law, he ought to die because he made himself the son of Goddesse. So if it weren't for the fact that Jesus were the son of God, there might be some legitimacy to this. What they basically say is our law says that he who commits blasphemy shall be put to death. And the Old Testament requires death for blasphemy.

However, it requires death specifically by stoning.

Throughout our study through John, I have talked many times about the Pharisees. There's a guy in church I've talked with many times because we keep talking about the same thing. John eight. The woman at the well. Sorry, not the woman at the well.

The adulterous woman. When Jesus says that he who is at sin cast the first stone, the Pharisees, the Jews, they have this appearance of obeying the law. They have this appearance of caring about justice and caring about God's law and what it says, but they really don't care. When they brought the adulterous woman to Jesus, they did it as a trap, as a way to trick him. They didn't care that she was caught in adulterers.

The fact that they really cared, they would have brought the man right. To be caught in the very act means it didn't just catch her, they caught him. But it had nothing to do with the law and everything to do with trapping Jesus. Here we are. The law mandates that the penalty for blasphemy is death by stoning.

But they don't care what the law mandates. They want Jesus not just to die, but to be tortured. And as a result, they only mention or care about the parts of the law that benefit them. And this is why Jesus, Jesus got to the heart of this in Matthew five seven. That's the sermon on the Mount.

Everything you read about the sermon on the mount talks about one thing, and that's the heart. He says, you've heard it said that you should not commit adultery. But I say, if you look at a woman with lust in your eyes, you have committed adultery already. You've heard it said, thou shall not murder, but if you hate your brother, you have committed murder in your heart. And he continues, he says, do not pray.

Don't pray like the hypocrite. The hypocrite. Don't pray for God. They pray to be seen of men. He says, don't pray like them, but go in secret.

And the father knows your heart. The whole sermon on the Mount touched based on this principle that we're seeing in John, chapter 19. And Jesus had said, you can have an outward appearance. If I go and pray on the street at noon every day, where I could be heard. Heard, people might assume that I'm a religious man, a prayerful man, because they see me every day.

But at home I can't be bothered to talk to God.

And if on the streets I appear to care about adultery, people might think that I'm a righteous, immoral man because I condemn adultery or I condemn a the lgbt practices. But if at home I am engaged in pornography, then I have really shown myself a hypocrite. It's all in the heart, right? The. When you are doing.

When it's not in your heart to do it and you are doing it for appearances, you are doing it to be applauded. And when you are doing it to be applauded, you only do that which benefits you. And the Jews are here at the same place. The Jews, they don't care about the law. They don't care what it says.

They really can care less whether or not people follow it. What they care about is Jesus has made waves. He's turning people's attention to God and away from the Pharisees, away from the religious leaders, and they want to get that power back. And so they will do or say anything to retain that power.

And they charge him with blasphemy. Now, like I said, this charge in verse seven would be inapplicable, would be a real charge if Jesus weren't really God. It's blasphemous to call myself goddess if I'm not God. But if I am God, to say that I am God would not be blasphemous, right? So with Jesus, if he were not God, to proclaim himself to be would be blasphemy.

But if he were, such a proclamation would not be blasphemous in any sense of the word. And he had defended himself on that count. He had told them, look, there's testimony of me. The father testifies. The father's voice was heard from heaven, not just once, but twice.

The father's voice was heard aloud from heaven, and all the people around him verbally heard. The Father, you know, God the father, tell the world that Jesus is his son.

Is that not testimony? How about his works? He said, look, if you don't believe my words, look at my works. For who else has been able to raise people from the dead? Heal the blind, heal the lame, heal leprosy.

Do all of these things that I am doing there was witness of him to validate his claim. But they didn't care because they lost their power. Verses eight through eleven. When Pilate heard the statement, he was more afraid than ever. He went back into the headquarters and asked Jesus, where are you from?

But Jesus did not give him an answer. So Pilate said to him, do you refuse to speak to me? Don't you know that I have the authority to release you and the authority to crucify you? You would have no authority over me at all, Jesus answered him, if it hadn't been given to you from above. This is why the one who handed me over to you has the greater sin.

So Pilate becomes afraid. Now, I don't know if Pilate's afraid because he realizes he's about to condemn God to death, death. Or if he's afraid because Jesus really is a king. And if his higher ups find out about it, then it's his head on the chopping block. I don't know which one that is, but he becomes afraid.

Now, if he realizes that he's about to condemn God, I would become greatly afraid. And if that's the case, you can read into a statement, where are you from? Pilate might be saying, hey, if this guy is God, I'm not going to condemn him. But we don't know because the conversation doesn't go that way. Jesus doesn't allow it to.

Or if he was really afraid because he is a king, he's really God. Then Jesus answering, if he did answer, well, I'm from heaven, I'm the son of God, or I am God, then he might have actually condemned him. So we don't really know where the state of mind is from this chapter. I say from this chapter because as you read other gospels, we get other viewpoints.

One moment, please. I'm going to turn to Matthew's viewpoint here.

Okay. Matthew scarce. Boy, I couldn't remember. I wanted to look. Matthew's gospel does not talk about it.

We'll look at Luke's.

I went too far. Sorry.

Luke's gospel doesn't talk about it either. We'll quickly check Mark and Marx doesn't. So, yeah, as we read this, I just, as I was talking about it, got to thinking, do we know based on other gospels, and we don't. This conversation only takes place in the book of John. So we don't know the frame of mind that pilots in.

He's either afraid to crucify God or afraid to allow God to live out of fear of his higher ups. And it doesn't tell us. So he goes and he asks Jesus, where are you from? Right? He needs to know, are you from another place, or are you just another one of us?

And Jesus does not give him an answer. Jesus sits here silent. Now, I wonder, is Jesus silent? It's prophesied that Jesus will be silent when this happens. But I have to wonder, is he silent because if Pilate knows that he's God, he won't crucify him?

Or is he silent just because he doesn't have care? I don't know. But it does make me wonder. Is the fear of pilate a righteous fear? I would say it's a righteous fear to be afraid to condemn God.

Is that what's going on with Pilate? Jesus doesn't give him an answer. And so Pilate says to him, why do you refuse to speak to me like I'm here trying to help you? This is the sense I get out of this. I'm here to help you.

Why don't you speak to me? I can release you and I can crucify you. I almost get the sense of, look, if you would talk to me, maybe we can get you out of the situation. Which would be precisely why Jesus didn't talk. Jesus needed to die.

And if he did anything at all to avoid dying, then we would not have the gospel today. So Pilate says, look, I can release you, or I could crucify you. And look what Jesus responds. This is when Jesus finally talks. He says, you have no authority over me at all.

If it was not given to you from above, he says, any authority you have is because God gave it to you. And if God didn't give you the authority, then you wouldn't be here. And he says, as a result of this, the one who gives me to you, the Jews who handed me over to you, has the greater sin. But Jesus response is, I'm not afraid of your authority. Your authority was given to you by God, and it can be taken from God.

And whatever authority God has given you, you, I will submit to. This is actually.

We can go a lot more in depth about this one verse than is actually here. But throughout the Bible, particularly in the book of Romans, we're in Romans. In our morning service we read last week, the Bible tells us to submit to the governing authority.

We are commanded as Christians to obey our government. And it says, because all authority on earth, whether it's a king or a president or a state governor or a policeman or a judge, whatever the case, says, all authority on earth is given by God. And because it's given by God. To disobey our authority is to challenge the very authority of God. If he gave it to them and we reject it, then we are rejecting God's authority.

And Jesus sets forth the example here. When he says, all authority that you have is given to you from God, he doesn't challenge his authority. He doesn't mock his authority. He recognizes that it was given to him from goddess and submits to it.

We're going to finish tonight with verses twelve through 15. We'll finish this chapter overall next week. So from that moment, Pilate kept trying to release him. But the Jews shouted, if you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend. Anyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.

And when Pilate heard these words, he brought jesus outside. He sat down on the judges seat in a place called the stone pavement. But in Aramaic, Gabbatha. It was the preparation day for the Passover. It was about noon.

Then he told the Jews, here is your king. And they shouted, take him away. Take him away. Crucify him. And Pilate said to them, should I crucify your kingdom?

We have no king but Caesar. The chief priest answered. Then he handed him over to be crucified.

Okay, so Pilate, in response to how Jesus engages with him, and I find this interesting, Jesus did nothing to defend himself one way or the other. He simply said, I respect your authority. And Pilate tries to free him. He didn't try very hard. I mean, you realize he's the one with the gavel, right?

Boom, boom, boom. He could have simply said, I find this man innocent. Gavel slams down on the desk and lets jesus out. So when it says that Pilate kept trying to release him, do I believe that Pilate really wanted to release Jesus? I believe he wanted to release him.

But did he want to release him more than he wanted to appease the people? And the answer to that is no. I do not believe Pilate wanted to condemn Jesus. I do not believe he wanted to kill him. But I do believe that his desire to make the people happy and shut them up outweighed his desire to uphold just laws.

So the Jews shout about to him when he told them, look, this man's innocent. I'm going to set him free. They said, if you release him, you're not Caesar's friend. Right now, Caesar is, as it were, the king of the entire roman empire. Pilate's a governor over a small region of the empire.

He is the big guy. He's over all of it. And he says, you're not Caesar's friend if you release him. What they're doing is trying to scare him. Obviously, being thou didn't work.

Chanting crucify him didn't work. Just flogging him didn't work. And so now the Jews say, no matter what we do, he finds him innocent. We've got to do something. And so what they do is they.

They politically blackmail him and say, essentially what they're saying is, look, if you release him, we're going to make sure word gets back to Caesar that you're not his friend. Now, they directly threaten Caesar's job, because anyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar. They recognize that Jesus is king. They recognize that they know it. Even Caesar recognizes it.

He's called him their king on several occasions now. But at this point, Caesar has made his decision. At this point, it is Jesus or Caesar's job. And Caesar has decided. So Pilate heard these words, and he brought Jesus outside, and he sits down on the judges seat, and he is prepared to condemn him.

We know that it's the prep day for Passover. So this is Friday, right? The day we're reading about takes place on a Friday. And we have to understand how jewish days work. Our days change at midnight, so when the clock strikes zero tonight, it will be Monday morning.

However, the jewish day changed at sundown. So for the Jews, when the sun sets tonight, it becomes Monday, even though it's still Sunday for us. So a Friday Saturday actually occupy the same day in our mind. So when it says that it's about noon on the preparation day for Passover, as soon as the sun sets, Passover begins, and they can no longer do any work, and they can't have anyone hanging on a tree. So this is telling us that decisions have to be made fast.

Things have to move quick because Passover is coming. So they shout to Pilate, they say, take him away from us. Take him away. Crucify him. The Jews want nothing to do with Jesus.

They want him. Him not dead, but they want him to suffer. And they're saying, crucify him. And Pilate says, should I crucify your king? Right?

You say, look, this guy's your king. Pilate recognizes that. He knows it. He's your king. Should I crucify your king?

Should I do such treason? And they said, we have no king but Caesar. Let that weigh in for a moment. If you go all the way back to the book of judges, let's actually go back further. Go back to Joshua.

Joshua led Israel through Canaan right through the Canaan conquest, they conquered all the land, brought people in, and then there was no king. But it was said that it was prophesied that one day they would desire a kingdom. However, the way Moses set up Israel was that God would be their king. If you get to the end of the book of judges, the very last words of the book of judges was, in those days, there was no king in the land. And everyone did what was right in their own eyes.

When you turn your page, you're going to open into SAm first Samuel. As you get into one Samuel, you will notice that the people rejected God as their king. And they did not want God as their king. They wanted a human leader, a human king. The prophet Samuel initially engages with them and tells them they don't need a king.

God's their king. And they say no. And then God tells Samuel to give them a kingdom. King. And he appoints saul the first king of Israel.

Now let's fast forward into the book of John, where we are today. They say we have no king but Caesar. The Jews rejected the notion, the idea that God is their kingdom right here. They don't see God as their king, as their leader. God isn't at the forefront of their minds.

If God was, they would recognize God as their king, as the one who gave them their law. But you notice it's never God's law. It's Moses law. In the viewpoint of the Jews, they reject this notion that God is king. And I point this out today because I've been saying this a lot.

I've been saying almost every week for the last couple months that many so called Christians today are very quick, very happy to proclaim that Jesus is our savior, but refuse the notion that he's our kingdom.

And to be a Christian, to be saved, to follow Christ, is not only to accept that he died for our sins, but is to confess him as your God, as your king, to make him ruler over your life. The Jews refused to do that. The Catholics refused to do that. The Mormons refuse to do that. The Jehovah's Witness.

The Jehovah's Witness don't even believe that he was God. They think he was a great prophet. The Muslims refused to do that.

Jesus is not only our savior, but he's our king. And Jesus answers. Jesus. Pilate answers the same way he will tell them when they crucify him, he will put it above their head. Behold the king of the Jews.

Next week, when we come back, we will see the death and burial of our Lord Jesus. Christ, we have reached that point in the book. He will die next week, and he has been condemned to death tonight in verse 16.

And for anyone listening who is, who's never heard this, or maybe you've heard this a lot, but it's never sunk into you. I want you to know that what we're reading, the horrible things we're reading about tonight, it wasn't done for no purpose, but it was done so that you could be saved. It was done so that you could have life and joyous and peace, and that you could live with the creator for all eternity. It was done that you would not pay the penalty that you deserve.

Jesus went through this for you.

So that if you would just confess him as your God and king and believe in him, trust in him, that you would be saved, not suffer that fate. And tonight, I want to give you that option. If you can admit that you're a sinner, if you can admit that we're, you know, we aren't righteous, good people, right? But we are filled with bad, filled with wickedness. And if you can believe that Jesus really is the God man, that he really created this and really came here and died and rose again, and be willing to trust him and confess him as your God and savior, he says that he will save you.

And if you can believe that and confess that today, and you're ready, in our closing prayer, I'll invite you to verbalize that to God and to ask him for this free and precious gift. And then let us know. We will continue our study in the book of first Thessalonians this Wednesday at 630. We'll be in chapter two. For those reading ahead, I will see everyone else next week, and I wish you a blessed rest of your Lord's day.

Immediately after closing prayer, we will partake of communion for anyone who would like to participate. I invite you to stay along. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this day. Lord, thank you for Jesus Christ, who came and not only died for us, but Washington, brutally, to the point of death, tortured, you know, just that very brink.

Tortured for us, suffered so many things on the behalf of us.

Father, we just. I thank you for your outpouring of love.

I thank you for what he has done. And I thank you for the gift that is freely offered because of that. And, Father, we admit that we're sinners. We cannot save ourselves. We admit that we're corrupt, that there's no good thing in us apart from you.

And we believe that Jesus Christ is the creator God who stepped into this world. We believe that Jesus Christ died upon the cross and rose from the grave. And we confess you, Lord Jesus, as our God and king, to remove our crowns and to recognize your authority over us and submit to you. And we ask you for this free and precious gift in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Okay, I will be right back.