Suffered under Pontius Pilate

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info visit us at thrive-fl.org. Our text today is from Romans chapter 5. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die, but God shows his love for us and that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. Since therefore we have been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have now received reconciliation. So the death of Jesus Christ is the most perplexing and amazing event in almost all of human history and why I say it's perplexing is because so many people look at a death and go like how can anything good come from that and how could a death of one person 2,000 years ago make any difference for my what how can it be good at all we're not the first people to think this in fact the first disciples were the ones that struggled with his death okay they couldn't quite get it into their minds they even predicted it three times in the Gospels that he would die and it just went right by them they didn't get it because they would they expected when the Messiah which they believed Jesus was the Messiah when he came into Jerusalem what might happen is the death of God's enemies the Romans would get kicked out the Pharisees and the Sadducees who were running the show at the temple a clean house he'd set up his shop he'd get rid of all of the corruption and he'd set up a spiritual reformation a spiritual renewal a social renewal and God would bring a little heaven on earth when the Messiah came and when the Messiah came and he entered into Jerusalem and it was a great festive day that Palm Sunday everything seemed to turn upside down and inside out for them after that moment because by the end of that week he was being crucified by God's enemies the Roman government and he was being accused by the most religious and righteous people of the day the most law-keeping people the whole Sanhedrin said he was a blasphemer and the mobs the crowd had all rejected and turned on him and mocked him and he died not just any death but he died hanging on a cross the most horrific shameful humiliating way to die they could think of and in fact according to the Bible cursed is anyone who dies on a tree therefore he was even cursed by God on that cross how could anything good come from this they were devastated not just perplexed they were beside themselves they were at a loss and they themselves were implicated in all of it because they ran away they fled they betrayed they denied and they hid themselves now it wasn't until the resurrection that the penny dropped that they started to figure it out that they started to put some sense to it all and then they were not just perplexed but astounded and amazed at what God was actually accomplishing through the crucifixion so after the resurrection it started to come together and that's in here in Romans 5 we see what God was actually accomplishing through the cross and Paul interprets that event in two extremely important words the first word that we're going to be looking at today is the word justification and the second word reconciliation now before we get to that though well I'll summarize what we're going to do okay through the death of Jesus Christ God justifies us and reconciles us to himself and to each other creating a new community that is both universal and local that's kind of the summary of what we're going to be talking about today but before we kind of get into that more I want to explain again when we confess like we did before the Apostles Creed or a creed like this what's going on first of all we're saying we're not teaching anything new today if you hear ever any really new teaching in a Christian Church hmm you better watch out it may be new application but it's the same gospel word that's been taught for 2,000 years okay so we're saying hey we believe what they've been believe in what they've been living for what people have missionized for died for served for given for sacrifice for we are in the same we identify to millennia an ancient modern timeless truth of God's love in Jesus Christ that's what we say we also then have said we are rejecting all these wonderful narratives of the way that people say the world works and the way things are set up and what the purpose and meaning of life is so when we say the Creed we're saying this is our story this is our narrative this is who we believe and we reject all those other isms that we talked about some of them we've gone through from individualism to nationalism for moralism to hedonism okay all of thos...