The Jesus You May Not Know

Introduction

Alright, good morning. This morning, we’re kind of breaking things up, just the way you uh do your uh morning assemblies, and let me just say I really appreciate the morning assemblies. That’s what we have back uh in Gainesville. It has really worked very, very, very well for our family in Christ. Remember when we first started that, uh, we were getting criticism, you know, you know, in the brotherhood and surrounding areas, and I had one guy come up to me one time and he said, Well, the way y’all are cutting out assemblies pretty soon. Y’all just won’t even have worship at all. Dude, seriously. So my day begins at 8:30 in the morning with a little worship meeting. We have three hours of assembly, and like today, my wife’s going over and they’re having a shower for somebody else, and then there’s something else planned.

But my Sunday starts goes from 8:30 to almost 5 every single day. You know, it’s just been wonderful for our family in Christ. And there might be a teen thing in the evening or a college deal going on. It’s just been wonderful. So I appreciate you for that. Uh but the way you have yours a little bit organized, want to take that first sermon, like we talked about. That’ll go in that first hour. We’ll do some application in the third hour. But during this hour, all right. I want us to focus on a lesson that Lord willing will help us really prepare our hearts and minds for what we’re going to do a little later, and that’s to partake of the Lord’s Supper. We’re going to look at the life of our Lord Jesus, but I kind of got to give you just a little bit of a program announcement or maybe a little warning.

This may be a different view of Jesus than you’ve heard. Not that I’ve come up with something crazy or new. Everything’s going to come straight from the text.

But I want us to really focus on its humanity. The humanity of Jesus. Jesus the man. You have the heavenly library with you. Please take down the gospel of John. And I want you to go to John chapter 19, and I want us to read just a quick scene from the life of our Lord that took place merely a few hours before he would be crucified. In John chapter 19 and in verse 1, it says this.

And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and they put it on his head and they arrayed him in a purple robe.

And struck him with their hands. Pilate went out again and he said to them, See, I’m bringing him out to you so that you may know that I find no guilt in him. So Jesus came out. Jesus came out wearing a crown of thorns and a purple robe. And Pilate said to them, Behold the man. Behold the man. I want you to slow down for a moment.

Those six verses probably took me, what, 40 seconds to read, and I kind of slowed down when I read it. But what we actually just read was a scene, a scenario that probably took an hour, if not longer. Because what you see right there in verse 1 is Pilate had a desire. Pilate had a wish. And what he wanted to do more than anything else is he wanted, he wanted to let Jesus go. And there was a good reason for that. First of all, if you want to give Pilate just a just a smidget of humanity in his own heart, he really didn’t want to crucify Jesus, even though he is the most vile political guy you could ever imagine. He is in it for himself.

He doesn’t care about anyone else. But there was still a part of him that didn’t want to, didn’t want to do it. But even more so, and probably the bigger reason was his own wife had said, Don’t do it. Don’t do it. I’ve been having dreams. Don’t do it. So there’s a little bit of ambition there. There’s a little bit of desire there that’s maybe leading Pilate along this path. So Pilate has a plan. Pilate has a plan. He goes, here’s what I’m going to do, here’s what I’m going to do, here’s what we’re going to do. He claims to be God. This Jesus claims to be God. And those that hate him and want to crucify him, say he’s blaspheming because he claims to be God.

And so what I think Pilate is doing is I’m going to show the world there’s no way he’s God. So in verse 1, he has him flogged. Now, what’s interesting is in every translation and in every gospel that mentions this, it gets a one-word description. They flogged him. If you were reading any book, I don’t care what it is, whether it was a historical book, a biographical book, or even a book of fiction that was telling about some horrific torture. That would take a chapter or two to go through every detail so you saw it. No, no, no, no. No, no, not the way it’s shared in the biblical record. It’s just flogged. Because it didn’t need any description. But we got to slow down. We don’t see this every day.

So here’s what I want you to make sure you have in your mind. When Pilate brought Jesus out, he brought out a man who was bleeding from head to toe.

And the flogging. And whatever had been linked into those straps would have just ripped the flesh wide open. So his back is laid open. On his head is a crown of thorns that were not set gently upon his head. And if you’ve ever cut your head, even in the slightest, even you guys shaving, you know how your head bleeds. And then there’s this. Did you catch this in the second verse and third? The soldiers, when they mocked him, were hitting him in the face. You’ve been hit in the face. Have you ever been hit in the face? One of those little scraps you had with a sibling growing up, or you smarted off to the wrong person when you were in school, you ever get punched in the nose?

How it bruises, how it swells. You see, when Pilate pulled Jesus out before this crowd, he didn’t bring out some strapping heroic domineering figure.

And was bleeding literally from head to toe. So that when Pilate brought him out and presented him to that crowd, our Lord, our Jesus, was probably standing on the weakest knees you could imagine. His face swollen from the punches, the blood streaming down, and his face in the agony of one who had just been flogged. So that when he stood before that crowd, he looked humiliated, defeated. He looked human.

And so Pilate points to him and says, Behold the man. Behold the man. Now here’s what I want you to think about this morning. Was Pilate right? Was Pilate right? If you go back and you look at the Gospel of John, the Gospel of John really only had one mission. And here’s what John wanted to do when he shared the gospel. He wanted to show the world that this man that they saw every day, this man that they understood and heard and talked to and had seen, this man was literally God. In fact, that was his point, that you may see and understand that Jesus is the Son of God. And that was the goal through the first century, so that people would see the man was really God.

Our challenge, our challenge, on the other side of history, and more than likely, if you’re like me and you grew up in Bible school and you grew up in a godly home and you grew up studying and reading the Bible, you’ve never, ever, ever doubted his deity. That was intrinsic, that was just, I mean, that was just part of intrinsic in everything that you did and everything you understood about religion, his deity was there, and you believed it, but it’s hard for us to see as humanity. Because we didn’t see him, we didn’t touch him, we didn’t hear him. And we certainly haven’t seen him like this. I want us to see and understand that when Scripture tells us that our Lord became flesh and dwelt among us, that’s exactly what he did.

That God himself became flesh. And he dwelt among us. And we’ve seen him. We’ve seen his glory. Glory as the only from the Son, the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. And so here’s our goal. Here’s our goal, real quickly in our study this morning. I want us to recognize his humanity. I want us to see him really as he was and as he was seen by the eyes of all those in the first century that he was flesh and blood. But I want us to see him in such a way so that we’re drawn closer to him because only in his humanity can he really sympathize with us. And only with his humanity can he only draw close to us and be a friend to us.

And when we see him as he is and as he was, our love for him will be even greater. Now, I know this is a challenge for many of you.

1. A Man of Compassion

Not saying he wasn’t God, don’t misunderstand me. But even Jesus tells us that as the Son, he doesn’t even know the hour and the day of his return. There are limits. There are challenges. There are weaknesses that come with being human. Let’s consider, first of all, and we’re going to look at this in three stages. Let’s first of all consider him as a man of compassion. Have you ever thought about his upbringing? Here’s what’s kind of interesting about Scripture. In another way that Scripture is so different from the way we tell stories today. Scripture doesn’t give us hardly any sight into his first 30 years. Isn’t that interesting? We know he went to the temple when he was 12, but that’s really about it. That’s all we got.

You know what the point of that is? You know why Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John don’t give us any of that? Because he was like any normal person. There was nothing unusual about it. He was like any other man who had to get up and work. And if you go back and you kind of really look at it and read in between the lines of the life of Jesus, more than likely, more than likely, he lost his father. Probably between the age of 12 and 30, he has lost his father. Joseph is never mentioned again. And so now he’s had to become, if you will, the breadwinner of the family. A little bit later in the Gospel of Mark, it’ll see the people will call him the carpenter.

So here’s what you’ve got to keep in mind. Our Lord. Our Lord, every single day woke up just like you and me, and he had to go to work. And he was a poor man. He was working in a very humble position, that of a carpenter in a village.

There’s no glory in that. And so he was the man that everybody reached out to to be the fix it man. Jesus, can you fix this? Jesus, can you settle this? Jesus, can you take care of this? Jesus can take care of this. And so everybody knew Jesus. And every single day he worked for everybody. And so he was around the common man all the time. And therefore he had compassion for those who were poor. In fact, you go and you listen to his teaching. In Mark chapter 1 and in verse 41, when he finds those who are unclean, the text tells us he had compassion on them. He’ll be moved with pity in Matthew 14, 14. He has compassion on the crowds is what it tells us.

So much compassion that he sought to heal all of them. In Matthew 9 as well as in Mark 6, it says he has compassion on the people. Why? They’re like sheep without a shepherd. He understood their plight. In Mark 8 and in verse 2, he has compassion on the crowd. Why? They haven’t had anything to eat in days. Jesus knows what it’s like to be hungry. In Luke 7 and in verse 13, and you can truly understand why this would have great significance to Jesus when Jesus saw the widow who had lost her son now. He had great compassion on her. Where’s all this compassion coming from? It’s coming from a man who has had to endure the human experience. In Matthew 20 and in verse 34, he’ll see some men who are simply blind.

And it says he has compassion on them and he sought to heal them. If you would go to Luke 14, I want you to see something in one of the stories. Because this is something that is repeated over and over and over and over again in the Gospels. The compassion of our Lord. Why is it that our Lord has such a tender spot for those who are hurting? Why is it that our Lord has such a tender spot for those that are poor? Why is it that our Lord has such a tender spot for those who are dealing with the great struggles of life? Why is it? Because he’s been there. He’s been there. He knows what it’s like to have to work. He knows what it’s like to endure loss.

He knows what it’s like to suffer in that regard. In Luke 14, and in verses 21 to 23, he’s telling a story about a great supper. And you know this story where the invitation’s sent out, and the people really don’t want to come that are invited. And so the invitation is then sent out again. And here’s the command. You go to the highways and the byways. You go everywhere you can. You just get them all in here. And here’s what it says in verses 21 to 23. He says, You compel them to come in. Does that mean you kind of drag them and make them come? No, the point of that is to let these people know that they belong there.

They are inflicted with so much poverty. They don’t feel like they belong anywhere. Especially someplace nice. And Jesus in the story will imply, you go get them. You don’t let them know they belong there. Do you ever think about all the places that Jesus didn’t go? You ever think about that? In Philippians chapter 2, it says that our Lord, our Lord took the form of a servant. He could have come to this earth in any form he chose, right? He could decide to come and be a king. He could have come and been a great warrior. He could have become beginning a great philosopher somewhere. But what does Paul remind us? He came as a servant and not just any servant. A bond servant. Which simply means he belonged to everybody but himself.

And in this case, it had been a master. You know what that tells us about our Lord Jesus? Is that he came down and he lived life? And to a large degree, it was a life he really didn’t want to live. Now don’t misunderstand me and don’t misunderstand the point, okay? He’s going to follow the will of God.

But sometimes, due to life circumstances, you don’t get every choice you want. Sometimes it’s not the big nice castle on the hill. Sometimes it’s not the luxurious job that provides everything. Sometimes it’s not the vacation. Sometimes it’s it’s sometimes it’s just hard. In fact, our Lord, due to his poverty, where did he where did he spend all of his life? Within a hundred miles of home.

2. The Physical Challenges and Emotions of Being Human

He never went to Alexandria. He never went to the places where the nice rich people go. And so he has compassion on those. He has compassion on those who are enduring the human experience. Not only does he have compassion because he sees the plight of others and he understands it. But our Lord, I want you to grasp and understand that our Lord had the physical challenges that come with life. Now, this is a little more challenging for us. Again, just ride this out with me. Don’t draw a conclusion yet. Don’t get mad and throw anything at me. All right. Let me finish. But is anybody else here a little bit like me? That one of your great weaknesses in life is that you’re emotional. Anyone like that?

Let me explain like this. I get hangry. Anybody know what hanger is? And I shouldn’t bring that up right now at about 11.15 or whatever time is. That clock’s not right, is it? It’s not 1120 already, is it? Man, I’m going good strong this morning. Okay. All right. I get hangry. When I’m a little bit tired, and especially when I really get hungry, my family knows, leave that alone. Somebody get him a protein bar and get it now. Alright? He’s liable to say or do. He’s having that look on his face. Man, look out. Here’s something about our Lord Jesus. Our Lord Jesus, as a human, had the emotions that come with being human. The text tells us more than once that Jesus got hungry. He was famished.

He would be thirsty. In fact, it even tells us that our Lord got tired. In fact, he got so sleepy. I don’t know how you look at this story, but there was a part of me that when you think about the story when the disciples are in the boat and they’re out on the sea and it’s rocking and everything. There was a part of me that used to think Jesus went, I’m going to show them what faith is. I’m going to go up here and make myself fall asleep. I’ll just take some divine dramatine and I’ll just kick out, and I’m really going to show. No. Our Lord never does that. Our Lord never, ever, ever, ever, ever uses his deity for his own good. He never, ever, ever uses a miracle for himself, and neither do his disciples.

When our Lord was asleep in that storm, it means he was so tired he slept through the storm. That’s what that means. He was so exhausted from the day that he collapsed and was laid out in that boat. Because he endured the emotions and the physical weaknesses that come with being a human. This is kind of hard for us to get into our heads. Because there’s a part of us that wants to see our Lord Jesus as the man who was always calm, cool, and collected and had it all together and knew the right thing to say it every single time and never had a challenging thought that came into his mind. He never had to reel it in when he was trying to reply to somebody.

He never had that moment of emotion where he would be willing to say something that maybe he would regret later. We think, we think that our Lord could just slow through everything, and hunger didn’t bother him, weakness didn’t bother him, pain didn’t bother him. Ah, he was just calm, cool, and collected all the time. No. No. In fact, not only just had the typical physical challenges of life, I want you to see his emotion as it’s reflected in these passages. When it came to eating the Passover with his disciples, our Lord said it like this. I’ve had a strong desire to eat this meal with you. I have longed for this. I have looked forward to this. He describes the centurion’s faith. Here’s an interesting story.

When the centurion had great faith, the text tells us that Jesus marveled. Some of your Bibles will say he was surprised. Now I don’t know about you, but there’s a part of me that goes, wait, wait, wait, wait, talk about. Isn’t he God? I mean, he God.

Hey, watch this, watch this, watch this God, watch this God. Whoa, look at that faith. See there? Oh, wait, I’m not surprised. Hey. No. No. In fact, when the gospel writer shares it, you get the impression that even Jesus goes, whoa. Would you look at that? Didn’t see that coming. Didn’t see that coming. Oh, a little bit later, he’ll be caused to wonder. He’ll go back to his hometown of Nazareth. And when they do not believe in him, here’s what it says. Jesus is caused to wonder. I I don’t get it. And what’s really sad, you know what Jesus does when his hometown refuses to believe in him? First of all, they try to throw him over a cliff. But he doesn’t perform many miracles there.

You remember that part of the story? Why? Because I’m done. You’re going to treat me like that? I’m done. Move it on. You ever had that feeling? Is that wrong?

Is that wrong for Jesus Himself to go? Done. Done. Moving on. Mark tells us in Mark 3 that he got angry. Really? And he also grieved at the same time. Here’s a story. Go to Mark 10. I’d have liked to have seen this. I wouldn’t want to have been caught up in it, but I’d have loved to have seen it. In Mark chapter 10, in Mark chapter 10 and in verse 14, all right. There’s a scene where all the disciples are there with Jesus and all the adults around are this, that, and the other, and you know the disciples are feeling kind of important. They’re kind of cool. They’re hanging out with Jesus. They’re the kind of big men on campus, and they’re right there with Jesus, all the adults around, and then all of a sudden, here came all these little children, you know.

All these little snotty nose kids. You know snotty nose kids, right? You know? Come to camp. See a lot of snotty nose kids. It’s great. And when the kids are trying to get up there and parents are trying to get their kids up there, they’re not sure exactly what happened. The disciples go, oh, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Jesus works with adults.

Do y’all notice what Mark said? Jesus became what? Indignant. Now, let’s think about this for a moment. Again. Slow down. See the picture. This is not grandparent indignation. You ever sent your kids off to your parents’ house? And they’re not the same parents that you had growing up? And then no matter what they do, they get away with it, and you’ll get home and you’ll say, Well, mom, dad, how’d it go? Oh, they gave good. I had to get on to the kid a little bit. You had to get on to him what happened. Did you spank him? Oh, no, I didn’t spank them. I gave them some Cheerios and more Snickers and they calmed down real good. That’s your indignation. No. Here’s how this scene played out.

Jesus is sitting there talking. And he may have been conversing and he saw over what was going on with his disciples keeping the kids away. And Jesus went, Stop! Stop! Don’t do that! They belong here. They’re with me. If you ever do that again, how else do you see indignation, folks? How else do you describe indignation? If you’re reading this and you think Jesus went, all right, guys. Now, haven’t I told you before? Please. Hey, Peter, come here. Don’t do that. No. No. He was emotional because they weren’t getting it. He was emotional because they weren’t seeing and understanding his mission. He was emotional because he was a man. And they saw him mistreating children in his eyes. Don’t do that. It shows our Lord and what our Lord was doing, and what our Lord was doing was being a man.

In fact, a little bit later, you’re going to find in Mark chapter 7, our Lord’s going to look to heaven and he’s going to sigh. He’s going to sigh. Why is he sighing? Because there’s so much misery. I feel so much of a burden here. How many people am I going to have to help? And a little bit later, when he gets to Lazarus’ tomb, and we’re going to come back to this later, it says he groaned in his spirit. I want you to grasp and understand what this looked like. This was the Lord of Lord, the King of Kings, the Son of God, going, Oh. Oh. When he’s in the garden. He’s in agony. Agony. And he cries. He weeps. In fact, when he was at Lazarus’ tomb, he wept so hard.

He wept so much. Those that were watching were taken back.

And they would say, Wow. He really loved him. He really loved him. What’s the point of all of this? Why did the gospel writers show us this? Because that’s the way he was. And anybody in that day and age who would have been around Jesus and experienced Jesus and heard Jesus talk or ate a meal with Jesus, they would have seen a man. They would have seen the bloody knuckles from the carpentry. They would have seen the tears from the eyes and the anguish. They would have seen the compassion as he reached out to those that were hurting and lonely. They couldn’t help but see a man.

3. A Man of Sorrows in the Way He Suffered

One more. Probably the greatest example of his humanity was simply in the way that he suffered. In fact, Scripture tells us he’s a man of sorrows. A man of sorrows. And what we see in our Lord’s life, and especially close to the end of his life, is that our Lord would suffer greatly. In Luke 12, he’s speaking to his disciples. I came to cast fire on the earth and would that it was already kindled. But I have a baptism to be baptized with. And how great is my stress, my distress until it is accomplished. I want you to see the picture. Our Lord is not standing up like some conquering hero who just has it all together and is simply unfazed by what’s going to transpire.

No, he says, I’m in distress. I want you to imagine what that was like for his disciples. Here was the guy who’s going around healing everybody. Here was the guy going around talking about bringing in a new kingdom. Here was a guy talking about being a king. Here was a guy who was coming and talking about saving the world. And now he he’s distressed.

He’s in tears. In in John 12, John records it like this. He says, Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say, Father, save me from this hour? But it was for this purpose I came to his hour. What you find here is a man who is struggling with the will of God. Don’t misunderstand me. In no way am I implying he wasn’t deity. In no way am I implying that he didn’t know and understand the plan. In no way am I implying he wasn’t going to fulfill the plan. And in no way am I implying that he sinned. But he struggles with the will of God. Because he’s a man. And he’s experiencing the limitations of a man. In Matthew 28, when he’s praying in the garden, it says, then he said to them, My soul is very sorrowful, even to death.

I want you to hear what Jesus is saying. Jesus is saying, I hurt so bad. I hurt so bad. I feel like I could die right now.

Can you imagine if you were to go up and stand beside him and hold his hand, you could feel his pulse? Can you imagine if you go up and you were to put his arm your arm around him at that moment, you could feel him shake? If you were to go up and try to comfort him, you would realize you couldn’t. He couldn’t.

Luke will go on to say it like this that he was in so much agony. And he prayed even more earnestly. That his sweat became like drops of blood falling to the ground. What was that prayer like? What was that prayer like? You ever tried to picture this prayer, this scene?

There’s a part of me that wants to see Jesus. You know, he just came from a nice dinner. He’s filled. He’s been hanging out with his disciples. He just came from worshiping with them and praising and remembering the Passover that there’s a part of me that wants to just see Jesus kind of look at the disciples and go, let’s all spend some time in prayer. In fact, let me just take a knee right here. And Lord. But that wouldn’t be right, would it? You ever seen somebody pray like this? Maybe not have the sweats of blood. Sweat of his blood. You ever seen somebody pray like this? I have.

And this is hard for us to see. But our Lord Jesus in the garden when he prayed was praying a prayer of agony. My God, my God. Please, dear Lord. Please, please, if there’s any other way, please take this away from me. Please take this away from me. Please, any other way. I want to do your will. I want to do your will. Give me the strength to do your will. But please, please, no more. Please save me from this hour. Does he lose your respect praying like that? Does he lose his manliness? Does he lose his godliness? I want to give you two more examples, and then we’ll wrap this up. Because here’s what the scriptures tell us very clearly in Hebrews as Hebrews kind of puts it all together.

It says, in the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and with tears to him who was able to save him from death. And he was heard because of his reverence. I want you to listen to what the Hebrew writer is telling us. Jesus prayed the prayer of a man. A man who is hurting. A man who is longing for relief. A man who is longing for deliverance. And the scripture tells us very clearly he was heard. But you know he wasn’t delivered from that death, was he? He wasn’t. He was heard. But he wasn’t delivered. So he knows us. He knows us. He knows what it’s like to cry. He knows what it’s like to hurt. He knows exactly what it’s like to endure the human experience and feel helpless.

And he knows what it’s like not to get what you want. But he also knows the one who will give you what you need. Two examples real quick, and then we’ll wrap it up. In John chapter 11, when Jesus is at the tomb of Lazarus.

Like Paul says in the Roman letter, the whole earth pangs. The whole earth hurts. Loss. Death is a part of life. And it hurts.

It hurts. Our Lord experienced every single hurt that is common to man. But I also want you to see this passage in Matthew 27 and in verse 46. A passage that we sometimes read before we take of the Lord’s Supper in Matthew 27, 46, and it says, and about the ninth hour, our Lord is on the cross. And about the ninth hour, our Lord will cry out with a loud voice, Eli, Eli, Lama, Sabachani. That is, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why did he say that? Psalm have assumed, well, no, he really didn’t mean it. He was just quoting scripture. He was just trying to draw everybody’s attention back to Psalms 22 so that they would see Psalms 22 and go, oh my, this actually played out for real.

Oh, wow, that was the plan. And you know what? That may have been very true. That may have been very true. Instead of Jesus just saying, turn to Psalms 22 right now, we go back. He simply quoted the first line of the Psalm, which is how they identified Psalms back in those days, anyhow. They didn’t have the numbers and everything that we do. If you wanted to go get a passage of scripture, you usually recited the first line and you knew where to go. But I think there wasn’t just trying to fulfill a passage of scripture or recite a line.

I think he was also expressing an emotion and a feeling.

And you never, ever, ever feel more human than when you feel forsaken. You never ever feel more weak until you feel forgotten. And so may I suggest to you that maybe it has a double meaning. He’s simply expressing what all of us feel at times. My God, my God. Are you there? Really? Can you help me? Because I’m hurting. I’m hurting. Help me. Now again, okay. Make this very clear. He was God in the flesh. And he never sinned. But our God loves us so much, he became a man. And every single emotion, every single temptation, every single pain, every single tidbit of suffering, every single element of our life. He knows.

Conclusion

See, I know what Pilate was trying to do. I really think I do. He was trying to show the whole world, this guy’s just a man. Look at him. Look at how pathetic and weak he is. That is no God. But when you slow down and you really think about it, there’s no greater God than a God who’s willing to suffer. And there’s no greater suffering than one who will willingly suffer for others. Praise God, we have a Lord who is not just deity.

And as John said, we beheld his glory, full of grace and truth. We saw him in the flesh. But we know now he’s the Son of God. May we know he’s the Son of God. But now see him as a God in the flesh who can sympathize, empathize, and understand our life more than we could ever imagine. Praise God. We have a Lord like Jesus. Who Jesus we just may not know. Thank y’all very much.