Matthew Chapter 27 Verses 1 – 2

• The verdict of the unlawful trial was death…it wasn’t guilty! It started with death and it ended with death and yet something stopped them from carrying out the sentence.  Some teach, and they’re technically right (I’ve taught this), that the Jews lacked the right to carry-out capital punishment.  Since Rome ruled the land, only Rome could execute…but what about Steven?  What about the woman they brought to Jesus earlier in His ministry ready to stone her to death having been caught in the very act of adultery?
• Could it have been the Passover? Or the fact that the entire trial was against their own law and they knew it?  Perhaps…those things are certainly true as well…but here’s the thing…1,000 years before this early morning, Psalm 22:16 says, “They pierced My hands and My feet.”  700 years before this morning, Isaiah 49:14-16 says, “I will not forget you!  Can a woman forget her nursing child, and not have compassion on the son of her womb?  Surely they may forget, yet I will not forget you.  See I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands!”
• The Jews condemned Him, His own people sentenced Him, but His execution would come at the hands of the gentiles on a Roman cross…why? It was written…it was known by God before the foundation of the world…and while everything else can be changed, your fate, my fate, your day, my day, your mind, my mind, your heart, my heart…God does not change and His word does not change…why did they deliver Jesus to Pontius Pilate to be crucified?  Because it is written….
• Look man, this is huge…sin is strong but the Word of God is stronger! The fate of the day is a mystery…perhaps even a worry, a fear…it’s like tomorrow is in the dark and we can’t see it…but the Word of God is a lamp, it is light…it doesn’t change and it is supernaturally, consistently, always spot-on accurate…this is just one of many reasons to study the Bible and study it and study it and study it…it’s like you’re mapping life out and that map is continually continually continually being proven right!
• I mean can you imagine…hidden treasure is here…, “X” marks the spot…and then you find it…next day, new “X” appears…and then you find it! Not only will you totally become a treasure hunter…I mean who wouldn’t…but in the mix what are you amassing!?  Treasure baby!  You’re getting RICH…although this treasure is heart treasure, rightness treasure, strength treasure, courage treasure, wisdom treasure, character treasure…Be like Scrooge McDuck swimming through his money vault in your heart and each coin is POWER!  HA!!!  But I digres…
• And so they bring Him to Pilate and Luke tells us that they brought with them entirely new accusations! Remember what they ended their trial with?  “Now we have heard His blasphemy!  He is deserving of death!”  Pilate would have had them all removed immediately if that’s what they had brought to him…and so Luke tells us in Luke 23 that they accused Jesus of perverting the nation, refusing to pay taxes and opposing Caesar, calling Himself, “King.”
• They had wrongly condemned They had utilized dishonesty and foolishness seasoned with pride to make a horrific decision and now they had to plot and work and conspire as to how to bring the verdict about physically.  We do the same thing…we know when we are walking in pride and weakness and then we have to work and work and work to try to make it stick or cover it up or control the damage (so much work!)…and to do it they add to their dishonesty and foolishly gross transgressive lies…if you’ve decided against the Lord, I pray you wake up before you commit your heart to this type of treason. 
• Why treason? Because this Jesus, this God, your Creator and Father is the biggest fan of your heart and soul that could ever live!  All powerful, all mighty, all sovereign and all loving and yet in pride we turn from Him?  If our hearts and souls had voices they would cry out treason until they were hoarse!  (What do you call a pony with a sore throat – a little horse!  HA!)

Matthew Chapter 27 Verse 3

• See this…Judas was filled with remorse, not repentance and there is a HUGE difference! How can you know the difference?  What a minute, you can see that difference in the motivation and in the outcome!  The reason for the repentance and the result of the repentance!  There is being sorry about sin and then there is being sorry for the sin.  One is brought on because of what the sin did, the other is brought on simply because the sin ever occurred…Why was Judas remorseful?  Because, he “saw that he had been condemned!”
• This word for remorseful may be translated in your Bible as repentant but don’t get tripped up…this is an entirely different word then the word for repentance in Romans 2:4, which reads, “The goodness of God leads you to repentance…” Remorse like this is natural in all of us.  It leads to self is being sorry for the result and sorry for being caught…repentance which leads to God is being sorry for the action of the sin period…and then there’s even a next level…being sorry for the heart even capable of it in the first place!

Matthew Chapter 27 Verse 4

• Oh man I wish we could read more than one verse but this is HUMONGENOUS! Why?  Judas had been with Jesus in public and in private, non-stop for over three years…and what he has done to Jesus is eating Him up!  I mean have you ever done something against someone and you’re just being eaten up about it?  What do you do?  Well maybe you’re not as evil as I am but I search for justification…anything that I can console and convince myself that they deserved it!  But years with Jesus and nothing…!
• If there was any flaw in Jesus’ character or a lie embedded in any of this…Jesus proclaimed that He Himself was God…that alone would have given Judas justification to have Him killed…but this is HUMONGENOUS! Judas was like…dang man, He is God!  This confession confirms it!  Why?  Because when he returns to his masters he says, “I feel bad!  He was my Friend!  He loved me!”  NONE of that!  “He lived a lie.  He told us what was really going on in private!”  None of that!  “I have betrayed innocence,” – meaning Jesus was absolutely perfect, AND, “I have sinned,” – that’s a statement to Jesus’ deity!!
• His dying words, His last statements, the last time we hear from him ever in all of eternity, the betrayer of Jesus proclaims Jesus to be exactly who He said He was…the very Son of God. The Savior sent to die for the sins of the world…The Jews could find nothing wrong with Him…eventually condemning Him based on a lie…the gentiles could find nothing wrong with Him…Pilate will say later in this Chapter, “I find no fault in Him,” and even His enemy, His betrayer, the Son of Perdition…man the implication is this…even Satan finds no fault in this Jesus…He is perfect in all ways and even to all peoples and principalities…

Matthew Chapter 27 Verses 5 – 10

• Wow…this is crazy. Judas throws back the 30 pieces of silver…he hadn’t spent them…had just been looking at them since the night before…and their hypocrisy flexes…we can’t keep this money, its blood money…it was before, man…  And so they use it to buy the potter’s field in which to bury strangers…very very odd but very very significant.
• The potter’s field would be the trash heap, the dump for pottery that was flawed or broken or unusable…and this is much deeper than just these few statements, but check this out…Isaiah 64, “We are the clay, and You our potter…” A stranger to God, you’re buried…unusable and broken into pieces…but there is a way to restore clay…even hardened clay…did you know that?  How?  By heating it enough…and soaking it long enough in water…it becomes soft again…and check this out…the price for Jesus, the price paid for Him, for His blood…bought all those broken pieces…

Matthew Chapter 27 Verse 11

• I wish this was an honest question…but it most likely wasn’t. Jesus is probably dirty, looks exhausted, beaten, bloody…and THIS is the King??  That’s the thought and tone here...

Matthew Chapter 27 Verses 12 – 14

• We’re simply out of time but one more thought here as we close…this is the second time Jesus appeared in front of Pilate. The first time Pilate sent Him to Herod to be examined but Jesus didn’t say a word to him…so Herod sent Him back…and history tells us that Pilate was a man of extraordinary cruelty and   He was unkind to the Jews.  He hated everything but more power and yet here we see Him stopped, stunned and softened by the presence and power of Jesus…
• I pray, man I wish, man I hope, man I DREAM of one of you, just one of you…going towards Jesus because of this church, perhaps even this teaching…drop the noise, drop the toys, and go find Him on your own. Why?  Because it doesn’t matter who you are or how hardened or hurt or hangry…He loves you…He’s waiting for you, He’s calling to you…and He will touch you…and then this church, His church, His kingdom starts body building!!!