 Hey, good morning everyone. Welcome to a new session of Covenants to Cross and the Blood. Let's begin this time with the word of prayer. Jafina, would you mind leading us in prayer, please? Sid, would you mind leading us in prayer? Yes, Pastor. Father, we come to the throne of great Lord. Thank you for this day. You have given us, Lord, as we are going to learn from your covenant, Lord, the pain you went through, Lord, whatever you have done for us, Lord, we thank you in Jesus' name, Lord. Lord, we need your wisdom. We need your guidance, Lord. Give us wisdom so that we can understand all the words that's been teaching us, Lord. Lord, thank you, Lord. Bless the pastor, Lord. Bless the sooters, Lord. Whatever we will be learning, Lord, it should be used for the kingdom, expansion and all glory we need to give in you, Lord. In Jesus' name, we pray, Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thanks, Sid. All right. So now we last week, we have completed on the Covenants. I know that there's little more left, but most of it is just to repeat. It's just repeated there. So what we will do is we will move on to section two of this course, which is talking about the cross, right? Now, before we get into that, any questions on the Covenants? Any thoughts, any questions on all that we learned in the topic of the Covenants? Any questions, any thoughts? Everything OK? Should we move on to section two? We'll be talking about the cross, the centrality of the cross, the power of the cross and what Jesus achieved for us through the cross. I'm sure most of us, you know, we know about this. We studied about this, but it's always good to remind ourselves, you know, that everything that we're doing is should point us towards the cross. All right. So should we go ahead to begin with the cross? Section two, let me just see page we are on the notes. OK, we are on page 57 on the notes if you are tracking along. So section two, we're going to be talking about the cross of Jesus Christ. Now, when we look at the cross and we look at what Jesus did, it is known in history that the cross, the cross of Jesus Christ is the central point of all humankind, right? Without the cross of Jesus Christ, without his death, his burial, his resurrection, the Christian faith would be just another religion. Yes, it would be just another religion, just like all other religions. But today, from from this topic onwards, we are going to embrace and really dig deep into the true meaning of the cross. The cross has much more to do than just, you know, wearing it around our neck. The cross has much more is much more than just, you know, getting a, you know, a tattoo done on the hand or the cross is much more than just, you know, a red light that we see on churches. It's more than that. It's not about, you know, just going near the cross and looking at it and, you know, trying to worship the cross. All of that doesn't really count. What really matters is, as believers, when we know the centrality, the power and the the authority that God used through his son, Jesus Christ to overcome the work of the devil, right? So let us begin to study on the centrality of the cross. Now, the Apostle Paul is a wonderful man. He before that, let's let's read this whole portion of scriptures, which is important. First Corinthians, chapter one, 17 to 25. Yes, one of us, please read that first Corinthians, chapter one, 17 to 25. First Corinthians one, 17 to 25. First Corinthians one, 17 to 25. For Christ did not send to baptize but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words. This, the cross of Christ should be made of no effect. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. But to us who are safe, it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise. And bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God met foolish the wisdom of this world? For since in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God. It pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For Jewish request assigned and Greeks seek after wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified to the Jewish, to the Jewish, a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness. But to those who are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because of the foolishness of God is wiser than man. And the witness of God is stronger than man. Amen. Thank you, Zeddy. Now we read this entire portion and. The Apostle Paul, if we look at his life, he was the most prominent person in the New Testament, right? We see that he was an influential leader. He was a Pharisee trained under Gamaliel. He had this great understanding on Judaism, to a commander of the temple guard and so many things under his belt, right? But after the Lord Jesus, after he met the Lord Jesus, later on, Saul later on came to be known as Paul, he spent many years in silence in Arabia. And then again he went into Tarsus, spent many years in silence. And then later on, we know the story Paul writes to the Galatians and he's writing his testimony three years. I was in the desert and then 14 years away, his silent years and then later on, Barnabas goes finds and brings him to Antioch. Now, the Apostle Paul is known to have written. So many letters, right? He has gone to so many places. He's planted churches in Asia Minor in Europe from Jerusalem to Rome. Planted churches, raised up many leaders, gone through so much of difficulties, written so many letters, you know, two thirds of the New Testament is written by the Apostle Peter, Paul, right? Now, in 1 Corinthians 117 to 25, what we just read, Paul is summing up his entire ministry. And he's saying this, I, as a minister of God, my focus is to preach the cross of Christ, right? He, his focus was not on how many churches he planted. His focus was not on how many leaders he raised up. The focus was not on, you know, how much, how many years he spent in the ministry. His focus was not even on his personal testimonies. The focus that Paul had in his ministry was to preach Christ crucified. Right? That's why he starts off this entire this verse here, he says, for Christ did not send me to baptize. Is baptism good? Yes. But Christ did not send me for that. Christ sent me to preach the gospel, not with words of our own wisdom. Lest the cross of Christ be made no effect. Now, why is Paul saying this? Do we need wisdom in ministry? Yes. But Paul is trying to bring across this whole understanding that the greatest wisdom. In this world that has ever been, you know, thought of and as an act that has been done is that God in his time sent his son, Jesus Christ, into this world to live a perfect life, to die on the cross and resurrect him again and seat him on the right hand of the father. That is the greatest wisdom that God can ever do. Right? The greatest work that God can ever do. So Paul is saying, if I speak in my own intellectual words, if I speak out of my own talents or my own testimonies and all these other things, and if I don't preach Christ crucified, I have failed. Right? In verse 22, it says, for Jews, request a sign and Greeks seek after wisdom. The meaning Jews request a sign, meaning they just, you know, they really need miracles and Greeks seek after wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified to the Jews. It's a stumbling block to the Greeks. It's foolishness, right? For the for a Jew to think that the Messiah of this world, their Messiah will come and die on the cross as a convict or as a sinner, is a stumbling block. There's no way that can happen because in their mindset, the Messiah is a king who will come and overthrow the Roman government. And for the Greeks, who are very intellectual, for them, this does not make sense. Why? Because think about it. You've got a person who came 2000 odd years ago, lived in Jerusalem, died on the cross. He rose again from the dead. And now when we believe in him, we have eternal life. We have forgiveness of sins. Doesn't make sense. So the Greeks, it's foolishness. Right? But Paul is saying, it doesn't matter what people think. For the Jews, it's a stumbling block. For the Greeks, it's foolishness. But for those who are saved, it is the power of God under salvation. Right? It says here, because verse 25, because the God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men. So what is Paul's focus here? All through when you read about, from his first missionary journey and how we went about this ministry, what was the focus? Focus was the cross. The focus was Jesus. Right? First Corinthians 117, he says, for Christ to not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with words of wisdom, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect. Now, in a time that we are in, you know, a time where there's a lot of eloquence of speech, great oratory skills, intellectual reasoning, brilliant people around us. All of these are good. We have wonderful tools in ministry now. You know, for example, you go to Google, you just type in sermon on, you know, this talk on faith, for example. You get a whole list of sermons. You can download them off. You can, you know, they're podcasts. Mostly you can download the audio, listen to them. So it's very easy to prepare sermons nowadays, right? It's very easy to have, get a PPT done. Okay, project the PPT for the sermon. We can get it done. There's a lot of material online. There are a lot of tools that we can use. But what does Paul try to say? If I depend on all of this, you know, the tools available and my own wisdom, my own intellectuals, the way my oratory skills, if I depend on my own abilities, it is like we are not depending on the cross of Christ. We as believers need to depend on the raw power of the cross of Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus, remember, the Lord Jesus is not impressed by how well we can speak, how good is our oratory skill? Are we using big words? Are we using words that, you know, people cannot even understand? Now, that's not really gonna impress the Lord. What is gonna impress, what God is going to do is when we know the power of the cross, when we preach Christ crucified, then we will see miracles, we will see lives transformed. Now, that does not mean that I don't, you know, build on my skills and abilities. I have to do that, right? So if I, for example, if somebody is one of you has been called to be a preacher or pastor, you know that every Sunday you have to prepare sermons. So you need to develop yourself in that skill and ability, but don't depend on that. Okay, I know how to speak English. I know how to just a couple of stories from the Bible. So I'll just use a couple of verses here and there and get over the sermon. If our dependence is on tools, then we have digressed our focus of ministry from God to tools. And Paul is saying, I studied under Gamaliel. I know everything from the Old Testament. I know every law, I know every scripture trained under Gamaliel, a wonderful leader, the Pharisee of the Pharisees. Now, if I depend on all the skills that I have and I preach out of that eloquence that I've learned from, and if I forget to preach Christ crucified, I have failed in my ministry. So Paul is bringing forth the whole ministry and he's saying my focus is the centrality of the cross. The message of the cross is the power of God. First Corinthians 1.18, for the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. It may sound foolish to people. It may sound something that doesn't even make sense, but remember that the message of the cross is the power of God. It brings life into people. It's able to transform lives. Why do we as believers, right? It's very good. It's very important to try and end your sermon focusing on the cross. This is what Jesus did for us. Even when we learned this last semester on lifestyle evangelism, when we are sharing with the gospel with somebody, it's always important to bring in the cross. Now we can sometimes share our testimony and say, this is what happened, this is what happened in my life and this is how God changed my life. But we may forget that the centrality of sharing the gospel is the cross. So it's very important to, you know, even as we share with people, share the testimony, but bring the focus away from us and focus it to the cross. Because without the cross, we looked at all of this in the covenants. Without the cross, we will be lost as sinners, right? Right? It goes on. The cross is surpassing all the wisdom of this world. All of man's brilliance looks pale to the wisdom that God revealed on the cross of Jesus Christ. The great philosophers, the great minds, deep arguments, reasonings, all these kinds of, you know, things that come up all seem petty or all seem very silly when they stand against or compared to the wisdom of God. Now we must remember the beauty of the wisdom of God is revealed to the cross of Jesus Christ and its simplicity, right? Now, when we look at religion, there's a way of making things complicated, right? We make things complicated, but there's simplicity on what God did to the cross. It's simple, right? Though the process of going through it was difficult for our Lord Jesus Christ, but the simplicity of the wisdom of God, it was not, you know, an afterthought, it is not a plan B. The Bible says that Christ was crucified before the foundations of the world. So look at the wisdom of God, surpassing wisdom. Now sometimes we can try and debate and, you know, think of all rational arguments and deep debates and think of these great minds around us. But all of their wisdom comes nowhere close to the wisdom of God. Look at the way the Lord Jesus, God worked in this whole encounter and how God brought about this whole way of salvation. He sent his son to die on the cross, brought him back to life and seated him in the heavenly places. It sounds so simple, but it's the wisdom of God, right? It pleases God when the cross is preached. Every time we share about the cross of Jesus Christ, every time we talk about the cross, it pleases God. Remember the covenants we studied? What is Jesus doing as a high priest? He's taking his own blood and offering it to the Father in heaven, or the blood of rams and goats, but his own blood. The Lord Jesus is not in a place where he says, oh, don't remind me of what happened, you know, when I was living in Jerusalem, it was so painful, oh, please, you know, we have that tendency, right? We go through a terrible time and then we pass that time and then we say, hey, don't remind me of that, that season, all of us can say, you know, 2020, don't remind us of 2020, the pandemic hit, deaths and sickness and disease and hospitals and don't remind me of it. Such a painful, tormenting time. But for the Lord Jesus, it's not so. The Lord Jesus is pleased when we talk about the cross. It is not something that he's ashamed of. It is not something that is, you know, a defeat, but it was victory, you know, when we win, for example, when we win, example, right, a running race in school, maybe a 200 meters race. And if you come first, or you make it to the first three, podium finish, you'll be so excited. You'll want to tell your cousins, your extended families, your friends, you won't tell everybody about it. But if we come second, last or last, then we tend to just keep quiet, you know, don't talk about it. But that's not the case here. The Lord Jesus is pleased when we preach the cross of Jesus Christ. God has ordained that something like the cross which seems so foolish, which seems so small, seems so, you know, when you look at the cross, it's a place of, you know, it's disgusting. It was, it's a place of torment and blood. But the Lord Jesus is saying, that is the wisdom. That is my wisdom, even though it looks like that, but the power of God is in that cross. So remember, it pleases God when we preach the cross. The Lord Jesus begins to release the power of the cross upon our lives. How is it that people are transformed? You know, people who are, who have, you know, gone through or have been, you know, in such sin for many, many, many years. How is it that when somebody preaches the gospel, bring in the cross, they're able to transform, their lives change in a moment? How is it? Because there is power in that, because the Lord Jesus begins to release the power of the cross upon their lives. Now here's the interesting thing. The audience can't change the message. The message of the cross is final. Nobody can go back and edit and say, you know, no, this is, this never happened. Of course, people will try and do it. Some people say that, you know, Jesus did not die for somebody else who looked like Jesus. So some of them say Jesus ran away, went to Kashmir and so then there's other beliefs that Jesus ran away with, you know, to Iran or all kinds of understandings, right? So they will be there. But the audience cannot change the message. The message for the Jews, they may think, hey, it's foolishness. It's a stumbling by, I'm not going to, I'm not even going to think about that. We are still waiting for the Messiah. For the Greeks, they may say, it does not make sense. How can it make sense? Somebody died on the cross. It does not make sense. It becomes, you know, foolishness to them. Whether they believe or no, the message of the cross will remain the same. The power of the cross will remain the same. The Lord Jesus is not apologizing or he's not, you know, in a place where he's saying, oh, please believe, please, if you believe, you know, God is, I will release all my, no, no, no. The audience, people can say a lot of things. People may, you know, say, say that there is no God or there is no, the whole thing of Trinity is, is a fake and all these things may come up. But here's the thing from the passage that we read, Paul considered that the cross is the power of God, which nobody can change. Right. Nobody can change it. You may, as Jews, you may feel it's a stumbling block. As Greeks, you may feel it's foolishness, but the message does not change. We are not, Paul is saying, see, now I'm coming to you and I'm preaching to you. You feel it's a stumbling block? Okay, let me make another message for you. No, he goes to, you know, we studied a bit of that in, you know, in Mars Hill where he goes into Corinth and he begins to preach there in Asia Minor. What does he say there? He stands at the Great Sermon in Aeropagus. He stands there and he begins to preach and he says, the God who you have mentioned as the unknown God, I will make that God known to you. And he begins to preach the cross. He doesn't say this may, so audience, this may, this may sound a little bit foolish, but please believe in me. No, he preached the cross. And what happened after that? The Bible says many believed. Maybe some of the Greeks who were very well learned thousands, hundreds of years, they've been, you know, looking at the stars and the moon and all of that and, you know, the different kinds of thoughts and ideas that they have, gnostic beliefs. All of that went out the door when they heard the Lord Jesus, when they heard the message of Paul about the cross. Right? So the audience can have different opinions, but you and I know the authority and the power of the cross. Right? So even as we are in the ministry, maybe preaching on Sundays, doing other meetings, getting opportunities to evangelize, people, people's opinions may be different, but you and I must not change our opinion on the cross. Cross is the power of God. The message does not change. Right? The whole purpose of incarnation, let's read Philippians chapter 2 verse 5 to 11. Philippians 2, 5 to 11. Yes, any one of us, Philippians 2 verses 5 to 11. Philippians chapter 2 verses 5 to 11. Your attitude should be the same as that of Jesus Christ, who being in very nature, God, did not consider equal with God. Some things to be grasped, but made himself nothing. Taking the very nature of a servant being made him in human likeness and being found in the appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to that, even that on a cross. Therefore, God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name above every name. That a name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on the earth, every and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory to be the God, the Father. Pastor, you are on mute. Sorry, thank you. I'll just read even Revelation studying 8. All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose name has not been written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundations of the world. 1 Peter 1.20 says he was indeed fordained before the foundations of the world, but was manifest in these last times. 1 Corinthians 2.7 and 8, but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew for had they known they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. Now, all of these verses that we read points that the whole message or the whole plan of the cross was done before the foundations of the world. Revelation 138 says whose name have not been written in the book of life of the Lamb slain before the foundations of the world. So, the whole purpose of the incarnation, we also studied that in Christology, the whole purpose of Jesus coming into this world was for the cross. Now, if we look at Jesus' ministry, every now and then he reminded his disciples in a very beautiful way. He reminded his disciples. He reminded the people as well. Let me just take up a few examples. One, you said you destroyed this temple and I will rebuild it in three days. The Pharisees and the people say, hey, our forefathers took hundreds of years to build this temple. Look at the structure, how it is so big and you are saying you destroyed and you rebuild it in three days. You're not talking in your mind. They thought it was out of his mind. He says, later on he goes on and says, before Abraham was, I am talking about who Jesus was before the foundations of the world and goes on even in places where the book of Hebrews writes and says the rock that was smote was the Lord Jesus. And so, the whole purpose, the Lord Jesus reminded his disciples and he said, I am the resurrection. I am the life in front of Lazarus' tomb. And so, everywhere the Lord Jesus reminded his disciples. Many places he says, soon I will be gone. I'm sure the disciples didn't really take those words seriously. Maybe they thought going to another city, going to another town. But Jesus knew exactly what he came for. He came with a purpose. He came with one thing in his mind that was to die on the cross. What an amazing, amazing love, what an amazing wisdom God displayed through this whole aspect. One thing that Jesus had in his mind was, one day I'm going to die on the cross. That's why we look at the Garden of Gethsemane. As a human being, the Lord Jesus is saying, Lord, if it's your will, take this cup away from me. But yet not my will, but your will be done. There, the Lord Jesus showed his human side as well. He said, this cup is too much to bear. But I know that I've come to fulfill your will. And in your wisdom, God, you feel that this is right, that I must be beaten and scourged and die on the cross. In your wisdom, God, you feel this is right. So let it be so. And the Lord Jesus, he fulfilled this whole thing that was written about him before the foundations of the world, we preach Christ crucified. What an amazing, amazing wisdom. Remember that many people around us may have a lot of knowledge. Many people may have a lot of great understandings. Right. But if they don't know the message of the cross, they have lost out on what is the most important or the greatest wisdom of this world. This great scientist and great physicist around this world, they all are brilliant, extremely brilliant. They know everything. They know how to come up with tools and gadgets and they look at the stars and they come up with solutions and all of these things. Great wisdom. But that wisdom is just a natural wisdom. If they have not received the wisdom of the cross in their lives, they have failed. And so remember this, that you and I, we have received the gospel, we believe in the message of the cross. God has given us the greatest wisdom made available to us. So whether he's the greatest scientist, whether he's the greatest physicist, don't feel small in front of them. Why? Because you are greater in God's eyes. Because the wisdom that you have and understanding that you have is greater than that of others. I love what the Lord Jesus says to Apostle Paul. He says, I will make you stand in front of rulers and judges and great kings. You will stand in front of them. And the Apostle Paul didn't say, okay, wait, let me just wipe off my dust. Let me make sure that my English or my Greek or my Aramaic is in tune. I hope I'm using the right words. No, no, no. What does he say? He's tied up in chains and he goes in front of Felix. When you see, read the book of Acts, he goes in front of these governors and these kings and he stands there regal and he knows exactly what he's talking about. He says, this is the cross. This is what Jesus did. There was no flinching at all, Apostle Paul. He knew that the wisdom that he had was greater than that of anything else. Jesus foretold his crucifixion several times. Let's read Matthew chapter 16, 21 to 23. Matthew 16, 21 to 23. Yes, anyone? Matthew 16, 21 to 23. Matthew 16, 21, 21 to the Apostle. 21 to 23. Okay, thank you. For that time, Jesus began to show to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised the third day. Then Peter too came aside and began to rebake him saying, Far be it from you, Lord. This shall not happen to you. But he turned and said to Peter, Get behind me, Satan. You are an offense to me. For you are not mindful of the things of God but the things of men. Amen. Thank you, Zellie. So we see here Jesus is foretelling his disciples and he says, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem, suffer many things from the elders and priests and be killed and raised on the third day. Immediately, the fast speaking Peter, short tempered, Peter says no ways that should not happen. We are 12 of us. We can protect you. You know, we can go to probably, he thought we'll just take you to a place hiding for a while. What does Jesus say? Get behind me, Satan, because you are thinking of the worldly things and not the things of God. Because the whole thing of crucifixion was God's plan and Jesus didn't want the work of the enemy through anyone to hinder the plan of God. In Mark 9.31 to 32 he says, For he taught his disciples and said to them, Son of man is being betrayed into the hands of men and they will kill him and after he is killed he will rise the third day. But they did not understand the saying and were afraid to ask him. So the Lord Jesus was not mysterious in his whole dealing with what was going to happen. It was not like the Lord Jesus was 30 years old, he started his ministry and then somewhere around 33, there's another five, six months for him to die. He started saying, Okay, listen, in case I just want to make sure that each of you know that one day I will be crucified. No, that was not Jesus' plan or that's not what he did. He foretold right from the beginning, right, whenever maybe whenever there were miracles and where he had many people and he spoke to his disciples and private as well and he told them this is what's going to happen. I'm going to be handed over, I'm going to be killed, but I will rise up on the third day. Those three, I'm going to be handed over, I'm going to be betrayed, I'm going to be killed and I'm going to, you know, the book of Mark later on says, he begins to describe, he says, I will be scourged, beaten, put in prison. So he says everything, he knew what was ahead of him. So Jesus, he purposed to go to the cross, right. Now, there were many opportunities presented to Jesus to avoid death on the cross, many opportunities. It's not like the, you know, Satan said, okay, whatever God is doing, let him do. No, no, no. Satan did all he can to try and present opportunities to Jesus to avoid the cross. Just one sin was enough. If this person, Jesus, can fall for one sin of one temptation that I give him, if he can just fall once, then the whole cross will be of no effect. The point of the cross is the sinless Lamb crucifying. But if Satan tried one sin, just one, you see the episode where the Lord Jesus is being tempted after his 40 days, during his 40 days of fasting, only three were recorded. But the Bible says that Satan left him for a while. Satan would have come back, tempted him all through those 40 days on and on and on and on and on, right, because just one sin was enough. Now, when you think of all this, so much of gratitude, all of this he went through for our sake, right. One was Satan's own temptations. Matthew 4, 8 to 10, where the Lord Jesus is in fasting and the devil took him up on an exceedingly high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, all these things I will give you, if you fall down and worship me, then Jesus said to him, away with you Satan, what is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only will you serve. That's just one of those temptations. Then through Peter, imagine the Lord Jesus is saying, I'm going to die one day, I'm going to be betrayed, I'm going to be crucified, a painful, horrific death. It's going to be a gruesome scene. And Peter comes and says, you know what, Lord, we can avoid this. We'll not let this happen. Imagine if Jesus said, okay, what is the plan? What do we do? Should we go to another place? Should we go to Judea? Everyone like us there? We'll go there and stay there for some time. Oh, let's go to Samaria. We have some followers there as well. We can just go and stay there for a while. No, no, no, no. First thing Jesus said was, away from me Satan, because you have the things of man and not the things of God. So Jesus was not fearful of the cross. He was not getting said, oh, one day I'm going to go to the cross. I'm going to die. I hope that day doesn't come. No, he purposed for it, meaning he looked forward for it. Can you picture that? The Lord Jesus looked forward for the cross. He said, I'm waiting for the day, a time will come when one of you will betray me and they will hand me over to the leaders and I will be beaten and killed. He was looking forward for that day, even in the Last Supper. We don't see any place where the Lord Jesus was fearful at all. His soul was burdened. His soul was sad, but we don't see him fearful at all. He knew, he purposed to go to the cross. As a garden of Gethsemane again, he purposed it. Then 72,000 angels, that whole aspect of Matthew chapter 26 was 51 to 54. Let's read that. Matthew 26, 51 to 54. Matthew 26, 51 to 54. Yes, any one of us? Matthew 26, 51. And suddenly all of those who were with him, Jesus stressed out his hand and drew his sword, struck the sappings of the high priest and cut off his hair. But Jesus said to him, put your sword in its place. For all who take this sword, we perish by this sword. Or do you think that I cannot now pray to my father and he provide me with more than 12,000, 12 legions of agents? How then could these creatures be fulfilled that it must be happened? Yes, thank you, Avukare. So here again, the last opportunity was presented where, you know, they are in the garden of Gethsemane and Judas comes with the high priest and a few of the Roman guards. And as they were, you know, as Judas betrayed Jesus, Peter draws his sword, cuts off his soldiers here, and then Jesus says, put your sword back. If we result to this sword, we will die by it. But do you think if I don't pray to the father, if I pray to the father now, he will not send me a legion, 12 legions of angels, that's 72,000 angels, will he not be able to send me that? Forget about, you know, 72,000 angels, he can just send one angel, probably just send Michael and just blow them all, finish them off. He doesn't do that. Verse 54 says, how then could the scripture be fulfilled that it must happen thus? So he's saying, Peter, Peter, if you go about doing this, if you try to stop this, how will the scriptures be fulfilled? If I want it, I can just pray to the father, the father will send a whole legion of angels to protect me. But there's a reason why it's not being done, because scriptures need to be fulfilled. So the Lord Jesus, he purposed to go to the cross. What does it teach us? Teachers are something very important. We must be purposeful in pursuing the Lord Jesus. In good times, in good seasons, in bad seasons, in seasons of pain, in seasons of struggle, seasons of joy, we must purposefully look towards Jesus, look towards growing, look towards knowing Him more, asking God for His presence in our lives, purposefully, because Jesus, he purposefully, he looked forward for the suffering ahead. He knew that he is going to die, right? And how much more we can do this for our Lord? We say, God, help us to be purposeful in knowing you. Sometimes, you know what? In ministry, we get bored. You may end up getting tired. Say, oh, doing the same thing again and again. No. Remember what the Lord Jesus did. The stakes were so high. There's the pain, the struggle, all that He did. And we can purposefully go to Jesus and say, Lord, this is my failure, this is my struggle, this is my challenge. Help me in this. And He will understand. Remember, we studied this in the Covenants. He's our mediator, a mediator who sympathizes with us, right? How the Lord Jesus purposefully looked at the cross. We had to purposefully look forward to growing, maturing, and growing in the Lord in our lives, right? So, it's wonderful. Cross is a beautiful, beautiful place. That's a place where we can be as we are and know that we are accepted. Amen. So, let's take a break. We'll come back at 11 and continue on the cross.