Verse 22, when they came together in Galilee, Jesus said to them, the Son of man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised to life. And the disciples were filled with grief. Did you catch that? Did you hear the response when Jesus began to foretell what would happen to him? Did you hear what the disciples response was? They were filled with grief. The broader context is that just probably a day or two earlier, at least in the same time frame, several of the disciples were with Jesus on the mount of transfiguration. We believe that was on Mount Hermann, the highest mountain in the Middle East. It's just north, it's in the northern part of Galilee. And then they came down and joined the others, and there was an encounter with demonic forces, and a young boy out of whom they cast demons. And then it says, and they came together in Galilee. And Jesus began to tell them what would happen, what must happen, that he would go to Jerusalem, that he would be betrayed, that he would suffer, that he would die, that he would be raised to life. And they were filled with grief. When I read that earlier this week, I stopped short, and I said, wait a minute, they just didn't get it, did they? We'd already had the encounter earlier where Jesus was saying the same things, and Peter took them aside and said, may it not be, Lord, you've got it all wrong. And Jesus had to rebuke Peter, say, get behind me, Satan, you don't know what God is doing here. They just didn't get it. The people who were with Jesus, the closest ones to him, they didn't get it. So a couple of days later, or shortly after this, just last Sunday, we celebrated Palm Sunday. And as Jesus came down the hill from Bethany toward the east side of Jerusalem, they laid down palms, and they shouted, Hosanna. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna, save us. We mentioned last Sunday that this was a not-so-subtle political statement in a way, because coming from the west side of Jerusalem was a great, grand, majestic, powerful procession of Pilate and the Roman garrison coming from Caesarea and the sea into Jerusalem for the Passover. And it was a big parade, and it was huge, and there were banners, and there were staffs, and there were weapons, and there was armor. And then Jesus came in the other direction on a cult with palms. And while the Romans may not have gotten it, the Jewish people got that. They saw the symbolism that this was the way to welcome a king, and they wanted a king, and they didn't want it to be Roman. They wanted a king right then to liberate them from the worldly powers that were oppressing them. They wanted freedom from economic oppression, from foreign peoples. They wanted freedom of religion. They wanted freedom to practice their own faith. They wanted freedom from the boot of Rome being on their necks, threatening their lives. They wanted a king. Jesus knew they needed freedom, didn't he? But he also knew that they needed freedom from a power far, far greater than the power of Rome. They needed freedom from the power of Satan and from the realm of sin. And they're no different than we are, are they? We have that same need today. And people still don't get it today, do they? A lot of people seek God to find freedom from whatever it might be that afflicks them, whether it's a physical affliction and illness, they'll cry out to God for that. It might be some sort of addiction, they want freedom from, it might even be political, or economic, or social, or familial, release, or deliverance that they seek, and not to belittle any of those things. All of those things are serious things, and all of those things are things which need to be redeemed, but all of those things are out there, aren't they? People often will seek God and will seek redemption and deliverance and freedom from things that are out there forcing in on us. When Jesus came and He said, I've come not for the well, but for the sick. The well don't need a physician, but those who are sick need to be saved from their sickness. And the sickness isn't out there, is it? The sickness is in here, isn't it? It's in our hearts, and it's a power that we cannot heal, it's a melody that we cannot heal, it's a power we cannot throw off ourselves, the power of sin. It has the power of death over us, and the real problem, one that we all really have is in here, it's not out there. Maybe on this good Friday and over this weekend, you can ask yourself, is there a room that I have been trying to throw off? Is there a power of this world that I have been trying to conquer and find redemption or release from when the real freedom I need is freedom from something that holds me inside? This is as good a time as any, to ask those kinds of questions to yourself, from what do I really need freedom? And this is the kind of weekend when we can look at the cross and say he came to redeem us, to save us from our sins, to save us from the realm of Satan, from the realm of death. He came to save us from our own rebellion against God. And that's the bad news that we need to understand before we can ever get to the good news, is that we have a problem that we cannot solve. We have been prisoners of a realm that is much, much stronger than we are. After his death, some of the disciples still didn't get it. Remember that story toward the end of Luke where a couple of disciples are walking in the road to the town of Emmaus and Jesus came and walked alongside them. And he begins to talk to them and he said, what are you talking about? He said, well, we're talking about all the things that have come to pass in Jerusalem. We had hoped that Jesus was the one who was going to redeem Israel, they said. And notice the careful language that they used, betrayed their loss of hope. They used the past perfect tense. We had hoped, saying that now that hope was gone, it had vanished. But in a way they spoke truer than they understood. Their hope was well-founded, but their idea of redemption was far too small. They said, we had hoped that he would be the redemption of Israel. When in fact he is the redemption of all who trust in him everywhere, is your idea of Jesus too small? Is it too selfish? Is it too personal? He came to redeem, yes. And he came to redeem us from what's inside of us, yes, that's all true. But let's not make the opposite error of thinking it's all about me. In fact, Jesus came to redeem the entire creation. The entire created order, the entire universe, groans and longs for redemption. And the death of Christ on the cross began that we have the down payment with the Holy Spirit that he has come for his people, and he is saving us from our sins. And there will be glory when he comes again and fulfills and completes what God has designed with the restoration of all the creation. But in the meantime, I encourage you, today, tomorrow, to ask God to show you your sin, ask God to help you turn your gaze not on on forces or people or economics or vocational struggles or family difficulties which you may blame for what's happening in your life. God's God to help you focus on your sin for which Christ came to redeem you for his glory. He came to redeem his people from their sins. And so the other question you have to ask is am I part of his people? Am I part of God's family? Has he called me to himself? Have I realized that he is my only hope now and forever? If you have trusted in Christ to redeem you from your sins, then there is hope even on 10-Abray, even on Good Friday, even on a service of shadows, even when there is darkness covering the earth in the middle of the day when he was on the cross and dying, there is hope of a dawn of a new day and a promise of redemption. Our Father, we are grateful for your plan, we are grateful that you show us ourselves when we are courageous enough to take the time to look deeply at ourselves. You show us who we are, you show us our need. And I pray you would open our eyes today, tomorrow, and I pray that you would keep in our hearts the hope of the resurrection so that we might return with joy and gladness to celebrate that on Sunday morning. We pray in Jesus' name.