Road to Calvary

"At noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And at three in the afternoon, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, 'Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?'" Which means my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? "And when those standing near heard him say this, they said, 'Listen, He's calling Elijah.' And someone ran and filled a sponge with wine vinegar and put it on a staff and offered it to Jesus to drink. 'Now leave him alone,' he said, 'And let's see if Elijah comes to take him down.' And with a loud cry, Jesus breathed His last." Church, this is the Savior that we worship. This is our king, this man who was crucified like a criminal, who was beaten, who was shamed, who was crucified on the cross. This is the one that we give our lives to and the one that we worship. And this is the one who said, "Pick up your cross daily and follow after me." As we continue on in our Roadmap series, today we come to the Road to Calvary. The road to Calvary that Jesus walked down on the way to the cross. It was the road that led him to His death. And we're gonna be reading from Mark 15:16-32 today. Mark 15:16-32. Now what I just quoted was Mark 15:33-37, which comes right after this passage. That was what happened on Calvary. What we are looking at today is the road that Jesus took leading up to that point, leading up to Calvary. So let's take a look at Mark 15:16-32. It says, "The soldiers led Jesus away into the palace", that is the Praetorium, "And called together the whole company of soldiers. They put a purple robe on him, then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him and they began to call out to him, 'Hail king of the Jews.' Again and again, they struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to him, and when they had mocked him, they took off the purple robe and put on His own clothes. Then they let him out to crucify him. A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus was passing by on his way in from the country and they forced him to carry the cross. They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha, which means the place of the skull. Then they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it and they crucified him. Dividing up his clothes, they cast lots to see what each would get. It was nine in the morning when they crucified him. The written notice of the charge against him read: the king of the Jews. They crucified two rebels with him, one on his right and one on his left. Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, 'So you who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, come down from the cross and save yourself.' In the same way, the chief priest and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. 'He saved others', they said, 'But he can't save himself. Let this messiah, this king of Israel, come down now from the cross that we may see and believe.' Those who crucified or those who were crucified with him also heaped insults on him." As we dive in today and we think about this road that Jesus walked to Calvary, this road that he walked on the way to his death, I want us to see first and foremost why Jesus walked this road. Why did Jesus walk this road to Calvary? But secondly, what I want us to see and talk about is how we follow him down that road. How are we called to pick up our cross and to follow him down the road to Calvary? First, what I want us to see is that the road to Calvary was a road of suffering. The road to Calvary was a road of suffering. It's been a pretty rough night for Jesus. If you remember back the night before, he was in the garden of Gethsemane and he was in such anguish over what he knew he was gonna be facing the next day, over going to the cross that he was sweating blood. He was sweating drops of blood onto the ground out of his anguish, and then after, that he was arrested and he was abandoned by all of his friends, his friends who said they would follow him anywhere. His friends who said that they would never leave him. They would go with him wherever he goes, they abandon him. Then he spent the rest of the night in court being falsely accused, being spit on, being beaten, and then in the morning, he was scourged, which means he was beaten even further and he had the flesh of his back ripped off and torn to pieces by a whip that had shards of bone at the end of nine different leads tearing his back into pieces, and now they add even more to his suffering. They put a crown of thorns on his head, which I don't know if you know this, but thorns, they don't feel good. They don't feel good. It's not exactly like a head massage going on here, right? This is a crown of thorns that they are putting on Jesus' head, and then they strike him on the head with a rod over and over. As if that doesn't normally hurt enough, they are digging the crown of thorns deeper and deeper into his flesh, deeper and deeper into his head, and then, after all that, they lead him away to crucify him, to hang him on a cross, to drive nails through his hands and through his feet, to hang him in a position where he is going to struggle to breathe for hours and suffer for hours. I mean, it's a great deal, a physical suffering that Jesus is going through. And yet, for all of the physical suffering that Jesus was going through on the road to Calvary and on the cross, it was actually just one small part of the great suffering that he endured. See, beyond the physical suffering that Jesus was going through that day, beyond all the things that I just talked to you about, beyond all the things that we just read, beyond it all, there was a great deal of spiritual suffering that was happening, a great deal of spiritual suffering. Jesus wasn't only taking a beating to his body, he took the sin of the world on himself. While he's taking this physical beating, he is taking the sin of the world on himself, and he is taking the righteous wrath of God the Father for our sin on himself. It was a suffering unlike he had ever gone through before, and it was a suffering that he didn't deserve, the physical suffering he didn't deserve. He hadn't done anything wrong. He was falsely accused and he went through all this great suffering physically, but even more so, the spiritual suffering that he was going through was the spiritual suffering that he didn't deserve, taking our sin on himself. He had never sinned before, and yet he took our sin and took the wrath of God the Father for our sin on himself. He was going through a great suffering that he didn't deserve. But here's the thing, here's the part about it all. This is the good news. This is the gospel. It's because of his great suffering at the cross, his suffering for our sin, taking the just punishment of God for our sin because of that, for all who trust in Jesus, we do not have to face the suffering of the punishment for our sin. The road to Calvary was a road of suffering for Jesus, but it was a suffering he was taking. It belonged to us, but he took it on himself. We don't have to face the punishment for our sin. We don't have to take God's almighty, holy, and righteous judgment on ourselves. Because what Jesus did on the cross is he took it for us and he took it in full. He took it in full. Take a look at what 2 Corinthians 5:21 says. It says, "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." See, we don't have to take the punishment for our sin. In fact, not only did Jesus take our sin, 2 Corinthians 5 tells us that he gave us his righteousness. He gave us his righteousness so that when we stand before the Father, when we go and we stand for judgment before God, it's not only that we are forgiven, it's that we're righteous. We are righteous in Jesus Christ. Many have called it the great exchange. We have nothing to bring except for our sin, and Jesus has nothing to give except for his righteousness. It's not a great deal normally, right, for the one who's on the other side, and yet Jesus took it and it was a great deal for us, and it was a great deal for him because it is how he was glorified by the Father, how he became the name above every name, and why one day every knee will bow to him in heaven and on earth and under the earth. Jesus took our sin and he gave us his righteousness. Jesus went to the road to Calvary to suffer for our sin, and we don't have to suffer the punishment for our sin because he has done that. However, Jesus does call us to pick up our cross daily and to follow him down the road to Calvary, to follow him down the road of suffering. You see, when we pick up our cross and we follow Jesus, we will still face suffering in this life in many different ways. It might be suffering that is just kind of regular suffering that any given person may go through, whether it's sickness or the loss of a loved one or financial hardship or whatever kind of thing it may be. We will still go through those things, but other times, it's suffering because we follow Jesus. It's suffering because we follow him and we are making him known. There are many false gospels and false teachers out there who will tell you, "Hey, if you follow Jesus and you have enough faith in him, it'll just be health and wealth for the rest of your life." It's false. It's a lie. Don't believe it. In fact, when Jesus talks, he tends to talk more about the suffering that we will go through for following him. He tends to talk more about the hardships that we will face that are like the hardships that he faced while he was on earth. We will face suffering for following Jesus and for making him known. For some, it's an even greater suffering. For some, it's less. For some, it may be suffering financially as the Lord may call us to be extra generous to someone in some particular point in time, and it puts us in a difficult financial situation. Other times, it may be loneliness for following Jesus. We may lose friends over it. We may lose family over it, and for many around the world, it may even be physical suffering. It may be physical suffering. There are many believers all around the world who face physical suffering and even death still today for following Jesus. I think a lot of times when we think about physical suffering and facing even death for following Jesus, we think about it happening long ago as if it doesn't still happen today. And it's true. It did happen long ago. It's happened for 2000 years of Christian history, but it is still happening all around the world, even still today. People who are being persecuted for their faith, people who are being kicked out of their families for choosing Jesus, people who are losing their jobs, losing their property, and even losing their life, all because they see this Jesus who has suffered and died for them as being worth giving every single piece of their life to. It's still happening all over the world today. Several years ago, back in the World War II era, there was a man named Richard Wurmbrand. He was a Christian. He had recently become a Christian in Romania. Right as the Nazis were taking over Romania and as they were sweeping through Europe and seeking to take over the world, as he became a Christian, he started sharing the gospel that he came to believe with his neighbors and with others in his community. And as he went around sharing the gospel with his neighbors, sharing the gospel with anyone who would hear, he necessarily had to speak against the Nazis and the evil that they were doing because the gospel goes against the evil of this world. And eventually, he was caught and he was put in prison where he was beaten. He was tortured over and over again. But in that prison, he continued to preach the gospel. He continued to preach the gospel to his fellow prisoners who were in there who had no hope. He offered them the hope of the gospel. He offered them new life. He offered them Jesus. And he kept doing it to the point where the prison guards eventually came to him and said, "If you keep preaching Jesus, we're gonna beat you and torture you even more to where you can't handle it." And so in his biography, he said, "So I made a deal with them. I would keep preaching the gospel. They could keep torturing me." Everybody was happy, right? And it worked out for everyone. It was good news for everyone, and he kept doing it, and he received more severe beatings, more severe torture. Why? Because he decided that walking down the road, following Jesus down the road to Calvary down the road of suffering was worth it. It was worth it. Not every believer will be called to walk through physical suffering like that, but many are. Richard was eventually released from prison and he began a ministry called The Voice of the Martyrs which is still out there today. He's got wonderful ministry website, podcasts, magazines, everything, and the whole point of the ministry is to tell the stories of persecuted Christians all around the world, even today, and then to raise the support that these Christians need in order to keep going, to raise the support for their families as the fathers and husbands are put in prison for their faith and it's still happening all over the world today, and we should be willing to follow Christ whatever it is he calls us into. Whether it's the smaller, you know, less significant feeling kind of sufferings, or whether it's these greater sufferings that many of our brothers and sisters go through today. Whatever he calls us down, whatever your road to Calvary looks like, Jesus is worth it. He's worth it. Jesus calls his followers to take up our cross and to follow him, to follow him down the road of suffering, but the road to Calvary, it's not just a road of suffering. The road to Calvary is also a road of shame. It's a road of shame. You know, when you read the gospel writers Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, if you pay attention, what they're really bringing out in the story, what they're really harping on, it's not really focused on the pain that Jesus is going through. They're not giving great descriptions of the nails going through his hands. They're not giving great descriptions of the scourging or anything like that. What they do give great description of is how he was treated by others, that he was mocked, that he was rejected, that he was despised. This is what they're giving their great attention to. What the gospel writers really draw attention to is the shame that Jesus faced on the road and on the cross. What is shame? What is shame? In our culture today, we tend to focus more on guilt, even though I think that's to shift in our culture a little bit. Guilt is that inner sense of whether I'm doing right or wrong, but shame is a different part of our moral compass. It's not as concerned about what's right and wrong. It's concerned about how others will see us. Sometimes shame is something that we bring on ourselves for doing something wrong. We did something wrong. It makes us wanna hide our face. It makes us wanna hide from people, but other times, shame is something that people put on you. Maybe you didn't necessarily do anything wrong. Maybe you did the right thing and yet people tried to shame you for it. This is the kind of shame that Jesus experienced. Remember, he had done nothing wrong. He had no sin. There was no shame to go with his sin because he hadn't sinned. But as he took our sin on the cross, he also took our shame on the cross. Look at how people shamed him. First of all, they mocked him as king. They mocked him as king. The soldiers put a purple robe on him, which is, you know, purple is the color of the king. They put the purple robe on him. They put a crown on him, but it was a crown of thorns. They fell on their knees in front of him to mock him like they were bowing to him. They mocked him as a fake king, but second of all, they crucified him as a criminal. Crucifixion wasn't just for just anyone. It was for those who had done something that was deserving of a particularly terrible and painful death, and this is the way that they chose to kill Jesus. They crucified him and they crucified him between two criminals. Him being in the middle to say that he was the worst of any of them, this man who had never sinned, this man who had done nothing wrong, crucified as the worst of criminals. But third of all, they rejected him as Messiah. The Romans mocked him. The Romans crucified him. The Jews and the religious leaders, his own people who he had come for, who he had been the promise, the fulfillment of the promise of God, they shake their heads at him. They tell him, "You said you would save others and you can't even save yourself. You are a joke and you are a fool for thinking that you could do this, and here you hang on the cross." Jesus was being publicly shamed by those who were there, whether it was the soldiers, those passing by, the religious leaders, or even the criminals, they were all shaming him. But even deeper than that, even deeper than the shame that he faced from those others, what Jesus was doing was bearing our shame before the Father. As he took our sin on himself, he was bearing our shame before the Father. See whether you've ever felt it or not, our sin brings us shame before the Father. In Genesis 3, "When people first sin, they felt shame and they hid from God." In Isaiah 6, "The prophet, when he finds himself standing before the glory of God the Father, he cries out, 'Woe is me. I am ruined for I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips and I have seen the king, the Lord or Almighty.'" We may or may not feel it now, but for all who have sinned and our outside of Christ, when we stand before the Father, we will feel great shame if we're not in him, if we haven't trusted in Christ. But the good news of the gospel is that for all those who do trust in Christ, there is no shame left, that we can stand before the Father because of what Jesus has done on the cross, and we can stand face to face with him. We are loved and accepted by God because of what Jesus has done on the cross as he took our sin, the sin that brings us shame, the sin that makes us wanna hide our face. He took it to the cross and he paid for it all. He paid for it all. So now we don't have any more shame before the Father. Jesus took it all to the cross. Friends, that's good news. That is the good news of the gospel. The good news is that Jesus didn't just deal with your guilt. He dealt with your shame as well. He bore it all on the cross. Friend, I don't know what you came in here with today. I don't know what you carried in with you. I don't know what's been going on in your life, what's been going on in your heart, what's been going on in your mind. I don't know what you came in here with today. Maybe you are a believer and you have things from your past that you know that you've been forgiven for, but sometimes you still have a hard time with feeling shame before God. Friend, I wanna tell you, you don't have to. You don't have to. There is none left. Jesus has taken it all for you. Jesus has taken it all for you, and you don't have to hide your face before God anymore, but you can come to him as his child, as he smiles down on you because of what Jesus has done for you at the cross. Maybe you are here today and you've never trusted in Jesus before and maybe the thing that's kept you from doing it is because of the shame that you feel for your sin. Maybe you think I've done too much. What I've done is too bad. I know that God knows what I've done and I know that he knows who I've been and I know that he knows who I am and he would never accept me. Friend, that is a lie for that is the exact reason that Jesus came to the cross. It's because of what you have done. It's because of who you were. It's because of what I have done. It's because of who I was, but Jesus came in order to save us from what we have done and save us from who we are, and he changes us and he makes us new and he makes us children of God. Friends, there is no more shame when we trust in him. I don't know what it is that you came in here with today, but I do know that for all who will trust in Jesus, he bore our shame at the cross and he says, "Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest." He says, "All who are weary and burdened." He doesn't just say some. He doesn't just say, "Hey, if you're clean enough, you can come to me." He doesn't say, "Hey, if you just weren't bad enough, if you're good enough, if you're rich enough", if you have good enough standing in society, he doesn't say any of that. He says, "All who are weary and burdened, come to me. I will give you rest." We can come to him because we are the ones that he came for. He came to rescue us. We can come to him as we are sin, shame, guilt, fear. We can come to him with it all and he will heal us and he will make us new. He will make us right with God. The road to Calvary for Jesus was a road of shame. He was shamed by men, and he bore our shame before the Father at the cross, and therefore, we can come to God unashamed by trusting in Jesus. However, we will still face people shaming us in this life. We will still face the rejection that Jesus faced in this life. Though we shouldn't be ashamed of following Christ, we should never be ashamed of following Christ. We will face people who are seeking to shame us. Picking up your cross and following Jesus, following him down the road to Calvary is saying, "I will face whatever comes my way. I will face whatever mockery, whatever rejection, whatever shame people seek to bring on me for the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, and walking close with him. I will face it all because it's all worth it. It's all worth it for being near to Christ." And so as Jesus walked the road to Calvary, he faced shame and we also face people shaming us. Take a look. As Jesus walked, people mocked him as king, but people will also mock you. People will mock you. Take a look at what it says in verse 26 real quick. "The written notice of the charge against him read: the king of the Jews." You see what's interesting about this is it's not just a mockery to Jesus. It's a mockery to all who follow him, what they put on that cross, the king of the Jews, what they are saying is this is your king crucified, conquered, dying. You are a fool for following this man. He's nothing. Rome is greater. This world is greater. Anything is greater than this fool up on the cross. That's what they are seeking to communicate to all of Jesus' followers. But we, friends, can rest assured knowing that Jesus was not being conquered on the cross. In fact, on the cross, he was conquering our sin and he was conquering death and he was conquering all of the world. He was conquering every enemy. He was conquering everyone who stands against him and he was offering life to any who would believe. We can rest assured that Jesus was not being conquered. He was the conquering king. But it came through the cross. People will mock you. Likewise, just as Jesus, they crucified him as a criminal. People will treat you like you are doing something wrong as well. Some people are hostile to the gospel. I'm not saying it's everybody who doesn't trust in Jesus. I'm not a fool. I would never say that, but there are many who are hostile to the gospel. There are many who will be hostile to you if you stand up for what is right according to God's word. If you stand up for truth according to God's word, there are many who will treat you like you've done something wrong for following Jesus in what's right. But last of all, just as they rejected him as Messiah, people will reject you as well. You may lose friends, you may lose family. There are many people all over the world today who are disowned by their families, kicked out of their homes, disowned, left to the streets, left to whatever fate may come. People who lose their jobs, people who lose their community, people who lose their property. It's still happening all over the world today, as I said. But we can face the rejection. We can face the mockery. We can face whatever may come our way when we follow Jesus. We can follow him. We can face all of it by looking to Jesus on the cross. Take a look at Hebrews 12:2-3. "We fix our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. For the joy set before him, he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners so that you will not grow weary and lose heart." Friends, Jesus is worth it, to follow him is worth it, for us to face it all. Whatever may come our way, it is worth facing it to follow Jesus. He is worth following down the road to Calvary. Why? Why is Jesus worth following? Because for those who trust in him, he will never shame you. He bore your shame on the cross because for those who trust in him, he will never reject you. He has bought you by his blood and he did not spill one drop in vain because for those who trust in him, he will never disappear. He will never fade away. He will never become less precious. He will never lose value. He will never stop loving you. He will never die again. He will never lie and he will never break a promise. But what he will do, he will always do what he says he will do. He will keep every single promise that he is made. He will hold onto you even when it feels like your faith may fail. He will hold you fast. He will save you on the final day and he will stand before the Father and say, "This one I have purchased with my blood and he stands in my righteousness." Friends, Jesus is worth following after. He is worth giving up everything to know him, to be near to him, to walk with him. It is worth walking with him down the road to Calvary. He is worthy of your trust. He is worthy of your life because he has his life for yours. Whatever he calls us into, it's worth following after him. Whatever we face, it's worth following after him because not only was the road to Calvary a road of suffering, not only was the road to Calvary a road of shame, but the road to Calvary for Jesus, it was a road of sacrifice. It was a road of sacrifice. Jesus went to the cross to save us from our sin. He bore our shame and our sin at the cross, and the irony is that what they say in verse 31 is right. "In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. 'He saved others,' they said, 'But he can't save himself.'" The irony is it's true, it's true. Jesus could not do both. He could not save others and save himself. It had to be one or the other. He had to choose, and what he chose was to give up himself in order to save any who would trust in him. That's why it's called a sacrifice. He gave himself up in order that we may live. He had to die for us to have eternal life. He could not save himself in order that he could save us, and it's precisely because of his sacrifice that we may be saved, and it's precisely because of his sacrifice that he is worthy of all honor and glory and praise and worship, and it's precisely because of his sacrifice on the cross that he is king over all. The king who has conquered every enemy and has done it for the sake of his people. The king who has taken our sin and paid the price for it and friends, he is the king who after he faced Calvary, he rose from the dead and he ascended to the right hand of the Father where he sits still today, reigning over all until the day that he returns to put every enemy under his feet and to take all who believe in him to be home with him to eternal life face to face with him in the kingdom of God forever. The question is will you follow him? Will you follow him wherever he leads? Will you follow him down the road to Calvary? Because when we follow him down the road to Calvary, what we find at the end of the road is the cross, and the only way of salvation is to look to the cross, to look to Jesus who died for our sin, and to fall on his love and to fall on his grace and to fall on his mercy and the forgiveness that we find at the cross and trust in him and receive that forgiveness and receive his righteousness. And as we look to him and what he has done, we know that he's no longer on that cross, that he's no longer in the grave, but he has risen from the dead and we look to him as king and we look to him for new life. Will you follow him down this road to Calvary? It will be a road of suffering. It will be a road of shame and rejection and it will be a road of sacrifice. But friends, it's a road that is well worth taking. It is a road that is worth your life. I want you to know that we can't do what Jesus did on the road to Calvary. Jesus went to Calvary to pay the price for our sin. We can't make a sacrifice for our sin. We cannot do good enough things. We can't do enough good things to make up for the wrongs that we have done against God, to make up for our sin against him. We can't do that. There is no sacrifice left we can make. But friends, that's why he came. That's why he walked the road. We don't walk this road with Jesus to gain right standing with God. We don't walk this road with Jesus to earn forgiveness from God. We walk this road to Calvary with Jesus because he has already given us right standing and he has already given us forgiveness for all who trust in him, and that's what he calls us to walk with him into. This morning, we are going to be celebrating what Jesus has done on the cross. We're gonna be celebrating communion. I'll ask at at every campus, each campus pastor to go ahead and come up and lead your congregation through communion at your own campus. Here at CrossPoint, you can go ahead and take your cup. I'm gonna ask this morning, if you're not a believer, if you've never trusted in Christ, I actually wanna ask you to refrain from taking communion. Because what communion is is it's a proclamation of our faith. It's a proclamation that we trust in the broken body and the poured out blood of Christ as the sacrifice for our sin. If you've never trusted in him today, I wanna invite you to just observe what's happening here as we celebrate what Christ has done for us. And then after everything's over today, there's gonna be some prayer partners down here along the front of the stage. I want to invite you to come up and talk with one of them. Ask them what does it mean to trust in Jesus? Ask them what does it mean to follow after him? But if you are a believer here this morning, I want to invite you to take communion with us as we take the bread first of all. On the night before Jesus was crucified, he ate this meal with his closest disciples and he took the bread and he said that this is my body which is broken for you. Let's take and eat it this morning. And then he took the cup and he said, "This is my blood, which is poured out for you for the forgiveness of sin." The blood that would be poured out the very next day. Let's take a drink this morning. Pray with me. Jesus, we thank you. We thank you for the cross. We thank you that you have lived the perfect life, that you have died a sacrificial death that you did not deserve, but that we did. But you died in our place and that you have risen from the dead. We celebrate that this morning, Lord. We celebrate that with all of our hearts as we sing, as we pray, as we respond to the Word preached this morning. But Lord, I pray that as we go out today, that we would celebrate it, that we would worship you with all of our lives as we walk the road of Calvary, Lord, as we pick up our cross and we follow after you, and we lay down everything before you, Lord, I pray that we would walk out today doing that, walking that road. Jesus, we are so thankful for what you have done for us. We love you. It's in Jesus' name that I pray. Amen. And then Church, as we celebrate communion, we're celebrating that Christ has died and Christ has risen and that Christ is coming again. And so as we dwell on that this morning, I want to invite you, whatever you need to lay down, to follow Jesus on this road. Let's lay it down this morning. I'm gonna ask you to go ahead and stand. We're gonna sing in response to what the Word has told us this morning. Let's stand and sing. ♪ I have decided ♪ ♪ To follow Jesus ♪ ♪ I have decided ♪ ♪ To follow Jesus ♪ ♪ I have decided ♪ ♪ To follow Jesus ♪ ♪ No turning back ♪ ♪ No turning back ♪ You sing. ♪ I have decided ♪ ♪ I have decided ♪ ♪ To follow Jesus ♪ ♪ To follow Jesus ♪ ♪ I have decided ♪ ♪ I have decided ♪ ♪ To follow Jesus ♪ ♪ To follow Jesus ♪ ♪ I have decided ♪ ♪ I have decided ♪ ♪ To follow Jesus ♪ ♪ To follow Jesus ♪ ♪ No turning back ♪ ♪ No turning back ♪ ♪ No turning back ♪ ♪ No turning back ♪ Though none go with me. ♪ Though none go with me ♪ ♪ Though none go with me ♪ ♪ Still I will follow ♪ ♪ Still I will follow ♪ ♪ Though none go with me ♪ ♪ Though none go with me ♪ ♪ Still I will follow ♪ ♪ Still I will follow ♪ ♪ Though none go with me ♪ ♪ Though none go with me ♪ ♪ Still I will follow ♪ ♪ Still I will follow ♪ ♪ No turning back ♪ ♪ No turning back ♪ ♪ No turning back ♪ ♪ No turning back ♪ No turning back. No turning back ♪ No turning back ♪ No turning back ♪ No turning back ♪

- Let's sing this together, church, in Christ alone. ♪ In Christ alone ♪ ♪ My hope is found ♪ ♪ He is my light, my strength, my song ♪ ♪ This cornerstone, this solid ground ♪ ♪ Firm through the fiercest drought and storm ♪ ♪ What heights of love ♪ ♪ What heights of love ♪ ♪ What depths of peace ♪ ♪ What depths of peace ♪ ♪ When fears are stilled ♪ ♪ When fears are stilled ♪ ♪ When strivings cease ♪ ♪ When strivings cease ♪ ♪ My comforter ♪ ♪ My comforter ♪ ♪ My all in all ♪ ♪ My all in all ♪ ♪ Here in the love ♪ ♪ Here in the love ♪ ♪ Of Christ I stand ♪ ♪ Of Christ I stand ♪ ♪ There in the ground ♪ ♪ His body lay ♪ ♪ Light of the world ♪ ♪ By darkness slain ♪ ♪ Then bursting forth in glorious day ♪ ♪ Up from the grave he rose again ♪ ♪ And as he stands in victory ♪ ♪ And as he stands in victory ♪ ♪ Sin's curse has lost ♪ ♪ Sin's curse has lost ♪ ♪ Its grip on me ♪ ♪ Its grip on me ♪ ♪ For I am his and he is mine ♪ ♪ For I am his and he is mine ♪ ♪ Bought with the precious ♪ ♪ Bought with the precious ♪ ♪ Blood of Christ ♪ ♪ Blood of Christ ♪ ♪ No guilt in life ♪ ♪ No fear in death ♪ ♪ This is power of Christ in me ♪ ♪ From life's first cry to final breath ♪ ♪ Jesus commands my destiny ♪ ♪ No power of hell ♪ ♪ No power of hell ♪ ♪ No scheme of man ♪ ♪ No scheme of man ♪ ♪ Can ever pluck ♪ ♪ Can ever pluck ♪ ♪ Me from his hand ♪ ♪ Me from his hand ♪ ♪ Till he returns ♪ ♪ Till he returns ♪ ♪ Or calls me home ♪ ♪ Or calls me home ♪ ♪ Here in the power of Christ ♪ ♪ Here in the power of Christ ♪ ♪ I'll stand ♪ ♪ I'll stand ♪ ♪ We stand in the love ♪ ♪ Oh ♪ ♪ I find my strength in you Lord ♪ ♪ I find my strength ♪ ♪ I find my strength ♪ ♪ I find my home ♪ ♪ I find my home ♪ ♪ I find my health ♪ ♪ I find my health ♪ ♪ In Christ alone ♪ ♪ In Christ alone ♪ ♪ When fear assails ♪ ♪ When fear assails ♪ ♪ When darkness falls ♪ ♪ When darkness falls ♪ ♪ I find my peace ♪ ♪ I find my peace ♪ ♪ In Christ alone ♪ ♪ In Christ alone ♪ ♪ I give my life ♪ ♪ I give my life ♪ ♪ I give my all ♪ ♪ I give my all ♪ ♪ I save my soul ♪ ♪ I save my soul ♪ ♪ To Christ alone ♪ ♪ To Christ alone ♪ ♪ The king of kings ♪ ♪ The king of kings ♪ ♪ The loving Lord ♪ ♪ The loving Lord ♪ ♪ All heavens sing ♪ ♪ All heavens sing ♪ ♪ To Christ alone ♪ ♪ To Christ alone ♪ ♪ To Christ alone ♪ ♪ To Christ alone ♪ ♪ Till he returns ♪ ♪ Or calls me home ♪ ♪ Here in the power of Christ ♪ ♪ I'll stand ♪ ♪ I'll stand ♪ ♪ Here in the power of Christ ♪ ♪ Here in the power of Christ ♪ ♪ We'll stand ♪ ♪ We'll stand ♪ ♪ Here in the power of Christ ♪ ♪ We stand ♪ ♪ We stand ♪