Good morning. Welcome to Resurrection Church.
My name is Daniel. Last week we, we've been in the
book of John for a while now. Last week we read about the
resurrection of a man named Lazarus.
And in that moment we hit a really pivotal part of the book
of John. And and that's because the book
of John is, is written in a, in a very unique way.
John does not write his testimony of his time with Jesus
in a sequential timeline. And so the book of Luke, if
you've ever read that Luke was a, a physician, he was a
historian. He is a little bit scientist.
And so he is like meticulous writing this like perfect
timeline. John is not that guy.
Some of you are not that guy either.
That's fine. John actually has an express
purpose for his book and his testimony is all about
convincing you that Jesus is the Son of God.
And so so whereas Luke is like, this is exactly the order in
which these things happen. John's more like, I'm going to
show you some things and he shows you some things.
And so the first 11 chapters of the book of John, which we've
gone through are actually organized around the seven
greatest miracles of Jesus, not in sequential fashion at all, to
convince you to consider these as the evidence that Jesus is
indeed the Son of God. And so if you're, as we've been
preaching through John chapter 2, Jesus turning water into
wine, Chapter 4, Jesus healing the official son.
Chapter 5, Jesus healing at the pool of Bethesda, Chapter 6,
Jesus feeding the 5000. And then later in chapter 6,
Jesus walking on water. And then the 6th miracle, Jesus
healing the man born blind in Chapter 9.
And then here we get to Chapter 11, the 7th and greatest miracle
of the seven great miracles, Jesus raising a man from dead.
Now, now that we've gotten to this point where John has
essentially made this case, we're going to transition in
this book and he's going to write differently.
Have you ever, have you ever like had maybe it's your spouse
or your friend and they, they, they're, they're, they've been
watching a show for a while and you're going to join them, But
it's like season 4 and you just have to like jump in and catch
up. Anybody OK, So at the start of
that season, this is what TV shows normally do is they, they
will show like a two or three minute recap and they're
attempting to catch you up on three seasons worth of, of
content in like 2 minutes. And so they're just like
highlight, highlight, highlight, highlight.
Sometimes not even in order. That's the book of John.
The 1st 11 chapters are essentially that when we get
done today with, with Chapter 11, we're going to go to chapter
12 next week. Everything's going to slow down
in 11 chapters. This has occurred over 2 1/2
years, almost three years of time.
But chapter 12 is going to take place in mere days, and then
chapters 13 through 18 are going to take place in hours, like
hour by hour by hour, super slow.
And it will be John's personal testimony of the account of
Jesus going to the cross. It'll be intimate.
It'll be gritty. It's super slow.
So, so from this like really high level, here's these things
you need to know down to the here's these last week, down to
the here are these last hours, moment by moment by moment.
That's what's about to happen in this book.
And so if you're reading John and you're just wondering, well,
this is what you're looking at. Now, before we read today, the
very end of John Chapter 11, I want you to consider something.
Have have you ever had a moment where you knew that God was
asking you to do something, but you didn't want to do it?
Maybe for you it was like forgiving someone who's hurt
you. Maybe it was it was ending a
relationship that you knew it wasn't healthy.
Maybe it was changing jobs, even though the money you're making
was pretty good. Maybe it was getting honest
about an addiction. Maybe it was actually tithing or
actually praying instead of just talking about it.
Whatever it was like you knew. And so in that moment, here's
what I'm saying, you, you believed that God was real.
You believed that God was right, but you wanted control more than
you wanted him. And that's exactly what's about
to take place here at the end of Chapter 11.
OK, so I want you to keep this in mind as we read this story.
Here's the big idea. If there's like the one thing
you need to leave with today, it's this concept.
You don't have to understand it yet.
We will explain it. It's this.
We will always worship what's sitting on our throne.
And I will explain that. All right, John, Chapter 11.
Let's pick it up in verse 45. If you have your Bibles, open
them up. I'm reading from the ESV.
Many of the Jews, therefore, who had come with Mary, this is to
the tomb, and had seen what he did, that's Jesus believed in
him. But some of them went to the
Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.
So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the counsel
and said, what are we to do? For this man performs many
signs, and if we let him go on like this, everyone will believe
in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and
our nation. Now I want you to notice they're
not questioning if Jesus is powerful, if Jesus is
miraculous. They're questioning if they're
willing to give up control. Verse 49.
But one of them, Caiaphas, who was the high priest that year,
said to them, you know nothing at all.
Nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man
should die for the people, not that the whole nation should
perish. He did not say this of his own
accord, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that
Jesus would die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but
also to gather into one the children of God who are
scattered abroad. So from that day on they made
plans to put him to death. Jesus therefore no longer walked
openly among the Jews, but went from there to the region near
the wilderness, to a town called Ephraim, and there he stayed
with the disciples. One of the primary themes in the
book of John that we see over and over again that John
highlights for us is this concept.
The very people who should have believed in Jesus did not, and
the people who probably shouldn't have believed in Jesus
did. And he calls that out again and
again in his his testimony. So, so some of the people who go
with Mary and the family to the tomb, they see Jesus raise
Lazarus from the dead and they go, that's the Son of God.
They believe. And I just like for a moment put
yourself in their shoes like you've who's been to a funeral.
OK, I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that none of
you went to that funeral and someone showed up and made that
guy get out of the grave and walk out alive because I was
like, that's not on my bingo card.
So they see this in their life. This is the son of God.
John often shortens this idea of of belief in, in in the kingship
or deity of, of Jesus as just they believed.
That's what you'll see in the book.
They believed and it and it means something a little more
comprehensive, right? What we would read what, what
that belief really is later in Romans 10.
So in Romans 10/9 and 10, it kind of explains what they
believe means. It means this.
It's the type of belief that belief that changes us.
It's the type of belief that surrenders.
It's the type of belief that confesses publicly that he is
king and I am not. So these people believe and the
people that should believe the, the Pharisees, OK, so the, the
Pharisees are kind of the ruling religious leaders of the time.
So we're in the 1st century, the Roman Empire and the, and the
Roman government at this point occupies most of the known
world. But what they would do is they'd
let the each little land, they'd let them kind of retain their
traditions. They'd let them retain some of
their culture. And so in this moment, the
Jewish culture, the governance is really the church.
It's the temple, it's the temple priest, it's the Pharisees.
And so the religious leaders are kind of like a, like a local
government of both church and government, but still under
occupation. And, and, and the Pharisees are
supposed to be the holiest people in the land.
They study the law, they study the Old Testament.
Like if anyone would would be on the lookout for Jesus, it would
be them. And so when they witnessed this
power, they should be like, that's who we've been looking
for and they totally miss him. In fact, in John 5, Jesus calls
them out. He says, you search the
scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal
life. And it is they, the scriptures
that bear witness about me. And yet you refuse to come to me
so that you can have life. The people that should have
believed in Jesus did not and the people that should not have
did. Now, let me let me stop for a
minute and just talk about this, you know, this belief that this
idea that this belief that, that that changes this belief that
surrenders, OK. But in this moment, these people
that that witnessed this power, OK, but don't believe they did
believe that he was doing miracles.
They did. They actually say it right here.
In fact, they knew that no one could do this, this amount of
of, of miraculous work if they weren't God or from God.
They knew that. And yet it isn't enough.
Hear me? It isn't enough to know that
Jesus is God. James 2 says that even the
demons know that Jesus is the Son of God and it does not save
them. Oh, you think Jesus is the Son
of God? Good, so do the demons.
It's it's, it's not enough. You may believe that Jesus was a
real person who walked this earth in the 1st century.
You may believe that he was a good teacher.
You may believe that he did miracles.
You may even go that far. You may in your own life, have
seen him work in someone else's life to change their life.
You may believe that too. You may believe in heaven and
hell and creation and God and the Bible and none of those
things will save you not on their own, because there's a
distinction in the Bible about this word believe and you see it
in their reaction in the way they react to Jesus moving in
power. And I, and I want to see if I
can illustrate this for you. I, I like to, I like to kind of
think about ways to try to illustrate concepts that'll
that'll stick with you. And so I was thinking about
like, you know, what is it The Bible says that we were all say
me, OK, that we were all born under what's called the curse of
sin. Now, if you're unfamiliar with
that, what the Bible is saying is that in the very beginning
when God created everything and the first man and the first
woman, there was no sin. There was no death for humanity.
And and we had this perfect relationship with God and they
rebelled. And when they rebelled, they
fractured that relationship and because of that entered in the
curse of sin and death. And that means that every person
since Adam and Eve have now been born under curse.
The King David in Psalm 51 would say it this way.
He would say I was born into iniquity and in sin.
Did my mother conceive me? It's a no win situation.
It's why we needed Jesus. But what is it?
What does it look like to be born spiritually dead?
That's that's a weird thing. What?
You were born spiritually dead. OK, let me see if I can help.
I I got on Amazon and I searched for the tiniest throne I could
find. Hold on.
Here we go. Please pay no attention to the
fact that this is the Enderman throne from Minecraft.
Just just pretend that's that didn't exist.
The tiniest one I could find. Here you go, tiny throne.
OK. The Bible says that you and I
were created for one distinct purpose.
We were actually designed for this purpose, to worship and
enjoy God. That's why you exist.
That's why he created us. And, and, and so whether you
turn to Psalm 100 or Genesis 1 or Samuel 12 or John 17, like,
like the Bible again and again builds this, this concept that
we, we, we summed this up 400 years ago in, in, in what's
called the Westminster Shorter Catechism, which was simply a
kind of a doctrinal statement of church fathers.
And it starts the very first, first moment in that whole
doctrinal statement is this. It's a question and answer.
What is the chief end of man? Like?
What is the purpose of man? And here's the answer from 400
years ago. Man's chief end is to glorify
God and to enjoy him forever. It's why we were designed.
It's why we were created. It's the only reason you're
still here. And you may not believe that,
but that does not change the facts.
The entire reason we exist now. If that's true, what happens
when the creation that's you and me, say me, is born to worship a
God that we are separated from? What do we do now?
What happens when the creation that was created for a specific
purpose cannot, will not, does not want to fulfil the very
reason it was created? The entire reason that we were
created is to recognize that Jesus is supposed to be
worshipped. So the Bible would talk about
the desires of our heart. I like to often times we
represent this as a throne of our heart.
OK, so imagine your heart, go ahead.
You can make a little sign, that's fine.
Imagine your heart, OK, has a throne and that throne is
whatever is the the highest priority of your life.
Like if we were to do an inventory of your time, your
energy, your thought life, your money, your resources, what
dominates the things that you you, what motivates you, your
goals, your purposes, right? Whatever.
We put all that together and we said this is the highest
priority of my Oh, hold on, I did it wrong here.
This. Is the highest priority of my
life. It's what motivates me, what
drives me. It's the throne of my heart.
Now we were created. See, I also searched Amazon and
I looked for tiny Jesuses. Please pay no attention to the
fact they're historically inaccurate.
He was not Caucasian. OK, I looked for one.
They come in Mass. I bought 80.
You look like you could use a little Jesus in your life.
There you go. Here you go.
All right. If it hits you in the forehead,
you're automatically saved. I heard that's a rule.
All right. We were created because we were
supposed to worship the Creator. Our very design, the whole
reason we exist is to worship him.
Now why is that such a problem? Well, because of the curse.
We were born separated from God with an empty throne and an an
innate desire, right? An innate like motivation to
fill that there's a gap. And so because we were separated
from God, we grow up as we're born and, and we start to fill
this with stuff, stuff, stuff. Do you know what I mean by
stuff? Oh, do we have some stuff?
We, we worship other things because here's the, the net of
it is whatever you put at the top of your life, you're going
to worship because you were created to be a worshipper.
So whatever goes here, it's going to get your affection,
your adoration, your obsession. And we put all sorts of stuff
there. My goodness, think about all the
things that we shove into that throne in this country.
We have a epidemic of sexual addiction.
Sex, the the very thing that God gives us as a gift.
I was like a wonderful gift from God.
When, when, when that ends up in the throne of your heart.
Does that not get distorted really fast?
Look around us, food given to us for our enjoyment, to point us
to the goodness of God. Man, if that becomes, oh man,
can that go wrong? How about how about comfort?
Oh man, God must not be real because I'm not comfortable when
all of my decisions and all of my energy and all of my work is
about me being comfortable. I wonder who I worship?
How about family? What a what a beautiful gift
from God. Kids, a spouse, a relationship.
What a beautiful gift. Not if you put it there.
Not if you start worshipping it, man, will you distort that
quick? Can you imagine the burden that
your family or your spouse or your kids have to wear if you're
going to make them God? Every good gift that God has
given us will get extremely distorted the moment you put it
into the throne of your heart. So your kids, your relationship,
your marriage, your job, your identity, your comfort, your
emotions. Danger, danger.
Will Robinson Danger don't take a beautiful gift and make it
God. Now why am I telling you all
this? Because in this story, people
are going to see Jesus move in undeniable power.
Like it is impossible to ignore a dead man getting up and
walking out of a tomb. Think about it.
There are people, two people standing next to one another.
They watch those just walk out. One of them's like I believe
that's just the son of God. Oh my goodness, the other one's
like and they run off to the Pharisees.
Why the different reactions seeing the same miracle.
Here's why, and I want you to. This is really important to
grasp. There are only.
Two, there are only two reactions when we see Jesus move
in undeniable power. When Jesus makes his presence to
you known in your life and you see him, one of two things is
going to happen. We're either going to correctly
crown him King. Or.
We are going to guard. Our throne.
We're either going to crown. Him, King of kings of our life.
Or we're going to. We're going to guard the throne.
And so those that that rightly believe that Jesus was in fact,
they believe not only when Jesus was king, like he was God, that
he was the Son of God. They believe that, but they also
believe that he was king of their life.
That's his throne. So Jesus deserves my worship and
he, he deserves to run my life, I mean, and he deserves to do
whatever he wants to, to glorify himself because he actually
created me. And let's be really honest.
Guys, come on, you realize he is actually the only one that can
appropriately handle the throne of your heart.
I've had many years to attempt to run my own life, brother.
It has not gone well. But he is.
Good. And The thing is, and you can
talk to any Christian that'll begin to talk to you about this.
Nothing else really fits that that spot.
Like every time we try to shove something else in there, we
realize it doesn't really work. It doesn't really satisfy us.
And so there's a there's a group of people in here, they see it,
they believe it, but not everyone.
See, here's the thing. In order to let Jesus.
Sit in the throne of. My heart, I have to get out of
the throne. One of the weirdest parts of of
being a pastor that no one told me about before I was a pastor
is that you would have a lot of really weird dreams.
This is a safe place, right? This isn't going anywhere.
It's not going online or anything.
So you'd have a lot of really weird dreams.
Because I. I think because you're like, I,
I, I obsess over you guys like I'm, I'm praying for you.
I think about you. I'm always thinking about what
needs to be done and oh who's hurting and what and so like 3-4
times a week. I know I'm dreaming about some
of you. Sorry if that makes you
uncomfortable. And it's just like.
And then I found out it was common.
So I talked to other pastors like, oh, I dream about church
all the time, right? So I had, I have a buddy who's a
pastor and he kept having the same weird dream.
And in the dream, he's on this White Horse and he's riding on
the beach. By the way, he doesn't ride
horses. Important fact.
He's riding this White Horse on the beach toward a group of
people who need him and they're like calling out and they're
like, oh, you know, I need you. And so he and he never gets
there. And so people need him and he's
like, oh, I got to get there. I got it right.
And so he has a dream over and over and over again.
Finally he has a dream one night and he actually, I don't know
how you ride he. He rides up.
To the group and Jesus is like there in the crowd with the
people and he's like, Jesus, what do you need?
And Jesus looks at him and goes, I need you to get off my horse.
I didn't I. Didn't I didn't sleep well most
of the week. I'd sleep more about two hours
at a time, and I was up a lot. There's a lot going on in the
church, right? There's been, there's been a lot
of change, a lot of transition, walking through some messes,
walking through the consequences of sin, walking through a lot of
spiritual attack right now, a lot of hurting people.
And so I just like up a lot just thinking about it and just just
doing a lot of prayer, a lot of praying and just times a little
angry at God. God can take your anger.
You can yell at him a little. He's a big boy.
And I woke up. Tuesday just just kind of just
kind of angry and mad and just I like to fix things and I'm just
getting to this point where I can't fix anything and feeling
powerless, which, you know, that's that's pride And and so
I'm just kind of complaining to the Lord about like, you know, I
just can't, I can't do anything about any of these things.
And you know, God is so gracious.
He's just like very, very gently taps me on my shoulder and he's
like. You can't.
Do anything because I, I granted you access to my throne room and
told you to bring all of your requests and all of your
supplications to me. In fact, I actually commanded
you to do it and I told you that you have not because you ask
not. So I mean, are you going to just
talk about praying or you can actually do it?
Well, thanks, I just got out. I just got out those.
I got the list of members and I put them in a spreadsheet
because we all do that when we pray, right?
We we pray from spreadsheets. That's just me.
OK, I'm weird. Fine alphabetical order.
I started praying like, like person by person, just seeing
their face and writing prayers for each person.
And about an hour in I was like. I'm not powerless.
It's. Just my job to.
It's like, it's like a, it's like in your, in your work, you
like when there's a problem, you, you go to tech support and
you write a sport ticket, right? Like I just my job is to write a
lot of sport tickets. I just keep turning them.
In just keep turning them in. Just keep praying.
And here's why.
Because guys, that's all I I have is a phenomenal Heavenly
Father who is in control. I don't have a horse or a Cape.
And if we're? Being really honest, I don't
need one. I I don't need to be in control.
I actually am really bad at it. I make a terrible God.
And you do too. The greatest lie that was ever
told was told all the way. The beginning of creation with
Adam and Eve are in the garden and the serpent shows up and his
whole mess started. And the lie was we.
Don't need Jesus on his throne. We would make much better gods
if we were in charge. Man, that is a lie.
I have. I have years of life to tell you
that is a lie. Like forget.
Jesus, take the wheel. Jesus, baby, lock me in the back
seat please. I don't.
Need to touch the steering wheel.
I probably shouldn't be around the navigation system.
We make terrible. Gods.
To, to, to. Acknowledge Jesus as King to to
grant him and say no Jesus, you should be in the throne of my
heart actually means we have to get out because he doesn't want
to sit in our lap. That means granting control,
acknowledgement that Jesus is king of our life.
We crown him as king or we guard our throne.
So in our story, some believe, but some they're only worried
about guarding the throne. Pastor Rich Sanford.
Said it this way, he said. There's two choices.
I yield to Christ or demand that he yields to me.
That's a hot claim. What about you?
Who does your life? Say that Jesus is.
Because every single one of. Us is going to answer with our
lives. Because it's the throne.
Of our heart that we need to surrender to Him.
And The thing is that. We will always worship what's
sitting on our throne. There's a, there's.
Another part of the story and we won't, we haven't even read it
yet. It'll come in in the in the
later chapters of John. It'll happen in a little bit.
But here's the thing, since since you and I have grown up
your time before Jesus, we've grown up filling our throne, the
throne of our heart, with all sorts of other things, all sorts
of created things, all sorts of unworthy things, from our family
to our job to our identity, to our comfort.
What will happen is. That even if you've given your
life to Jesus, even if you surrendered your heart to Him.
Holy when things get tough, when it hits the fan.
Boy, there's going to be. A temptation to pull Jesus right
back out of there and take control again.
Jesus, I don't. Know if you've been paying
attention. I sent you a.
Plan in PowerPoint. Maybe we should.
Maybe he's just maybe I'm just going to have to pull him out of
there and take take control again.
I know you're we're going. To be tempted when it gets
really difficult guys to to pull Jesus out of the throne and
replace him with a cheap substitute.
In a in. A few chapters Jesus is going to
get arrested. And and he's going to.
Go to the cross and when that happens, every single person who
did genuinely believe in him, like we know it was genuine
belief, every single person's going to run away.
They're going to. See the moment, the crisis, the
storm, and they're going to go and they're going to pull him
out and they're going to take, they're going to go.
I, I, you know, that's too risky.
I better take control of this again.
The apostle Peter, probably the boldest, loudest disciple of
Jesus, is going to be like, I would never not follow you G and
then immediately show him out and run away.
Me too, Peter, me too. One of the things we begin to
say around our church lately is that crisis reveals character.
You can say you. Believe a lot of things until
the storm hits. And when crisis?
Hits I'm going to find out if Jesus is really on the throne of
my heart or if I've been faking it.
And let me be real, sometimes I've been faking it.
Sometimes I fail. I yank him right out of there
and I want to take control. And sometimes it's because of my
comfort or it's my apathy, and I just pulled Jesus right out of
the top spot of my life without even noticing.
Here's the beauty of the gospel. Jesus doesn't.
Abandoned me when I fail. He convicts me and then he
restores. Me and he invites me back into
active relationship every single time.
That's Grace. Not a license.
To sin, but a power to keep coming back.
This Christian. Life is 1 in which every single
day we have to do a heart check to see who's on the throne.
To see if we're still. Surrendering that we're
surrendering our will and our volition and our own plans and
the control of our life to Jesus.
Jesus actually explains this to his disciples in Luke 9/23.
He says if you would come after me.
You need to. Deny yourself, take up your
cross daily and follow me. The cross.
The implement of death. Every day we wake up and we
choose again to surrender to Jesus.
That means we deny ourselves the temptation of pulling him out of
the top spot and replacing him. We submit in.
Humility to His will, not ours. And we go hard after Christ
daily. Daily what?
Does it look like? To do that, well, let me ask you
this. This is the this is kind of the
inventories. You, you take an inventory and
here's what it looks like. Do I seek the face of God to
worship Him and experience His presence daily?
In how I. Read my Bible in how I pray and
talk to him in my thoughts, in my passions.
Like what does my daily pursuit of the King look like?
And listen if. It's not good if if if you're
taking inventory of your own pursuit of Christ and you're
going it's, it's not good. What has to change?
Nothing changes. If nothing changes.
What has to change? Do this.
Pick one new way to pursue Him, one new way to stir up your
affection for Jesus, and tell someone about it.
That's called accountability. Like, oh, I liked everything up
until that point. Pastor, tell someone about it.
Hey, here's what I'm going to do.
Here's the second inventory. Question.
Have I let? Something else crawl into the
throne of my life. Do do do I?
Value something. Prioritize something over
Christ. A job, my reputation, a
relationship, tradition. Pride.
My feelings. My emotions, right?
Anything. Have I let anything else crawl
in there? Because when that happens.
When that happens. God will reveal that.
To us in different ways, right through prayer, by asking David
would say search me and try me O God, and see if there is any
unclean way in me. Meaning, man, I might not.
Even notice that I pulled the Lord out of his throne in order
to replace him with something else.
So ask the question. Sometimes the Spirit will reveal
that as you're reading scriptures, you're singing a
song, as you're meditating, as you're praying, as you're
talking to others. In accountability, in a small
group, there's lots of ways. If you're asking, you'll see.
And when He reveals that to you? Our response is.
To repent, to repent, to confess our sin.
To turn from. It.
When? When?
We are worshipping something other than God.
That is the biblical definition of idolatry.
You have made. A gift of God, An idol.
The Bible will call. Anything other than God that you
put, you worship an idol. And, and the irony of ironies is
we would literally take the creator of all things out of his
throne and take the things that he created and put it in there.
Over and over. And over again in my life.
The the, the the. Christian recipe is to press
pause and to do a spiritual inventory.
And just. Ask God, hey.
Have I let things creep? In and listen, he is a jealous
God. He is jealous for the.
Spirit he put in US. And he will.
Gently, lovingly, but jealously point out idols in your life.
For me, it's usually my desire to control things.
What about you? Might God.
Be revealing to you in this moment things you've been
worshipping idols in your life. The the Wild.
Thing about our the end of our story today in verse 49, the the
priests they're they're they're plotting.
To kill Jesus. And and, and Caiaphas, by the
way, Caiaphas doesn't get enough, enough credit for
probably being one of the most evil people in the Bible.
We just kind of gloss over this. But this is like top five
villain stuff. Like we all, we all get on
Judas, but Caiaphas is way worse.
Caiaphas says. They should murder Jesus to
protect their throne. This is what?
He says you know nothing at all, nor do you understand that it is
better for you that one man should die for the people, not
that the whole nation should perish.
Now what is he actually saying? He's saying Jesus is going to
try to become king. I know it's all big to talk
about like no kings, no kings, right?
No, nobody will care. Jesus going to try to become
king, and if he tries to become king, then the Romans are going
to think that we're trying to overthrow them with an
insurrection, so we should just kill Jesus and save everybody.
Which is a bald faced. Lie and he knew it because the
crowd had already tried to make Jesus King multiple times and he
wouldn't let them. So he knows he's lying.
How many times have we? Lied to protect an idol.
Lied to ourselves. Lied to others.
He's lying now. The the.
Real irony of this moment is that simultaneously he is
prophesying what will happen that Jesus will die for everyone
and he doesn't even realize that's happening.
Oh and by the way, his his supposed fear that Jesus would
cause an insurrection and the Romans would come in and and
take them out of power happened a few years later.
They actually had an insurrection and the Romans gave
it to tore everything down. Whoops, wasn't even Jesus.
I mean. In this moment, these these
religious people are supposed to be holy and they're supposed to
love God, supposed to be looking for Jesus.
Successful, respected leaders. All they care about.
Is what they have to lose. Reputation.
Influence comfortable position in society.
All of us threatened by Jesus and and what should make you and
I uncomfortable as we read that is, we are way more like the
Pharisees than we'd like to admit.
Because when Jesus. Shows up in power in my life.
When Jesus shows up in that moment in your life, you're
going to have the same choice that they did.
Will I let him be Lord of my life, even if it costs me
everything I'm holding on to? I'll just tell you.
Personally, Jesus is worth it. He is worth it, he who did.
Not consider himself when he went to the Cross on our behalf.
He is good, He is wise, He is powerful, He is worthy of honor
and praise and majesty. And no one else can.
Handle the throne of my heart, and every day you will learn how
much better He is than you think He is, and how much more He
loves you than you think He does.
How about you? Will you?
Let him be Lord of your life. Because only you.
Can answer that question about the throne of your heart.
Today, if you have. Never surrendered your life to
Christ I. Want to give you an.
Opportunity to do that. As we close, will you?
Bow your heads and close your eyes for a brief moment if.
If you are. Willing to ask God for
forgiveness and salvation as we close our eyes.
I I want you to do this silently or quietly repeat this prayer
after me. Jesus, I know I'm a Sinner.
Who cannot? Save myself.
I need. You to save me.
I make a terrible. God, so I surrender everything
to you, and I receive your promises.
Be my Lord. Please, Jesus.
If you prayed. To surrender your heart to Jesus
for the first time right now. Would you be brave and raise
your hand for me to see? Thank you.
You can put.
Your hands down. In Jesus.
Name Amen. All right, real quickly as we
close. If you just gave your.
Life to Christ, welcome to the family.
In just a moment. As we respond to this message,
our praying team is going to be up here.
We love praying for you guys. If if you in this service or or
recently gave your life to Christ and you haven't told
anyone about it, I want you to go to the back.
There are some tables back there and say I raised my hand and we
want to celebrate with you and we want to talk about what it
looks like to follow Jesus. And so go back there in just a
moment where you stand. We're going to close our service
day with a song. We love to pray with you and for
you. If you need prayer for any
reason, we're going to be up here.
We would love it if you come and pray with us and if you gave
your life to Christ recently and haven't told anyone, make sure
you go to those tables. You guys move as the Lord leads
you. I love you.