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Alright. We are on. Good morning, everyone. Happy Pelton Sunday. Hey, for the introduction, I want you to join us in a song while kids are coming in waving paw branches, older one called Hosanna.
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So would you stand with me and we'll sing together? Alright. Let's sing Hosanna. Hosanna. Hosanna.
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Hosanna Let's sing glory. The king of kings. Oh, oh, glory to the king of kings. We lift up his name. Lord, we lift up your name with hearts full of praise.
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Be exalted, lord, my God. Glory to the king of kings. Alright. Let's sing hosanna again. Hosanna.
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In the highest. Hosanna in
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Good morning. Can you hear me now? Good morning. Alright, there we are. Thank you, kiddos.
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That is, it is Palm Sunday. If you haven't figured that out by now and we have after the announcements here in just a second, we have a baptism. I'm going to run back and grab a clicker. Click through the announcements here. How are y'all this morning?
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Everybody awake and alive. Is it feeling like spring yet? Just. Okay. Alrighty.
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So if you all didn't know, we have a nursing mother's room downstairs. It also has a video feed that's live during the service. If you didn't know that, it's kind of down those stairs. When you get to the bottom of the stairs, turn left and it's the first room on your right. Just so that you know, next slide there.
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We have Monday nights going on at 1st b tomorrow night.
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We are on tomorrow. And, meal music message, Felix Guadalupe are cooking, and we're looking at the holy week narrative, all the events leading up to the cross, sharing in communion together, and we're family there, and we we just invite you. 06:00.
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Yep. Next slide. The It's happening at the same time as So Awana is a kids club. We're pouring scripture into the minds of kids to reach their hearts, and it meets in this room. That's what the big game circle is on the floor right here.
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If you don't know Awana, it's a great kids club. It's a lot of fun. So if that's happening at exactly the same time as Monday night, so 05:45 ish to about 07:30. We have a precept study that's still going forward in Acts. They're getting towards the end part, the last third of Acts, which is where things really start to speed up.
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And so if you wanna see that, that's happening on Thursdays at nine in the morning. We have refit meeting here at 05:15 on Tuesdays, 05:15 in the evening on Tuesdays. This week, there's a little change in schedule, and we had a lot of refit going on this week. Every just about every day, it seemed like there was somebody in here doing exercise, and it was good. Next, my sister's closet is coming up.
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If you don't know what that is, there's a $10 entrance donation. It's open to everybody in the community. People from this church and from the community will bring in clothes and shoes and bags and all kinds of stuff and they will kind of convert the fellowship hall into really high end thrift shop for a while. It's going be Saturday, May 18. 10 donation gets in the door and then you swap from there.
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I don't know any more about it than that right now, but Casey McCooey does and Tanya does, so there she is. Immigrant Hope. If you don't know, Ken and Lori McCune, they have been working with folks, Latinos in the community. They were missionaries in South America for a long time. Great, great folks.
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They actually just went on the trip to Israel with us. Wes and Katie, Katie's mom and dad. They are working with Immigrant Hope, and they are looking for Christian board members to help people with the process of immigration, getting people squared away as they should be. So that's something that they're working on. If you have a heart for immigrants and you want to be a part of that board, if you'll let me know, I'll let them know, and I'll put you together.
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Alright? Next, if you miss a message here, and we all do, right? Hi. I've missed a couple in the last few months. If you miss a message, we have a podcast, and you can go back, and we have Facebook streaming.
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So if you go back anytime during the week, you can look at it at Facebook and see First Baptist of Jackson, Wyoming, not First Baptist of Jackson, Mississippi. It's not going be what you expect but First Baptist of Jackson, Wyoming will have the message with video and it shows the slides on the screen If you ever miss one or you think that was something from several years ago, you can go back and listen to the audio on firstbeatjackson.org. If you forget that, call us and we'll let you know. We are having a connect hour between services to keep the church as one big body rather than two separate bodies because of the different times we meet. We have connect hour down the hall in the fellowship hall and that today is going to be kind of in celebration of not exactly.
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If y'all haven't heard by now, Eric and Colleen and the girls are gonna be moving away from here, and we want to celebrate the time that they've had here that we've had with them, and so it's gonna be a little amplified version of the connect hour today, kind of a party atmosphere. So if you would, go down and join him and say a good word to the folks down there. Also, I'm gonna have my mom and dad stand up whether they really want to or not. So I thought rather than introduce some 275 times, there they are right there and you can go and complain to them. Okay?
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Alright. And I'm gonna move this out of the way before I ask you to stand, and I'm gonna move this out of the way, and we're gonna have Sadie and Reyna. We're gonna do this in birth order. I told y'all last week if there's anybody else that wanted to be baptized that has already trusted in Jesus, and they're just for waiting for some reason to take this step of identification and obedience and commitment to the Lord, that y'all can come forward but we're starting with Sadie who came forward first and we're going to go then to Reyna but if there's anybody else out there that wants to be baptized, let me know. Okay?
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I'll be in the water. Alright? Now I think you have something you wanna say. You're saying something by being baptized, but I here is the mic. Say what you wanna say.
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I'm getting baptized because I believe in Jesus, and I want everybody to know that. I'm getting baptized because Jesus loves me and I love him.
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Is there anybody else? Water's still gonna be here after the service. But if if you would, would you stand and just greet one another, and I'll run a chain
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is our God and don't see our great is our God. Sing that again one more time. More voices than. Me. How great is our God Sing with me.
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How great is our God And don't see
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God, we do sing to you this morning because you are great and almighty and powerful, our creator, our sustainer. In you, we live and we move and we have our being. And so we call out to you and we lift our voices to you as you are great, as you are God. You are the name above every other name. You existed in the beginning before anything else.
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You hold all things together. You're holding us together right now. Thank you. Amen. Lord, I know that even right in this moment that many of us are are living with doubt.
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Living with doubt and and living in in fear. And, Lord, in you, there's there's no doubt. There's no fear. There's confidence. There's hope.
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There is assurance. There is loving kindness. And Job, it says, I know you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. And, God, we believe and we trust in that. And, Lord, we believe, but but our prayer is help us in our unbelief.
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Would you? When we do doubt and and when we do fear, I I pray, God, that you would bring us back into that place of assurance and trust in you. And you would restore peace where there is not. Amen. From John one fourteen, check this out.
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The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. Isn't that good news? We have seen the glory. The glory of the one and only son who came from the father full of grace and truth. And who is that?
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That's Jesus.
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Jesus the one true God the one true God
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can be seated and Ray, would you pray for us this morning? Oh, yeah, yeah.
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Lord God, we come before you this morning grateful to be here and alive and this Palm Sunday, we think of the triumphal entry and the shouts of the people. We think of the glory but we do so just as you did lord at the time. You knew what was coming. We know next week. We know what's happening in the passion because we have it.
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We have it written down. We can study it. We can read it. We can feel it. We can move with it.
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Lord, I just pray that we would be shouting your triumph throughout the difficult times this week. I pray that be looking forward to resurrection Sunday. God, I thank you because I call upon you lord and I call upon you because you answer. Lord, I just pray that you would take the offerings that we give this week whether it be our time or our resources, the the financial resources we put in these plates right now but everything else, every prayer, every effort on our parts, everything that our hand finds to do, I pray that you'd bless. Lord, I pray that you would grow your kingdom by the willing and obedient servants that make up your body here on earth.
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I pray that we would be open to all peoples and that we would draw them in to a loving family. It's in Jesus name. Lord, we ask your blessing on these tithes and offerings that you would do your will and your way through your body. Here in this community and to the ends of the earth. Lord, would you bless us all?
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Amen. Thank you, band It's time now for children's church to start up carry your palm friends with friends with you if you want to Here it is, Palm Sunday. It's in context from the gospel of John but if you don't know this story, it's in all four of the gospels. There are little details that Matthew adds that Mark and Luke don't mention. There are details that Luke adds that Matthew and Mark don't mention.
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John is written later and it stands back from it and in a lot of ways, it helps to give context and it's about belief. It's the gospel of belief and so, I'm going to go with the gospel of John this morning for Palm Sunday but I want to do a little context first. So, historical background. If you don't know much about first century Jerusalem or first century Judea or even first century Galilee, we just took a trip over there. There are 22 of us from this church that went and we saw and we drove this.
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We didn't walk at all. We did a lot of walking but we didn't walk at all But the historical background is important when you're taking all this into account. It has been the most fought over piece of land forever, for three thousand years at least and probably more like five. Okay? Historical background is this, the political setting, the economic setting, the cultural setting, and the religious setting.
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That's what I hit. I'll try to hit em as quickly as I can. I hope it's not death by PowerPoint for you. Just so I get it in one straight line. I put em up there.
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The Roman government practice syncretism accepting that all religious beliefs, philosophical teachings, and even governmental ideologies can be held together under the Roman system. Now, they were in charge and there was no doubt and they held that power militarily but they allowed for other cultures to be brought in to up under the Roman umbrella and they took the best things about those cultures and brought em in. They did do that. They assimilated things pretty well, better than most. They had this feeling though that it could be held together.
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Now, if you didn't want to include the Roman gods or the emperor especially in that, then, you might have a problem with them but the Roman government did practice this. Religious freedom and political freedom and freedom of thought for the individual were touted but the government did enforce it. Like I said, it's control and local matters to maintain the peace. It was known as the Pax Romana, the Roman Peace. I think we're living in the Pax Americana by the way.
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Judea was a client kingdom of Rome. So, Judea was the land of the Jews and it was, it had its own king. Herod was the king. Now, y'all know Herod the great from the Christmas story of Herod the Great being concerned about his kingship and so he sent out the wise men to go find and come back and report and then he did the slaughter of the innocence. That's Herod the Great.
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Herod Antipas is one of his sons and he is in charge in Judea, Jerusalem. That area was his. The Jews held much distrust and often hatred for the Roman Empire and they were, I wouldn't even say somewhat. They were unwilling subjects. Most of em.
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I I put somewhat in there because in every land and every day and every time, there's always a political spectrum, right? There's all the way to the right and all the way to the left and the ones to the right absolutely hated Rome absolutely and the ones on the left were like, you know, Rome's paying our paychecks and they're taking care of us pretty well. They pave the streets and we're not too worried about that. We don't take all that stuff really literally anyway. So, I just see chief priest, lawyerly scribes.
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Somewhat unwilling subjects. Jewish resentment of the foreign Roman government was very apparent. The Jews understood the world be divided into two types of people. There were Jewish people, the Jews, the Hebrews, the kids of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And Gentiles, everybody else, the nations, everybody else, the peoples, the other peoples.
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They were non Jew. Jews work hard to disassociate themselves from the Gentiles and on our trip to Israel, there are Orthodox Jews that are still working very hard to disassociate themselves from Gentiles. If they could, they would fly a plane over by themselves only. Really, I'm not exaggerating that at all. We were surrounded on a lot of places but we did not communicate Majority did not cut into being ruled by Gentiles or anyone complicit with the Gentiles.
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So, I'm speaking primarily of the right wing Pharisees right there. I can go into the political setting a little further. They had a measure of freedom in both their governing system. They had the Sanhedrin which was made up of right and left, a lot of left because they're easier to get along with for the Romans. And they maintain their own traditions.
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That was upheld mostly by the right because they wanted to keep their traditions. Yet, the Roman government required that everything be ultimately subject to Roman authority. Does this make sense to you? Lot of y'all know this, I know. For example, Jewish citizens were under the authority of the Jewish court system, Sanhedrin, yet all the rulings for the death penalty were sent to the Roman government.
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Actually, because it's against the Jewish law, right? Or that part of the Jewish law for Jews. The Jewish religious and governance system was divided between these two parties, the sadducees and I actually put em on left and right like they ought to be this time. Left, left is the sadducees, right is the Pharisees. The sadducees were typically wealthy leaders.
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They were in most cases, they had rejected many of the Jewish traditions in favor of political and religious cooperations with the Roman government. Are you with me? Pharisees were the people's party. There were more of them and there were more people. It was populist in a way.
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There were more people that taught the law and the traditions of Israel and patriots and they believe that they would eventually outdo or overcome their oppressors because they always had. Does that make sense? Whenever we turn to God, we end up winning and they didn't realize that in times they would slide away from God and then when they said, we need to be paying attention to this. We need to tear down our idols and our Asher poles and we need to lean into God and his word, Torah, the law and so they taught this. They were strictly conforming to the Jewish law and looking for God to overthrow Rome.
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So, Pharisees believed in literal interpretation of scripture. That's why we preach a whole lot more in the Baptist Church. It's honestly, it's why we preach a whole lot more about legalism because you're more tendency, your tendency is to go more legalistic in this tradition They believed in a literal interpretation of scripture including resurrection, heaven, and the spiritual realm. They would not give. They were people of the book and they for the last four hundred and thirty years they had debated what exactly the scripture meant.
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There were differing schools of thought but they obviously went back and forth all the time about what it means. You gotta know what it says, what it means, and what we're going to do about it and that's what I try to do every Sunday. What does it say? What does it mean and what are we going to do about it? The sadducees did not They weren't with him on that.
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Do you remember Paul? We've we've been through a lot of straight up didactic teaching lately and Paul in one case in Acts, he sees that he's about to be arrested and probably torn to shreds and so he throws out a political debate between the Pharisees and the Pharisees. He says, what about resurrection? And that's all it takes. They start fighting each other and the Roman soldiers save his life and get him away from there.
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It's a hotbed of political enmity, okay? So, that's the political historical setting. Economic setting, the client king Herod, he did have some measure of control but it was definitely under Rome. You remember, well, we'll talk about that next week. Plant King Herod, the great, this is Herod Antipas' father but Herod the great had employed many laborers by commissioning many public works and the folks that went to Israel saw Masada.
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That was one of his palaces. He had four. Over forty six years, he built, rebuilt Solomon's Temple. Forty six years it took to build out of this Jerusalem limestone to build up this glorious temple. The old city of Jerusalem is less than one square mile.
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Most fought over piece of land in the world and he had tried and had succeeded Herod the Great and restoring it to its former glory as far as the Temple Mount was concerned. Pretty amazing. I mean, we have the foundation of it but we don't have yet, right? Jesus would actually forecast that that was going to come down. There wouldn't be stone on top of stone and he was right.
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As far as the temple's concerned but Herod took him forty six years to build it. He employed many laborers by commissioning many public works. He was the client king of Herod. He would have been on the left. Complicit with the government but also receiving.
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Extensive renovations to the temple, Temple Mount, palaces ports, fortresses, stadiums, ornate stone carvings. He was kind of a sicko quite honestly Bad bad dude Not orthodox Jewish in any way. Just that he was actually half Jewish His son, Herod Antipas, carried on in his father's footsteps and saw how he did that and he continued to build large scale public works. Jesus was born in Bethlehem but moved to Nazareth as a builder, a stone mason, probably more than carpenter but during this, he probably worked on some of those projects for Herod Antipas. That would have been a normal thing when he was doing that before he was an itinerant minister.
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This is one of the coins of Herod Antipas right here. That didn't look like much to us but it was during that time. There was a very large disparity between rich and poor. The upper class made up mostly of temple priest and priestly aristocracy that was including the sadducees. Those were people who were complicit and therefore paid a little better because they weren't much trouble.
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Middle class was comprised and the the right wing would not have received that from from the goat. The middle class was comprised of traders and merchants, artisans, stone cutters, masons, sculptors, craftsmen. Pharisees, sages, scribes, and teachers were usually part of the middle class, usually. The lower class made up of laborers, just weavers, stone carriers, not stone workers. We've got a couple of guys in here that are masons and then they hire people that carry those rocks.
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Slaves, usually, they were taken into slavery because of debt. So, there's a wide disparity between rich and poor. People were burdened with a lot of debt. And unemployable were also making up the lower class and we see Jesus interacting a lot with lepers and blind and insane and crippled. Jews were also required to give sacrifices at temple.
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That was a normal thing for them to give sacrifices and sometimes in the form of money usually by purchasing sacrificial animals offered to the priest. Y'all know this story. We'll talk a little bit more about that next week but traveling teachers made their living by traveling from town to town and accepting gifts from those who came to hear them. When missionaries start out, that's a really hard one for you to take that you're going to be doing God's work but you're going to be receiving from God's people and that's a hard switch to throw sometimes but Jesus did that. Susanna and there were other ladies, Joanna and a few others that went along with them and helped support them.
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Some of them out of Herod's house. Some of the same folks. So, during the first century, temple courtyards had often become a marketplace. Local merchants would sell sacrificial animals and at a premium order to turn a profit from the tourist. Does any of this sound familiar to our day to y'all?
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Or religious seekers that would come to the temple. They're taking advantage of em in in some ways. That's that's apparent from Jesus' actions but it was a very common thing for people to walk from eighty, ninety miles away, 100 miles away to come to Jerusalem three times a year for these different fast and feast. They would fast before, feast after in a lot of cases and so that was a very common religious thing. The cultural setting So, Bill Jerries around Jerusalem, Judea, Galilee were populated mostly by Jews but not only by Jews, okay Some diversity of Syrians, Greeks, and lots of Romans because they had to have an occupying force wherever they went to keep the peace.
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Major city of Jews was Jerusalem. It was more cosmopolitan and a lot more ethnically diverse than any of the little towns around. The language of the entire Roman Empire at that time was Greek. It was there was Latin but the whole of the Roman Empire, it was mainly Greek. At the time, it's common for Jews to speak Hebrew Aramaic which is a Semitic language akin to Hebrew and La but Jesus's everyday language was Aramaic.
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We see from the cross when he cries out, it's in Aramaic He would have probably spoken obviously Hebrew and Greek too. Hub of the village, marketplace, and shops, and for a Jewish village, the synagogue was a central meeting place, the seat of the local Jewish government and that was the way it was in Jerusalem just on a bigger scale. Okay. Jewish people believed in one God. Monotheism, it was a very strong thing.
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The Lord is one and you heard that from the day you were born all throughout your life. So, to accept that God might be triune would have been a real stretch, okay? Real stretch point. In contrast, the surrounding cultures believed in many gods. They were polytheist and they were often represented by images or idols.
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Jewish tradition was centered on Sabbath day. Y'all know that. Anytime Jesus did anything on the Sabbath at all, he got flack from the Pharisees about it. It was a common thing. Jewish people were seeking a Messiah, a savior, an anointed one in Greek, Christ.
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Who according to their understanding would bring them spiritual renewal. So, that's religious freedom, political freedom, from centuries of foreign oppression. Currently, it was Roman Empire but they had been taken over by everybody. They were a little group of people comparatively speaking. They were not a huge group of people.
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So, they were a little mouse and they were big cats on all sides of em. Major religious holiday for the Jewish year is Passover feast. Biggest biggest one of all, that's the Super Bowl. It was the one that everybody was going to come to Jerusalem about that. They celebrated the deliverance of the Jewish people from their slavery in Egypt.
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We talked about that just before we went to Israel for three weeks we did. Moses wandering, wanderings in the wilderness. Many Jews would travel to Jerusalem in order to celebrate in the holy city and that's what brings us to just one week before Passover, okay? I want to give you the context of this and I'm going to mostly read this morning, alright? Because the story is a story and it's good.
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It's really, really good. In some ways, this story is just building up to next week. So, come back next week but the date line is late March, early April of thirty AD and this is the immediate background and it's a week before the triumphal entry. So, we're going to end with the triumphal entry today. Now, certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister, Martha.
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If you don't know where that is, there is a picture of Jerusalem right there. Jerusalem, the temple is here, the Mount Of Olives is up here, and Bethany is just on the backside of the Mount Of Olives. Bethpage is between. Kind of on the side of the Mount Of Olives. There's a path between them.
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It is less than two miles. It's not a long, long, far distance but there is Bethany. And it was the Mary who had anointed the Lord with ointment just so you know who it is and had wiped his feet with her hair. Actually, in the book of John, we see Mary, the sister Martha and Lazarus three different times and every time she falls at the feet of Jesus. Amen.
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It was Mary who anointed the Lord with anointment, wiped his feet with her hair, and whose brother Lazarus was sick. So, the sisters sent word to him saying, lord, behold, he whom you love is sick but when Jesus heard this, he said, this sickness is not to end in death. He didn't say he wouldn't die. He said, this not to end in death but for the glory of God so that the son of God may be glorified and he had been calling himself son of man. He called himself son of God several times before this but this one, there's no doubt and his time has been built and how many times have we heard Jesus say, my time has not yet come.
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My time has yet not come. My time has not yet come and then he's saying the time is coming. That the son of God would be glorified. Now, Jesus loved Martha, the hardworking Martha and her sister, Mary, the one who sat at his feet and learned and Lazarus. We don't hear anything else about Lazarus except for this.
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So, when he heard that he was sick, he stayed then two days longer in the place where he was. When I hear somebody's in the hospital, it it hurts my feelings if I have to stay where I am for two days longer before I get to go to em. You know, I want to go to em but it says, he intentionally He heard that he was sick and then he stayed two days longer in the place where he was and then after this, if you see an asterisk up here, this week, it's from the New American Standard Version of Bible. If you have an NASB, you'll see those little asterisk. John uses this all the time.
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It is called a historical present in Greek and so he's telling a story but he's telling it in the moment. Does this make sense? I'll I'll I'll do it like he does it in Greek. Then, after this, he says to his disciples, let's go again into Judea. He says it instead of he said it.
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He says, dot. We'll skip a little bit of that. Therefore, when Mary came where Jesus was, she saw him and she fell at his feet saying to him, lord, if you had been here, she has faith. If you had been here, my brother would not have died. It's too late now though.
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That's that's the sentiment. I believe in you but it's too late. And when Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews that came with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in his spirit who's moved in compassion and he was troubled and he said, where have you laid him? And they say to him, lord, come and see and Jesus wept. I want a savior who knows how I feel I want a savior who can cry with me Jesus wept So, the Jews were saying see how he loved him and he did.
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This is the guy Jesus loved. He said so but some of the, oh my goodness. Reina. I love Jesus and he loves me. John, the apostle says, the beloved.
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He calls himself the beloved. He knew Jesus loved him. But some of them said, could not this man who open the eyes of the blind have kept this man also from dying. So, there, right there at the point of belief too. They believe he did open the eyes of the blind but they're like, couldn't he have done this too?
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I'll say it's the gospel of belief. Read John. If you hadn't read it lately, read it again. It's like 23 pages. It's not hard to get through.
50:08
It's so simple. A child can understand it and so deep. An elephant can swim in it. I don't know who said it but I thought it was good. So, Jesus again being deeply moved within comes to the tomb.
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That was a cave and a stone was lying against it and Jesus says, remove the stone and Martha, the sister of the deceased, very practical lady that she is, says to him, lord, by this time, there will be a stench for he's been dead for four days. Three days, somebody might get better according to the Jewish law. Three days, somebody might get better. Four days, he's dead. He's been dead four days.
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Think that's why Jesus waited two extra days. He knew the law. He was exactly in the center. He wasn't right nor left. He was right.
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He wasn't to the right or to the left. Jesus says to her, did I not say to you that if you believe, you'll see the glory of God and so they removed the stone. Then, Jesus raised his eyes and he said, father, I thank you that you have heard me and I knew that you always hear me but because of the people standing around, I said it out loud so that they may believe. It's all about believe. So, they may believe that you sent me and when he had said these things, he cried out with the Lord loud voice.
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Lazarus, come forth. And the man who had died came forth. Jesus wept. He felt it And he had power over it. Lazarus come forth and the man who had died came forth, bound hand and foot with wrappings and his face was wrapped around with a cloth and Jesus says to them, unbind him and let him go.
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He saved him from death and then he commissioned his followers Let him loose from the bondage Help him get loose from what's tangling him up and therefore, many of the Jews who came to Mary and saw what he had done believed in him. Amen. Many of the Jews believed in him right there and every time that you present Christ, all the time when you present Christ, you're going to have different audiences and sometimes they're going to believe and therefore, they're going to be saved and then sometimes, some of them went to the Pharisees and told them the things which Jesus had done. That's pretty neutral but it sounds like tattle tale, tattle tale, hanging bridges on a nail to me, right? They knew the political situation and they knew that he was defying all but they finally, the popular, populist, the Pharisees, some of the Jews believed in him and some of the Pharisees believed in him but they finally had proof of resurrection.
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It does happen and he just did it and so, therefore, chief priest and the Pharisees convened the council. That's both sides, left and right. And we're saying, what are we doing? For this man is performing many signs. If we let him go on as if they had a way of stopping it.
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If we let him go on like this, all men will believe in him. If everyone were to see this, everyone would go after him and the Romans will come and they will take away both our place and our nation. Political power. They were going to lose it. That's what their fear was but one of them, Caiaphas, who was the high priest that year, said to them, you know nothing at all.
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Does that sound like a political argument to you? You ignorant person. Know nothing at all nor do you take into account that it is expedient for you that one man die for the people. And that the whole nation not perish. John gives a little editorial note here.
53:56
Now, he did not say this on his own initiative but being high priest that year, he prophesied that that Jesus was going to die for the nation and he did. And not for the nation only but in order that he might also gather together into one, the children of God who are scattered abroad, the nations, not just the Jews, not just the chosen people but all the nations. So that from that day on, they plan together to kill him. The left and the right got together on something. It was both ends against the middle.
54:35
They planned together to kill him and therefore, Jesus no longer continue to walk publicly among the Jews but he went away from there to the country near the wilderness into a city called Ephraim and there, he stayed with the disciples. So, he knew that he was in that heavily charged environment and he knew his timing and so he retreated back to Ephraim. If you don't know where Ephraim is, there in the middle of that map of Judea is Jerusalem and then north, if you see just to the north of it is Ephraim or Ephraim in Spanish. Ephraim is right there. If you want to know distance wise how far away that is, this is a map of where we live.
55:15
That is First Baptist Church, the Pink Star, and the Yellow Star is the Craig Thomas Discovery Center of Grand Teton National Park. So, that's the walk. From one to the other, 13 miles. That was far enough to get away. Him and his disciple, he and his disciples were there and now the Passover, the Jews was near.
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Many went up to Jerusalem out of the country before the Passover to purify themselves. That was normal. So, they were seeking for Jesus and were saying to one another as they stood in the temple. What do you think? That he won't come at all.
55:47
I mean, I know there's a death and it's hanging over his head and everybody's conspiring. I love that guy though. I really, really dig. Jesus. You think he's going to come at all?
55:59
I want to see him. I want to hear from him. Every day when he was sitting in the temples and and and teaching, I just love him. Now, the chief priest and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where he was, he was to report it so that they might seize him. It doesn't say so that they might kill him because that was not something that they wanted to do on their hands.
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Jesus therefore, six days before the Passover, it's first verse of John 12. He came to Bethany. Now, Bethany is where, what? Where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. The charged political situation that it was and getting to this point, getting them there, he's back at ground zero.
56:40
He's less than two miles away. If you don't know where two miles away is, where is it? I judge this one on the map. It might come up in a minute. Y'all know where Ripley's vacuum center is in FedEx?
56:53
If you walk down Snow King Avenue and you go the little jaunt there at Scott On The Maple and turn on Broadway. That's two miles exactly. That's exactly the distance from Bethany to Jerusalem and so he's now at Ripley's, okay? Believe it or not. Sorry.
57:12
I couldn't help. Sorry. He took the so on the next day, the large crowd who'd come to the feast when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, they took the branches of palm trees and they went out to meet him. Why palm branches? Well, it's a sign of victory.
57:35
It's a sign of triumph but it's not just victory or triumph for Israel. It was a nationalistic symbol. It was a symbol of national and ethnic pride and they, you can see the coin of Herod Antipas. He wants to be as popular as his dad was and when he mints a coin, it's got a palm branch on it to say, we're going to have victory. We won't triumph.
57:58
It's on our money that they're letting us stamp. They took palm branches out and they went out to meet him and when, this is from Luke, not John but when he approached Jerusalem, he saw the city and he wept over it. The closer to the end of the time where or the time where Jesus's time would come and he'd be glorified, he got to be emotional about things and when he approached Jerusalem, he saw the city and he wept over it. The word there is cried tears like big tears. Saying, if you, Jerusalem, had known in this day, even you, the things which would make for peace.
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Now, some of the people had already come out to him. There are a lot of desperate groups, right? And he's crying over Jerusalem because they didn't know what made for peace. Oh, I think of Isaiah where he says, in rest and repentance is your reward but you would have none of it. You wouldn't turn your back on what your preconceived notions were.
58:59
This is this is actually by James Joc Tissot. James Joc Tissot painted three fifty paintings in ten years. Three fifty paintings from about 1886 to 1896 on the life of Christ and they're great but this is Jesus weeping over Jerusalem and you could see the people out there and some of them have palm, bronze already. And they're gonna make that walk. They began to shout, Hosanna, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the king of Israel.
59:35
And Jesus finding a young donkey, Matthew, Mark, and Luke all tell us about the arrangement for the donkey and bringing that in but Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the king of Israel, two of his disciples had gone out and they brought back a donkey and the donkey's fold, one that no one had ever ridden before and Jesus finding that young donkey sat on it as it is written and said, fear not daughter of Zion, behold, your king is coming, seated on a donkey's colt. Hosanna, what does that mean? This is it in Hebrew if you can read Hebrew. This is it in Greek. That's better.
1:00:18
That's that. That's that. Oh Lord, I beseech you, save now. That's what it means. Save now.
1:00:28
This is the time and they knew what to sing. They knew their Bibles. They knew Zechariah the prophet. They knew what he had prophesied and they knew where he was supposed to be coming from and they knew what he was supposed to be writing and he was the one that was going to save them. Oh Lord, I beseech you, save now.
1:00:45
Lord, I beseech you, send prosperity now. Oh my goodness. What do we want? We want to be saved. We want to be out of peril.
1:00:54
We want to we want to be free from threat, danger, and we want prosperity. So, save us now is what that means. Fear not daughter of Zion, behold your king is coming, seated on a donkey's colt. He's just been crying that they're not going to completely receive him. This is Zechariah nine nine.
1:01:14
Rejoice greatly, oh daughter of Zion and shout in triumph. Do you all know the kids song? Clap your hands all you people shouting to God with a voice of triumph. Y'all know this? Clap your hands all you people shouting to God with a voice of praise.
1:01:28
Hosanna, hosanna, shout unto God with a voice of triumph. Praise him. Praise him. Shout unto God with a voice of praise. Rejoice greatly, oh daughter of Zion.
1:01:39
Shout in triumph, oh daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your king is coming to you and he is just and he is endowed with salvation. He's humble and he's mounted on a donkey even more than that a lowly foal of a donkey. These things his disciples did not understand at first but when Jesus was glorified, they then remembered that these things were written of him and they had done these things to him. So, the people who were with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb.
1:02:06
Do you see all these disparate little groups there? We got the sadducees. Got the Pharisees. We got the people who saw it with their own eyes. We got people who have been with him for three years ministering.
1:02:15
All these different folks. For this reason, also, the people went out and they met him. So, it wasn't just people who were cheering him on because they had heard that he had performed this sign and they were looking for someone to save him. So, the Pharisees said to one another, you see that you're not doing any good. Look, the whole world is going out after him.
1:02:39
Now, there were some Greeks among those who were going to worship at the feast. This in a Jewish narrative is amazing. There were some Greeks. They weren't good Jews. They hadn't been practicing kosher, anything of the sort.
1:02:54
Now, there were some Greeks among those who were going up to worship at the feast and these then came to Philip who was from Bethsaida of Galilee and they began to ask him saying, sir, we just want to see Jesus. Amen. Sir, we want to see Jesus and Philip comes and tells Andrew and Andrew, Philip, come and tell Jesus and Jesus answers them saying, the hour now has come. For the son of man to be glorified. I don't have anything to add to that story.
1:03:27
Dot. Till next week, okay? There's an ellipsis there but I I want you to stop on this and thinking, if you are seeking Jesus that is the time That is the time for him to be glorified. All of your historic, your historical setting matters to you and your political setting matters to you and your economic setting matter to you and your religious setting. I'm sure matters to you but come at him looking for it, okay?
1:03:54
I'm going to read one more thing and that that'll be it. We'll stand and sing. Y'all band y'all and come on back up. Carson wrote this, that the church is a collection of natural enemies The church is not made up of natural friends. It's made up of natural enemies.
1:04:17
What binds us together is not a common education or a common race or common income levels or common politics or common nationality or common accents or common jobs or anything else of that sort. Christians come together not because they have formed a natural collocation but because they have all been saved by Jesus Christ and they owe him their common allegiance. In the light of this common allegiance and in the light of the fact that they have all been loved by Jesus himself. They commit themselves to doing what he says. As he commands them to love one another and in this life, they are a band of natural enemies who love one another for Jesus sake.
1:05:00
Would you all stand with me? God, I pray that you would allow us to love one another so well that it would bring other people into your family and lord that we may love them so well that they remain and they abide in you and they see the salvation and sanctification and transformation which we all desire. Lord, my prayer for each of us is that we would see Jesus. Amen. Amen.
1:08:21
I saw I surrender all and I thought that is a perfect place for an invitation for sure. The invitation is always open though. It's always open. The majority of the people in this room want for somebody to ask them about Jesus. Okay?
1:08:32
And if they don't, just like those guys said, hey, and then Philip handed him off to Andrew and Andrew handed him off to so and so, they'll hand you off to somebody that knows Jesus. Okay? So please, the invitation's always open. I'm here. I'm here a lot.
1:08:46
I wanna read another victorious statement. This is from Revelation. This is the end of the story. Skipping next week, this is going to the end to end, alright? After this, I saw a vast crowd, too great to count from every nation, every tribe, and every people, and every language and they were standing in front of the front of the throne and before the lamb, that's Jesus.
1:09:12
They were clothed in white robes and they held palm branches in their hands and they were shouting with a great roar. Salvation comes from our God who sits on the throne and from the lamb. Amen.
