Are you Choosing Jesus for the Right Reason
Notes
Transcript
What kind of cars do sheep drive? Laaaaammmmb orghini
What kind of cars do sheep drive? Laaaaammmmb orghini
Used to be addicted to soap. But I’m clean now/
ME
ME
I remember when I was younger, and I was going to church a few times a year, one thing that always plagued me was the idea of going to Hell. I wanted nothing to do with it. It scared me. And I remember asking how do I keep out and the idea for me at an early age was I wanted Jesus to save myself from Hell. I wanted to make sure I didn’t spend an eternity in a lake of Fire… Great scary imagery the Bible has… and I chose Jesus for that reason.
It was ultimately the same reason I made my profession of faith after a VBS one year as well… I wanted to get the reward. Expand
WE
WE
I am sure we could all relate to this. We know people or we are ourselves have chose Jesus for the wrong reasons. We want him for this or that… but we aren’t choosing him for the right reason.
Paul Washer said
“If you want to follow Jesus because He’ll fix your marriage, if you want to follow Jesus because He’ll give you a better life, that’s idolatry. Follow Christ for the sake of Christ; He is worthy!”
— Paul Washer
And I know how that sounds, it sounds almost like I am being sacrilegious… because Jesus can fix marriages, Jesus can give us a better life… but what about when he doesn’t… what about the moments when he doesn’t fix the things that we want him to, and the reasons we are following him… what happens to our faith… if we haven’t realized the reason to follow him is because he is so Good. Nothing else. What happens… when our marriages fall apart if that is the reason we were following him… what happens when the better life we were promised doesn’t come around.
What happens when we don’t choose Jesus for the right reasons? Well, that is exactly the situation we are faced with as we look at today’s story from the Gospel of John.
EXPOSITION
EXPOSITION
This section of scripture is what most people call the Triumphal Entry of Jesus. Maybe should be the Tragic Entry becuase what is about to happen. Comes in all 4 gospels.
Before we begin back track… remember Jesus has been hiding… well not really hiding in the sense we think, but withdrawing and going to a place these leaders can’t kill him… its not his time…
And throughout his ministry, Jesus has told the crowds and people he has healed to keep quiet about his Messiahship
Mark tells us of a story
23 And immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit. And he cried out,
24 “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.”
25 But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!”
And Jesus is telling him… not yet… keep that to yourself… Jesus knew it wasn’t time yet.
And even later when Jesus healed the leper and the Bible tells us the leprosy left him immediately…
44 and said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, for a proof to them.”
And in Mark 7 when Jesus heals the deaf man with a speech impediment, and his ears are immediately opened and his tongue released, Jesus says this
36 And Jesus charged them to tell no one. But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it.
And so, throughout the gospels up until this point publically Jesus has told those who profess Jesus as Messiah to keep quiet, I say publically, because some of you are aware of Peter’s confession of Christ which we still use to this day as a marker for confessions of faith in the church had already happened.
And if we look to Luke’s Gospel look at what it tells us as Jesus approaches Jerusalem.
41 And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it,
He knows what is coming as he is getting closer… He knows what is about to happen. And he is moved. I love that we see such rich human emotion in Jesus, something we can relate to in our own lives.
So all the way up until this point… Jesus has had people be quiet, but all of that is about to change drastically in Jesus life… in fact… Jesus is setting up a scene that will leave no doubt for those who are paying attention. Because at some point while they are travelling Jesus sends two disciples ahead to get a donkey and a colt..
1 Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples,
2 saying to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me.
3 If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and he will send them at once.”
And Jesus is concerned about fulfilling scripture… of Zech 9:9
9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
And here it is… Jesus has set this scene perfectly… He is letting the people know who he is..
And with all of that as background… we pick up the scripture
12 The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem.
13 So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!”
Millions of people would have been in the streets… they were going to prepare for the passover… a celebration… explain… but this time while the sacrificial lambs were being killed… the real lamb would be slaughtered as well….
And the people are in the streets waving palm branches… its interesting this is the only gospel with those… and it comes because two centuries before Judas and Simon Maccabaeus had driven the syrians out of Israel… and the victory was celebrated with music and palm branches and for centuries this was symbol for victory over their enemies… so we see they are seeing Jesus coming into town… and they have their expectations… and we have to be sure we aren’t doing what they do… the first point this morning…
Don’t follow Jesus for the earthly benefits…
See they are crying out… Hosanna… blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord… and they are echoing the words of the Hallel in Psalms 113-118… and it was sung at the feasts of Tabernacles, dedication. and Passover… and basically Hosanna means save now! And these people see Jesus coming and their mind turns to the earthly benefits…
Finally the time has come, our King has come to establish a kingdom here on this earth. He is going to put Israel back into its place, he is going to remove us from this Roman rule… our nation will be setup again… we are the chosen ones….
and why would they not think Jesus could do this?
16 His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him.
17 The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness.
18 The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard he had done this sign.
Some of them had just watched and the others had heard the stories of him raising Lazarus from the dead. And if he can do that… is there anything that he can’t do?
So here they are. Remember… all of this because of what happened with Lazarus. Because Jesus had risen him from the dead here they stand are waiting for him to come and be there king.
Here is what is so crazy about all of this… John 12:16 tells us that even the disciples aren’t understanding that is going on… they think he is there for the exact same reason at this point… they think he is there to setup this kingdom as well… they are ready… and John is showing us how clear it is until after Jesus had ascended.
The second point this morning, we must follow Jesus because of who he is. Messiah and King.
Here is the thing I think we tend to miss out on especially in this country. Jesus. IS. GOOD. I want to say that again. Jesus. IS. Good. and if you try to add anything to Jesus it just makes it so much worse. Why should you follow Jesus? Because he is Jesus. He is Messiah. He is King. He should be what your heart desires more than anything in this world. And the reason this is so important is because he is greater than anything in this world.
We like to talk about the streets of gold and all this amazing imagery we see in Heaven. But what if none of it was there. What if when we get to what we like to think about as Heaven if the only thing that was there was you and Jesus. Would you still want to be there? Would you still be just as excited? If not, I am telling you you need to get your heart and your priorities straight. There is nothing this world has to offer or that we could possibly imagine that is greater than Jesus.
And it is so important that we wrap our faith up in him because this world fails us. Jesus doesn’t fail us. We sometimes fail ourselves because we want things for ourselves that Jesus never called us to want… but what happens when the world fails you?
Look at what happens to Jesus when they realize he is no longer giving them what they want…
6 When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, “Crucify him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him.”
Crucify HIM! Crucify him!
And you think, well what does this have to do with me? The question becomes are you only, like these Jews following Jesus becasue of what he can do for you? Are you following Jesus because like me when I was a child I thought he could save me from hell, and he can, but that’s not the right reason…
Are you only following Jesus becasue you have heard a preacher tell you that he can prosper your life and make everything better? Because he can. But is the only reason you are following him becasue you are hopeful of what he is going to do for you in your life? Have we turned following Jesus into something all about me?
And you think… look you just read that verse about crucify him… I would never do that… I know he is the son of God… I would never want him dead…
But how many times have we seen it… we have followed and made Deals with Jesus because we think he will do somethign for us, somethign we want, but then he doesn’t do it. We think he will heal a loved ones disease and he doesn’t and we curse his name… we had a deal Jesus… if you were to just heal him I would have believed in you forever… but you didn’t. I hate you. And maybe you’ve never said those words… you’ve never said Jesus I hate you… but you’ve said, I can never trust you. I can never believe in you. I can never come to you again. And its because we didn’t get what we wanted.
I can’t tell you the amount of people I have talked to who have be done with Jesus because they have prayed to God and they wiould say he didn’t answer their prayer, but in fact he just said no… and some people even grasp that much, and they can’t wrap their mind around why… why would a good God do that why wouldn’t he heal… I spoke with a woman who was dying as we were planning her funeral… and she told me, you know, even if God healed me, I was going to die eventually… we all do… I just get to see him sooner… and it hit me like a ton of bricks.
YOU
YOU
The real question this morning, is why are you following Jesus? Is it because you are waiting for him to do something for you? Is it because you need him to come through and you can’t imagine a way in which he won’t? Or are you following him because you understand how good he is and your heart is so in love with him you couldn’t imagine giving your love and attention to anyone else…
WE
WE
Imagine what would happen if every single one of us in this room followed Jesus because we realized how good he was alone. And I’m not saying we don’t realize that, but what if our motivation, and our actions in everything we do were wrapped up in our love for Jesus and who he is. Could you imagine the difference we would make with the people around us, the way we would talk to people differently, the way we would interact with the people that cut us off in traffic differently. Can you imagine if we went into the world with our hearts so wrapped up in Jesus that all we heard was his voice how full all of the churches in richmond would be. How many people we could lead to the Lord because the entire attention of our heart would be so full of him we couldn’t see ourselves.
So why are you following him? For you? Or because he is so good.