John 12:9-19 (2)

Introduction

FCF: It is common for people to

Jesus alone brings the peace our hearts are looking for. So what?

Jesus is the king of peace. What does that mean?

He Deserves our Admiration, Everyday. 12-15

The scene is beautiful, everything from the outside looks great. The crowd hears Jesus is coming, they gather palm tree branches (a sign of peace, and welcoming royalty) they lay their coats down for him to walk on, they cry our HOSANNA Save us! They bless him, for being the one that comes in the name of the Lord, even claiming him as the king of Israel. And Jesus accepts their praise.

John sites this event as a prophecy being fulfilled from the OT.

Zechariah 9:9 ESV

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.

Z

The riding on the donkey is significant, it is a done in contrast to riding in on a warhorse. Jesus has come to bring peace. He has come to establish justice for his people as their king. This is why John is connecting what is happening here with Zechariah’s prophecy about the coming messiah. Notice he changes the original Hebrew phrase from “rejoice greatly” to “fear not.” Probably combining with

Isaiah 44:2 ESV

2 Thus says the Lord who made you, who formed you from the womb and will help you: Fear not, O Jacob my servant, Jeshurun whom I have chosen.

The reason is fairly obvious when we consider the historical setting, of the Jewish people during this time. Not to mention in the season passover that they are in. The passover was a time of remembering the Jewish people enslavement to Egypt and how God as their faithful LORD came to them and liberated them from their bondage. However at the moment Israel is still under the oppression of the Romans. The “peace” that they enjoyed was contingent on their compliance with the Roman government. Hence why the leaders have a huge problem with Jesus, he is claiming to be a king, and here people are praising him as such. They are worried they are going to ruffle the feathers of the Romans and Rome will make it very bad for the Jewish people.

Yet, Jesus is not worried about Rome nor the religious leaders, because he is the rightful king of Israel and more so the world. He is the king that will bring lasting peace, not Rome, not the Jewish leaders. And because of this he is worthy of all praise, by every man woman and child, everyday and in every way. The actions of the people are not wrong (They are shallow) the problem is not what they are doing, it’s that they aren't doing this everyday.

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What does it mean to praise God Everyday?

Praise is not something we are unfamiliar with. We give praise and receive praise everyday. But do we ever think deeply about praise? What is it? In its simplest form praise is giving thanks. When we give thanks for the Katy Tigers, we are praising them. When we cheer loudly for our kids as they accomplish their first handstand, were praising them. When we speak highly about about spouse, our parents, our friends, we are praising them, we are giving thanks for them.

Praising God is giving thanks for him. Instantly when we hear praising God we think of music, and rightly so, but this is not entirely what it means to praise God. To praise God means to be thankful for him.

Why give thanks for God? Simple, because he is praiseworthy. The psalm the people are speaking as they lay down the palm branches before the feet of Jesus is ps 118.

Psalm 118:1 ESV

1 Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever!

He is good. And his goodness endures forever. Which means this God, who created the world, did so in his goodness. This God who revealed himself to man did so because of his goodness. This God whom man rebelled against, did not instantly blot him out, but began to pursue him again because of his goodness. This God will make all things wrong in the world, one day untrue because he is good. But lets be clear, even if he didn’t do any of those things, he still would be worthy of our praise, simply because he is good.

Timeout: I know what some of you are thinking, well thats good for you preacher boy, but God hasn’t been that good to me. In fact he has been pretty lousy. If that is you today, can quickly have a private, yet very public conversation with you real quick?

If that is you today, or if that is some you know, is it possible that God is good, but you are blind to it? Please don’t hear me as patronizing you. In my experience when someone says, God is not good, attached to those words are tremendous amount of painful experiences that have brought about that conclusion. Times where you needed God to be good, you needed him to come through for you, you needed him to fight on your behalf, and nothing. And so now when you hear the preacher say God is good, it’s more than wrong to you, it’s painfully wrong.

I have talked with so many people, including myself, who begin with an untrue idea. God is not good. Which then makes me interpret everything that happens to me in light of him, hating me, or being disgusted with me. But the truth is God is good, he is loving. So the question we have to ask ourselves in times of pain, is not God why are you not good, it’s why can’t I see your goodness. Why can’t I see how you are using this for my good, and your glory. As we change our starting point from a false idea to the truth that God is good, he shows us his goodness.

This is what it means to “give thanks” to God. This is what it means to praise him. Notice there is a distinction between giving thanks to God, and being thankful. Praising God is giving God thanks, even when we are not necessarily thankful for what has come.

What does it mean to “not” praise God?

(Illustration) Buck Oliphant (Rob’s dad) has been one of the greatest mentors in my life. In many ways he has been my pastor hero, really showing me the ropes. You know all the essentials, like hosting beer and bible studies, learning crazy poker games because holdem is boring, making your family do crazy workouts on your birthday, all the essentials.

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Buck was / is an incredible pastor, I have learned much from him. But the greatest lesson I ever learned from Buck, and his family is how to say goodbye to an amazing wife, mother, grandmother. The passing of Lynn Oliphant was a bitter sweet, chaotic, joyous event. I remember having the opportunity to talk with Buck about it. There was this tension between wanting her to stay with him, but also wanting her battle with Cancer to be gone. She knew where she was going after death, there was no worry there. But Buck wasn’t ready for her departure. But ready or not, the day came, and God called her home. And I will never forget what Buck said shortly after. “I am not thankful for what I am going through, but I give God thanks for his working in my life.”

Do you see the difference? It is impossible to be thankful for all the cards God deals us. But God never deals cards that are not meant for our good, with our best intentions in mind. How is that good we ask? I don’t know, but just because we don’t know how God uses things like this for our good doesn’t mean there isn’t a reason. But that means, to have any hope during times of suffering and pain we have to start with the truth that God is good. And because of this, we must give thanks, even when we are not thankful.

(Application) Jesus deserves our praise, because he is God and he is good. And he deserves this everyday, every hour, every second of our lives. The problem is not that the people are giving thanks for Jesus as he rides into Jerusalem, as the long awaited king. The problem is that they don’t praise him like this everyday. And the bigger problem is many of these people are going to praise him today, and bail on him when he goes to the cross.

But are we any different? More times than not, we too give God praise for a couple hours on Sunday, but the moment that’s over, we are on to the next thing. Jesus as the king, the God who is good, deserves our praise everyday. Which means that we start with the truth that he is good, and give him thanks everyday. Gathering together on Sundays should be a celebration of all the ways we have celebrated God, given thanks for him during the week. Here is what this can look like.

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From the moment you open your eyes, get in the habit of thanking God for his goodness to you, you made it through the night! Thank him for the coffee as it brews, thank him for the children who will be waking up soon, or the dog that is begging for food. Praise him when your car starts, thank him for your job, and the traffic you sit in getting there. From the moment you open your eyes, to the second you fall asleep, Jesus deserves your praise.

He also deserves our attention

He Deserves our Allegiance, in every way (19)

Why is it that the disciples are still missing so much about him, and they are around him more than anyone?

How much attention are disciples are really giving to Jesus. How much attention are they paying to what has been written about him and what he is accomplishing. Why is it that they are still missing so much about him, and they are around him more than anyone?

He deserves our attention, everyday.

John is not condemning them, just showing the reality of their blind condition. Yet, when Jesus was glorified, which is John ways of describing his crucifixion and resurrection, then the disciples remembered two things, 1) the thing that had been written about Jesus, and 2) The things that had been done to them. They have an Ah ha moment. The lightbulb goes off, and never goes dim again.

Contrasted with the disciples who don’t understand what Jesus is doing because they haven’t given enough attention to the Scripture or what Jesus has been doing is the crowd who watched Jesus raise Lazarus fro the dead. Their attention is focused on Jesus healing, but this is where it ends. And we know this because soon, when this becomes old news, they take their attention off Jesus to other things.

We Show Our Allegiance in What gets our attention (16)

In this fast paced world, we still make a great effort to focus our attention on those things that matter most to us. It is easy for religion to slip off our attention radar. Let’s be honest we feel like we have other more pressing things to give our attention to. We have the demands of work, family, friends, and because of this who has time for giving attention to spiritual matters.

And lets be honest, most of us even while paying little attention to religion or spiritual realities seem to be doing pretty well. We have food in the pantry, clothes on our back, cars in the driveway, we must be paying attention to the right things right?

But what if there are great things out there to focus our attention on?

(Illustration) The amount of student suicide in Harris County rose form 391 to 515 from 2008-2018. In a decade the amount of students grades 6-12 has nearly doubled, and the trend is not slowing down. Experts suggest another horrifying statistic. For every single successful suicide, there are at least 25 other attempts, and even more students thinking about it. That means nearly 13,000 students in a decade either attempted to take their life, or took their own life.

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Do you hear what I said? 13,000 kids… And this epidemic is not slowing down. These are not kids living in some far off land, these kids are are living next door to you. They are passing you as you grocery shop, eating across the room from you at your favorite restaurant. These are kids growing up in houses with full pantries, clothes on their backs, and nice cars in the driveway. Yet, it’s not enough. But why?

What we pay attention to matters. The problem with giving out attention to only the things we care about is our view of what is important is distorted, by our own sin. Sin rots our homes, our city, and our world. It plagues humanity and blinds us from focusing our attention on what really matters.

(Illustration) I was in a meeting this week with a group called Regen. It is a group based recovery system that deals with all kinds of addictions and sin patterns. I asked them, how do you convince people in the suburbs that they need recovery? They said, we hand them this sheet. On this sheet, they listed over 100 addictions and strongholds that people can face. Then they told me, we have people check all that apply. They said on average, people check 77 different addictions and behaviors. Things from adultery, anger, bitterness, alcoholism, drug abuse, codependency and many more.

Here is my point, sin is alive and well in Katy, TX. And our attempts to focus our attention on things other than a cure for it are producing a city, that looks good on the outside, looks put together, but is quietly suffering and rotting from the inside out.

(Application) The answer is not paying less attention to Christ, it’s paying more attention to Christ. How does that help you ask? Because our sin problem is our greatest problem. We are not sinners because we sin, rather we sin because we are sinners. Our human nature, has been distorted, corrupt in every way possible.

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The solution we need is not more education, or more systems, or even a more controlled environment then our actions will change. It’s deeper than that. Our actions, our rebellion from God, isolation from his presence, are results of us being sinners. What we need is a redeemer. Someone who’s nature is not corrupted by sin, to save us from our current state.

(Gospel) This is where we must focus all our attention. Notice, the disciples don’t get this until Jesus went to the cross, and then rose from the dead. Why? Because at the cross God makes it clear that humanities nature is beyond repair. We need a replacement nature, we need a donor nature. And Jesus comes to give us just that. His own perfect righteousness is given to us, and he takes our fractured nature. He exchanges his life, for ours. And to prove sin had finally been conquered, three days later he rose from the grave. Sin couldn’t stop him, the grave couldn’t hold him, death couldn’t defeat him. By trusting in him, his freedom from sin, becomes our freedom from sin.

(Application)

(Application) This means he has to be the center our attention. What does that mean? It means everyday from morning till night, he deserves our attention. We have to be looking for ways that he is working in our lives. We have to be checking everything we are tempted to believe to his word. Jesus, the king is speaking in our word world today, and he is speaking through his word. BUT if we are not in the word, we will miss him. We will continue to give other things our attention.

We are invited to join what the king is doing in the world.

The Pharisees are ever closer to taking Jesus in for good. It’s only a matter of time now. What they mean as a statement to finally bring about his demise, for John are words of hope for humanity. “The whole world has gone after him.” This is classic Jewish hyperbole but there were enough people going to Jesus warrant uses this phrase. Jesus influence is reaching new heights.

The Pharisees are ever closer to taking Jesus in for good. It’s only a matter of time now. But notice, John uses their statements, concern to show, what Jesus set out to accomplish, the entire world has gone to him. This is classic Jewish hyperbole but there were enough people going to Jesus warrant uses this phrase. Jesus influence is reaching new heights.

Through all my struggles with Christianity, there has always been one constant truth that has given me cause to keep considering it’s truthfulness. It’s the same observation the Pharisees are making. “The world has gone out to him.” Unlike other religions, Christianity seems to transcends cultures, races, gender. Its truth has been taught for 1,000’s of years,. yet it still is embraced by people all over the world today. Why? Because it’s true. Its hope has been poured out from the heavens and brings clarity to all humans living in the midst of this frustrating world. Jesus is the King, he makes real peace available to those who align with him.

How do we do this?

How do we do this?

We trust him. We stop trying to fix ourselves, and start depending on him to fix us. We prioritize his word, we spend time with him in prayer, we evaluate our decisions based on his word. And PS this is hard. Everything is against us, our weak flesh, our culture that despises Jesus and his word. This is why God gives us the church. People from every-walk of life joined together, because of the work of Christ. Given one another to spurn each other on to give the King what he deserves. To remind one another of the privileged of living for the king. And together to share with a watching world, there is a King who brings peace, and his name is Jesus.