Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] No one said it yet to you today I'm going to say it. Don't worry, it's a good thing.
[00:00:09] Happy Palm Sunday. Happy Palm Sunday. You have some palm branches there. If at any time during the service you want to wave them. No judgment zone here. You can wave them all you want. After the sermon we're going to have village kids come up and lead us. You can sing along with them in a song later and feel free to wave your branches then especially. They would love that. My name is Dean Anon. I'm the discipleship pastor here. I'll be down in front afterwards. Love to meet you. We're going to be in John chapter twelve. So you could open up there in your bibles or you could turn on your device. We'll also have it, most of it, much of it on the screen today as well. John Chapter twelve. We're going to start with a little map here. What happens is on Palm Sunday, before that, Jesus is up in northern Galilee, he comes down, he goes through Samaria and then he is on the east of the Jordan river, which is to the east of this. It's not on there, but he's teaching people in Perea, he's healing them as Jesus does. And then we start in that red line today.
[00:01:10] If you look there, that's the town of Bethany, and there Jesus is with his friends and does an amazing miracle there. We'll hear about later.
[00:01:21] The green line is where Jesus sends a couple, his disciples off to go and pick up a colt, which is a young donkey at Beth Page. And you can read some of the other gospels to see some specifics. John is a little shorter version of these events. And then the orange or yellow line moving into Jerusalem there. Orange or yellow, I don't know what color that is, depending on your cone cells and your eyes. It's up to you.
[00:01:49] I don't judge, whatever you call that. It can be today. But the point is, as a Christian I am encouraged every palm Sunday and I really want you to be encouraged too, because we have these different gospel writers and we have frankly a couple of different sources and yet they say the same thing. They're pointing to the exact same story. It's like God is saying, yes, you can believe these things. They actually happened and they are historical. Historical authenticity is so important. Or historicity they call it when it comes to the Bible. Because these events happened. I mean, they actually happen. We have cooperating evidence that authenticate, that, substantiate, that, verify. I'm trying to think of all the legal terms, I know that these things actually happened in history. What's the point? The point is your faith, Christian is not based on fables or fantasy. It is real. History actually happened. And Palm Sunday is the kickoff of this Holy week. And Palm Sunday in this week, I should say sometimes called passion week, is the most significant, by far the most important week in all of history. And some of you basketball fans are saying, but wait, the last week of March madness. And I'm saying, no, it's not march madness. It's this Palm Sunday week. And so let me just set up John, chapter twelve. We're going to look at verses twelve through, actually through 19. Now, I know we saw some of it before, but just to set this up, it's Sunday. And previous to this, mentioned before, Jesus was in Bethany with his friends Mary and Martha and Lazarus, that he actually resurrected from the dead. Talk more about that later. And people are flooding in from all over into Jerusalem. They're flooding in because it is the Passover feast of the Jews. And many people, they're looking for Jesus because of the signs, as John calls him. In other words, the miracles that he did, his amazing teaching, next level, nobody taught like Jesus. And then, of course, because he rose or raised Lazarus from the dead, people saw this.
[00:03:58] And if they didn't see it, people told them. And so there's all this happening right now. Let's look at verse twelve. I'll read it the next day, meeting Palm Sunday. The large crowd that had come to the feast, which is Passover, heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying, Hosanna. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Even the king of Israel.
[00:04:23] And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it. If you want more details, you can go to the other gospel writers. But it says, just as it is written. John says, fear not, daughter of Zion, behold your king coming, sitting on a donkey's colt. 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. 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. The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they had heard he had done this sign, verse 19. So the Pharisee said to one another, you see, you're gaining nothing. Look, the whole world has gone after him.
[00:05:09] Well, I want to start this palm Sunday with kind of an od place. But I want to go way back to the book of Daniel.
[00:05:17] In the book of Daniel, we know the when of when Palm Sunday was going to happen.
[00:05:25] Daniel writes about the anointed one, the Messiah, the ruler, it's called in some of your Bible translations, or the prince. And he's writing now, Daniel is one of the first captives when Jerusalem was destroyed by Babylon to be carried off to Babylon. So he gets carried off to Babylon, Jerusalem is destroyed. And Daniel's known as like a writing prophet or a writing prophet because in the 6th century BC, Daniel writes, he gets these visions from the Lord and he's writing about the anointed one. I just mentioned that. And this anointed one is the Messiah, the one who will come and will deliver the jewish people. Look what it says in Daniel, chapter nine, verse 25 through 26.
[00:06:13] Know therefore and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be, and there's a period of time here that's being talked about, seven weeks.
[00:06:29] Then for 62 weeks, it meaning Jerusalem, its wall shall be built with squares and moat into troubled time. Verse 26. And after the 62 weeks, after some period of time, an anointed one shall be cut off looking towards the cross. Now, there's a lot here to talk about, but I want to talk about Palm Sunday. Some of your translations might say something like, there will be seven sevens or 62 sevens. We don't really have to get too freaked out about this. This is something called heptads. It's sevens if you like math. And it's something that they would have understood perhaps more than we understand today, but they were talking about periods of times in sevens. This isn't rocket science to them. You thought there'd be no math today because a little bit. It's a little bit of math today because God loves math. But what's happening here is God. We're going to unpack this, but God is giving us a piece of the puzzle to his ancient people, and we can see it today because he's taking the lamp of prophecy and he's taking his hand on the knob and he's turning, know those three setting or three brightness lamps. He's beginning to turn it up and he does that with Daniel and we see it even today.
[00:07:43] What's the starting point here in this passage? It says these words again from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem. Now, a little history talked about. Babylon was destroyed by Jerusalem, but then Persia conquers Babylon. So the 6th king of Persia, his name is Artaxerxes, tells Nehemiah, remember Nehemiah from the Old Testament? Artaxerxes, the Persian pagan king, tells Nehemiah, go ahead and rebuild the wall. That's big. Why is that big? Well, we know exactly when that happened. It was March, 444 BC, an actual date in the jewish calendar. We know exactly when that was. This is the starting point of this prophecy. Now, these sevens, the way they're talking, whether it's sevens or whether it's weeks, is years, if you take seven, this isn't crazy stuff. You can check me on this. Seven times seven is 49. What's 62 times 7434? Add that together, 483 years. Now, if you take the days of a jewish calendar, 360 days, 173,880 days from the day that this word, that this decree went out from the pagan king art of Xerxes to Nehemiah, if you look at that, you work it out.
[00:08:57] It's the day that Jesus rides in to Jerusalem on a donkey. And so what's the point about this? It's not that God loves math, though. I think he does. I want your mind blown away, because my mind is blown away. I've studied this for, written about this stuff, but it's like every time in this week. Okay, here we go again. I cry when I read this prophecy. I don't know what gets you emotionally, but this kind of stuff does. Why? Because for me, it's not about. I mean, we look back, certainly we see that God uses Jerusalem's destruction, he uses Daniel's captivity, he uses the persian king. He's rebuilding the wall through Nehemiah. Yeah, Nehemiah played a big part in Palm Sunday and then all this cool math. But that's not the point. The point is, God loves his people. He doesn't leave us to wander. He gives us indications, he gives us puzzle pieces. It's just like God is saying this, believe these things, they actually happened, and I predicted it. And so this is amazing. God lines this time up directly with Jesus's last Passover on this Sunday, that date going into Jerusalem. Look at verse twelve again on the screen. Talks about the feast that they're coming to. That was Passover. Mentioned that a minute ago. You might remember Exodus, chapter twelve, the whole thing that happened, where God delivered his ancient people out of Egypt, out of slavery, under the oppression of the Egyptians. There were several plagues, and the pharaoh still wouldn't let God's people go. 10th plague in Yahweh. God finally struck down the firstborn of the egyptian people. And they let God's people go, but spared the israelite children because they were to put lamb's blood over the doorposts. And then the scripture says, and God passed over the houses of the people of Israel with the lamb's blood over the doorposts. And so they observe. The jewish people observe this great day in their history. We'll put Exodus, chapter twelve, verses 24 through 27. I won't read the whole thing, but I want you to know that what is happening here, God is saying and instituting this, you shall observe, he's saying to the jewish people, this right as a statue for you and for your own sons forever, that when you come to the land that the Lord will give you as he promised. So after he freed them from slavery, they go to the promised land. Here's what the parents are to do when the children ask verse 26, what do you mean by this service? In other what are you doing? Why are we celebrating this? That's the parents who are responsible to tell the children. And the parents say it is the sacrifice of the Lord's Passover. For he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt when he struck the Egyptians, but spared our know this was a sacred thing, a sacred time. They were to observe this rite or this statue, the Passover. Super big deal. And was it, I don't know. Was it one of the religious leaders that was to tell the children about this? No, it was the parents, the parents who told them of what the Lord had done, delivering them out of slavery. It's the lamb's blood that separated them from the other people and from the rest. The apostle Paul up in the New Testament looks at this and these events of the lamb's blood and the sacrifice and says that Christ is the Passover lamb who has been sacrificed. That's one Corinthians, chapter five, verse seven. So whether it was then or whether it's now, looking back, knowing what Christ has done, it is again the lamb's blood or Christ's blood that separates us.
[00:12:41] It's God's. People who trust in lamb's blood always see God.
[00:12:48] He promises and God delivers every single time. That's what he does. Well, some of you walked in with the palm branches. So the palm branches are being waved here in verse 13, and they're yelling, Hosanna. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the king of Israel. There's a contrast. And John writes with contrast often, and he's back in Bethany, first Jesus is smaller town. Something's going on, though, with the crowd because there was the raising of Lazarus from the dead. But really he's with his friends, it's a little quieter. Then he gets to this crazy, crazy parade here in Jerusalem. People are waving the palm branches and they're shouting. And most likely what I think is in their mind, 164 or so years before or 164 BC, I should say the jewish people overthrew the king of Syria, who came into their land and they celebrated that then with palm branches. And they're doing the same thing now. So what are they thinking? Well, we do know that those palm branches are a symbol of national hope and victory.
[00:13:55] And perhaps, just perhaps, many are thinking this has got to be the right time. I mean, look, look what Jesus has done. This has to be the one, right? The king, the one who's going to deliver. Many are probably thinking, he can do this to Rome, he can throw Rome out. I mean, God did it to Syria. He did it to know he can free us from the oppression. It's probably what they're thinking, and some of us are probably potentially wanting to judge that crowd of the day. But I think we want to back up and be a little careful because I don't know what would be in my heart at that time. Remember, they saw all these wonderful, wonderful miracles, many of them in daylight, many of them before many people, and they're waiting and they know that a deliverer is coming. They know that.
[00:14:45] And they also know that he just raised Lazarus from the dead. No one does that. Oh, wait, Jesus did that. So it also says in the book of Matthew, Matthew, chapter 21 has an account of this too. So does Mark eleven and other places. But it says this, it says that all of Jerusalem is stirred up at this time when Jesus is coming. In the gospel of Matthew says, and when he entered, meaning Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up. The last time when the whole of Jerusalem was stirred up was when Jesus was born. And you might say, wait, he was born in Bethlehem, right? Yeah, but King Herod knew about this, knew about the birth of Jesus. And it says in Matthew's gospel, chapter two, it says this about Herod and about Jerusalem. It says Herod was troubled and all of Jerusalem with him. They're what? They're troubled. They're stirred up. So what did Herod do? He asked the chief priests and the scribes and inquired about the Christ child. Where would he would be born so that he would go worship him? No, of course not. He was afraid of Jesus taking over his power. And he had the babies in Bethlehem killed.
[00:16:06] All of Jerusalem was stirred up. Certainly Bethlehem. But Herod didn't get it.
[00:16:12] Frankly, most of the crowd didn't get it. What didn't they get? They didn't get who Jesus was and why he came. They're putting ideas onto who Jesus is and why he came.
[00:16:22] But we can't do that.
[00:16:25] John, chapter twelve, verse 13, the second part of that. We read this a few times already today. Hosanna. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. They're shouting, and by the way, words really matter, don't they? Even in your home, don't words matter? Words matter. They're saying Hosanna, and they're saying, and we just saying that the king of Israel, Matthew's gospel, said Hosanna to the son of know one of these things is going to deliver the other. In other words, this king is going to deliver or save them now, because Hosanna in the Hebrew and the original languages, just save us. Some translate it as, please save us now. Save us, they're saying.
[00:17:04] But more than this, because what's underneath this is something for the crowds that goes back certainly to their childhood.
[00:17:12] And in their childhood, they would know the great songs and the psalms that they were given to sing. Psalm 118, specifically is a messianic or a messianic psalm or a psalm about the Messiah to come. And it says this. Psalm 118, verse 25 and 26. Save us, we pray, o Lord. O Lord, we pray. Give us success. And here's those words that we just saw in John. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. This is about a specific person coming. We bless you. This is where they want to save them from the house of the Lord. Psalm 118. This psalm is cited more than any other psalm in the entire New Testament. And so this psalm, which is a messianic psalm, is about the promised seed or the one, the person who would come from the house of David, the lineage of King David himself. And now they're assigning the crowd is. They're assigning this title to Jesus Messiah, and they're right, because he is the one who delivers. He is the anointed one.
[00:18:16] But they misunderstood something.
[00:18:20] They didn't quite get the scripture, they didn't quite get his mission, and they didn't quite get his.
[00:18:30] That's okay. We're talking about them. But how about mean, even today, I'm thinking in Christians, in our own personal lives, we think about Jesus.
[00:18:40] What does he mean to us? What has he done? Well, if you've trusted in Jesus for forgiveness of your own sins, personally believed in his gospel, then he has come certainly to save you from sin, to save you from hell, to give you the Holy Spirit in you, to guarantee your inheritance of a forever family member, a child of his for all eternity.
[00:19:07] And he gives you all of those things. He's come to do that for anybody who will trust in Jesus. But one thing he doesn't always give, nor does he always promise in this lifetime until he comes again, is that those circumstances that you have, and I know it's painful because I know many of you and what you're going through, but the pain that you feel and what is happening in your own lives, he's not always going to deliver us from that, is he?
[00:19:37] Until he comes again, at least we're guaranteed. But we know he is good.
[00:19:42] We know he loves us. We know that suffering, I'll put a quick slide up. A suffering is a few points, is a result of the fall of man's sin. So it is here until he comes and makes things right again. And it was experienced by even the heroes of the faith. In Hebrew, chapter eleven, great chapter to read. And he allows suffering for us so we can be more, no, so we can witness God's grace to others.
[00:20:12] That's hard, I know, but also he allows suffering so it can shape us, shape us, change us to be more like Christ, who is our suffering servant. So I don't want us to feel we have to seek suffering, love, suffering, any of that. That's probably silly, but maybe our expectations sometime, even this week, maybe need to be tweaked a little bit, because he wants us to be more like his son Jesus.
[00:20:41] Well, let's move on to verses 14 and 15. I'm just going through the passage today. So we move from some really cool math prophecy to palm branches and then to a donkey. It says in verse 14, read it a few times, that he comes in on a donkey. Now Jesus was certainly controversial, and he brought a lot of contrast. You see here when he comes in, John is writing. He says, just as it is written. He's referring back to an Old Testament prophecy where it says, fear not, daughter of Zion, behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey's colt.
[00:21:18] So the contrast here again for John would be, as he's writing, if Jesus were to or was to come and overthrow Rome, what would he do? He'd probably come in on a war horse, maybe come in on a chariot, like three centuries earlier. Alexander the Great came in, took over much of the known world. And Zechariah and Daniel, the prophets, they actually wrote about and prophesied about Alexander the Great. That's for free. That's free of charge. That's not the point at all. The point is, I just think that's really amazing. But the point is that Jesus rides in slowly on a donkey, almost imagine the disciples grabing some of those palm branches, maybe two or three. Kind of smack that thing to move it along. But he's coming in. Jesus is at his speed, which is the perfect pace that he's coming in to deliver.
[00:22:14] Know, when I think of a donkey, I didn't grow up on a farm or anything. When I think of a donkey, I think he haw kind of silly, know? And I have a picture of a donkey. That's not a self portrait. Somebody said that at the last. It's not a selfie. It's not nice to you. Maybe you grew up on a farm with working animals and you know the value of donkeys. They're a serious animal. They're very valuable. In the ancient Near east, if you were to try to ride in and conquer a nation, you'd come in on a warhorse. But if you were a leader or a king, like King Solomon, for example, in the Old Testament that was coming to bring peace, you would ride on a donkey.
[00:22:54] Again, these contrasts right then, and maybe even today, you have who people want Jesus to be and who he is and what people want Jesus to do and what he does.
[00:23:10] He's coming in peace. That's what he's bringing to them. It's probably not the main point, though, I think concerning the donkey, or at least on equal footing, is this. If you've been in Palm Sunday sermons and in Bible studies for much of your life, you kind of know where this is going, what John is talking about when it says fear not, daughter of Zion. And you look at this, you're seeing an actual prophecy from Zechariah, chapter nine, verse nine, being fulfilled. An ancient Old Testament prophecy that John is simply referencing and reflecting on as he writes.
[00:23:52] It says, just as it is written, meaning he's quoting parts of Zechariah where John is quoting God's poetic language. I love where it says, this is so important to the people, daughter of Zion. This is God's father's heart. This is fatherhood language to his people. But also daughter of Zion is commonly used when God is talking to his oppressed people, the people of Jerusalem, both oppressed. And it shows his fatherhood heart. But let's put the whole thing up. Zechariah. Nine. Nine. It's not too long. I'll read it.
[00:24:27] This is what the prophecy itself says. 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 full of a donkey.
[00:24:46] So knowing what we know about the donkey and the Messiah coming, he's going to come in peace. That's a big part of the donkey, of course. But we see his character, don't we, in this passage today? His character. He's righteous. He is right and perfect in every single thing he does. Seems like I'd want to be arrogant if I was like that. But he's humble. It says of his character, he's righteous. He's humble. And this is a question for you, and someone can shout it out if you want, but what does it say? He brings. What is he bringing with him?
[00:25:19] The s word, salvation. He is having salvation. Is he? This is what he is, this messiah. This is a messianic prophecy about Jesus. He's bringing with him salvation.
[00:25:34] The first time he came to earth, he came to bring salvation, which is what we need, forgiveness of sins. King Herod missed it.
[00:25:42] Most of the crowd here is missing it for sure. And some scholars like to count up these old Testament messianic prophecies, prophecies about Jesus himself and what it would be like and all that business, and some of them come up with over 300. But that's not that important when it comes to prophecy. It's not about who at your Bible study tables knows more than you. It's not about who's sitting next to you in the chair and whether they know or don't know. It's not the fact that I'm saying this now. The issue is always is about God's faithfulness.
[00:26:22] If God is faithful, and it is that stands on top of the truth that he promises and he delivers every time. So if God is faithful, meaning he promises and delivers every time, that means we can trust him. And so I want to encourage you today that you can trust the Lord, you can trust his holy scriptures. And you may not be familiar with this, but if you look at any other writings of ancient scriptures of any sort, from any religion, there is nobody anywhere that writes things anything like this, and yet, let alone delivers. We have the divine truth and the word of God. I hope that's encouraging to you.
[00:27:02] The crowds expected one thing, but Jesus is giving them what they really need, salvation.
[00:27:08] Another contrast that I see here is instead of an arrogant, ruthless ruler, dictator bringing conquest in, thinking he's a God, no God at all. Like Alexander the Great, for example, we have Jesus. Jesus comes in all peace, like Zechariah 99 says, to bring salvation, which is what we need. But sometimes we miss that. Sometimes maybe we forget for a day or more. But the crowd, most of them certainly did. Let's look at John, chapter twelve, verse 16. Here in a second. Peter now is with the disciples, and they're there and they're missing this stuff. They're missing Zechariah's prophecy, what that's about. They're missing the timing. They're missing what Psalm 118 is actually saying. So in a moment, I want to go back to Psalm 118 because it's important to understand what God is really saying in that psalm. But also they're missing the clear teaching of Jesus, because before Palm Sunday, before Jesus got on the donkey, before he went into Jerusalem, he told them multiple times that his mission is to die on a cross. They're still missing that. Look at verse 16 with me. The 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. His disciples did not understand these things, so they've been with him for a long time. They're still not getting probably the most important thing it says. But when Jesus was glorified, in other words, when he was crucified, raised from the dead, the disciples were given through illumination of the Holy Spirit, an understanding of what this was about. They remembered these things. It says later on they did what was written about him, meaning Jesus. The Zechariah prophecy we just talked about. Then they got it.
[00:28:59] They had missed something. Look at this picture. Thinking, talking about missing something. All right, take a look at it. Yeah. Somebody understands what's going on there.
[00:29:10] I don't know if that a young person or, I can't tell who that is, but somebody's laying down there. They are upset.
[00:29:16] Something didn't go right, apparently. Looks like they're trying to put together something there. Yeah, you guessed it by now. It's supposed to be a chair.
[00:29:23] They missed something. They're distraught, thinking of an Ikea. I've never been there, but okay, maybe once, think about Ikea or some of these other places. They have instructions, or they just have diagrams somewhere along the line. This person missed what was there right in front of them. They missed it. And that's the result, they could have saved themselves a lot of heartache had they paid attention and read what was really there.
[00:29:51] All of what was there. Remember earlier in Psalm 118, talked about in verse 26, it says, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. They were saying that at Palm Sunday, but that's back from the old Testament psalm.
[00:30:06] What were they really missing? Well, in the psalm that we talked about earlier, if you go back three verses from where we were, go up a little bit, you'll see in Psalm 22, this is another messianic psalm, a psalm about the messiah. It says this so in context, trying to understand this. Psalm 20, Psalm 18, verse 22, says this, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is the Lord's doing. It is marvelous in our eyes.
[00:30:35] You know, this stone is about the messiah.
[00:30:40] We actually know that without doubt, because Jesus himself claimed it for himself in the New Testament, in Matthew, the book of Matthew. Here's what Jesus says. He says that I am the stone. And then he says that the builders are Israel's leaders. And he says, therefore, he's going to be rejected by Israel's leaders. The point here is we need to slow down. We need to see what's all there in scripture and not base what we're thinking on one bit, because then we're going to miss something and end up like that chair or like the person on the floor. Because whatever we put together without knowing all of it is nothing that can hold weight at all.
[00:31:18] Now, Peter's ministry, quite a bit later in the New Testament, up in Acts chapter four, you'll see that Peter is before the jewish council years later.
[00:31:29] And here's what Peter says too, concerning this psalm. Here's what he says to the jewish council. He says this, Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you. I don't know how he said it, but I could imagine maybe he was pointing at them, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation and no one else, meaning the stone is Jesus, salvation only through him. For there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Peter is saying Jesus is God's choice. Jesus is the cornerstone.
[00:32:04] Going back to that psalm.
[00:32:08] Well, I want to close with two so whats. And first, if you are someone today who says you are a believer in Jesus Christ, then the first. So what is, what is your thinking back to our passage today, using some of that language today? What is your reason that you shout for Jesus? I mean, like the crowds? I mean, Good Friday's coming up right on our calendar, we have good Fridays. So why? Here's another way to think of it. Why do I worship Jesus?
[00:32:49] Or maybe another way. What are my expectations of Jesus, frankly? Why do I worship Jesus? Can I name it? Do I actually live it functionally? Am I acting, in other words, like Jesus is king? Or except maybe on Wednesday, maybe I'm king just on Wednesdays, right? Who's king? Who is king? We think about that traps series we had a bit ago and some of the points during those traps, we saw some things that were false, maybe even from the culture. For example, am I picking up some of those things and putting it in my life to describe, to think, not evaluate, but to inform myself about maybe who Jesus is, maybe what his mission is, but they're false. Is there anything in my life I need to recalibrate or reevaluate when I move towards the cross?
[00:33:45] Look at verse 17.
[00:33:49] Put it up there one more time. The crowd that had been with him, with Jesus, when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him, the dead continued to bear witness. That sounds good.
[00:33:59] Look at verse 18. The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they had heard he had done this sign, the. The miracle of raising Lazarus. So John is saying why he's helping us see why the crowd was after Jesus was because they heard about the signs.
[00:34:19] There's something about a show, right? People like a show. People love to feel good. They love the excitement of what's going on, the energy that came with, frankly, in chapter eleven of the book of John, Lazarus's resurrection. There's a lot going there. People are excited. But for us, let's take time to understand.
[00:34:40] Do I have anything in my heart, a reason other than why Jesus came to save me, that I'm shouting for him this week? Let's think about that before we go to the cross, believers. Second so what I have is I want to go back to Bethany again, stay there for a minute. This is before Jesus again went into Jerusalem. And I want to invite people today, if you're watching online or if you're here, if you haven't ever asked Jesus to forgive your sins, I want you to know he will.
[00:35:10] Whatever you have done, he will forgive you. Believe that he died on the cross. Believe that he died on the cross to take the judgment that you deserve. But Jesus took and believe he rose three days later. The Bible says that you will be saved. So what too is believe today in Jesus as the son of God who will forgive your sins and give you eternal life.
[00:35:32] The moment you trust in Jesus, you begin your eternal life. But you will be with him forever and he will resurrect you on the last day. That's what the Bible promises, going back to chapter eleven of John. Just talking about it for a moment. This is when Jesus was with his friends, Mary, Martha. But at that time, Lazarus had died and Martha really loved Jesus, but she was in a lot of pain and so was her family.
[00:36:06] This is moments before Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. Here's what Jesus says with all compassion and to be very clear about who he is, he says this to her, to Martha, I am the resurrection and the life. Jesus says, whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this? He says to Martha, do you believe this? And then she said back to him, yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world. I think for my money, these are some of the most amazing words that Jesus has ever said in all of scripture.
[00:36:57] And so, whether you're here again or if you're watching online, I want you to know that this invitation is not just for Martha. It is for everybody. Is a universal invitation to you today. You don't have to understand everything about the Bible. You don't have to have all of your questions answered. But you need your sin dealt with today. So come to him. If you ask him to forgive your sins, believe he took the hit for you on the cross, that you deserve all of your past sins, all of your current sins, of the sins in the future will be forgiven by God. Believe he rose again and the Bible says, you will be saved. Trust in him today and you will live for him, with him, forever. And if you've done that right now, please, I'll be down here afterwards. Make sure you tell somebody, but I'll be down here afterwards. I would love to. Love to talk to you.
