Jesus stayed on track even though the leaders were plotting against Him. How can we learn to not be buffeted around by what is happening...just like Jesus?
So roll up your sleeves, put your mind in gear, be totally ready to receive the gift that’s coming when Jesus arrives. Don’t lazily slip back into those old grooves of evil, doing just what you feel like doing. You didn’t know any better then; you do now. As obedient children, let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God’s life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness. God said, “I am holy; you be holy. [1 Peter 1:13-16]
Jesus stayed on track even though the leaders were plotting against Him. How can we learn to not be buffeted around by what is happening...just like Jesus?
So roll up your sleeves, put your mind in gear, be totally ready to receive the gift that’s coming when Jesus arrives. Don’t lazily slip back into those old grooves of evil, doing just what you feel like doing. You didn’t know any better then; you do now. As obedient children, let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God’s life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness. God said, “I am holy; you be holy. [1 Peter 1:13-16]
Has anything ever happened that got you off track? It was who you were doing your task, and then somebody else did somethings over there. And it kinda got you off, off your task. Is that ever stopped you for a while today? This morning's text is kind of about that. I'm going to read it and talk to you about it. Last week, we were talking about how, um, Jesus can see and the daylight and doesn't trip because he walks according to the light and, and everybody else in the text was even though there were his people, they didn't have the Holy spirit yet. And so they were walking in the darkness. So, so today, so more people walking in darkness that even though that have some wine in their life too, but here it is John 1145. Many of the people who were with Mary believed in Jesus when they saw this happen. That's when they saw Lazarus raised from the dead, but someone to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. And when the leading priests and Pharisees called the high council together, what are we going to do? They asked each other, this man certainly performs many miraculous signs. If we allow him to go on like this soon, everyone will believe in him. And then the Roman army will come and destroy both our temple and our nation. First, let me pause for a second and just tell you that, that that's a misnomer. If they're following after him, his kingdom, he will say this later is not of this earth. It's not like that. And so he's not after that kind of revolution. He's after helping people walk, according to the light, not darkness,
Speaker 2:But they don't know that they,
Speaker 1:I think everybody is just exactly like them, which by the way is pretty much the way most people operate by default. Most people are either exactly like me, or they're not as smart as me. That's kind of the way the world looks at it. So anyway, 49 continuing Caiaphas was the high priest that
Speaker 2:At that time and said, okay,
Speaker 1:You don't know what you're talking about. You don't realize it's better for you than one man should die for the people. Then the whole nation be destroyed. Of course, his presumption here is that Jesus is trying to take over the land. Politically.
Speaker 2:I need to tell you that
Speaker 1:He wasn't a political revolutionary. Anyway, he didn't say this on his own as high priest at the time, he was led to prophesied that Jesus would die for the entire nation. Okay? So he's walking in darkness, he's off track. He's not doing what his job really was. And yet his job had him this and say this thing. But even, even at this time, he doesn't understand that. And not only for the nation, but to bring together and unite all the children of God scattered around the world. So from this time on the Jewish leaders began to plot Jesus's death. That's not the same thing as saying, man, I wish Jesus would stop, or I wish Jesus would go away. This is actively pursuing him To make sure that he does. As a result, Jesus stopped his public ministry among the people and left Jerusalem. He went to a place near the wilderness, to the village of Ephram and stayed there with his disciples. It was now almost time for the Jewish Passover celebration and many people from all over the country arrived in Jerusalem several days early. So they could go through the purification ceremony before Passover. It began, they kept looking for Jesus, but as they stood around in the temple, they said to each other, what do you think he w he won't come for Passover. Willy. Meanwhile, the leading priests and the Pharisees had publicly ordered that anyone seeing Jesus must report to him immediately reported to them immediately so they could arrest him. So the Passovers come and this is the big time and the thing, and they're all looking for Jesus. They're kind of just spectators of the moment. Jesus is on his own. He stopped his public ministry because they're plotting to kill him, but he's still on his number one priority. This stuff it's as though Jesus had sort of some blinders on and goes, well, if they're gonna do this and, and keep me from doing my number one priority, which is to pour into these 12 and to prepare them for when I go, so Pentecost can happen in 43 more days or whatever it was from this point in time. Anyway, he 50 days, anyway, he's doing this, he's doing this. He's setting himself up so that he can stay on task. He's not getting side sideways because somebody else is doing something it's like, there's a meme. And the other day I saw on Facebook, it said, I saw a Facebook post from somebody that I really disagreed with. I just scrolled right by didn't comment or not, then didn't have to. So, so in this day and age, it's really important to keep ourselves on track. Now, what's he doing? Jesus is specifically keeping his sight on the project at hand. Now the project at hand is twofold. Prepare the disciples for the Holy spirit, coming, pour as much into them as possible. And the cross, this is the task he's on. This is the task. He will not be derailed from. And until it's his time to happen, he won't be derailed from it. And so Jesus is staying on this task. So Caiaphas and them have nothing to do with his priority list. Now he's saying, if you're going to do this, I'll just keep doing my thing over here and do this. And we're going to do that. Then when it comes time Caiaphas and his people will come after him and they will engineer a way to make sure that Jesus dies, but that's in his plan and his priority list. He's not getting sidetracked because of,
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's so easy for us to get sidetracked and taken off course by somebody it's as though we need to be able to keep our eyes on the prize. How is it that we can do this stuff in the middle of a pandemic and not live a life full of worry. Now, some of you might be worrying about that. I'm going to talk about it. We started the church this morning with this thing. So Jesus loves you and God's got your back. How do you know that that's going to do that? How, how can we stay on track no matter what's going on around us? Well, the Bible is full of ideas on how to do this. But the main thing here is is that no matter what you're going through, your Jesus is person. Whether you've you're sick or whether you're healthy, whether you're rich or whether you're poor. The main thing isn't, whether you're sick or healthy, but whether you're Jesus, his person, and when you're Jesus is person, you can go through those things and keep your mind, keep your eyes on the prize of, of Jesus and his kingdom. It's as though there's a horizon line out there in front of us, that we need to pay particular attention to in order to get there. And if we lose our sight of that horizon line, we get off track. If we suddenly turn our head over to the right, because somebody is making noise over there, then we get off track and it gets us, um, lost or misplaced or, or takes us longer to get back on track. It's the same thing as learning how to drive and teaching the kids, how to drive. Um, when you're T learning how to drive, where you keep your eyes on the road is a really big deal. If your eyes are, are too far away, then you can't see where you're going. So you have to be able to see where you're going. But if they're too close to the car, you end up modifying your driving so much that you're just essentially playing the bumpers, right? That, that, Oh, I'm not in the center. I'm not in the center. But if your eyes, if your eyes are a little further out, then you become immune to this sort of jerking back and forth are always correcting your path. This is what Jesus is doing in this thing. It was almost the time for the Passover. He's got a couple of things to do. Matter of fact, arrested John is about the last week or so of Jesus's life. And he's there making sure his disciples are ready and the crucifixion is on his thing. So he's got some stuff to do before he comes back. These guys over here, they don't have anything to do with him yet. They might have something to do with him in a little bit, but not right at the moment. He's keeping his eyes on the prize. This is how we learn, how to do this is in the midst of troubles. We don't go, Oh, no, I don't know what to do. You say, I don't know what I'm going to do, but I know I'm going to be okay because Jesus loves me. And God's got my back. You say that with me, Jesus loves me. And God's got my back. Jesus loves you. And God's got your back. It's so simple. But if we take our eyes off of that truth, we will end up getting into all sorts of troubles and back alleys and called us acts that we were never intended to do. It's as though you're on a back road. This happened once when I was pastoring in Saint John, I was driving harvest truck and we're off in the middle of nowhere on a harvest road. And somebody drives up and says, is this really the way to Seattle? And the truth is, well, yeah, you could get there, but your directions were set wrong and you got off track. And now you're lost. You can keep your eyes on their prize. When you're going to Seattle, find the main routes and go, you don't want to end up on a harvest road, stuck in the middle of nowhere in bad weather. And what I mean by that is there's times out there when those roads are so soft, that you can bury yourself to your axle. I remember a farmer once saying that he could help him out, but he would learn better if he paid for a tow truck. That's a tough lesson about not keeping your eyes on
Speaker 2:The prize, not keeping the main thing. The main thing it's as though when you're we spend our whole life with a priority list, that's out of whack. And so today I want to make sure that we get our priority lists in correct order that before Dave is pastor of the church, Dave is Jesus's person after G David, Dave, pastor Dave is Jesus. His person, he's a pastor and a dad. But if I don't do those things, then I don't. If I don't do the dad thing, right. Or the husband thing, right. Then, then it puts it in jeopardy, the pastor thing. So my priorities have to be right. And after that, there's some other priorities that we have that they all follow. Those first things. That's the lesson I want you to learn about this thing from, from Jesus today is even though they're plotting his dad, he still on his thing. Now he might utilize them later, but they have no power over him unless he allows it. The world has no power over your joy and Christ, unless you allow it. So the question today that I have for you church is have you ever been off track? Did you ever get your eyes off the prize? How hard was it to get back? How hard was it to get back on track? I'm telling you in church, it's a lot easier to stay on track to begin with than it is to get back on track, ask any runner that if you're running regularly, you take a break, you take a two day break, you take a three day break, bad. Every day you take a break. The harder it is to get going again, here's to us, staying on track, keeping our eyes on Jesus and the love he has for us. Jesus loves you. And God's got your back. He'll take care of the other stuff. You keep that first thing. The first thing we pray with me, Lord Jesus, this morning is we're here. I asked you specifically to lift our people's eyes and put them on you and help them stay on you. That regardless of their circumstances, as Paul would say, I've learned the secret to happiness in all things and in poor, in wealth and in busy. And in times of of stress, all of those things is keep your eyes on Christ and follow him wherever he takes you. Lord Jesus. We asked for that, that we would learn the secret of not being buffeted left and right by whatever's going on, but we would be able to keep our eyes on the prize. That's you and the life you have for us in your precious name. Amen.