Spiritual mothers and fathers do not see God as distant, inspecting or disappointed. They are intimate with God and have a right view of Him.

As image-bearers of Christ, we are refined throughout our lives; suffering and brokenness are integral parts of God's sanctification process.

Believers pray understanding there is one True God who is personal, living and hears their prayers, who is caring and involved in their lives, and who wants to have the same intimacy with us that He does with His Son, Jesus.

Spiritual warfare is an essential component of our discipleship. Spiritual warfare and a Biblical world-view are defined.

"The Temptations" lesson includes a discussion of sin and human nature, the temptation of Adam and Eve and the temptation of Christ. Satanic temptations include doubt, vulnerable times of fatigue and discouragement, and neglect of God's Word. We must declare God's truth and command enemy forces and influence to depart from us in the name and ...

This powerful study will provide answers to the central truth, the scarlet thread of the Bible. Preach it as a sermon, teach the lesson to your class or use it as a Bible study tool for your own personal devotions.

Why did Jesus Have to Rise Again? The Why’s of Easter Greg Lavine and John Beeson So we begin this Easter Sunday with this declaration. He is risen. He is risen indeed. One more time. He is risen. He is risen indeed. Amen. Now we respond in that way, not just because it's some religious thing that we do, some, some little thing that the church, churchy thing that we do on Easter Sunday. It is us repeating the most outrageous claim in all of history that a man came who is fully God and fully man and lived among us 2,000 years ago. His name was Jesus Christ and he died a humiliating death at the hands of the Roman government and then rose again to conquer death and sin forever. And so when we say he is risen, he is risen indeed. We, we step into an outrageous and audacious claim. Now there have been outrageous claims made throughout history, each with their own set of implications. The Buddha said that there was no permanent self that radically changes our lives, our way that we view humanity. If that is true, Muhammad said, I am the final prophet. An outrageous claim that gives him the utmost authority of anyone who's ever lived radically changes reality. But none made a more audacious claim than Jesus Christ himself, who claimed to be God, a human being. There's an interaction. Jesus made this claim throughout his ministry. There's one interaction that he had with the religious leaders at the time who said, hey Jesus, just we've heard rumors that you're saying this, but just say it plainly. Are you the Messiah? And he one ups them. Jesus over in John 10 returns and he's going to say, I'm not just Messiah. He says this, I and the Father are one. The God that you worship is now here with you in the flesh. An outrageous claim. Now how can a man prove such a claim? You look to Jesus in his life and you could see the powerful teachings that he gave us that still resonate 2,000 years later. You could say, well that's some proof. You can look at his life and see a life of righteousness and humility. And you could say, well that's some proof. You can look at his miracles changing the fate of those who are blind to see. Lame who walked even demonstrating the power over death in raising up of Lazarus, the expelling of demons, the declaration that he can forgive sin, all of those things are proof. But there is no proof more powerful than than the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. He knew it and he shared with the disciples over and over, I am going to die, I'm going to be laid in a tomb and three days later I will rise from the dead. On seven different occasions in The Gospels, we read those exact words. Consider just one with me out of the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 17. As they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, the Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men and they will kill him and he'll be raised on the third day. And they were greatly distressed. They didn't get it. They didn't understand it. Jesus knew his greatest proof of being God was going to be rising from the dead. And they had to grasp this. They had. This is a foundational aspect of the Christian faith. At its very base, Jesus Christ is God and rose from the dead. Paul, Paul says this is of absolute first importance. Consider these words in First Corinthians, chapter 15, First Corinthians, chapter 15, beginning in verse 3. For I delivered to you as a first importance, this is, this is number one on your list. I'm giving this to you as the most important thing of the Gospel. Who I also received, I delivered to you. I went back to verse one. For I delivered to you as a first importance what I also received. That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. And that he appeared to Cephas, then to the 12. Then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Well, this is a big deal. This is foundational. Jesus Christ was not simply a prophet. Jesus Christ was not simply a good teacher. Jesus Christ was not simply a great moral man of God setting an example in this world. Jesus Christ is God and he proved it by his resurrection. This is why we need to address this. He says he appeared to Peter. That's great. He appeared to the 12. Fantastic. Then he appeared to more than 500 people at one time. And most of them were still alive. Go check it out. There's, there's all these theories that people put out there. Well, maybe, maybe Rome hid his body. That's, that's what happened to Jesus. He didn't rise from the dead of any government on earth that wanted to squel a rebellion and offer up the body of Jesus, it was Rome. Well maybe, maybe the Jews stole his body and hid it away, that it actually is one up over the Romans. If there's any group on earth that wanted to provide the body to stop this movement, it was the Jewish people. Some people say, well maybe it was the disciples. Paul said, don't you understand? The disciples gave up their lives for the truth that they saw the resurrected Jesus. And it's not just 12 of them. He appeared to over 500 at one time and most of them are still alive. Go check it out. He is saying, this is so foundational, it's verifiable fact. He is risen. He is risen indeed. Yes. So here's the turn in the sermon. You could sit there and say, okay, all right, I'll follow with you. That Jesus rose again from the dead, but what does that mean for me? How does that impact my life? That's the question we've been asking the last few weeks. What does the life of Jesus mean for you? For me, what does the death of Jesus mean for us? And today we ask this question, okay, if it's true that Jesus rose again from the dead, what does it actually mean for us? What's the impact in our lives? We want to begin here. We're going to give you three reasons that it impacts our lives. And the first is this, that it confirms that Jesus is God. It confirms that Jesus is God. And if Jesus is God, it changes the way in which we encounter him. It changes the way that we listen to his words, that we respond to his words. Jesus makes this claim himself. I want to take us to another time that he makes this claim. It's actually the most highest stakes moment of his life. His life is on the line and he can easily wriggle out of it if he just gives up this claim because he's on trial for blasphemy, on trial for claiming to be God. Listen to what happens as Jesus is in front of Caiaphas, the high priest and the Sanhedrin, verse 59 of Matthew 26. Now the chief priests and the whole council were seeking false testimony against Jesus that they might put him to death. But they found none. There were many false witnesses that came forward at last. Two came forward and said, this man said, I am able to destroy the temple of God and to rebuild it in three days. Jesus is speaking of himself as the fulfillment of the temple. He is the one who's going to be destroyed and raised again in three days. And the high priest stood and he said, have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you? But Jesus remained silent. And the high priest said to him, I adjure you by the living God. Tell us if you are the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God. Jesus said to him, you have said so, but I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven. Jesus, in the face of judgment, with his life on the line, says, this claim that you're making about me, you have no idea the implications of it. It's absolutely true, says I. The Son of Man. It's his favorite way to refer to himself. It's back from a prophecy in the Old Testament that speaks of the Divine one who will come. The Son of Man. I will come. You judge me today. But on that final day, I will sit in judgment over you and over everyone. I am the Almighty, I am the judge. I am God. Jesus says, if I had a time machine, that's one conversation I would like to have witnessed. Jesus appears to the disciples. There's 11 at this point. And he appears to them and shows himself to them. But Thomas is not with them. And the other disciples go to Thomas and they say, thomas, Jesus rose from the dead. We saw him, we were with him. And Thomas says, when I see him with my own eyes, in fact, I want to touch the wounds in his hand. Then I'll believe that he rose from the dead. Eight days later, Jesus appeared to the disciples again. And Thomas is there. And Jesus doesn't wait for Thomas to bring it up. Jesus sees Thomas, says, thomas, I heard you. Come and touch my hands. And Thomas gets up and touches his hands and listen, listen to these words. This is out of John, chapter 19, in verse 28. John, chapter 20. Yeah, John 20. Next page, verse 28. Thomas answered him. These are Thomas words. My Lord and my God. You rose from the dead. That, that proves you're not just my Lord. You're my Lord and my God. The resurrection of Jesus Christ shows that he is God. It. It proves that he is God. It's meaningful to me because we all have doubting Thomases inside of us. There's oftentimes I think Jesus didn't have to rise from the dead publicly. He paid for our sins on the cross. He was laid in the tomb. He could have just risen and gone up to heaven without rolling the stone away, without visiting anyone. He could have just ascended into the, into the heavens, but he didn't. Why did Jesus rise from the dead visibly, tangibly, so that human beings could see him, so that we would believe, so that we would see it and know he's God. It's tangible, it's provable. He is God. And this is a foundational truth. Had a friend that I met with for a while, that was Mormon, and we began pouring into each other's lives, trying to understand each other. And I will never forget early into that conversation, I looked at him and I said, okay. Do you believe Jesus is God? He said, yes. That wasn't the answer I was expecting. And I kind of backpedaled and I. Oh, I didn't know you thought that. It was a month later, before I slowly started to realize we were using a different vocabulary. We were using words different. And I came back to it. I said, okay, remember when I asked you if Jesus was God? And you said, yes. Is he God, like, supreme above everything, Creator of heaven and earth, the one God of Gods, Lord of Lords, King of kings over everything? Oh, no. He said, I believe he's a God, like I'm a God. I thought, oh, okay. So that's the difference. Here's a truth. This truth divides all religions on the face of the earth. This truth divides all denominations. If you are Christian, you believe in this. If you don't believe in this, you. You're not Christian. I don't care what name you put on the wall of your building. Jesus Christ is God, died for our sins, and three days later rose from the dead. It is a foundational truth. Foundational truth. Consider these words out of the Book of Romans. I have a lot of Roman. I turned right to it. I'm so proud of myself. Romans, chapter one. In verse eight, first I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you because of. I didn't. Verse 1. Skip verse 8. It's a great verse, but let's go back. Verse 1. Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the Gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures concerning his Son, Jesus, who was descended from David according to the flesh. In other words, we know he's a human being because he descended from David. We know his ancestry. We know his parents. We know Mary, where he was born. We know he was a human being because he descended from David. And verse four was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness. By his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, he proves he is God by the power of the resurrection. Jesus Christ is alive today. He is risen. He is risen indeed. Amen. The first thing that the resurrection means for you and me is that it proves that Jesus is God. The second thing it means for us is that it guarantees a resurrection. It guarantees a resurrection. When we speak of resurrection, we're not talking about some spiritualized thing. You might have been to a memorial service where they say the deceased will live on in our memories, right? That's not what we're talking about with Jesus, what we're talking about is a true bodily resurrection, a conquering of death. Paul puts it all on the line earlier in the sermon Greg was in First Corinthians 15. He continues that line of reasoning and he pushes all of his poker chips into the center of the table. He says, listen, if this is false, this Christianity thing isn't some nice little thing. It's ridiculous. It's absurd. It's to be mocked. Listen to him in First Corinthians 15:17. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you're still in your sins. Death awaits you. You are trapped by your sin, trapped by your flesh, trapped by the bentness of your own heart. The resurrection of Jesus Christ must be true for any of those things to be untrue. But he says he has been risen. And because Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead, all of that has changed. Listen to him continue down in verse 20. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as man came, death by a man has also come, the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. Let me explain what he's saying there. He's saying, listen, every single one of us, we all have the same Father. Way back at the beginning, the first man, the first bearer of God's image, and his name was Adam, and he walked with God in perfect union. He was given a perfect life by God, and yet still he chose to rebel, he chose to disobey God. And in so doing, he not only cut himself off from God, he cut humanity off from God. Every one of us lives in the reality of Adam's bent away from God, his sin, his pride, his selfishness. And all of us are born in sin. And for all of us, death awaits us. Until a new Adam appeared, the beginning of the turn of all things. Jesus Christ, who overcame death, overcame sin. And in him we can experience new life. Life not under Adam, but under Jesus Christ, Son of God, Son of Man. And in him, if you die to yourself, you will rise again, and you are guaranteed a new resurrection. I don't know if you picked up that little word in there. He called Jesus the first fruits. So angel and I are doing our first little Arizona gardening experiment this year. So we have a little garden bed. Things are growing, right? And when we really got excited was just about a week or so ago when our zucchini, the blossoms started little. Itty bitty zucchinis at the bottom, we're like, hooray, there's going to be crops, real crops, because little zucchini become big zucchini and one zucchini becomes many zucchini. When the first fruits appear, when Jesus resurrection comes, we don't just look back on that as some inspiring moment in history. Well, good for Jesus. No, In Jesus, our resurrection is guaranteed. If we are in him, what difference does it make that Jesus Christ rose from the dead? Number one, it proves he's God. Number two, it guarantees a future resurrection, a future eternity. Any of us who have been to a memorial service, you gaze into eternity, you look past this life. We realize this life is fleeting, this life is short. You gaze into eternity and all human beings, what's on the other side of that, it guarantees eternity. If you have ever lost a loved one, this is the great glorious hope. Not that they're just gone, not that we just remember them. Jesus Christ is going to come back. And the saints who have gone before are coming with them in a train. We will rise up and meet them in the air. And glory is going to take place. A grand party in heaven is going to take place. Consider the simple little words, a very famous verse, John 3:16. Would you read let's put John 3:16 up on the screen. I want to read this together. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. Eternal life. That's the gift in Christ. Eternal life. And we can bank on it, we can rest on it. Those who have gone before, who knew Christ, they are in eternal life. We, when we get there, will join in eternal life. You can look to your loved ones, say, hey, let's meet by the north wall in the west corner. We'll have a barbecue, we'll get a get together. We're going to praise Jesus. It is a good thing. It's a guarantee of a future resurrection. A guarantee. Number one, it proves Jesus is God. Number two, it guarantees a future resurrection. Number three. Number three, we receive resurrection power. He gives us resurrection power in his resurrection, resurrection power. This is a big deal. In John chapter 16, Jesus is talking with his disciples and he says some, some startling words. This is just before he is going to go. I said, I'm all over the place. John 16, verse 7. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will Send him to you. You don't know this yet, but I'm gonna rise from the dead. And the spirit that rises me from the dead, I am going to send to you. And he will dwell in you. This is much better that I go or you won't have that power. When I was a kid, used to pump water with my great aunts. We'd go to their house, we'd walk down to this lake and there's a pump there. We'd pump jugs of water to bring back for drinking water at the house. And if you got down to the lake and no one had pumped the water before you, you knew. It's like a couple of minutes of pumping before that water's coming up. And if you start going and your shoulder gets sore, you stop and rest just for a second, you hear the water gurgle back down. If you keep pumping until the water comes and you stop, like celebrating, oh, there's water. It stops. You gotta keep pumping and pumping and pumping. Jesus is saying, hey, if you try to pump your way through the Christian life, two things are going to. You'll be eternally frustrated and you will fail. We don't have it. We need supernatural power inside of us in order to live the Christian life. If you've ever been in a relationship that's had strain, if you're married, if you're a parent, if you have parents, if you've ever faced an addiction that's been like a shackle and over and over and over, you stumble, you've had a habit that you have tried and tried and tried to get past, you know this truth. We don't have it. We need supernatural power to flow through our veins. And the promise of Jesus Christ is he is giving us his resurrection power. His resurrection gives this to us. And it is a grand, glorious thing considering. Consider the disciples. The disciples while Jesus was alive are kind of bumbling fools. Peter, the chief of the apostle, had Jesus say these words to him, get behind me, Satan. That's not a sentence you want God saying to you at any point in your life. When Jesus died on the cross, all of the disciples had run away, but one. John was the only one left. Peter denied him the three times the night he's arrested. The rest weren't even there when he was arrested. They're running away scared. And after the resurrection, he sends resurrection power in the Holy Spirit to them. And from that moment on, you read of the apostles, you think, what got into these guys? What made these guys such stalwarts of Faith, Godly men. At one point, they're preaching at the temple. They're arrested, they're told, don't preach at the temple anymore. They go back, they preach at the temple. Miracles are happening. They're arrested, they're brought in again, they're beaten, they're told, don't go, do it again. And listen to these words in Acts chapter five that define them as they go. Acts, chapter five. I am all over the place. Verse. I'm really there. Verse 41. It's on the wrong page. Acts, chapter 5, verse 41. Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name. What takes a group of bumbling guys who don't get it and turn them in to a group of men who are honored to suffer for the name of Christ. Resurrection power. Not just bumbling. They were arguing months ago. Who is the greatest, who's going to be honored the most, have the biggest throne. And here they are throwing themselves headlong. Who is going to have the opportunity to suffer the most? This is the transformed life in Jesus Christ. And here's the reality. We can't do it on our own. We can't do it on our own. There's a promise God gives to the prophet Ezekiel. God had come, covenanted with his people. He told his people what his heart was, the way in which they were to walk, the guarantees in which the covenant would offer them blessing if they walked in that way. And yet, generation after generation failed to follow the heart of God. And God said, don't worry, one day your hearts will be changed. Listen to Ezekiel offer this promise. And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit. I will put within you and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. Are you weary? Are you tired of trying to break that addiction? To uproot the web, the roots of bitterness from within your heart, to repair relationships on your own strength. The promise of the resurrected Jesus Christ is that he is our power. He is our power. So this week I had to get a new battery in my car. It's the plight of any Arizona driver, right? Like, they give me the new battery. They're like, three year guarantee. I'm like, yeah, right, see you in 18 months, right? Like, that's just the reality, right? So, like, a car without a battery is worthless. I don't care how nice that car is. You could drive up in that front circle, say, pastor John, got you a Bentley. Got you a Maserati, A Tesla, whatever it is, right here are the keys. You throw me the keys. By the way, the battery's dead. I mean, you might as well hand me a pair of skates or bicycle. It's worth more to me to get home today than that car is. We need power. And Jesus Christ's resurrection brings that power. Paul makes this very point as he opens up his letter to the church at Ephesus. The first chapter is just a glorious chapter as he talks about the implications of Christ for us, what does it mean for us? And near the end of that, he talks about the implications of the resurrection for us. And he's going to say this. He's going to say the same power that God worked in that resurrection of Jesus Christ. It's the same power he's working on in your life if you're in Christ. Listen to Paul. He says this in verse 19 of Ephesians 1. And what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places? That's not just a little power in your life, the working of God's power in your life for those who believe, the same exact power that rose Jesus from the dead, now that's a battery. That. That's life transformation. And Jesus Christ, his resurrection guarantees it for all who are in Him. I love it. I love everything you said, except for this dilemma. And this might be a generational thing. I don't know, maybe it's my childhood. When you say that, I immediately think it is going to be a generational thing. I just know that this afternoon I'm still going to be picturing Joe Walsh plugging away my Maserati. Does 180, you know, mention Maserati in the story? And that's just I. That's where my brain goes and it's stuck in my head now, all because Burt Reynolds drove that car in the Longest Yard and I watched it with my dad when I was a kid. What do we do with this? How do we. How do we take this home? Two practical takeaways. The first is enter into relationship with Jesus. Enter into relationship with Jesus. It is the foundational reason, the foundational gift of everything. God sent his son. His son died on the cross, rose from the dead for a foundational reason that God wants a relationship with you and with me. Today, if you want, you can travel and you can go visit Confucius tomb, take pictures in front of it. If you want, you can go visit Buddha's tomb, take pictures in front of that. If you'd like, you can go to Muhammad's tomb, stand out in front and take pictures, selfies. But if you. If you want to go take a selfie in front of Jesus tomb, you're going to find that it's not really possible. You'll go to Israel, you'll walk around, you'll see some people. Well, it could have been here. This is a site. It could have been here. This is another site. We don't know exactly where it is because he is not there. He is risen. He is risen indeed. Amen. He's alive. He's alive and he's here. He wants a relationship with us. Now, it might be that you're curious about God. Maybe you came because it's Easter and you're interested. Maybe you're not even interested. Just the person that loves you, that you came with, wanted you to come. But you hear this and maybe you wonder, could Jesus, Could Jesus be God? Is he here? And the answer is yes. And I would invite you to follow those nudges and turn to him and enter into relationship with him. It's also possible. You've been a Christian for a long time, but you've. You've drifted from relationship. God is not interested in us standing up and singing songs if we are not in relationship. What he's after is our hearts, not our words. He wants our lives. He wants to be in relationship with us. So I would encourage you follow those nudges and spend time with Jesus. Enter into relationship number two. Walk in resurrection power. Walk in resurrection power. When we say that the resurrection power is given to us, it's not just an idea. And here's the poison of it. I'll be the first to raise my hand. So God has given me natural abilities. He's given me a brain to think like, I kind of assume really well, better than it really does. I can coast on my own strength in life oftentimes, but I can't be the husband he's calling me to be without resurrection power working in me. I can't be the dad he's called me to be. Without resurrection power working in me. I can't be the friend. I can't live a godly life the way he calls me to without resurrection power. So if you've been walking on your own strength, I plead, I beg on this day of all days turn, to have the supernatural power of God, the Holy Spirit, of God, bring the power of resurrection into your life, to break chains and set you free. If you've had a habit, you've had a generational habit born in your life, something you can't get past, your hope. And my hope and anyone's hope is not that we'll eventually get strong enough, it's Jesus. Would you fill me with your Holy Spirit and have your way in my heart and my mind and my life, and break the chains that bind me and set me free to live for your glory today? Resurrection power in you and me. Amen. Amen. So we have the blessing of doing something special here on this Easter Sunday, which is responding in taking the Lord's communion. And if you are in Christ, if you've placed your trust in him, and maybe even just that's, that's fresh for you, that's. That's real even in this moment, we invite you to the Lord's table to respond in faith. Part of the communion place is a declaration of this is me in Christ. This is what Christ has done for me. And so we would invite you to partake with us. We have tables up here. We'd invite you to come. We have tables also in the back, back there is our gluten free elements. And so I invite you to partake. If you are joining with us online, we're so grateful you're with us. We invite you to grab whatever elements you have, maybe some Easter bread and some drink, and to join with us as well as we reflect on the Lord's death and resurrection. For us today, as you're gathering communion elements, I'll just share this. Sometimes in tradition, sometimes here at New Life, we pass communion. Communion comes to you. And maybe you've been in church where that is the tradition. There's a richness in that, in the symbol that Jesus comes to us, he meets us where we're at. We are now in the practice most of the time of getting up and coming forward to get communion elements. But there's a symbol in that, that there is a response that Jesus is calling us to. He's calling us to respond to him, to run to him, to join in relationship with him, to have his Holy Spirit flow through us. He's calling us to take steps towards him so we can reflect on that as we grab the communion elements. Today, the power of the resurrection is this, that Jesus Christ entered into our pain, to our suffering, to our brokenness. He took our sin on his shoulders and he healed us from the inside out. That was his declaration. The night before he was crucified, he took the bread and he broke the bread. He said this is my body. Broken for you, broken for you. Jesus Christ came as the passover lamb and he took our sin on his shoulders. He took our brokenness on his shoulders and he became broken on the cross that in his healing we might be healed. He said whenever you eat of it, do so in memory of me. Lets eat in memory of Jesus. Jesus, we thank you. We thank you for your brokenness that we might be healed. We thank you for the cross. It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. Likewise on that night the he was betrayed, he took the cup. So this is the cup of the new covenant poured out in my blood for the forgiveness of sins. One of my favorite old time gospel songs is there's power in the blood. There's power, power, wonder working power in the precious blood of the lamb. There's power to wash away our sin and there's power to make us new. So Lord Jesus, I ask that you would anoint this cup that spiritually become for us your blood, wash our sins away. We all have selfishness and pride in us darker than we even realize. So wash us, cleanse us, close us, clothe us in white robes and then Lord Jesus, would you give us your resurrection power afresh and anew in this day that we might live obedient chivalry, honorable, kind, loving lives for your glory in this world, the blood of Christ shed for you and for me. Amen and amen. Can we go ahead and stand as we come before the Lord and close in song?

Life Lessons from a Donkey: Palm Sunday Skip Heitzig The luckiest donkey in the world was the donkey who carried Jesus on his back. He was fulfilling Old Testament having the Messiah . Donkey’s favorite pastime: rolling on the ground. Why do they long ears? Cools them. Hears up to miles away. More people are killed by people annually that in air crashes. Month of Nissan select the lamb for Passover. In that day it was Aprii 6, 32 A.D. This Palm Sunday message by Pastor Skip Heitzig (0:39) explores Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, focusing on the final week of His life as detailed in John 12. The message contrasts the superficial nature of religion with a genuine, personal relationship with Christ. Key takeaways from the message: Jesus over Religion: People are drawn to Jesus more than to rigid religious systems (7:13). While religion focuses on outward rituals and prohibitions, Jesus emphasizes the inward heart and offers a relationship based on grace rather than works (12:59 - 15:47). • Scripture vs. Opinion: The Bible is a more reliable source of truth than human opinion (17:41). The message highlights how Jesus fulfilled specific Old Testament prophecies, such as entering Jerusalem on a donkey as predicted in Zechariah 9:9 (20:00 - 20:30). • Following vs. Inspecting: It is more important to actively follow Jesus than to merely observe or study Him from a distance (31:12). The disciples had to move from simply witnessing miracles to truly understanding and surrendering to Christ after His resurrection (28:50). Life Application: • The message challenges listeners to trust God with their struggles and surrender their lives to Him, just as the compliant donkey carried Jesus (36:59). • The video concludes with an invitation for viewers to accept Christ as their Savior and embark on a new way of living (40:02). You know, sometimes it's good to compare things with other things. Does that look familiar to anybody? But what a comparison -- the old and the new. And when you make these comparisons, 1:28 1 minute, 28 seconds you start understanding how far you've come from and which is mroe preferable to the other. 1:35 1 minute, 35 seconds I'm going to give you out of John Chapter 12 today three comparisons. We're going to compare three things to three other things, 1:44 1 minute, 44 seconds and see why those things are more preferable to the others. Now we're in John Chapter 12 and this is interesting. 1:53 1 minute, 53 seconds Already in John Chapter 12 we're dealing with the final week of Jesus Christ on the earth. 2:00 2 minutes That's Chapter 12. 2:02 2 minutes, 2 seconds There are 21 chapters in John, so almost half of John is dedicated to the final week of Jesus' life on earth. 2:13 2 minutes, 13 seconds If you were to look at Matthew, two-fifths of the gospel of Matthew is devoted to that final week. 2:19 2 minutes, 19 seconds Three-fifths of the gospel of Mark is devoted to that final week. In the gospel of Luke, one-third is devoted to the final week, 2:28 2 minutes, 28 seconds and in John, just about one-half. 2:31 2 minutes, 31 seconds that just lets you understand the kind of importance that gospel writers placed on what is called Passion Week, 2:39 2 minutes, 39 seconds the week that we are entering into starting today. 2:44 2 minutes, 44 seconds So in the four gospels, there are 89 chapters all together that are written in those four gospels. 2:51 2 minutes, 51 seconds Of those 89 chapters, four of the chapters cover the first 30 years of Jesus' life, 2:59 2 minutes, 59 seconds while 85 chapters cover the last 3 and a half years of His life, and 29 of those 85 cover the last week. 3:08 3 minutes, 8 seconds So we begin the Passion Week with an event that is mentioned in all four gospel records, 3:20 3 minutes, 20 seconds We're going to begin in Chapter 12 beginning in Verse 12. 3:25 3 minutes, 25 seconds It says, "The next day a great multitude had come to the feast when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. 3:32 3 minutes, 32 seconds They took palm branches or branches of palm trees and went out to meet Him and cried out Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, 3:41 3 minutes, 41 seconds the King of Israel. Then Jesus, when he had found a young donkey, 3:46 3 minutes, 46 seconds sat on it as it is written, fear not daughter of Zion behold your King is coming sitting on a donkey's colt. 3:57 3 minutes, 57 seconds His disciples did not understand these things at first, 4:01 4 minutes, 1 second but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written about Him and that they had done these things to Him. 4:11 4 minutes, 11 seconds "Therefore, the people who were with Him when He called Lazarus out of his tomb and raised him from the dead bore witness. 4:18 4 minutes, 18 seconds For this reason, the people also met Him because they heard that He had done this sign. 4:24 4 minutes, 24 seconds The Pharisees, therefore, said among themselves, you see that you are accomplishing nothing. 4:30 4 minutes, 30 seconds Look, the world has gone after Him." 4:35 4 minutes, 35 seconds Now can I just say for the record this is like the luckiest donkey in the world. 4:40 4 minutes, 40 seconds To have on its back the Son of God fulfilling Old Testament prophecy while He is being led into Jerusalem on this beast of burden. 4:51 4 minutes, 51 seconds We have a gal on staff who owns a couple of donkeys, and I med this week donkeys live between 30 to 40 years of age. 5:01 5 minutes, 1 second Some can live up to 60 years old. And so I did a little donkey investigation this week. 5:10 5 minutes, 10 seconds And I made some interesting discoveries about these creatures. Guess what a donkey's favorite pastime is? 5:18 5 minutes, 18 seconds Eating is what most people say, but it's actually rolling on the ground, rolling in the dirt. 5:23 5 minutes, 23 seconds It's his favorite pastime, which helps me understand Eeyore now in Winnie the Pooh, why he's always grumpy. 5:31 5 minutes, 31 seconds Donkeys have long ears. Why do they have long ears? For two reasons. It keeps the animal cool sort of like donkey radiators, 5:39 5 minutes, 39 seconds and it helps that animal hear up to miles away. 5:45 5 minutes, 45 seconds And then the most bizarre fact I discovered comes from the London Times where they reported more people are killed annually by donkeys than in airplane crashes. 5:57 5 minutes, 57 seconds I don't know how on earth they discovered that, 6:00 6 minutes or why anybody would want to investigate that but that's a fact. So this is traditionally called Palm Sunday. 6:09 6 minutes, 9 seconds It celebrates this event that we are reading, the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. 6:15 6 minutes, 15 seconds But in the Jewish calendar it was the 10th day of Nisan, not the car, the month. 6:22 6 minutes, 22 seconds The month of Nisan in the Jewish calendar on the 10th day of the month was the day when Jewish families would select the lamb 6:31 6 minutes, 31 seconds that on the 14th the day of Nisan they would sacrifice for the Passover. 6:37 6 minutes, 37 seconds Interesting that it's on this very day that the Lamb of God is riding into Jerusalem on a donkey presenting himself, 6:45 6 minutes, 45 seconds as it were, to the nation. That's the 10th of Nisan. In our calendar, it would be April the 6th, 32AD. 6:56 6 minutes, 56 seconds Now we're going to look again at some of these verses, and I want to give you some lessons that I've discovered, 7:03 7 minutes, 3 seconds some observations and principles that come from this little donkey ride that Jesus takes. And here's the first. 7:11 7 minutes, 11 seconds Jesus is more appealing than religion. 7:16 7 minutes, 16 seconds Jesus Christ, the person, is more appealing to people then religion. 7:23 7 minutes, 23 seconds It was then, it's the same today. Look at Verse 12. "The next day a great multitude had come to the feast. 7:31 7 minutes, 31 seconds When they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, they took branches of palm trees, went out to meet Him, and cried out Hosanna! 7:38 7 minutes, 38 seconds Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel." Now who's this crowd? It's a crowd of religious people, 7:47 7 minutes, 47 seconds therefore, here in Jerusalem for a religious festival, the festival of Passover. 7:52 7 minutes, 52 seconds There were three mandatory feasts that every Jewish person was required to be in Jerusalem for if you lived in a certain distance from the city-- Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles. 8:05 8 minutes, 5 seconds This was their Passover. 8:08 8 minutes, 8 seconds This is when they celebrated the deliverance of their forefathers from the bondage of Egypt through a succession of 10 plagues that happened in their past history. 8:18 8 minutes, 18 seconds It had now become the focal point of Jewish history. But every year it was the same thing. 8:28 8 minutes, 28 seconds Every year they took the same routes up to Jerusalem. Every year they went through the same rituals. Every year they made the same prescribed prayers. 8:37 8 minutes, 37 seconds And, frankly, for a whole lot of people, it had just gotten old, 8:41 8 minutes, 41 seconds and they were clamoring for something more than what their religion was offering. They found out Jesus was in town, 8:50 8 minutes, 50 seconds and they all gravitated to Him. And they spontaneously start shouting, Hosanna, save now. 8:59 8 minutes, 59 seconds Deliver us now. Give us what our religion cannot give us, because Jesus is more appealing than religion. 9:08 9 minutes, 8 seconds You know, Jesus was a breath of fresh air in a climate of stagnant, stale, religious experience. 9:19 9 minutes, 19 seconds One of my favorite verses of scripture is in Mark Chapter 12. It's a simple verse. 9:25 9 minutes, 25 seconds It just says, "and the common people heard him gladly." 9:31 9 minutes, 31 seconds The everyday folk heard him gladly. In that chapter he gives parable after parable, 9:38 9 minutes, 38 seconds story after story, and then has a confrontation with the religious elite, and the common people we're hearing and seeing it all. 9:46 9 minutes, 46 seconds And they listen to Him gladly. 9:51 9 minutes, 51 seconds Jesus was to them much more appealing than even their hollowed religion itself. 9:58 9 minutes, 58 seconds I've always loved what General Booth of the Salvation Army used to say. He said, I want my religion. I like my religion like my tea. 10:07 10 minutes, 7 seconds I want it hot. And I think if you were to ask most people, they would say if I'm going to have any spirituality at all, I want it hot. 10:16 10 minutes, 16 seconds I want it real. I want it authentic. I want it vibrant. I don't want just some makeshift ceremonial stuff. 10:24 10 minutes, 24 seconds I want my religion like my tea, I want it hot. 10:29 10 minutes, 29 seconds And because of that, there was a clash between the old and the new, between the old religious system and the new stuff Jesus was offering. 10:40 10 minutes, 40 seconds There was a clash and it happened more than once, but a classic highlight is shown in Matthew Chapter 15. 10:48 10 minutes, 48 seconds You don't have to turn there. I'll just tell you the story, and you'll recall it when I do. 10:54 10 minutes, 54 seconds In that chapter Matthew 15, the religious leaders come and they find Jesus and they're miffed. They're upset. 11:01 11 minutes, 1 second This what they say, your disciples are transgressing the traditions of the elders. 11:10 11 minutes, 10 seconds Because they don't wash their hands ceremonially before they eat bread. 11:15 11 minutes, 15 seconds I love Jesus' response to them. 11:21 11 minutes, 21 seconds He said, why is it that you transgress the commandment of God by your traditions? 11:30 11 minutes, 30 seconds And then he said this, well did Esaias prophesy of you hypocrites, saying this people honors me with their lips, 11:40 11 minutes, 40 seconds but their heart is far from me. 11:41 11 minutes, 41 seconds In vain do they worship me teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. 11:46 11 minutes, 46 seconds There was this clash between Jesus as a person and the religion that people were practicing. 11:54 11 minutes, 54 seconds And we see it over and over again. And do you know, because of that, people like tax collectors, and prostitutes, and murderers, 12:03 12 minutes, 3 seconds they found it easy to hang out with Jesus. They gravitated toward Jesus. 12:10 12 minutes, 10 seconds And we so often find Jesus soothing, forgiving, loving words to the very lowest people in society. 12:19 12 minutes, 19 seconds While our Lord Jesus most scathing words weren't to murderers, weren't to prostitutes, 12:25 12 minutes, 25 seconds weren't to drunkards, but to religious people. Matthew 23, several times in a row, whoa unto you hypocrites. 12:34 12 minutes, 34 seconds And He unloads on them. And the common people heard him gladly and hear, 12:41 12 minutes, 41 seconds once again at Passover, Jesus is in town let's go find Him. And they surrounded Him. 12:49 12 minutes, 49 seconds Question, why the appeal? What's really the big difference between Jesus, the person, and the practice of religion? 12:57 12 minutes, 57 seconds Well, there are several differences. Let me give a few to you. Number one, religion emphasizes the outward, Jesus emphasizes what? 13:06 13 minutes, 6 seconds Tell me. The inward. Isn't that right? He always emphasizes the inward. He said, why are you thinking evil in your hearts? 13:16 13 minutes, 16 seconds Or from the abundance of the heart the mouth speak. 13:19 13 minutes, 19 seconds Jesus was always more concerned with what was going on on the inside of a person than how a person looked on the outside. 13:29 13 minutes, 29 seconds Religion is about the outward, Jesus was always about the inward. Here's the second difference. 13:34 13 minutes, 34 seconds Religion is often about what you can't do. Jesus is about what you can do. 13:44 13 minutes, 44 seconds Religion is about prohibition, thou shalt not. It seems like Jesus' approach was, you know what? 13:50 13 minutes, 50 seconds Just come as you are, and watch what I can do through your life. That's what we find. 13:57 13 minutes, 57 seconds That's the big difference. 14:00 14 minutes I know some people, their whole spiritual experience is one of negatives. Well, I don't do this, and I don't do that, 14:07 14 minutes, 7 seconds and I don't do the other thing. Like the old fundamentalist poem. 14:11 14 minutes, 11 seconds I don't smoke, and I don't chew, and I don't go with girls that do. And I say, what whoop-de-do. 14:20 14 minutes, 20 seconds What do you do? I mean, if you're just talking about what you don't do, but there's nothing in your life that shows what you're doing, 14:30 14 minutes, 30 seconds that's the big difference. There's a third difference. Religion puts up barriers, Jesus pulls down barriers. 14:38 14 minutes, 38 seconds If you and I were in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago, and we went up to worship at the temple, we couldn't go anywhere we wanted to go. There were certain courts for people like us. 14:48 14 minutes, 48 seconds Us non-Jewish people like me, I couldn't even get close to the temple itself. 14:52 14 minutes, 52 seconds I would be confined to the outer court known as the court of the Gentiles. People that are spiritual cooties like me, that's where I hang out. 15:00 15 minutes If I was a Jewish woman, I could go further. If I was a Jewish male, I could go further. If I was a Jewish priest, I could go even closer. 15:07 15 minutes, 7 seconds But there were courts and there were walls that kept people out. 15:12 15 minutes, 12 seconds And I've discovered that religion is really good at keeping people out. 15:18 15 minutes, 18 seconds How different is Jesus who said, Come unto me all of you who labor and are heavy laden, 15:28 15 minutes, 28 seconds and I will give you rest. So willing to include people. 15:35 15 minutes, 35 seconds And fourth, religion typically says you have to work your way to God where Jesus 15:43 15 minutes, 43 seconds will say I am the way to God. I have seen, I have talked to religious people, 15:51 15 minutes, 51 seconds I have been a religious person long enough to know that most all world religions are all about what you have to do to work your way to God. 16:03 16 minutes, 3 seconds Things you have to do, prayers you have to say, et cetera, et cetera. That is the religion of human achievement. 16:11 16 minutes, 11 seconds That is not the gospel. The gospel is the approach of divine accomplishment. 16:19 16 minutes, 19 seconds Religion says you must do. God says I have done for you. It is finished. 16:26 16 minutes, 26 seconds Now you've just received as a free gift what I have done, and there will be a transformation in the process. 16:35 16 minutes, 35 seconds So Jesus is more appealing than religion. So they gather around Him, and they shout Hosanna. 16:43 16 minutes, 43 seconds As I mentioned, the word in Hebrew, 16:45 16 minutes, 45 seconds Na Hoshiah Na, Hosanna translated in English means deliver us now, save us now Lord. 16:53 16 minutes, 53 seconds The crowd clamors around Him so much so, did you hear what the Pharisees said in Verse 19? 17:01 17 minutes, 1 second "You see that you're accomplishing nothing. Look the whole world has gone after Him." Jesus was their biggest nightmare, 17:10 17 minutes, 10 seconds because what they have discovered is that people are more attracted to Jesus then their religious system. 17:17 17 minutes, 17 seconds And now there's competition. 17:20 17 minutes, 20 seconds Jesus was that tipping point that drove people to a personal relationship with God through Him rather than through that ritualistic system. 17:31 17 minutes, 31 seconds Here's the second observation, second life lesson on this donkey ride. 17:37 17 minutes, 37 seconds Scripture is more reliable than opinion. 17:42 17 minutes, 42 seconds So Jesus is more appealing than religion and now scripture's more reliable than opinion. 17:48 17 minutes, 48 seconds Look back with me at Verse 14 if you will. 17:52 17 minutes, 52 seconds "Then Jesus, when he had found a young donkey, sat on it as it 17:59 17 minutes, 59 seconds is written, fear not daughter of Zion behold your King is coming sitting on a donkey's colt." 18:09 18 minutes, 9 seconds His disciples did not understand these things at first, 18:12 18 minutes, 12 seconds but when Jesus was glorified then they remembered that these things were written about Him, 18:19 18 minutes, 19 seconds and that they had done these things to Him. 18:22 18 minutes, 22 seconds Have you found that just about everybody you meet has some opinion of Jesus? Everybody has an opinion of Jesus. 18:29 18 minutes, 29 seconds People had opinions of Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago. 18:32 18 minutes, 32 seconds Do you recall when our Lord took His disciples up to Caesarea Phillipi, and He said, who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? 18:41 18 minutes, 41 seconds And immediately they spouted off all the opinions. Some say that you're John the Baptist. 18:45 18 minutes, 45 seconds Some say you're Elijah, or Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. Those are all opinions as to who Jesus Christ was. 18:54 18 minutes, 54 seconds John the Apostle in this book shares a few more opinions that people had. 19:00 19 minutes In John Chapter 9, for example, some were saying this man is not from God. Can you imagine saying that about God? 19:09 19 minutes, 9 seconds This man is not from God, because he does not keep the Sabbath. 19:13 19 minutes, 13 seconds Others had this opinion, he's a prophet. 19:20 19 minutes, 20 seconds In John Chapter 10 another group said, he has a demon and is mad. Now let me ask you a question. 19:27 19 minutes, 27 seconds Of all those opinions that I just rattled off to you, were any of them accurate? Not really. 19:34 19 minutes, 34 seconds I mean, the closest most accurate was a group that's said He's a prophet, but He was much more than that. 19:41 19 minutes, 41 seconds So there was a myriad of opinions, but notice what John does here. He twice quotes scripture from the Old Testament. 19:50 19 minutes, 50 seconds One, in Psalm 118 when the people said, Hosanna. Blessed is He who comes in the name the Lord. That's a direct quote. 19:59 19 minutes, 59 seconds And then Zechariah Chapter 9, Verse 9, where it says, 20:02 20 minutes, 2 seconds "Fear not, daughter of Zion, behold your King is coming sitting on a donkey's colt." 20:09 20 minutes, 9 seconds So whatever opinions people had of Jesus, here's what the scripture says about Jesus. 20:15 20 minutes, 15 seconds And here's why I'm bringing this up because what the scripture says He is more reliable than what people think He is. 20:25 20 minutes, 25 seconds God's revelation is more reliable than people's estimation. 20:28 20 minutes, 28 seconds Scripture is more reliable than opinion. Question. 20:37 20 minutes, 37 seconds Why a donkey? What's up with the donkey? You know, in the other gospel records, 20:44 20 minutes, 44 seconds Jesus actually tells His disciples as they're on the Mount of Olives, 20:47 20 minutes, 47 seconds you know, stop, go to the next town and you're going to find a donkey. Bring that donkey here. Why? 20:55 20 minutes, 55 seconds Did He just like donkey rides? Why a donkey? Now listen carefully. The donkey showed His identity. 21:03 21 minutes, 3 seconds Listen again, and you can read it for yourself in Verse 15 21:09 21 minutes, 9 seconds quoting Zechariah 9, "Behold your King comes to you sitting on a donkey's colt." 21:19 21 minutes, 19 seconds In other words, you have a King, He is going to come to you, and when He comes to you, He's coming to you on a donkey. 21:28 21 minutes, 28 seconds So Jesus asked for a donkey, because He is presenting himself to them as their King. By the way, King's road donkeys in times of peace. 21:38 21 minutes, 38 seconds When they wanted to offer terms of peace to a people group, they would mount a donkey. It was considered an animal of peace. 21:46 21 minutes, 46 seconds When a King would come to wage war, he would ride a horse. And this is why in Revelation 19 when Jesus comes again, 21:54 21 minutes, 54 seconds He rides a horse. And the Bible says He comes to judge and to make war. But here He is, the Prince of Peace, 22:02 22 minutes, 2 seconds and He's offering terms of peace to them. 22:05 22 minutes, 5 seconds So the donkey represents the reliability of scripture 500 years before Zechariah predicted your King is coming to you on a donkey's colt. 22:19 22 minutes, 19 seconds OK, so this is John's rendition of this event. It is mentioned, as I said, four times in all four gospels. 22:27 22 minutes, 27 seconds This one of the few events of Jesus' life that all four gospel writers have recorded. I want you to go back one book to the gospel of Luke. 22:35 22 minutes, 35 seconds Turn with me in your Bibles to Luke Chapter 19. And that is because John records the event. 22:43 22 minutes, 43 seconds Luke records what Jesus said to them during this event, and it's important that you get this at this point. Luke Chapter 19. 22:51 22 minutes, 51 seconds Are you there, Luke 19? Look at Verse 41, Luke Chapter 19 Verse 41. 23:00 23 minutes "Now as He drew near, He saw the city of Jerusalem, 23:07 23 minutes, 7 seconds and He wept over it." 23:09 23 minutes, 9 seconds You know, we were just on the Mount of Olives a couple weeks ago, some of us, and before us was the city of Jerusalem. We weren't weeping over it. 23:16 23 minutes, 16 seconds We were smiling and taking pictures of it. But not Jesus. He comes and He sees it, and He starts crying. 23:23 23 minutes, 23 seconds He starts weeping out loud, saying Verse 42, 23:30 23 minutes, 30 seconds "If you had known, even you, especially," 23:35 23 minutes, 35 seconds watch this, "in this your day the things that make for your peace. 23:44 23 minutes, 44 seconds But now they are hidden from your eyes for the days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you, and close you 23:52 23 minutes, 52 seconds in on every side, and level you and your children within you to the ground. 23:58 23 minutes, 58 seconds And they will not leave in you one stone upon another because you did not know the time of your visitation." 24:05 24 minutes, 5 seconds Jesus, get the scene, He's weeping over the city that He's seeing from the Mount of Olives. 24:09 24 minutes, 9 seconds He weeps over it, and He predicts their fall, their destruction. 24:14 24 minutes, 14 seconds Somebody's going to level this to the ground and destroy the city and the people in it. That happened, by the way, in 70AD. 24:21 24 minutes, 21 seconds Years later it happened. The Romans surrounded Jerusalem and leveled it to the ground. 24:26 24 minutes, 26 seconds And notice what Jesus said in Verse 44, "because you did not know the time of your visitation." 24:34 24 minutes, 34 seconds What on earth is He talking about? When he says, your day, , this is your day, Verse 42, 24:42 24 minutes, 42 seconds this is the time of your visitation. 24:44 24 minutes, 44 seconds What Jesus is referring to is a prediction made by their own prophet, the Jewish prophet, Daniel, 24:52 24 minutes, 52 seconds in Daniel Chapter 9 where Daniel gives in two verses an exact precise timetable for the coming of their Messiah. 25:04 25 minutes, 4 seconds Daniel Chapter 9 Verse 26 and 27, a heavenly messenger tells Daniel this from the going fourth of the commandment 25:15 25 minutes, 15 seconds to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Messiah, the Prince, 25:21 25 minutes, 21 seconds will be 483 years. Then it says, and the Messiah will be killed, 25:29 25 minutes, 29 seconds will be cut off. It's a very odd but precise scripture. 25:34 25 minutes, 34 seconds From the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem until the Messiah, the Prince, will be 483 years, 25:40 25 minutes, 40 seconds and then the Messiah will be killed. 25:44 25 minutes, 44 seconds So that must mean that you would be able to count at whatever time the commandment was given to restore and build Jerusalem, you'd 25:52 25 minutes, 52 seconds be able to count 483 years and you should come to some event about the Messiah after which He would be killed. 26:00 26 minutes It's plain. 26:02 26 minutes, 2 seconds Well, several scholars have looked at this, including this brilliant criminal investigation guy, Sir Robert Anderson. 26:11 26 minutes, 11 seconds He was the head of Scotland Yard's criminal investigation. And he wrote a book on that prophecy called, The Coming Prince. 26:19 26 minutes, 19 seconds So he discovered that the date in history when a commandment was given to the Jews to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, after it had fallen, 26:30 26 minutes, 30 seconds was March 14, 445BC. On that date, Artaxerxes, the Persian monarch, Artaxerxes Longimanus, told the Jews, 26:39 26 minutes, 39 seconds go back and rebuild Jerusalem. Nehemiah and his buddies did that. 26:44 26 minutes, 44 seconds And then he decided, I'm going to count from March 14, 445BC 483 years and find out what date that is. 26:53 26 minutes, 53 seconds Not only that, but he did it in precise numbers in this book, The Coming Prince. 26:59 26 minutes, 59 seconds He took not the Julian calendar, our calendar is 365 and a third days per year. The old Babylonian/Jewish calendar has 360 days. 27:09 27 minutes, 9 seconds It's a lunar year, not a solar year. So he took years of 360 days, 483 of those years, 27:17 27 minutes, 17 seconds according to the prophecy, discovered that equals to 173,880 days. 27:26 27 minutes, 26 seconds Follow me so far? So he began at March 14, 445BC and counted 173,880 days, 27:35 27 minutes, 35 seconds and he decided now what day of the year was that on? 27:40 27 minutes, 40 seconds It happened to be April 6, 32AD, the 10th of the Jewish calendar 27:48 27 minutes, 48 seconds month of Nisan, the day when Jesus with his disciples comes to the Mount of Olives, and he goes, OK, boys, now wait a minute. 27:56 27 minutes, 56 seconds Don't go yet. There's a donkey next door. Bring that donkey to me. 28:01 28 minutes, 1 second And for the very first and only time Jesus presents himself as their King to the nation. 28:08 28 minutes, 8 seconds You see, up to this point, every time Jesus did some miracle that would have made Him famous, 28:16 28 minutes, 16 seconds you know what He told people? Shh, don't tell anybody. It's not the time yet. The time hasn't come yet. 28:23 28 minutes, 23 seconds It'll be revealed in the time, but not today. Don't tell anybody this. He kept telling people to keep it quiet. 28:29 28 minutes, 29 seconds But now, on this day, on this day He presents himself as their King according to the prophecy of Daniel, 28:36 28 minutes, 36 seconds according to the prophecy of Zechariah. He presents himself. Now the disciples didn't get it. 28:45 28 minutes, 45 seconds They didn't understand what is happening until after Jesus' Resurrection and ascension. Look at Verse 16. 28:52 28 minutes, 52 seconds His disciples did not understand these things at first, 28:56 28 minutes, 56 seconds but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written about Him. And that they had done these things to Him. 29:05 29 minutes, 5 seconds You know what? 29:06 29 minutes, 6 seconds When I read that verse, it was one of the best verses I ever read. 29:09 29 minutes, 9 seconds I read this week and for the first time I started really understanding it. I felt the sigh of relief that the disciples, 29:16 29 minutes, 16 seconds Jesus' own disciples, didn't understand it at first. The reason I get encouraged, because I read the Bible a lot, 29:23 29 minutes, 23 seconds and I don't always get it. It's not until the second, or third, or 52nd time I read it, 29:30 29 minutes, 30 seconds I go, oh, now I get it. Now I see it, and now I see how precise and accurate it is. 29:41 29 minutes, 41 seconds So the disciples weren't getting it all yet. But they will later. 29:46 29 minutes, 46 seconds And they will discover just how reliable the scripture is, especially when you compare that to people's opinions. Yeah, everybody had an opinion as to who Jesus was. 29:55 29 minutes, 55 seconds But these disciples would go back and read the scriptures and see how reliable and accurate they are. 30:04 30 minutes, 4 seconds I appreciate people's opinions, but I don't always have a lot of patience for it. They'll listen and go, yeah, I know, 30:11 30 minutes, 11 seconds you're talking about the Bible this and the Bible that. You know but my opinion is. I don't really care what your opinion is. 30:18 30 minutes, 18 seconds When your opinion is as accurate and reliable as the scripture I'm quoting to you, then we can talk. 30:26 30 minutes, 26 seconds But if you want a source of confidence in your life, and if you want real security, listen, 30:32 30 minutes, 32 seconds real security comes when your life is governed by God's word, 30:37 30 minutes, 37 seconds not when it's governed by man's word, not when it's governed by people's opinions. Everybody's always worried about, what will they think of me? 30:45 30 minutes, 45 seconds Does this look good on me? 30:46 30 minutes, 46 seconds And how-- the real freedom and security comes when you realize my life is governed by God's word. 30:54 30 minutes, 54 seconds So Jesus is more appealing than religion. Scripture is more reliable than opinion. Let me close with a third. 31:02 31 minutes, 2 seconds Thank you five for appreciating that. 31:06 31 minutes, 6 seconds Let me give you a third, a final observation about this little donkey ride. Following is more important than inspection. 31:17 31 minutes, 17 seconds Following, following Jesus is more important than inspection or observation. 31:27 31 minutes, 27 seconds Now in this little paragraph we're considering, 31:31 31 minutes, 31 seconds there are four different groups of people that John mentions here who are there that day. 31:38 31 minutes, 38 seconds And he shows the response of these four groups of people. By the way, this is a peculiar hallmark of John's authorship. 31:45 31 minutes, 45 seconds Often in his book we find Jesus doing something or saying something, and then John records what the different people who are seeing and hearing around, 31:54 31 minutes, 54 seconds what their response was to it. He does that here for us. The first group are the disciples. They're mentioned in Verse 16. 32:01 32 minutes, 1 second These are the guys who've been following Jesus 3 and half years. They're really followers of His. They're learners. 32:09 32 minutes, 9 seconds Verse 16, "His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered." 32:15 32 minutes, 15 seconds The second group were the eyewitnesses who were there when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. They're mentioned in Verse 17. 32:23 32 minutes, 23 seconds They saw the miracle with their own eyes. 32:26 32 minutes, 26 seconds "Therefore, the people who were with Him when He called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead bore witness." 32:34 32 minutes, 34 seconds Bore witness means they saw it. They observed it. They inspected it. They're checking this out. 32:41 32 minutes, 41 seconds The third group of people are those who heard from the eyewitnesses who were there when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. 32:48 32 minutes, 48 seconds They weren't there themselves but they heard their testimony. That's Verse 18. 32:52 32 minutes, 52 seconds "For this reason, the people also met Him because they heard that He had done this sign." 32:59 32 minutes, 59 seconds And then the fourth group that is mentioned is in Verse 19. Those are the religious folks, the Pharisees. "Therefore, they said among themselves, 33:07 33 minutes, 7 seconds you see that you're accomplishing nothing. Look the world has gone after Him." 33:13 33 minutes, 13 seconds So four different groups of people, all four groups were observing the same event. 33:20 33 minutes, 20 seconds They were all inspecting the same event, 33:24 33 minutes, 24 seconds but there was only one group that was really following Jesus. Those were the disciples. 33:31 33 minutes, 31 seconds They didn't quite get what was happening that day. They will get it later on. 33:35 33 minutes, 35 seconds They're going to have a time of their faith being tried but that doesn't matter. They're going to keep following Jesus throughout the years. 33:43 33 minutes, 43 seconds Listen, it's good to observe. 33:46 33 minutes, 46 seconds I commend an observer, but your observations must lead to your conclusions. 33:56 33 minutes, 56 seconds And the conclusion of these disciples is that He's still worthy of following. You know, I know some people who love to study, study, study, read, read, read. 34:03 34 minutes, 3 seconds I'm one of them. I love to do it. I love to study. I love history. I love language. 34:08 34 minutes, 8 seconds But a lot of us love to study, study, study short of actually following the one we're studying about. 34:16 34 minutes, 16 seconds Oh, no, give me more charts, man, give me more in-time stuff. I want to know more stuff. 34:21 34 minutes, 21 seconds There comes a point when what you observe and inspect must be translated into what you do. 34:28 34 minutes, 28 seconds Will you follow? 34:31 34 minutes, 31 seconds So my question is how will you respond in the day of your visitation when God, through His Holy Spirit, by His word, 34:40 34 minutes, 40 seconds makes this day your day? Just like Jesus said to those people, this is your day. This is the time of your visitation. 34:46 34 minutes, 46 seconds So following is more important than inspection. 34:54 34 minutes, 54 seconds And then there's this donkey in the story. You know it's interesting, think about this. 35:00 35 minutes The donkey is the most compliant one in the entire story. 35:03 35 minutes, 3 seconds The other gospel accounts show us that this is an unbroken donkey on which never a man sat. 35:14 35 minutes, 14 seconds Jesus gets on this donkey, and this donkey compliantly leads Jesus into the city of Jerusalem. The donkey's the most compliant one in the story. 35:23 35 minutes, 23 seconds There's a great old poem years ago written by G. K. Chesterton. Some of you remember him. A great writer, scholar, poet. 35:33 35 minutes, 33 seconds G. K. Chesterton wrote a little poem called, The Donkey. 35:36 35 minutes, 36 seconds And it's about this donkey, as if-- he wrote it from the perspective as if the donkey understood what was happening. 35:46 35 minutes, 46 seconds It goes like this. When fishes flew, and forests walked, and figs grew upon a thorn, some moment when the moon was blood, 35:58 35 minutes, 58 seconds then surely I was born. With monstrous head and sickening cry, 36:04 36 minutes, 4 seconds and ears like errant wings, the devil's walking parity of all four-footed things. 36:11 36 minutes, 11 seconds The tattered outlaw of the earth of ancient crooked will, starve, scourge, deride me, I am dumb, 36:20 36 minutes, 20 seconds but I keep my secret still. Fools, for I also had my hour one far fierce hour and sweet, 36:31 36 minutes, 31 seconds there was a shout about my ears and palms before my feet. 36:35 36 minutes, 35 seconds Now, I don't think this donkey in the story really got that. 36:41 36 minutes, 41 seconds But can you imagine if that donkey could understand? On my back is the one fulfilling scripture. 36:49 36 minutes, 49 seconds He's fulfilling Zechariah 9:9. He's the guy spoken about in Zechariah 9:9, and I'm the donkey of Zechariah 9:9. 36:55 36 minutes, 55 seconds Let me ask you this question in closing. 37:03 37 minutes, 3 seconds The same God who engineered this donkey and engineered these exact dates that Jesus fulfilled, 37:13 37 minutes, 13 seconds do you think He can take care of your life, your struggles, your issues, your problems? 37:22 37 minutes, 22 seconds Do you think of all the people, all of the persons, all of the entities, all of the belief systems, 37:29 37 minutes, 29 seconds do you think that this God it's worthy of you surrendering your life to? I dare say, yes and amen, he is. 37:38 37 minutes, 38 seconds He can handle you, and He can change you, and this is the day of your visitation. But you know what? 37:45 37 minutes, 45 seconds There's no difference between us and the people of ancient Jerusalem. Some were disciples and some were not. Some just observed and listened and some did not. 37:53 37 minutes, 53 seconds And so we conclude, after having made the observations, 38:05 38 minutes, 5 seconds we are led to the inevitable conclusion, this God is worth following. Would you pray with me? 38:12 38 minutes, 12 seconds Father, on this welcome weekend, we 38:20 38 minutes, 20 seconds can't help but think how welcoming you were and are to whosoever will let Him come. 38:29 38 minutes, 29 seconds To come all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 38:35 38 minutes, 35 seconds And you will find rest for your souls. Lord, with such invitations from this gracious one, 38:45 38 minutes, 45 seconds we hear and some will respond. 38:51 38 minutes, 51 seconds I pray there we will all, whether we have been following you for years and years, and studied, and inspected, and observed will trust more. 39:00 39 minutes And for those who have never really personally trusted Jesus would do so for the first time. 39:06 39 minutes, 6 seconds With our heads bowed, I now want to give those of you who 39:15 39 minutes, 15 seconds have heard this an opportunity to personally come to the one that we're speaking about. 39:25 39 minutes, 25 seconds The one who gave such gracious promises. 39:27 39 minutes, 27 seconds Jesus said as many as received Him, 39:35 39 minutes, 35 seconds He would give them the power, the authority, the right to become His children. To those who would just believe in His name, 39:43 39 minutes, 43 seconds if you've come here and you come from a religious background, 39:50 39 minutes, 50 seconds come from a very scholastic an observant background, 39:58 39 minutes, 58 seconds from whatever background you come from, if you haven't yet personally surrendered your life to Jesus Christ I want to give you the opportunity to do so. 40:07 40 minutes, 7 seconds It's very simple. 40:09 40 minutes, 9 seconds Others of you have had some experience in the past with the Lord. You've wandered away from Him for whatever reasons, 40:19 40 minutes, 19 seconds but your heart is, well, it's aching. It's empty. 40:26 40 minutes, 26 seconds And you've actually wondered, could this be true? Could this happen? 40:31 40 minutes, 31 seconds Is this just another religious experience that preachers' tout, or is this God real, and is He alive, and can He change my life? 40:40 40 minutes, 40 seconds Well you'll never know unless you come, unless you ask. 40:46 40 minutes, 46 seconds And so I want to give you the opportunity to do that. 40:51 40 minutes, 51 seconds If you've never surrendered your life to Jesus personally, 40:57 40 minutes, 57 seconds or if you've wandered away from whatever religious experience you have, but you want to come to Him and surrender your life to Him, I'll give you that opportunity. 41:05 41 minutes, 5 seconds I want you to raise your hand up in the air. Just raise it, keep it up for just a few moments, so I can see and acknowledge you. God bless you, ma'am, right there in the middle. 41:14 41 minutes, 14 seconds Anyone else raise your hand up high. You're just saying, Skip, pray for me, here's my hand. God bless you, right in the front. Who else? 41:22 41 minutes, 22 seconds Right over there to my right. It begins just with that simple acknowledgement. Anybody else? God bless you in the very back. 41:30 41 minutes, 30 seconds Anyone in the family room, just raise your hand up. Or in the balcony, raise that hand up so I can see it. 41:38 41 minutes, 38 seconds Right up here. Sorry I missed you. 41:44 41 minutes, 44 seconds Right up here and to my left. 41:48 41 minutes, 48 seconds And there in the middle and the back in the middle toward the front. In the middle again. Right on the side, right in the middle. 41:56 41 minutes, 56 seconds In the back to my left. Couple of you, thank you, Lord. It's a simple acknowledgement. 42:03 42 minutes, 3 seconds I need God, I need forgiveness. I want to go to heaven. Life isn't what I thought it would be up to this point. There's got to be something more. 42:11 42 minutes, 11 seconds I want to surrender my life to Him. Anyone else, raise your hand up. Anyone else? 42:16 42 minutes, 16 seconds Right up here in the middle toward the front. 42:23 42 minutes, 23 seconds Thank you, Father, for a number of lives that have made this indication. Lord, we pray for them. 42:31 42 minutes, 31 seconds We're so thankful for them. 42:33 42 minutes, 33 seconds We want to celebrate this, because this decision is more than just any choice. It is the choice. 42:41 42 minutes, 41 seconds And You have given us opportunity just like You gave people back then opportunity. 42:47 42 minutes, 47 seconds Lord, I pray for a peace, a joy that transcends even human experience, something that is felt in the very depths of their being, 42:57 42 minutes, 57 seconds their soul where there's a freedom as the burden, 43:04 43 minutes, 4 seconds the guilt is alleviated because of what Jesus has done for them. 43:11 43 minutes, 11 seconds Now do through them great things, we ask in His name, Amen. Would you stand up, please, to your feet? We're going to sing a song, close with a song. 43:20 43 minutes, 20 seconds If you raised your hand, and I saw a number of hands around this auditorium. You know, when Jesus called people, He often called them publicly. 43:28 43 minutes, 28 seconds And we believe it's going to do you a world of good when you have us cheering for you as you make this decision. I'm going to lead you in a prayer. 43:36 43 minutes, 36 seconds As we sing this song, I'm going to ask those of you who raised your hand to come right up to the front. Stand right up here. I'm going to lead you in a simple prayer to receive Jesus, 43:43 43 minutes, 43 seconds and then you can go back with your friends and family as we close. But just come right up here as we sing. Right up to the front. 43:50 43 minutes, 50 seconds Maybe a counselor could show us how it's supposed to get done. Just come and stand right up here. 43:55 43 minutes, 55 seconds [SINGING] 43:57 43 minutes, 57 seconds That's right. 43:58 43 minutes, 58 seconds [SINGING] 44:00 44 minutes 44:40 44 minutes, 40 seconds If you're in the family room, there's a door right up to the front on your right. If you raise your hand-- you know what? 44:48 44 minutes, 48 seconds Even if you didn't raise your hand, but you know, I need to be up here. I need a new start. 44:56 44 minutes, 56 seconds I need to know that when I die I'm going to heaven. I need to know that. Whether you're in the family room, or balcony, or in the main house, 45:04 45 minutes, 4 seconds or outside, or in the overflow, a pastor will walk you over. You come and stand right up here. 45:11 45 minutes, 11 seconds Listen, listen, let go of this. Let go of this. These days are over. 45:17 45 minutes, 17 seconds There's a whole new way of living here. So let go of the old and let God give you a brand new life. 45:26 45 minutes, 26 seconds Anybody else? Don't just observe today, come and follow Jesus. Come and follow Him. 45:35 45 minutes, 35 seconds Be a follower, be a disciple, stand up and be counted for Jesus Christ. 45:41 45 minutes, 41 seconds We'll sing it through one more time, give you that opportunity to come.

II Kings 5:1-14 What kinds of things can you accomplish with power and prestige? Now Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man in the view of his master, and eminent, because by him the LORD had given victory to Aram. The man was also a valiant warrior, but afflicted with leprosy. Now the Arameans had gone out in bands and had taken captive a little girl from the land of Israel; and she waited on Naaman’s wife. And she said to her mistress, “If only my master were with the prophet who is in Samaria! Then he would cure him of his leprosy.” And Naaman went in and told his master, saying, “The girl who is from the land of Israel spoke such and such.” Then the king of Aram said, “Go now, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel.” So he departed and took with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten changes of clothes. And he brought the letter to the king of Israel, which said, “And now as this letter comes to you, behold, I have sent Naaman my servant to you, so that you may cure him of his leprosy.” But when the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, “Am I God, to kill and to keep alive, that this man is sending word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? But consider now, and see how he is seeking a quarrel against me.” Now it happened, when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, that he sent word to the king, saying, “Why did you tear your clothes? Just have him come to me, and he shall learn that there is a prophet in Israel.” So Naaman came with his horses and his chariots, and stood at the doorway of Elisha’s house. And Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh will be restored to you, and you will be clean.” But Naaman was furious and went away, and he said, “Behold, I thought, ‘He will certainly come out to me, and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, and wave his hand over the site and cure the leprosy.’ Are Abanah and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, not better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?” So he turned and went away in a rage. Then his servants approached and spoke to him, saying, “My father, had the prophet told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more then, when he says to you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, in accordance with the word of the man of God; and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. What kinds of things can you accomplish with low standing and humility? BACKGROUND At first, when examining the passage, I was drawn to two things: Naaman’s leprosy and its miraculous healing. But the more I dug into the text, the more I realized that these were just settings for the real theme of this passage. It is a contrast of the humble with pride, power, and prestige. Consider the major players in the text. There is Naaman, a powerful general in Aram’s army with the appreciation of his king. There is King Ben-hadad of Aram, a powerful and wealthy figure. There is King Jehoram of Israel. And there is money, a lot of it, offered by Ben-hadad to Jehoram, as we will see. In contrast, there is a little servant girl, really, a slave of Naaman’s wife. A person on the lowest rung of society’s ladder. She’s a girl. Girls were not highly prized. She was foreign. She was a slave. She had everything against her. Yet, a few simple words from her changed the course of Naaman’s life. Then there are Naaman’s servants with him on the trip to Israel to see Elisha. They are servants, not military commanders or people of power. Yet, their words, like the little girl’s, carried great weight. Naaman was a man of pride, power, and prestige. Yet, none of these things could bring him a solution to his condition of leprosy. Leprosy was a term used to cover a variety of skin diseases. In the worst cases, leprosy could mean exile from the community. Naaman’s leprosy was not that bad, though it was a problem. It was a mark of his identity. Leprosy, in the Bible, is a type for sin. Just as nothing could cure leprosy, so too, nothing human can cure our sin. Naaman’s life is a picture of our life without a miraculous solution for our sin. Our solution doesn’t come through pride, power, or prestige, but through the humility of one man, Jesus Christ. Likewise, Naaman’s solution to his problem didn’t come through pride, power, or prestige. But through the humility of a little girl and a few servants. EXAMINATION (V.1) Now Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man in the view of his master, and eminent, because by him the LORD had given victory to Aram. The man was also a valiant warrior, but afflicted with leprosy. Aram is associated with the territory of modern-day Syria. Aram had a complicated relationship with the northern kingdom of Israel, sometimes an ally and sometimes a foe. The relationship was an uneasy one. Notice the text said the Lord had given victory to Aram. Israel had been committing idol worship, a violation of the covenant, which God punished by giving victory sometimes to Israel’s enemies. Naaman’s leprosy was probably restricted to a small part of his body as he was able to carry out his duties as commander of Aram’s army. Verse 11 indicates the leprosy may have been restricted to a spot that one could wave a hand over. So, it was not debilitating. His digits and limbs were not in danger of falling off. The important thing to note here is that the text says that Naaman was “a great man in the view of his master and eminent.” Here we begin to see the beginnings of Naaman’s pride, power, and prestige. (V.2-3) Now the Arameans had gone out in bands and had taken captive a little girl from the land of Israel; and she waited on Naaman’s wife. And she said to her mistress, “If only my master were with the prophet who is in Samaria! Then he would cure him of his leprosy.” WHAT KIND OF SOCIAL STANDING DOES A SLAVE GIRL HAVE? Notice the contrast to Naaman. “She is an Israelite, he is an Aramean; she is a ‘little maiden,’ he a ‘great man;’ she is a captive servant, he a commander; he has fame in the king’s estimation, … she has none, for she simply ‘waited upon’ … Naaman’s wife.” [1] God used a caring comment from the most humble of girls to initiate something great. (V.4-5) Naaman went in and told his master, saying, “The girl who is from the land of Israel spoke such and such.” Then the king of Aram said, “Go now, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel.” So he departed and took with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten changes of clothes. In ancient times, people believed in healing through magic arts. This was no less true in the Ancient Near East. Hearing of a prophet who could cure leprosy was taken seriously. Upon seeking permission to go to Israel to seek healing, King Ben-hadad assists Naaman with a letter to King Jehoram of Israel. Letters like this between kings were a common form of communication between kingdoms. To show the seriousness of the request, Ben-hadad sends a gift of ten talents of silver and six thousand shekels of gold. In today’s money, this is $383,000 in silver and $7.2 million in gold. Here we see the prestige that comes with great wealth. The king of Aram has great wealth, and he gives it to Naaman to use for his healing. (V.6-7) He brought the letter to the king of Israel, which said, “And now as this letter comes to you, behold, I have sent Naaman my servant to you, so that you may cure him of his leprosy.” But when the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, “Am I God, to kill and to keep alive, that this man is sending word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? But consider now, and see how he is seeking a quarrel against me.” DO YOU THINK THAT KING JEHORAM OF ISRAEL IS CORRECT HERE? WAS BEN-HADAD LOOKING FOR AN OPPORTUNITY TO ATTACK ISRAEL? WAS HE USING NAAMAN FOR HIS OWN PURPOSES? At first thought we might agree with Jehoram that Ben-hadad is seeking an opportunity against Israel. But the size of the gift that Ben-hadad sent through Naaman would argue otherwise. Ben-hadad highly valued Naaman, as testified by the large gift he sent for his healing. We might be tempted to say that King Ben-hadad was using Naaman as an excuse to pick a fight with Israel. But we learned from the first verse that that is not the case. Because King Ben-hadad had high regard for Naaman. (V.8) Now it happened, when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, that he sent word to the king, saying, “Why did you tear your clothes? Just have him come to me, and he shall learn that there is a prophet in Israel.” In one sense, we might say that Elisha is using pride and prestige by declaring that he is the prophet in Israel. But that’s not really what is happening. Saying that “he shall learn that there is a prophet in Israel,” is the same as saying, “there is a God in Israel.” (V.9-10) So Naaman came with his horses and his chariots, and stood at the doorway of Elisha’s house. And Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh will be restored to you, and you will be clean.” Notice Elisha’s response. Here was a king’s envoy with a large number of horses, soldiers, and chariots, and Elisha did not even come out to meet him. Rather, he sends a servant to relay the message on how to be healed. In one sense, this is insulting. On the other hand, it is humble. Elisha is not seeking payment or status. He simply declares what is to be done. He performs a miracle by proxy. We should not forget that in these ancient times, the culture was primarily driven by a shame-honor dynamic. In one sense, Elisha is shaming Naaman. He is humbling him. He is letting it be known that his pride, power, and prestige will amount to nothing when it comes to the things of God. And notice how Naaman responds. (V.11-12) Naaman was furious and went away, and he said, “Behold, I thought, ‘He will certainly come out to me, and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, and wave his hand over the site and cure the leprosy.’ Are Abanah and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, not better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?” So he turned and went away in a rage. There is a touch of pride in Naaman’s response. He is proud because Elisha offended him by sending a servant to relay the message rather than coming out himself. And he demonstrates his pride in his own country over Israel. If he had maintained his pride, he never would have been healed. (V.13-14) Then his servants approached and spoke to him, saying, “My father, had the prophet told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more then, when he says to you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, in accordance with the word of the man of God; and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. Just like his humble servant girl, Naaman’s servants urge him to obey the prophet’s instructions. What made the difference in Naaman’s life was not the high and mighty. It wasn’t the two kings or the millions of dollars in gifts, or even his status and power as the commander of Aram’s army. It was the words of a little girl and a few servants. Humble circumstances and simple obedience is what made the difference in Naaman’s life. We’ll examine the second half of this story in our next lesson. WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED? Naaman was a man of great power and influence. Word of a solution to Naaman’s leprosy came through humble circumstances—a little girl. A king’s letter and millions in gifts had no impact on Naaman’s healing. Simple, humble obedience to a humble instruction brought about Naaman’s healing. INTERPRETATION What is the author’s big idea? God uses humble circumstances and people to accomplish great things. Consider our greatest example of humility, Jesus. He was born into a poor family. Worked as a carpenter, a common laborer. When he ministered, he had no home. His disciples were people on the lower end of the scale of society. He had no horse or donkey; he walked wherever he went. He was dependent on the gifts of others to make his living and provide for his disciples. Yet, this most humble man led the most extraordinary life, teaching thousands, healing disease, and raising the dead. What made the difference in Naaman’s life was simple humility and obedience. He was expecting magic, a show of talent or power. He was equipped with the gifts of kings. But none of that mattered. Salvation cannot be bought with money or influence. Just as Elisha’s miracle of healing was free, so is our salvation. Jesus offered what he offered at no cost. He even told his disciples, “Freely you have received, freely give” (Matthew 10:8). Remember that leprosy is a type for sin in the Bible. Just as Naaman’s leprosy could not be cured by anything but a miracle, so too, our sin cannot be cured by anything but a miracle. That miracle was the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. APPLICATION Great success cannot cure the deepest human problem. Naaman was powerful, wealthy, respected, and successful, yet he still suffered from leprosy. The passage reminds us that status, money, and achievement cannot solve the deeper problems of sin, brokenness, mortality, or spiritual need. Every person ultimately needs God’s grace. God often works through humble and unexpected people. The turning point in the story comes through a young servant girl taken captive from Israel. God used someone overlooked and powerless to point Naaman toward healing. We should never underestimate how God can use ordinary believers, children, servants, or people with little public influence to accomplish His purposes. Pride can keep people from receiving God’s blessing. Naaman almost walked away angry because Elisha’s instructions seemed too simple and humiliating. He expected something dramatic and prestigious. Often, people resist God because His way requires humility, repentance, and surrender rather than self-importance. Obedience to God matters even when we do not fully understand. Washing seven times in the Jordan River did not appear logical or impressive, yet Naaman was healed only when he obeyed. God sometimes asks believers to trust Him before they fully understand His methods. Faith is demonstrated through obedience. God’s grace is available to all people. Naaman was not an Israelite; he was a foreign military commander from Aram. Yet God showed mercy to him. This points to the broader truth that God’s salvation is not limited by nationality, ethnicity, background, or social standing. God welcomes all who come to Him in faith and humility. —– [1] House, Paul R. 1995. 1, 2 Kings. Vol. 8. The New American Commentary. Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

Why Did Jesus Live? The Why’s of Easter Greg Lavine and John Beeson You've all been a part of conversations like this where someone is super excited about what they're talking about and you have little to no interest whatsoever in what they're talking about. And so you kind of politely listen, but you're looking for a way out of the conversation. Essentially, this happens to me with John, especially this time of year. He starts to talk about this archaic type of sport that used to be popular way back when, in the days of horse racing and boxing and baseball. Those are the top three sports in the country. And he gets going on baseball. And I just like, yeah, yeah, I'm not opposed to baseball. There are so many games, none of them really matter. When they start to matter, when they start to matter in October, if the Diamondbacks are in it, I get interested. I play along with the pennant race. Understanding some terms, do you, Greg? Yes, a little bit. I'm thinking more like, hey, the draft is here for college battle. There's lots of exciting things than baseball. That's sometimes how people in the world can look at Christians. So Christians can. Can go out and be sharing Jesus with friends. And it's very possible to sit back as Christians share, especially on how they might share, but they're sharing about Jesus, and you'll be thinking to yourself, like, okay, what difference does it make a guy who lived 2,000 years ago, like, what difference does that make to me? As Christians go on and on. We're walking through a series as we gaze towards Easter just two weeks from now, consider, what does the life of Jesus have for us? What does the death of Jesus have for us? And what does the resurrection of Jesus have for us? Why do those things matter? And I would suggest to you that the life of Jesus has invitations to us that are powerful and beautiful. And that's true if we're a Christian. That's true if we're not a Christian. If we're not a Christian and, and we're hearing that, listen, Jesus is not just an idea, it's not just a myth. He is a human being who lived 2,000 years ago. And consider this from Scripture. Jesus is 100% man, a human being, and 100% God. So when we say that the life of Jesus is everything like Jesus, Jesus is the foundation of everything that, that we do if we're ever a part of a church. And Jesus isn't the center of everything, like, that's. That's not Christianity. There's a reason Christianity is called Christianity. There's a reason we are called Christians or Christians. We are followers of Jesus. We seek to glorify Jesus. Jesus is our Savior. Jesus is the One we want to exalt. He is the center of absolutely everything. He's God and he's man. Consider these words out of the Gospel of John, first chapter. He says, the true light which enlightens everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him. Yet the world did not know Him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive Him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God who were born not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth from eternity past. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit had perfect harmony, perfect unity, perfect love, as the Father exalted the Son and the Son exalted the Father, and the Holy Spirit lifted up both. There's affirmation and approval and encouragement pouring from one to another in absolute perfection. And then the Father sent His Son to this world. And in that moment, God did not change, but he added to himself humanity. God had never been a human. God in Jesus Christ became a human being. He set aside attributes of his deity in order to become a human being and live amongst us. And I would suggest to you that as we gaze into the life of Jesus as God and as man, there are invitations in him for all of us. And as we look towards Easter, may it be that we walk in these invitations. So we have two weeks till Easter. We want to spend these three Sundays, as we step into that, answering these questions, the whys of Easter. Why does Jesus life matter for me? For you? Why does his death matter? That's next week and on Easter Sunday, why does it matter that he rose again? And you've already heard Greg beginning to open this up for us, that the whys of why did Jesus live for us come from the heart of God reaching out to connect with us. And the first of four invitations that we're going to receive is this. The first invitation is jesus invites us into being human. Jesus life invites us into being human. You heard Greg share that Jesus retained full divinity. He's fully God, but also fully man. And I think sometimes we tend to diminish that. We shrink the fullness of his humanity. Now Jesus was fully human. He got hungry, he got tired. He navigated difficult relationships he had to forgive. Jesus was fully, fully human. I want to take us over to Philippians 2 where we see the fullness of his humanity on display in his humility and his obedience. Listen to what Paul says in Philippians 2. Have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant. Being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross. Jesus. Life is a life of navigating humanity, the fullness of what it is to be a human being. Jesus lost, lost friends. He grieved that loss. Jesus sought God the Father's will in prayer. He reached out. He asked God what he was supposed to do. We see this as he's preparing to choose the disciples. Over in Luke 6 we see him seeking God the Father in prayer. In these days he went out to the mountain to pray. And all night he continued in prayer to God and. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose them from the twelve whom he named his apostles. Jesus. Jesus navigates these challenging places. Have you ever had to seek the will of God? What do you want from me? Jesus sought the will of God. I think for many of us, we think of Jesus life as though he had some sort of extra superpowers that are not locked, that are unlocked or locked to us. He had unlocked to him. I think of. So when I was. I was born two years after the first Star wars came out. So Star wars was a big part of my childhood. I remember we had our next door neighbor. He was the one with all the toys. He had all the cool toys. Okay. So I remember one morning, he's like, john, John, I got real lightsabers. And I'm like, really real lightsabers. Come on over. Come on over after school we'll play with my lightsabers. I was like, well, I can't think about anything else today except for the real lightsabers I'm going to play with after school. So I'm locked in real lightsabers. I'm imagining the duels we're going to have, you know, the danger we will be in as we weld these instruments. You know, mesquite trees will chop down, you know. And then I go and I see the real lightsabers and they're. Well, they're just not real, unfortunately. They're plastic. They make that Whooshing noise and they light up. I'm like, yeah. I think for a lot of us, we think that God gives us the plastic lightsaber and Jesus has the real lightsaber. He. I mean, yeah, it's Jesus, okay? Of course he forgives people. It's Jesus. Of course he has compassion on difficult people. It's Jesus. No, Jesus was fully human. He was even tempted as we are, tempted as we are. We're going to read a passage. We're going to come back to it, actually, two different times over the course of the sermon. I want to read the beginning. This is in Hebrews 4. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are. Did you catch the wildness of that? I don't know what your heart struggles with as it comes to sin. Lust, greed, anger, anxiousness. I don't know what that struggle is. But the author of Hebrews says he was tempted in every respect. He has felt those temptations. He has navigated through that place. And Jesus shows us what it is to be a human being. Image that I have of Jesus is of a baby inside of his or her mother's womb, connected to mom with umbilical cord. That Jesus in life was connected to the Father so that he would hear the Father speak before he spoke, that he would hear the Father direct him before he moved. The reason he went out in prayer so often was to be connected to the Father in all things. And that same dependency is given to us. Jesus was a human being. In the first invitation, he invites us in to humanity. The second invitation, though, is the opposite side of that is that he invites us into godliness. Consider that verse that we just read in Hebrews chapter four. It says, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Yet without sin. In other words, Jesus Christ was tempted in every way, just as we are. But he never crossed the line into sin. His anger never crossed the line into sin. His desires, his passions never crossed the line into sin. He wanted things that were opposed to God. At times you look at his prayer in the garden, Father, not my will, but yours be done. In other words, God, I don't want to die on the cross. I don't want to die on the cross. Yet not my will, but yours be done. He lived out his life without sin, not crossing the line. Once in utter purity. And he invites us into that same thing. There's three things that happen in the life of Christ in our life. One is we can have our sins washed away. The other is that he gives us his righteousness. He takes his righteousness and he puts it inside of us. So he washes our sins away. Then he gives us his righteousness. But the third thing, he gives us supernatural power to live victorious, godly lives. Listen to just a few verses. We see these playing it out In Matthew chapter five, Jesus is teaching. He says, do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. In other words, he obeyed the law because we could not. He obeyed the law in utter perfection we never could have. He obeyed in our place. He fulfills the law for us. He takes away our sin and he gives us his righteousness. Consider these words out of Romans, chapter 5. I'm beginning in verse 18. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, that's Adam's sin. As one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification in life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience, the many will be made righteous. He takes away our sin and he gives us his righteous. He credits it to us. The old King James I love. He imputed. He imputed his righteousness inside of us. But it doesn't stop there. It's not just that he takes away our sin. It's not just that he gives us his righteousness. Then he gives us supernatural power to actually become righteous, to live out victorious, godly, righteous lives. In the book of 2 Corinthians, in chapter 5, verse 21, we read these words. For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. For our sake, he, the Father, made him to be sin. Jesus, who knew no sin. Jesus was sinless, but God the Father made Jesus sin so that in him we might become righteousness of God. Our sin is washed away. His righteousness is credited to us. It's put inside of us. And then we are given supernatural power to live godly, victorious lives. I have been a little bit haunted recently with a command in Scripture. Husbands, love your wives as Christ does the church. I gaze into the beauty of that command and I think, what chance do I have? As Christ loved the church, on her worst day, on the church's worst day, Jesus loved her in the most deepest way possible. She's spitting on him, abandoning him, correcting him, looking up, oh, Jesus, if you're so special, why don't you come down from there? I've sometimes thought, I know I'm not Jesus. If I was somehow Jesus on the cross, and I had the armies of the Host of Heaven behind me, and some snot nosed little earthlings were looking up at me, saying, whoa, if you're so special, why don't you come down from there? He was saying, father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. So I think, what chance do I have of loving my wife like he loved? It's so pure. It's so beautiful. It's so incredible. I feel a million miles from it. But here's. Here's a thought. I'm not going to raise my hand, say, hey, I got this down. Deborah's right over here. You can check. I don't. But by the grace of God, I'm better at it today than I was 10 years ago. God gives us supernatural power to not only have it be some kind of external thing where our sin is washed away and he gives us his righteousness, but he actually changes us. He molds us. I put the toilet down by myself and everything now. Well, not everything, but that. I got that down most of the time. So if you've ever. If you've ever thought I'm not worthy or I can't measure up, remember, in the life of Jesus not only takes away your sin and gives us his righteousness, he has supernatural power for you today that can help you live in victory today more than you did yesterday. Jesus invites us into being human. Jesus invites us into godliness. Jesus is our invitation into the kingdom of God. I don't know. It really doesn't matter your political affiliation or leanings. Every single one of us has been disappointed in our life by human kingdoms, by human political parties, by human political leaders. But the kingdom of God never, never disappoints. Jesus Christ comes as the king of that kingdom, and he invites us. He doesn't just come to show us individually how to be human beings. He doesn't just come to give us an example individually and the power to walk into godliness. He calls us collectively from every tribe and tongue and nation into a new kingdom where he is the King. And he says, you collectively get to demonstrate a new way to live. You're the light to this world. You get to step into a new path New path of healing. Jesus steps in with the power of the king of that kingdom, demonstrating the power of the kingdom in miracles, undoing what was broken in this world, stepping into that world with teachings. Jesus doesn't just drop down on earth and head straight to the cross. He gives us a lifetime of demonstration of what this kingdom looks like. And then he explains it to us. He teaches us his word, explains that to us. How to live, how to love, how to walk in his way. I want to take us to a passage over in Luke 4. It's his first sermon. It's in his hometown. He's in the synagogue. He's going to unroll the scroll of Isaiah and he's going to read from that scroll. And then he's going to sit down and he's going to preach the shortest, most audacious sermon you've ever heard. Here's In Luke 4, the spirit of the Lord is upon me. He's reading from Isaiah because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. That little word, good news, by the way, if you ever heard the word gospel, that's what we're talking about, the good news. The good news. Now, the life of Jesus Christ and his kingdom. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. I've come to undo everything that was wrong. And he rolled up the scroll and he gave it back to the attendant. And he sat down and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. Whoa. You have been waiting generation after generation for the true king to come. It's me, Jesus says, and the spirit of the Lord is upon me and I am the good news. I am the in breaking of the kingdom that's going to liberate captives, that's going to undo the brokenness of this world. Come, follow me. Jesus is the invitation into that kingdom. He calls us collectively on his mission for undoing everything that is wrong in this world. So I'm old enough. If you know the movie Parent Trap, there's the old version and then there's the old old version. I'm old enough to know the old old version as well as the old version. You know, it's been around for a while. Here's the parent trap in a nutshell. If you don't know the parent trap, Parent trap. Two twins Separated at birth, one lives with mom, one lives with dad. They meet up at a summer camp and two cool things happen. Both reflect the gospel. One is that in meeting each other, they both begin to understand more deeply who they are. So it is with Jesus, when we meet our brother, Jesus Christ, we more deeply understand who we are. When we are separated from him, are reconnected to him, we understand ourselves. But it's not just that. They are then set on a mission. Mission to put mom and dad together, to reconcile what was wrong. And so too, we are set on a mission to reconcile, to make right what is wrong in this world. You are the salt of the earth, Jesus said. You are the light of the world. The city on a hill cannot be hidden. You are a reflection collectively as the people of God. To demonstrate my heart in this world, have you seen evidences of Jesus kingdom at work? In this world, have you seen two people that had no business ever reconciling who knew Jesus reconcile? Have you ever seen someone, through the power of Jesus in their life, break an addiction that was leading them into destruction? You've seen the kingdom at work, healing at work, the power of Jesus alive. Because Jesus is our invitation into the kingdom of God. Jesus invites us into humanity. Jesus invites us into godliness. Jesus invites us into kingdom. If you forget everything else this morning, I hope you hear this last invitation. Jesus invites us into relationship with God. The most foundational invitation he offers us. Jesus was teaching his disciples, and in this teaching he shares that he is the truth and the life and the way. Because he says that he is the way. The disciples start to ask him questions. Philip pulls him aside like, hey, show us the Father. Could you show us the Father? And when Philip asked this question, Jesus goes, you don't get it yet. You don't. You don't get it yet. And this is Jesus response to him. John 14, verse 9. Jesus said to him, have I been with you so long and you still do not know me? Philip, whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, show me the Father? It's a truth we see spill out in the Gospel of John. Especially if you see Jesus, you see the Father. If you hear Jesus, you hear the Father. If you reject Jesus, you reject the Father. If you believe in Jesus, you believe in the Father. If you accept Jesus, you accept the Father. This invitation Jesus gives us. Remember the picture I tried to paint earlier of this perfect, beautiful unity from eternity past of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, with a love and affirmation just flowing between them from One to another, Jesus invites us into that, that the love from the Father to the Son, through the Spirit into us back to the Father, that we would be in that place, invited into relationship with God. We're not invited into a set of doctrines, we're not invited into a religion. We're invited into relationship with God, a part of his family. A very striking moment or memory in my life goes back to college. So the senior pastor of the church I was going to in college had been there like 30 years. He had a son who was about 10 years older than I was that discipled me for a couple of years in college and I found myself at their house a fair bit and I was at their house one time and I don't know what. So the senior pastor, they both had the same name as Charles, but it was one went by Charlie. And then Chuck was the son, but Charlie Sr. Was in the room and we were visiting together. And Chuck, Charlie Jr. He must have ate something spicy. I don't know what happened. He was just very proud and disrespectful towards his dad. And not only disrespectful towards his dad, but he started to kind of puff out his chest with Bible knowledge, you know, trying to like, well, I know what this verse means. You don't even know that dad. And I'm like just kind of watching it. And at one point dad grabbed his son's Bible and chucked it across the floor. Dammit Chuck, you don't need more Bible knowledge in your life. You need relationship with Jesus. Now he loved the word of God as much as any human being that I've ever known. So he meant no disrespect to Scripture. The Bible though was not written for us to gain knowledge. If that was its purpose. You know, you could be a history professor at a university and teach the Bible without knowing Jesus. This was not given to us for doctrine's sake. It was not given to us for religion's sake. This was given to us that we might meet and know God in it, that we would taste and see the Lord in its pages. So all he meant was you need to set down your pursuit for knowledge. It's obviously puffing you up. Sit and rest with God in relationship with him. I was big eyed and soaking it in, but it's a truth. I remember to this day. The main invitation, the life of Jesus is relationship with God. Father, Son and Holy Spirit invites us in past religion, past knowledge, past doctrine, past all of those things, he invites us in to relationship with himself. I Hope you've heard that throughout this sermon. Jesus is not a force. He's not an idea. He's a person. Person with an invitation to each and every one of us. And if you don't know where you are with Jesus today, as you hear this, you're like, yeah, I've had respect for Jesus and he's been a nice person to learn from. From there. I want you to hear an invitation for you to put your trust in him today. Repent of your own paths of spirituality that have tried to establish your own way to go, to repent of your own kingdom, to repent of trying to create godliness, good deeds on your own, and receive the gift that Jesus has for you today. We would love. We'd love to talk to you right up front here after the service, our prayer team will be here, and we'd love to talk to you. If you're online, our online team would love to talk to you. I want to take us back to that passage in Hebrews. I want to land there with a call to all of us. Here's the passage, and read one final verse in it. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Okay, so what, what do we do? Let us then, with confidence, draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Every one of us. I want us to hear this invitation. These two weeks leading up to Easter, would these be weeks that you hear this call of Jesus saying, come, spend time with me. Spend time with me. I'm not a dusty historical figure out there. I am the Son of God who wants a relationship with you. Spend time with me. Okay. Okay. What does that mean? What does it mean to spend time with Jesus? Let me give you two footholds for that first time in his word, God has given us His Word, as Greg shared, to share his heart with us so that we can know him better. Over these two weeks, I'd invite you to pick up a Gospel, Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, and to spend time getting to know the heart of Jesus, to read. Not just to try to speed read through, but to read and. And reflect and react and to listen. God, what do you have for me? What are you showing me about your heart as I read the text? Second, spend time in prayer with God. Prayer is a conversation that God invites us in to meet him, to commune with him, to connect with him. He says come, come. I'm. I want to hear what's on your heart. Share with me what you're wrestling with, what you're struggling with. And then I want to tell you what's on my heart. So listen. Listen and receive. Listen again to that call. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Jesus life matters to every single one of us and he invites us to come and be with him. Let me pray. Lord, we are so grateful for your kingdom. We're so grateful, Lord, for the ministry of your life, Lord, that in your life we can see what it is to really be a human being. We can be invited into godliness, into following your path. We can. We can walk into your kingdom together as a community and God, that we can see the very face of God. Thank you, Jesus, for your life. We want to live more like you and we want to be like you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.