back to indexBerean Community Church Passion Week Devotionals 4/4/2023
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For my God is the Ancient of Days. For my God is the Ancient of Days. 00:00:20.000 |
I'm alive and well, your spirit is within me. 00:27:54.280 |
And God, thank you for your word that we're about to open 00:28:02.280 |
And Father, that every step that he took was so necessary, 00:28:19.280 |
And so as we go into your word, I pray that our eyes and ears 00:28:23.280 |
would enlarge and God to be able to hear and be captivated again 00:28:31.780 |
Well, we're continuing here to observe his walk to the cross. 00:28:43.280 |
Jesus, he overturns the tables at the temple. 00:28:58.280 |
And what's amazing is that it wasn't the Romans who were 00:29:08.280 |
The people who were trying to ensnare Jesus were the leaders 00:29:14.280 |
The people of God, these were the Israelites. 00:29:20.280 |
So these Pharisees, the scribes, the Herodians, the Sadducees, 00:29:24.280 |
the priests, all these Jewish sects that were normally at odds 00:29:28.280 |
with each other were unifying with this common goal to try to 00:29:44.280 |
Jesus knew intricately what was going on in the hearts of these people. 00:29:48.280 |
He knew who these teachers and religious leaders were. 00:30:02.280 |
There's a unity in this desire that these men had. 00:30:06.280 |
In their hatred of God, seemingly morally upright people. 00:30:11.280 |
And these were people who saw Jesus' miracles. 00:30:15.280 |
They saw his might, his kindness, his grace, his power and 00:30:21.280 |
spirit-filled teaching, and they turned around and schemed 00:30:28.280 |
People who are waiting for the Messiah for years when they 00:30:32.280 |
encounter the man who is systematically accomplishing all 00:30:35.280 |
that their word, all that the law and the prophets had described. 00:30:40.280 |
When he comes into the world, the one that they were studying 00:30:43.280 |
day by day, when he arrives, they seethe in anger. 00:30:49.280 |
They want him not just set aside, but they want him annihilated and killed. 00:30:55.280 |
And they overcome great obstacles and barriers to unify before Jesus. 00:30:59.280 |
Not to worship him, not to love him, but again, to murder him. 00:31:06.280 |
This is the Messiah Jesus who imposes a threat on what they want. 00:31:14.280 |
They want a physical kingdom with their names, their desires 00:31:18.280 |
promoted, and turning to God only as a means of achieving their ends. 00:31:25.280 |
So on this day of Passion Week, this is what's heightening. 00:31:28.280 |
These people who say, "Lord, Lord," are the very ones who are out to ensnare 00:31:32.280 |
and kill him, and it's shocking how deep their hatred goes. 00:31:36.280 |
Now there's a passage in Matthew 11, verse 13 that shows how shocking this is. 00:31:41.280 |
It says, "Then he said to the man, 'Stretch out your hand.' 00:31:44.280 |
He stretched it out, and it was restored to normal like the other." 00:31:54.280 |
Look at verse 14, look at how they turn around. 00:31:58.280 |
"But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him as to how they might destroy him." 00:32:11.280 |
Well, Jesus knew all of this about these religious leaders. 00:32:14.280 |
Jesus had come down in love to his people to extend a hand of grace and mercy 00:32:19.280 |
to his people, and he had spent an entire earthly lifetime 00:32:23.280 |
wanting nothing more for than his people to come to know him. 00:32:30.280 |
He was born into the world as a helpless baby, 00:32:33.280 |
spent a life laboring in the brokenness of this world, walking amongst sinners. 00:32:40.280 |
The creator with creation, enduring temptations and trials and mockery and scorn. 00:32:48.280 |
And for all this mind-blowing effort of God who had come flesh to save them, 00:32:53.280 |
the response by the people he came to save was not surrender, love, and awe. 00:33:03.280 |
It would have been better maybe for there to be neglect or maybe ignorance, right? 00:33:10.280 |
It would have been better for someone just to turn away in apathy, 00:33:14.280 |
but their response is so indicative of the sinner. 00:33:23.280 |
On this Tuesday morning, Jesus and the disciples wake up in Bethany. 00:33:30.280 |
And they head back to Jerusalem and the temple, and on the way to Jerusalem, 00:33:35.280 |
they pass by the withered fig tree from yesterday. 00:33:37.280 |
I took a cue from Pastor Mark, and there's a tree. 00:33:42.280 |
And as they were passing by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots up. 00:33:46.280 |
Being reminded, Peter said to him, "Rabbi, look, the fig tree which you cursed has withered." 00:33:50.280 |
So this was a blossomed, bloomed, full of leaves tree the day before, 00:33:57.280 |
and now they're passing by again the next day on Tuesday, and it had withered. 00:34:08.280 |
Now he says, being reminded by Peter, who had said, "Rabbi, look, the fig tree which you cursed has withered," 00:34:17.280 |
trying to show his disciples what happens to people who do not bear fruit, 00:34:30.280 |
And they pass by this fig tree to the temple in Jerusalem, where the people of God are. 00:34:38.280 |
They're gathered here because it's Passover time. 00:34:43.280 |
And it says in Matthew 21, verse 23, "When Jesus entered the temple, 00:34:47.280 |
the chief priests and the elders of the people, they come right up to him. 00:34:50.280 |
They came to him while he was teaching, and Jesus sees that they're ready to ensnare and trap him today, 00:34:55.280 |
especially after what he did yesterday in cleansing of the temple." 00:34:59.280 |
Jesus is a great threat to them, to their worldly kingdom. 00:35:06.280 |
See, these are people who want what they want. 00:35:10.280 |
God and his kingdom is not the end for these people. 00:35:13.280 |
Their own kingdom is their end. It's what they want. 00:35:16.280 |
And they attach God's name to it, and you see it very immediately in their very first exchange. 00:35:21.280 |
In Matthew 21, verse 23, these men who had come up to Jesus, 00:35:24.280 |
they asked this question, "By what authority are you doing these things? 00:35:31.280 |
I mean, up to this point, anyone with a mustard seeds amount of faith would have been able to answer that question. 00:35:37.280 |
Who? Like, whose authority is he able to do this? 00:35:43.280 |
But because they don't like the message that he is the king, that he is the Lord, that he is the master, 00:35:49.280 |
that it is Jesus' kingdom that Jesus comes for, 00:35:53.280 |
they refuse to submit and bow the knee to Jesus, and they ask this question, "Then by whose authority?" 00:35:58.280 |
even though it should be so clear who he is by this point. 00:36:10.280 |
Why? Because he has already been given every evidence as to who he was. 00:36:17.280 |
And yet they were unwilling to yield and turn to him in faith. 00:36:22.280 |
We have been given every ounce of evidence that is needed for us to place our faith in him, 00:36:29.280 |
to know who he is, to understand who we need, 00:36:35.280 |
and yet the sinner's reaction is to go after personal kingdom. 00:36:41.280 |
And if it means we've got to go through Christ, then so be it. 00:36:44.280 |
And so Jesus answers in Matthew 21, 27, "Neither will I tell you then by what authority I do these things." 00:36:52.280 |
Before he goes to the cross, this Tuesday is when Jesus makes the clearest rebuke to these religious leaders. 00:36:59.280 |
Jesus goes into many parables, actually, to describe it to them, but we're going to focus on two parables. 00:37:10.280 |
Jesus tells a parable of a vineyard landowner who goes on a journey, and let me read this for us. 00:37:14.280 |
In Matthew 21, 33, he says, "Listen to another parable. 00:37:17.280 |
There was a landowner who planted a vineyard and put a wall around it and dug a wine press in it 00:37:22.280 |
and built a tower and rented it out to vine growers and went on a journey. 00:37:27.280 |
Now when the harvest time approached, he sent his slaves to the vine growers to receive his produce. 00:37:38.280 |
They beat one, killed another, and stoned a third." 00:37:44.280 |
So again, he sent another group of slaves larger than the first, and they did the same thing to them. 00:37:50.280 |
But afterward, he sent his son to them, saying, "They will respect my son." 00:37:56.280 |
But when the vine growers saw the son, they said amongst themselves, "This is the heir. 00:38:00.280 |
Come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance." 00:38:06.280 |
They took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. 00:38:11.280 |
Jesus is telling a parable to them, and it's pretty clear what he's trying to say to them, right? 00:38:20.280 |
Jesus knows this as he's looking at these leaders. 00:38:30.280 |
Even though he is the Lord, these religious leaders want it all. 00:38:37.280 |
They want the perks of God's world without God or worship of God. 00:38:41.280 |
And Jesus is describing what they are willing to do to him. 00:38:49.280 |
He knew every step of the way what was going to happen to him, and yet he continues down this path. 00:38:55.280 |
And so what is the answer they come up with when he asks this question? 00:38:59.280 |
Well, in verse 38, he says, "This is the heir. 00:39:02.280 |
Come, let us kill him and seize an inheritance." 00:39:05.280 |
Jesus asks these Jewish leaders what that landowner will do. 00:39:09.280 |
They're able to answer with remarkable clarity. 00:39:12.280 |
It's disturbing how well they understand what the landowner should do. 00:39:17.280 |
"The religious leaders said to him, 'He will bring those wretches to a wretched end 00:39:22.280 |
and will rent out the vineyard to other vine growers who will pay him the proceeds at the proper season.'" 00:39:31.280 |
And it says, "If we weren't clear that they understood that he was talking about them." 00:39:36.280 |
Matthew 21, 45, "When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, 00:39:40.280 |
they understood that he was speaking about them." 00:39:54.280 |
Jesus goes on to tell in another parable, "A king is holding a wedding feast for his son. 00:39:58.280 |
He sends his slaves out to call those who had been invited to the wedding feast, 00:40:06.280 |
Then the king sends other slaves with more information." 00:40:09.280 |
These slaves, by the way, were alluding to past prophets of Israel. 00:40:13.280 |
They had been given evidence after evidence, prophecy after prophecy, 00:40:18.280 |
all that they needed to believe that he is the Messiah. 00:40:27.280 |
And those invited in this story, if we look at Matthew 22, 4, it says, 00:40:31.280 |
"Tell those who have been invited, 'Behold, I have prepared my dinner. 00:40:36.280 |
My oxen and my fattened livestock are all butchered and everything is ready. 00:40:42.280 |
But these invited pay no attention to this invitation." 00:40:45.280 |
And instead, Jesus says three things happened. 00:40:47.280 |
One, he owned a farm that he wanted to tend to. 00:40:51.280 |
Second person, he owned a business that he wanted to tend to. 00:40:54.280 |
And the third one, the rest seized the slaves and killed them. 00:41:01.280 |
They want their own life according to their own terms. 00:41:13.280 |
Remember, these are all describing these Jewish religious leaders. 00:41:17.280 |
He's speaking inside of the temple at Jerusalem, 00:41:21.280 |
at the most important Jewish festival season. 00:41:27.280 |
It's the people who are supposed to be the closest to God, 00:41:31.280 |
who are the most seething, who are the most scheming, 00:41:35.280 |
who are the clearest depiction of what a sinner looks like. 00:41:46.280 |
They say, "Lord, Lord, did we not do all these things in your name?" 00:41:49.280 |
And one day, Jesus will stare them back in the eyes, 00:41:57.280 |
The kingdom is reserved for those who love the Lord and live for him. 00:42:00.280 |
The kingdom does not house people who live for their own kingdoms, 00:42:08.280 |
Similar to the parable of the vineyard landowner, 00:42:10.280 |
the king sends his armies, destroys the murderers, 00:42:20.280 |
He was enraged, and it's obvious that he should be enraged. 00:42:24.280 |
He extends his hand of grace to these people to invite them 00:42:28.280 |
to the wedding feast of his son, and that's how he treats them? 00:42:35.280 |
And it says, "And he sent his armies and destroyed those murderers 00:42:53.280 |
the parable of this wedding feast all ends in the same way. 00:43:07.280 |
This is what exists at the end for the sinner." 00:43:12.280 |
And Jesus knows that as he's walking on the way to the cross, 00:43:17.280 |
that for those he will lay down his life for, 00:43:25.280 |
It is not something he is just yelling out at a bunch of people. 00:43:35.280 |
The king sends his slaves to the main highways, 00:43:37.280 |
inviting anyone who would come to the wedding, 00:43:42.280 |
And this kingdom is reserved for those of faith. 00:43:47.280 |
It doesn't matter what you look like on the outside. 00:43:49.280 |
The kingdom is for those who will place their faith in God 00:43:54.280 |
It's for the ones who have traded in all things for God. 00:43:57.280 |
It's not for those who put up a religious show. 00:44:09.280 |
So this takes us into the afternoon of Tuesday. 00:44:12.280 |
He's been teaching all day long at the temple, 00:44:14.280 |
this very temple just a day before where he had overturned those tables. 00:44:18.280 |
A full day's work of teaching done to this afternoon point. 00:44:22.280 |
And Jesus caps it all off as if there were any question as to the message 00:44:25.280 |
that he was trying to portray in Jerusalem that day in Matthew 23. 00:44:31.280 |
"The scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses. 00:44:35.280 |
Therefore, all that they tell you, do not observe." 00:44:41.280 |
He says, "But do not do according to their deeds, 00:44:46.280 |
They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men's shoulders, 00:44:48.280 |
but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger. 00:44:52.280 |
But they do all their deeds to be noticed by men, 00:44:54.280 |
for they broaden their phylacteries and lengthen the tassels of their garments. 00:44:57.280 |
They love the place of honor at banquets and the chief seats in the synagogues 00:45:01.280 |
and respectful greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by men. 00:45:11.280 |
It is literally a statement of intense hardship or distress. 00:45:20.280 |
You can think of it like how greatly one will suffer. 00:45:23.280 |
He's pronouncing this kind of suffering and judgment. 00:45:37.280 |
saying, "This is what lies in wait for those who will not turn." 00:45:43.280 |
Seven times he pronounces these woes, a perfect number. 00:45:49.280 |
Clearly stating that the proud and arrogant are not victims. 00:45:52.280 |
They are hard-hearted people who will bring judgment upon themselves. 00:45:57.280 |
He has spent this time exposing who they are and what their heart is like, 00:46:01.280 |
but these proud and arrogant people do not submit to the Lord. 00:46:07.280 |
And they will do anything in their power to make sure that they gain their kingdom. 00:46:10.280 |
They will, if there is no other option, eliminate the threat that stands before them, 00:46:15.280 |
even if it is the Messiah himself, deceiving themselves into thinking or saying, 00:46:26.280 |
even though every evidence was given to them. 00:46:34.280 |
This man does not fit the way they think their worship ought to be. 00:46:39.280 |
It is a supremely man-centered worship that they exist in. 00:46:42.280 |
This is the heart of sin. This is the heart of the rebellion of mankind. 00:46:47.280 |
And God has been patient in his desire to extend grace and mercy for years and years. 00:46:52.280 |
And so he concludes in Matthew 23, 34, in this teaching. 00:46:56.280 |
He says, "Therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes. 00:47:00.280 |
Some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues 00:47:04.280 |
and persecute from city to city, so that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, 00:47:09.280 |
from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, 00:47:15.280 |
whom you murdered between the temple and the altar." 00:47:17.280 |
Verse 37, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her. 00:47:22.280 |
How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, 00:47:27.280 |
and you were unwilling. Behold, your house is being left to you desolate." 00:47:48.280 |
The Lord's desire is for none to perish, but for all to come to repentance. 00:47:52.280 |
Jesus is exposing his heart, not just of the Jews, but for the sinner. 00:47:58.280 |
Desiring to live my way. It's not just wayward living. 00:48:04.280 |
It's not just something to be rectified. It's not just something that we have to try better and harder. 00:48:08.280 |
It is something that goes so much deeper than that. 00:48:11.280 |
That this type of living Jesus is trying to describe, that it ends only in judgment. 00:48:19.280 |
Because in the face of these religious leaders shows that for the sinner, it is not just a flaw. 00:48:28.280 |
It is a desire of the death of God in our lives. 00:48:32.280 |
Which we will see as we continue as he walks towards the cross. 00:48:38.280 |
This week, every step that Jesus takes is intentional. 00:48:42.280 |
Every thought that he has, every word he speaks is an intentional thing that is accomplished sovereignly. 00:48:58.280 |
After Jerusalem, he's headed on his way back to Bethany. 00:49:02.280 |
Perhaps on Tuesday, there's the most packed teaching and most described about what Jesus did. 00:49:09.280 |
And so, we didn't even get to touch the Olivet Discourse. 00:49:18.280 |
But they stop by on the Mount of Olives and look over the city of Jerusalem. 00:49:22.280 |
And Jesus begins to describe to his disciples the one who do know who he is. 00:49:27.280 |
The ones who have given up their lives to follow him. 00:49:48.280 |
And so, as he explains God's ultimate judgment that's coming. 00:50:01.280 |
There is something afterwards that I like to think that the disciples saw. 00:50:06.280 |
That until that judgment day comes, we do still exist in a time of grace. 00:50:12.280 |
Where the message of the cross still belongs. 00:50:22.280 |
For anyone who today would turn their faith towards Christ. 00:50:27.280 |
I wanted to conclude with Romans chapter 5 verse 6 through 8. 00:50:31.280 |
You see, at just the right time when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 00:50:36.280 |
Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person. 00:50:40.280 |
Though for a good person, someone might possibly dare to die. 00:50:43.280 |
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this. 00:50:46.280 |
While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 00:50:50.280 |
I hope that as we keep going through Wednesday and all the way to Good Friday and then Resurrection Sunday. 00:51:00.280 |
And on that cross we will see fury and we will see love. 00:51:04.280 |
And Jesus had all that in his mind as he looked upon his people. 00:51:10.280 |
Heavenly Father, I pray that you would help us to have the right mentality. 00:51:18.280 |
That we would wonder again how our God, how our creator, our Lord, our Savior and Master could do this for us. 00:51:29.280 |
I pray Lord that it would come from a deep place of deep seated worship. 00:52:51.280 |
For His throne it shall remain and ever stand 00:54:08.280 |
For His throne it shall remain and ever stand 00:55:40.280 |
For His throne it shall remain and ever stand 00:56:20.280 |
Would you take a moment to pray on your own and I'll close us in prayer. 00:57:20.280 |
So Father, as we continue just gathering together, what a joy and privilege it is to do that. 00:57:26.280 |
God, I pray that the cross, though it happened 2,000 years ago, would have so much relevance for us, 00:57:34.280 |
not only at the moment of our conversion, but today. 00:57:37.280 |
And so Lord, we want to thank you that you, our God, walked amongst us, 00:57:42.280 |
that you would care so much, that you would dwell amongst your people. 00:57:48.280 |
And Father, that we will give you the worship that you rightly deserve. 00:57:54.280 |
Alright, well tonight, again, we're going to be keeping this place open until 9.30 and we're shutting it down. 00:57:59.280 |
So feel free to fellowship with one another until then, and we'll see you tomorrow night.