LOJ #181: One for All

LOJ #181: ‘One for All’

Andover Baptist Church-April 28th, 2013

Opening

A. Text for today is John 11:47-48 and our sermon is titled

One for All

B. Scripture NET:

“47 So the chief priests and the Pharisees called the council together and said, “What are we doing? For this man is performing many miraculous signs. 48 If we allow Him to go on in this way, everyone will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away our sanctuary and our nation.”

C. Introduction

1. In December 1990 a road construction crew working in

south of the Old City of Jerusalem came across

something they were not expecting: a tomb

2. Archeologists were called in and they found a number of

ossuary boxes (used to hold bones of deceased family

members)

3. One in particular stood out in size, ornateness and

beauty

4. Inside were bones of a few people, one being a male in

his sixties

5. As exciting a find as this was, what really excited the

archeologists was the name scratched on the back of the

box

6. What was the name? Joseph bar Caiaphas

7. The same man who the Jewish historian Josephus and

the Gospels tell was the high priest the year of Jesus'

crucifixion

8. The same man who pressured and received from Pilate

the crucifixion of Christ (a plan that we see forming in

our text today)

9. Sweet irony that the man who wanted Jesus dead and

buried was found in a tomb 2000 years after his burial,

but the One Who he had murdered vacated His in just

three days and on His own accord

10. And 2000 years later that tomb of Jesus’ still is empty

11. Friends no one can put the Resurrected Jesus back in

His empty tomb, no matter how hard they try, Jesus

wins

Sermon

READ: John 11:47, 48 (Scripture slide)

A. The people Jesus upset by teaching the truth and doing

miracles: ‘the chief priests and the Pharisees’

1. 'the chief priests'

a. These were former high priests and members of

the most important priestly families

b. Often times would include family members of

the current high priest

c. They ran and operated the temple (which added

to their wealth)

d. Almost all of them were of the political and

religious party of the Sadducees

e. In the last weeks of Jesus’ life they become, as

we see in the book of John, Jesus’ leading

enemies

2. ‘and the Pharisees’

a. The most conservative of the two groups

b. These were the more middle class guys who were

popular with the common people

c. Most of them involved in the council were scribes

(also known as teachers of the law or lawyers)

3. The two groups differed greatly on theological issues

and usually disliked each other

B. Those involved in our text were members of the ‘council’ and

they called a meeting to discuss Jesus

1. Every city with a large group of Jews had a council (or

Sanhedrin like this)

2. But this Sanhedrin in Jerusalem was called the Great

Sanhedrin and functioned over the others like the United

States Supreme Court does all our other courts

3. They dealt with all the internal civil, criminal and

religious matters in Israel (according to John 18:31 only

Rome had the power to sentence someone to death,

however)

4. The makeup of the group

a. Made up of Sadducees and Pharisees

b. While the minority the Pharisees still had much

influence

c. Sometimes wealthy land owners could be

appointed as well

d. All together there were 70 members (claimed this

came from Numbers 11:16 where Moses was told

by God to choose 70 men to help him judge)

e. The high priest presided and broke ties with his

71st vote

5. Being that only the high priest could convene a meeting

of the Sanhedrin this might have been an informal,

emergency meeting (possibly with pro-Jesus members

like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea absent)

C. 'and said “What are we doing? For this man is performing many

miraculous signs. '

1. This translates basically to, ‘What should we do because

this man continues to do many miraculous signs.’

2. Lazarus had become a living and breathing miracle and

because of him and other miracles of Jesus the people

were flocking to Him

3. The crazy thing was they were rejecting Jesus even

though they didn’t deny He was doing miracles

a. Why didn’t they just submit and worship Him?

b. They were concerned more with their own

agenda than God’s

c. Miracles or not they didn’t want to lose influence

with the people

d. They knew, they saw but they were unmoved and

were intent that Jesus should die

e. Their own words will convict them

2 Corinthians 4:3–4 (NET) “3 But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing, 4 among whom the god of this age has blinded the minds of those who do not believe so they would not see the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God.”

D. ‘If we allow Him to go on in this way, everyone will believe in

Him and the Romans will come'

1. The Jews at that time had a pretty extensive belief in end

times

a. Many of them believed they had it all figured out

b. They were wrong (makes me wonder how many

Christians who believe they have it all figured

out are wrong)

c. The belief then was that the Messiah would come

and would be made King of the Jews

d. This Messiah King would rally the Jews and

summarily trump the Romans setting the Jews up

as the leading power in the world

e. The problem was many false messiahs had come

in and failed and these guys were concerned

about what the repercussions would be if Jesus

tried it

f. To top it off the Passover was near and thecity

would be packed with religious Jews and if Jesus

kept doing these miracles thousands upon

thousands might come to Him (it has been

estimated that the number of Jews in Jerusalem

during Passover swelled to up to 500,000)

2. If there was a run to Jesus as the Messiah it would cause

political problems for the Sanhedrin

a. It would cause political problems with Pilate, the

Roman governor, had previously put down a riot

at a Passover ruthlessly and would likely hold

them accountable

b. It would cut into their clout with the regular

people who were flocking to Jesus

3. The mistake in all of this thinking was that they were

treating Jesus as if He wanted to be a political King

a. They had totally misunderstood Jesus' purpose.

He was not coming to be an earthly King, but to

save man for our sins

b. Jesus had no interest in earthly authority

John 18:36 (NET) “Jesus replied, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my servants would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish authorities. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.”

c. The liberals in the society wanted to kill Jesus

(they still want to kill His influence in this world)

and the right wingers wanted to make an earthly

King

d. Many in the Church today want to make Christ

King via politics, Jesus wants none of that

John 6:15 (NET) “Then Jesus, because He knew they were going to come and seize Him by force to make Him king, withdrew again up the mountainside alone.”

1. We are not going to impact our nation for

eternity by passing earthly laws or by

becoming earthly rulers

2. The laws that we need to focus on are the

ones that God has written on every man

and woman’s heart: His Law

3. It’s the law that says we are broken by

our sin and need to be fixed

4. That can only be done when Jesus Christ

truly becomes Lord of someone’s life

5. Once they come to Jesus then their

politics should change (I’ve said it once

and I will say it again as the Author of

Life, Jesus is Pro-Life)

6. If you want to change the path this nation

is on, point people to the narrow path that

leads to Jesus

E. The Sanhedrin’s fear was that Rome would 'take away our

sanctuary and our nation'

1. They were worried about what they might lose

2. The first thing they were worried about losing was the

‘sanctuary’

a. There are two interpretations about the word

'sanctuary'

b. Some see it as a reference to the Jewish Temple

1. Without the temple these guys would

lose their income especially the

Sadducees who ran the temple and it’s

markets (cha-ching)

2. If this the case they would sacrifice Jesus

for money

c. Some see it as a reference to their authority

1. In A.D. 6 the San. and it's president the

High Priest were given almost exclusive

control of the internal affairs of the

nation of Israel

2. This council was allowed by the Romans

to handle the nations internal affairs (up

to a point)

3. Rome allowed them to self-govern as

long as tax revenue kept coming and

public order was kept, ultimately they

answered to the Roman governor

assigned by the emperor over them

4. They surmised that if they couldn’t

control the people Rome would take

away their authority

3. The second thing they were worried about losing was

their ‘nation’

a. The nation became more important than their

allegiance to God

b. It could be interpreted that they are worried about

losing their influence and their place, not

necessarily that they cared for the people per say

c. When we are more concerned for our place, even

our nation, over whether or not we are offending

God, that is a sad state to be in

d. America friends is going to come and go, only

Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever

e. Don’t get me wrong, I love the red, white and the

blue, but it pales in comparison to the Death,

Burial and Resurrection!

F. Some forty years after the Resurrection of Jesus in 70 AD the

Sanhedrin did indeed lose their place, their temple, their

authority and their nation when Israel rebelled against Rome

and was defeated

1. Jesus had prophesied this would happen and it did

Luke 19:41–44 (NET) “41 Now when Jesus approached and saw the city, he wept over it, 42 saying, “If you had only known on this day, even you, the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. 43 For the days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and surround you and close in on you from every side. 44 They will demolish you—you and your children within your walls—and they will not leave within you one stone on top of another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.”

2. They rejected Jesus and they got what they deserved

3. They could have accepted Jesus and gotten what they

did not deserve: Life

4. Friends to fight against Jesus is to fight against your

own best interests and to guarantee defeat

5. Jesus created you, He loves you, He died to set you free

from your sin…..don’t turn down the greatest gift you

could ever, ever have

Invitation

Let us sing our last song # ,

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