Allen Jackson - Gethsemane to Golgotha - Part 2
Again, I think we've had a different imagination. We thought, because we sat in the same church together and we shared community together, or we stayed in the same denomination and we read the same translation of the Bible, that we would all be in lock step. Every one of us has to make a decision about belief and unbelief and faithfulness and unfaithfulness. And you may have made a decision a dozen years ago or two dozen years ago, but are you walking faithfully with the Lord today? "Well, Pastor, are you trying to say I could lose my salvation"? Today's not the day for that. I can tell you one thing I know for certain; you can lose your rewards. Are you saying yes to the Lord every day?
In Luke's presentation, there are those defending the Lord, and there are those arresting and accusing him. Which camp are you in? Verse 63, "The men who were guarding Jesus began mocking and beating him. They blindfolded him and demanded, 'Prophesy! Who hit you?' And they said many other insulting things to him". These are not Roman guards. These are the temple guards that have come with the leaders of the people to get Jesus in Gethsemane, and they're holding him that evening. All the high priests and their associates are doing their interrogation. So they know Jesus' reputation; they've been in the crowd when he's ministered; they've heard the stories of his messages. It's another contrast.
Luke introduced us to a Roman centurion, a Roman soldier, in Capernaum who Jesus said had the greatest faith he had seen in Israel. And now the temple guards, the security offers officers at the temple, are blindfolding him and hitting him and say, 'Prophesy.' Does that make you uncomfortable? It does me. It's one thing if a Roman soldier's doing it, but, when the temple team? It's a stark contrast, the unexpected who are believers, and the expected believers are the primary source of rejection. Even Pilate is going to be surprised that these people want a Roman crucifixion. "They seized him, and they led him away. They took him to the house of the high priest. Peter followed at a distance. When they kindled the fire in the middle of the courtyard and they sat down together, Peter sat down with them. And the servant girl seated with him in the firelight. She looked closely and said, 'This man was with them.' And he said, 'Woman, I don't know him...'" not me, not me.
Now, we know that; that's a part of the lore of those of us who attend churches. But Peter's denial, it seems to me, it's explainable; it's understandable. He's trying to avoid the rejection and the possible consequences that come with being affiliated with Jesus. Gee, that couldn't happen in the 21st century. We wouldn't dial it back or be quiet or fail to represent because identifying with Jesus might mean rejection, you can get, like, canceled, or there'd be consequences you'd prefer not to have. You'd rather have a broader network and greater opportunities. And, after all, if I suffer because of my identity with Jesus, my kids would suffer, and I have an assignment to protect my kids. So I'm going undercover and bury my Jesus affiliation.
So Peter said, "I don't know him". Same chapter, verse 66, "At daybreak the council of the elders of the people, and the chief priests and the teachers of the law, met together, and Jesus was led before them. 'If you're the Christ,' they said, 'tell us.' Jesus answered. 'If I tell you, you won't believe me, and if I ask you, you wouldn't answer. But from now on, the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the mighty God.' And they all asked, 'Are you then the Son of God?' And he replied, 'You are right in saying I am.'" For all of those people who say that Jesus was conciliatory and that he was always a peacemaker, read the Bible. Jesus is in front of the high priest and his associates; they are looking for a reason to accuse him, and the most offensive thing he could say to them, I think he did. It's remarkable to me.
"From now on, the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of mighty God". "I'm not gonna be hanging out with you people". And they got, "We got him". Reel him in, shut the hook. "Are you then the Son of God"? You know, Jesus was good enough, he could have deflected the conversation. He could have; he could have gone and made a dove. He could have gone like this, and they would have grown a third ear out of their forehead. I promise, he could have deflected the conversation. And, at least in my mind's eye, you know, I read this like I put on VR; I go sit in that room, and I watch their faces, and then I look back at Jesus, and, in my mind's eye, when he makes this next statement, he's looking straight at the high priest. "You are right in saying I am". He didn't back up; he didn't stutter; he didn't flinch. "And they said, 'We don't need any more testimony. We've heard it from his own lips.' And the whole assembly rose and they led him off to Pilate".
It's the Jewish council that initiates Jesus's suffering. Jesus acknowledges their stubborn unbelief. He isn't conciliatory; he's not offering them any easy solutions. He's pushing it right up in front of them. He's telling them the truth. They have a choice to be made, and he's not helping them find an off-ramp. I would submit to you that we should expect the most determined resistance from those with religious orientation. Oh, they'll use religious words; they'll use religious language; they'll have all the trappings of that. The labels seem harsh, and we don't like to use them; we don't like to think of it existing amongst us. But, if you find someone that says they're Christian and they don't advocate for the authority of scripture and the uniqueness of Jesus, if they don't submit to that authority, to a biblical worldview, you can't, by definition of orthodoxy, by definition of scripture, imagine you're a Christian. We're not offered that option.
Now, in our brokenness, we can repent, and we can change, and we can bring alignment with the authority of God. But you can't practice a life outside the direction of scripture and imagine yourself to be a Christ follower. It's not my opinion. The New Testament introduces the categories of a false church, a false gospel, an Antichrist, a spirit and, ultimately, a person, that wants to occupy the place that Jesus deserves, but without submitting to the authority of God. What did Jesus say? "Not my will be done, but yours".
And the great opposition that came against Jesus, the murderous hate and violent opposition that confronted Jesus, emerged from this pseudo religious community. He's gonna give us some coaching; chapter 23, "The whole assembly rose and led him off to Pilate. And they began to accuse him". They're in the Praetorium now, they're in Roman territory. "And they began to accuse Jesus, saying, 'We found this man subverting our nation. He opposes payment of taxes and claims to be Christ, a king.'" That's a lot like what they say about us. We're subverting the nation; we're against God and government. "So Pilate asked Jesus", Pilate, the Roman, "'Are you the king of the Jews?' And Jesus said, 'It is as you say.' Then Pilate announced to the chief priests and the crowd, 'I find no basis for a charge against this man.'"
The Roman governor said, "No problem here". "But they insisted, 'He stirs up all the people all over Judea by his teaching. He started in Galilee and he's come all the way here.'" Clearly, Luke is helping us see, Pilate is reluctant to sentence Jesus. Pilate announces to the priests and the crowd, "There's no basis for a charge against this man". But, in verse 5, "they insisted," Luke says. They're determined, "No, no, we want a charge". The hatred is irrational; it's illogical. That's because it's spiritually motivated. Therefore, it often remains Impenetrable without a dimensional or spiritual awareness. If you're not aware of spiritual things, when you see something being driven by spiritual forces, it will be opaque to you. It will not be visible; it won't be understandable.
You have to cultivate, you have to make room in your heart to believe that the impact of the spiritual forces are in play in your life. Or there are many things you see and watch for which you will not have an adequate explanation, and you will put forward an inadequate explanation, and it makes you much more easily deceived. I'm not asking you to be weird; I'm asking you to be biblical. Their hatred for Jesus is illogical; it's spiritually driven. Verse 6, "On hearing, this Pilate asked if the man was a Galilean". Galilee is the northern part of Israel. "When he learned that Jesus was under Herod's jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, he was also in Jerusalem. So when Herod saw Jesus, he was greatly pleased, because for a long time, he'd been wanting to see him".
Now, that this whole Herod thing is a problem. This is Herod Antipas; his father was Herod the Great, and, when Jesus was born in Bethlehem, thought he could snooker the wise men. Snooker is a Greek word, means trick. Not everybody speaks Southern; we have to help. And when the wise men didn't cooperate with his assignment, Herod the great just killed all the male children in Bethlehem two years and younger. It was a genocide; it was an annihilation of a whole generation of children in the city of Bethlehem because three strangers from the east didn't do what he wanted. This is his son; it's his son who beheaded John the Baptist because John the Baptist said, "You are immoral". Wow, gee, if John would have just talked about Moses and shut up about the headlines, he had to read the society page and shoot off his mouth, and Herod had him murdered. And now Jesus is standing before Herod. It's pretty interesting stuff.
"When Herod saw Jesus, he was greatly pleased because for a long time he'd been wanting to see him. From what he had heard about him, he hoped to see him perform some miracle. So he plied him with many questions, but Jesus gave him no answer". Jesus had sent an answer to Herod sometime earlier in Luke's gospel; do you remember what it was? They'd sent him a message and said, "Herod's interested in you," and he said, "You tell that fox", that's old conciliatory Jesus again, "You tell that fox, I'm about my Dad's business". And now he's standing in front of Herod, and Herod's plying him with questions, and he's not participating. "And the chief priests and the teachers of the law were standing there, vehemently accusing him".
They're consistent. "And then Herod and his soldiers", Herod's soldiers would be Jewish soldiers, "ridiculed and mocked him. They dressed him in an elegant robe, and they sent him back to Pilate. That day Herod and Pilate became friends, before this they had been enemies". Jesus is being accused; he remains silent before Herod Antipas. I have a question: Do you think Pilate's guiltless? He's trying hard, and he's gonna take Jesus out in front of the crowd three times and say, "I think he's okay". I don't think he's guiltless; I think he's gutless. Wasn't an easy choice, lot of pressure.
Folks, there's pressure that comes with being godly. We've been told the wrong thing; we've been told, you know, it's always easy, and it's always fun, and it's just always wonderful to say yes to Jesus. I'm telling you, in my life, saying yes to Jesus has often been really difficult. Oh, it's always brought good things, but, in the moment, it always hasn't felt like fun. Doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. Pilate didn't have the courage to... Imagine how different Pilate's future would have been, if he'd, "Look, this man is innocent. I will protect him with my guard". I know the scripture had to be fulfilled, but just go along with me for a minute. They'd have still found a way to gotten to Jesus. There's a spirit driving it; no Roman was gonna protect him.
Imagine if Pilate had said, "I'll stand for him," and he called his guard and said, "We'll protect this man". Oh, he'd have probably lost his job; he'd have probably lost his pension. That would have been difficult. His wife would not have been happy; he would not have gotten a hug. He would have gotten the side eye from his kids and the eye rolls, right? His friends would have said, "Why are you throwing away your life"? Don't you think Pilate would have been better off, if necessary, to have died on the steps of the Praetorium defending Jesus? Yeah; why is it we make allowances for evil? Why do we celebrate compr...? "Oh, I can understand why he'd compromise;" really? I wanna understand how little David said, "I got this one. He's big and ugly, but I think I'm good". They put a fancy robe on him, and they send him back to Pilate.
But I want to close with a verse that's not in sequence because I think it's the application for you and me. It's back to Luke 10, after sending out the twelve, it says, "The Lord appointed seventy-two others, and he sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. And he told them, 'The harvest is plentiful'", Hallelujah, fields are ripe with harvest, "'but the workers are few.'" That means you won't have to look hard to find harvest; it's everywhere. You may get a little exhausted because there's a lot of it.
When I was a kid, we had a strawberry patch. It probably ended up, I don't know, half-acre, maybe a little more than that. So fun when the strawberries came in; I like fresh strawberries in the springtime in Tennessee. For those first two or three days, it was wonderful; we had all the strawberries you could eat. But those stinking strawberries kept growing. And, by day six or seven. I didn't want any more strawberries. I didn't wanna hear my mom say, "Wouldn't you like to pick them for your friends"? No, let my friends gonna pick their own strawberries. I've had all I want; let them help themselves. They get down on their knees and crawl through the patch and get the jiggers. Yeah, go, friends, go. "No, I think it would be better if you pick some strawberries for your friends".
I'm telling you, there was more harvest than I wanted. I'm old enough to remember when we didn't bale hay in these big round bales that you picked up with a spike on the front of a tractor. We used to have this torturous, evil, ungodly, wicked demonic system where they would put hay in these square bales, and they said they were like individual sized. And, you know, they cut that stuff in, like, July in Tennessee, when the air is thick enough you can cut slices to walk through it. And you'd go out on a field with a hay wagon, you had to, I know this is weird, but just bear, you had to pick up a bale of hay and carry it over to a wagon and then throw it up on the wagon. And, you know, that first row is not so bad; you kind of bump it with your leg and set it on the wagon. But you get up five or six or seven rows high.
I was just a poor undernourished little kid, 3, 4 years old. And then you get the wagon loaded and you go to the barn; you know what they want you to do? Put it in the loft. Do you know how hot the loft is in Tennessee in July? The devil goes someplace cooler. That's harvest; that's the food for the livestock later; that's an answer to prayer and hard work. And Jesus said, "The harvest is plentiful, but you're gonna have to get a lot of the hay yourself because there's not a lot of workers". It's the next sentence that is the troubling one. "Ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers". And then he says, "Go! I'm sending you like lambs among wolves". Lambs among wolves.
Now, everybody listening that thinks all Jesus did was give group hugs and have happy parties, "I'm sending you out like lambs among wolves". That's called, "I'm sending you out as dinner," right? Why would you do that? Because the harvest is plentiful. There are people that would respond to the truth if you would tell it; they're all around you. But he said, "I'm warning you. It's not gonna be easy. It could even look like work. It could even be uncomfortable. You might get tired". I know, I have to quit; you can wait me out. But, folks, we have an assignment, not to be scholars of the book, not to be experts at the procedures of public worship, not even to know the words of the choruses. The assignment is to go into the harvest fields.
You say, "Well, I don't know, I wouldn't know what to..." Just be an advocate for Jesus. Just, everywhere you go, "I sure do like Jesus. He's been so good to me. He's blessed my life. I can go to church with a bunch of people that like Jesus". You want to say that very often, somebody'll say, "I've tried them. I didn't like them. Bunch of hypocrites". Say, "Yeah, you know, I used to think that, too, and they made room, squeezed one more in. Why don't you come ride with me"? I believe that God would use us to impact our community, that we could have libraries that didn't harbor vile stuff, and we could have schools or we could talk about Jesus. And we could have families and children who have suffered, find healing and restoration. I believe we could live in that kind of a community, if we'll start to decide we're gonna go out into those fields. See, you know, I'm for Jesus; I'm for Jesus. Would you be willing? I'm gonna ask for the Lord's anointing today. Why don't you stand with me?
Father, thank you for your Word. Thank you for those that have gone before us and the pathway they illuminate for the message you bring to us. Lord, I thank you that we have Bibles we can read and churches where we can gather, and, Lord, I thank you that we could laugh. We can reflect. Lord, we stand today in your presence to say, "Here we are; send us". Well, we don't have to cross an ocean. We don't have to learn a language. We might have to cross the street, might have to cross a hall. Lord, I pray you would open our hearts and our eyes to see the harvest around us, that you'd raise up laborers for those harvest fields. Lord, don't leave us out, but allow us the privilege of stepping into those fields. Protect us; protect us from everything that would diminish, disrupt, destroy, harm, distract. Keep us, Lord, keep us under your watchful eye. And, most of all, may you be pleased. In Jesus's name. Amen, hallelujah.