100328 A Fiery Jesus In Search of Fiery Followers
Tim Franklin
Introduction:
· Welcome to Palm Sunday! Titled so, to relate Jesus entry into Jerusalem and His last days with His disciples.
· I want to share with you a new insight/understanding that I entered into this week regarding Jesus and His mission to purchase our redemption and acquire our worship! I want to worship this One we call Jesus and I want to lead multitudes to do the same.
· I want to set before you today the fact that Jesus is looking for worshipers. He is, in fact, a fiery Jesus and He is in search of fiery followers.
1. There’s A Crisis in the House!
A. John 2:13 Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. NKJV
i. Jesus at the start of His earthly ministry is found in the Temple and He has a whip in hands. He has come to the temple, a house of prayer, and what he finds greatly disturbs him.
ii. We have to remember that Jesus is looking with eternal eyes and the goings on of men. Men see the natural but He sees the heart. And what He sees is a crisis in the making!
iii. Jesus worked his first miracle in Cana of Galilee but His ministry ‘got on the map’ in Jerusalem at Passover. This record in Jn is not the same as at the end of His earthly ministry. Jesus’ action at the start of His ministry screams: THERE IS A CRISIS IN THE HOUSE
B. What Crisis?
i. Those in the Temple
a. Those in the temple had lost sight of God!
b. Those in the temple had forgotten why they were their!
c. Those in the temple had forgotten whose house they were in!
d. Haggai 1:11 The context of this book is the rebuilding of the Temple—the House of Prayer. For I called for a drought on the land and the mountains, on the grain and the new wine and the oil, on whatever the ground brings forth, on men and livestock, and on all the labor of your hands." NKJV
(i) Vs. 5,7—Consider your ways…your “House is nice. What about mine!” says the Lord.
(ii) Vs. 9 you worked hard for much but it came to little…I blew it away.
(iii)Vs. 11 I called for a drought…
(iv)When there is a crisis in the House there is already a crisis in the land! Haggai was a 16 year crisis in the making!
ii. Two types of people were being confronted.
a. Those who bought and sold sheep, and oxen for sacrifice.
b. Those who exchange people’s money for smaller denominations.
(i) Jesus showed contempt for it. He threw it to the ground. They esteemed it. He put it in its place beneath his feet.
c. Personal prosperity replaced personal encounters with God.
d. Greed was over riding the need for cleansing. It is customary of Passover that before you enter the Passover season you go through your house for the purpose of cleansing it. You intentionally searched your house and your heart to prepare it to encounter God. These people were not prepared for that nor did they even care!
e. That same mindset still weasels it way into the thoughts of men, defiles them and deadens their senses until they no longer have a conscience towards God. Without divine intervention men are given over to their own lusts in which begin digging their own eternal graves. Thank God! Jesus sees the heart. Thank God! Jesus is not passive but active in our lives and passionate about His Kingdom. Thank God! When it comes to you and I He gets eaten up with ZEAL for turning us into worshipers!
f. When He launched his ministry at Passover, his message was: GOD IS LOOKING FOR WORSHIPERS! Whole-hearted worshipers.
C. What Crisis is taking place in your heart today? Where have you forgotten God in your life? There is a Fiery Jesus who knows the secrets of your heart and he stand ready to drive out all that defiles you, because He wants your worship.
2. There’s a Prophet in the Land
A. The prophet (Jesus) has a purpose: Call worshipers to the Father. John 4:19 The woman said to Him, "Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. NKJV This happens early in Jesus ministry
i. Jesus stops to talk with a woman who is a Samaritan. What is unique about that is that Jews and Samaritans hated each other. Jesus is breaking down the hate barrier.
ii. He tells her the secret of her heart. Leads her to the place and understanding of what God is looking for and leaves her with this thought: God is looking for worshipers that worship Him in Spirit and in truth.
iii. John 4:39 And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, "He told me all that I ever did." NKJV The miracles were to release the captives held by sickness, sin, possession so that those who were freed could and would worship God in spirit and in truth.
B. The prophet (Jesus) has a persistence: Lk 17:11-19 He is back in Samaria vs 11 and he still has the same message! He heals 10 lepers, one returns to give thanks, and Jesus comments in vs. 18 “Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?” Glory given to God--worship
3. There’s a Fire in Jesus (Matt 21:12-17; Mark 11:15-19; Luke 19:45-48)
A. The intensity increases! No one can stop me. Luke 9:51 Now it came to pass, when the time had come for Him to be received up, that He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem, NKJV
i. Steadfastly--Sterizoo-to make firm, stable, to strengthen. The time to move toward the cross has come. It is the moment of all moments when men who will believe will be given hearts of flesh and not of stone. The cord of death will be broken—they will be free to worship God once again!
ii. Jesus strengthens his resolve. He knows what awaits him in Jerusalem but he looks through the humiliation, the suffering, the cross to the other side of resurrection!!!
iii. When the time had come—Days are fulfilled (i.e., the time has come) in Luke 9:51 What is fulfilled is not just the period up to the event, but the time of the event itself, so that the term has here distinctive theological significance. TDNT Kittle The passage in Lk is an announcement by this writer that there is a definite shift taking place in his account. Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem. Jesus has a new look!
iv. This time in Samaria—he can’t even get a place for he and the disciple to sleep. In response James and John want to call down fire and consume them. Why? They still think Jesus is going to become an earthly king and His determination to go now to Jerusalem is his first act to get the throne. “It would only make sense to supernaturally burn them like Sodom. Put the fear of God in Jerusalem!” They just don’t get. There are so many who follow Christ for the wrong reasons—they just don’t get. He is looking for wholehearted worshipers.
a. Listen to this rebuke: You don’t know what manner of spirit you are of. I did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them. What spirit are you of? Then he backs up what he says!
B. In Luke 17:11-16, Jesus is now healing Samaritians! Now it happened as He went to Jerusalem that He passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. 12 Then as He entered a certain village, there met Him ten men who were lepers, who stood afar off. 13 And they lifted up their voices and said, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!"14 So when He saw them, He said to them, "Go, show yourselves to the priests." And so it was that as they went, they were cleansed.15 And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, returned, and with a loud voice glorified God, 16 and fell down on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks. And he was a Samaritan. NKJV Again we see Jesus reaching out to people outside the Jewish faith! He is prophetically calling all men to come and worship.
4. The Fire has Come to Clean House
A. The Triumpal Entry is found in Luke 19:28 When He had said this, He went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. NKJV
i. The people are excited! It is on! This one called Jesus has come to throw out the Romans and restore Israel to her former glory. It will be a day of cleansing for Israel!
ii. Jesus laments, he weeps over Jerusalem. Why? Because they just don’t get it! They don’t understand the Crisis in their House. They don’t understand the Christ before them and the overwhelming result of what is about to take place will be the destruction of Jerusalem.
iii. But Jesus makes a wrong turn. Instead of going towards the Roman fortress overlooking the temple grounds, Jesus turns and goes towards the temple itself to repeat what he did 3.5 yrs earlier when his ministry started at Passover. They still didn’t get it.
a. Malachi 3:1 “Behold, I send My messenger, And he will prepare the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, Will suddenly come to His temple, Even the Messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight. Behold, He is coming," Says the Lord of hosts. NKJV
b. Malachi 3:2-3 “But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner's fire And like launderers' soap. 3 He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver; He will purify the sons of Levi, And purge them as gold and silver, That they may offer to the Lord An offering in righteousness. NKJV
B. The call was to be a House of Prayer! The call was to engage people’s hearts with God.
i. Jesus was all about building a house of prayer with those who worship in spirit and in truth.
Conclusion:
· When we look at His focus at the end of his ministry, yes the cross is in site but he looked through it to the other side. He endured it, scorning its shame—because he could see the other side.
· His eternal eyes are gazing into your heart this morning! He knows your secrets. He knows your shame and short comings. He knows what you can be if you can only surrender to Him.
· Passover was preceded by a time of cleansing in the house. We should clean house this morning in our hearts—in preparation of the Passover celebration in Christ Jesus—the Lamb that was slain yet lives!
