Well, as I mentioned a second ago, this new message series we're starting today is something that we're going to be in the next few weeks leading up to Easter weekend. It's called Road to the resurrection, because that's what we celebrate on Easter weekend, of course, is the resurrection. And so we're looking forward to we're anticipating celebrating the resurrection of Jesus together in a few weeks, because it's the most central event throughout all of history. Don't take my word for it. Take a few other people's word for it. Listen to these quotes from several pastors, scholars and theologians over time. Genesis ends with Joseph's death. Deuteronomy ends with Moses' death. Joshua ends with Joshua's death, but the Gospels end with Jesus's resurrection, and that changes everything. How about this one? The resurrection is not merely important to the historic faith, without it, there would be no Christianity. It is the singular doctrine that elevates Christianity above allother world religions.I'm totally convinced that the resurrection of Jesus is the most crucial bridge between reality and life. Knowing the truth of this event is the engine that drives the quest for spiritual victory. The devil, darkness and death may swagger and boast the pangs of life will sting for a while longer. But don't worry, the forces of evil are breathing their last not to worry, heis risen.C, S Lewis, to preach Christianity, meant primarily to preach the Resurrection. The resurrection is the central theme in every Christian sermon reported in Acts the resurrection and its consequences were the gospel or good news which the Christians brought. And how about this final one here, the resurrection of Jesus changes the face of death for all people, death is no longer a prison, but a passage into God's presence. Easter says you can put truth in a grave, but it won't stay there. You can nail it to a cross, wrap it in winding sheets and shut it up in a tomb, but it will rise.Love it.So we look forward. We look forward to celebrating the resurrection together on Easter weekend in just a few weeks. But as we begin to even think about that, as that day draws near, we of course, realize that that didn't happen in a vacuum. It wasn't an isolated event. There were all kinds of situations and circumstances that led to Jesus's death and resurrection, and so that's what this series is about, the road to the resurrection. We're going to look at the book of John and some of the events that occurred that were leading up to the cross and His victory over death, and of course, talk about how they still apply to our lives today. And so today we're going to begin in John chapter 11, looking at verses 45 through 54 so if you have your own Bible, I would love for you to be turning there. I hope you have a pen or something you can write with. Always encourage you to underline, highlight, mark up in your Bibles. If you don't have that, there's an insert in your bulletin, and on the back of that is a notes page you can always write on there as well. Now before we dive into verse 45 of course, we need to recognize that we're in the middle of a chapter. And as we'll see in just a moment, it's going to start with the word, therefore meaning it's tied into the things that the apostle John had said prior to this. And basically it's everything in chapter 11 so far. And this is one of the most incredible things that we read about throughout all of the Gospels in Jesus's ministry. This is where Jesus finds out that his friend Lazarus, was sick. The disciples come talking to him, or he's telling them about that, but instead of going to help, Jesus does nothing. He finds out about it, and he does nothing. He just waits for days until Lazarus dies. Then after he dies, he goes to see Mary and Martha, who, of course, are the sisters of Lazarus. And Martha is upset. I mean, Jesus shows up this on the scene, and she's upset, Jesus, if you would have been here, you could have helped him, butit's too late.Jesus says to her, Martha, Your brother will rise again. And she says, I know, I know that I'll get to seem again one day way in the future. You're at the resurrection. And Jesus jumps in and says, Martha, oh, Martha, I am the resurrection, present tense, right? I am the resurrection and the life. And then he walks over to the tomb where Lazarus had been dead for over four days, and he says, Lazarus, come out. And guess what happened? You don't have to guess because, you know, many of you have read the story, right? Lazarus walks out. Jesus says, Take off the grave clothes. Let him go. Well, that is the kind of thing, of course, that gets people's attention, right? People notice that, and they're going to talk about those things that's going to have an impact on people in some way, and that is what John starts to pick up on in the section that we are now looking at today. So I ask you to turn to John 1145 look at what John says there. Therefore, again, as a result of what Jesus did to raise Lazarus from the dead after being dead for four days like really dead. Therefore, as a result of that, many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary and had seen what Jesus did believed in him, but some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. Now listen, they weren't going to tell the Pharisees because they believed in Jesus, and they wanted the Pharisees to believe in him too. This is a contrast that John is setting up here. He's saying Some believed, but others went to the Pharisees. In other words, some others did not believe. And so after seeing Jesus raise someone from the dead, someone who had been dead for four days, many people believed in him, which is, of course, what should have happened. Didn't John is saying here that some people didn't. I hear people say sometimes that man today, right? If Jesus would just come here, if Jesus would just hear if he would just reveal himself in some way, if he would just do something to prove that he was real, then, then I would believe in Him. And so many more people wouldbelieve in Him.You read a text like this, and you go, Well, I don't know if that's necessarily true.I mean, Jesus was there. He was doing these kind of things we see all throughout scripture, that Jesus did things that only God could do right in front of them, and yet many still refused to believe in Him. It's really sad, of course, because the evidence was right there in front of them. And quite honestly, the evidence is right there in front of many of us today as well. But many people are blinded to it. Their hearts are just hardened towards Jesus. No matter how much evidence is there. They will not open themselves to it. They will not follow it to see where the evidence leads. My hope and prayer for you today, or if you're watching online here today, is that you won't be one of those people that you would put your guard down. Then you would let go of any preconceived ideas that you have about Jesus, maybe you would begin to read the Bible for yourself to see what it says and just open up yourself through prayer to Him, saying, God, reveal Yourself to me. If you are real, reveal yourself into me. That is a prayer that I believe God will answer, especially if you pray it and you're really open to him, revealing those things to you and showing you where it leads. And so I pray that that might even begin to happen if that's you starting today.John goes on in verse 47then Okay, so after some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done, then the chief priest and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. Well, what's the Sanhedrin? What is this all about? Well, Sanhedrin was kind of like the Supreme Council of Jesus's day of the Jews. During this time, it was the highest court in the land of Israel. There were 71 elders who sat on this Supreme Council. They were made up of these 71 elders from the two major political religious parties of the day, which many of you know, were the Sadducees and the Pharisees. Now these were very influential men during this time. They were extremely wealthy men, especially the Sadducees, and they, of course, had a lot of power. Now, even though they were on this council together, and even though they were religious leaders of the day, they really weren't anywhere close. Close to being on the same page with each other. One of them only recognized the first five books of the Bible. The other one recognized the entire Old Testament. There were a number of other differences that they had, aside from theological differences, they really didn't get along in a number of ways. But what we're going to see here is that even though they're completely at odds with one another when it comes to this guy, Jesus, they're gonna ignore all of those differences, and they're gonna unite together around him being a common enemy that they have to see whatever they can do about him. So look what John says next as verse 47 continues. What are we accomplishing? They asked the members of the Sanhedrin, what are we accomplishing? Here? Is this man performing many signs? If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nations. Oh, no. I mean, if we let people go on just seeing Jesus doing Jesus' things, then people are gonna start to really believe that he's the Messiah. We can't let that actually happen. That'd be terrible. It's crazy. It's right in front of their eyes. They even acknowledge it. If we let this go on, everyone's going to believe in Him,and yet they miss it, or they refuse to believe it. Ofcourse, the thing is, is what this group was most interested in was their own power and their own control, their own wealth. That's what this is really about. They knew that if the Romans saw that the Jewish people were talking about someone other than Caesar being a king, then the Romans were going to use their military might to destroy the temple, to destroy the nation, and that meant losing their influence, that meant losing their power, that meant potentially losing their wealth. And we see that as John continues. Look at what he says in verse 49 then one of them named Caiaphas, who was the high priest that year, spoke up. You know nothing at all. You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than the whole nation perish. Notice that Caiaphas says it will be betterfor you,for you and for me, those of us who are in the Sanhedrin here, it's better for you and me and our influence. It's better for you and me and our power. It's better for you and me and our wealth to kill Jesus rather than let the whole nation perish. Because again, if the whole nation perishes, we no longer have our positions of power and prestige.But notice alsothat there is language that said in verse 50, it's better that one man die. Notice this for the people. If you're watching or you're following along your own Bible. Be sure to highlight underline that for the people, this is sacrificial language that Caiaphas is using in the original Greek. It's often not just sacrificial language, but associated with a ransom. This is the language of substitution either Jesus dies, or we die, either we substitute Jesus for us, or it's gonna be us, because this is the gospel. This is what is known as substitutionary atonement, and John, who's writing this, of course, after Jesus' death, after his resurrection, after his sending of the spirit, and writing about these events, and putting all these pieces together to help us see the truth about these things, writes about the event that happened, and then he makes some comments about what was happening in that moment, because he's seeing it now on the other side of the cross in the event that this was pointing to. And so look at the comments that he now makes in verse 51 after telling us what Caiaphas said, John says he again referring to Caiaphas. Caiaphas did not say this on his own John says, But as high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, and not only for that nation, but also for the scattered children of God to bring them together and to make them one. 10, verse 53 so from that day on, they plottedto take his life. This is the roadto the resurrection.Jesus was always on the road to resurrection. So what he was born to do was to die and be resurrected to feed the power of sin and death for ever. But you can't get to the resurrection without someone plotting to take your life and for this event to actually happen. And so this is where we see this plot coming together, this marker on the road of life that Jesus was on leading to the resurrection, begins to move down that path. But I want you to notice. What I want you to notice here about John's comments is that he is saying that Caiaphas may not have meant to do this, but God was up to something in and through the comments that he was making that even though he didn't mean it in these terms, God was at work in and through him to reveal the substitutionary atonement that was coming through Jesus' death for all people, not just the Jews, but the Scattered children of God, Jesus was going to substitute himself in our place, to take the punishment that we had earned for our sin. Scripture, of course, tells us that we're all sinners. Tells us that the wages of sin is death, that what we earn for sinning is death, that we will die and be separated from God forever, instead of being with him as we were intended to be now and forever in heaven. But Jesus was born into this world fully God and fully man. And as fully God, that means that he was born without sin, but being born as man or completely human, that meant that he could represent all human beings who were sinners, and since he didn't have any sins to pay for himself, he could substitute himself in our place, and he could die for our sins in our place. Letme see if I can illustrate this through the story ofLittle Tom and big Billy. Think Little House on the Prairie days. Think small school in a church building. Everyone's gathering together, if you will. One day this new teacher comes into town, and on the very first day, he asks the kids, after gathering them together, to come up with some rules for their own class. Everybody, of course, looks up at the teacher and are confused by this, because all the other teachers had set the rules for them. Did they really have a chance to make their own rules. They just kind of sat there in silence, confused, is this real? Until finally, one person in the very back raised his hand and said, Teacher, I don't really know if you're serious or not, but if you are, then I really don't think that there should be any stealing. He said, That is a great rule. And so he turns around and writes on the board, No stealing. He says, Well, here's the deal. Any rules that we have have to have a punishment. There's got to be a consequence for breaking the rules. So what do you think the punishment should be for stealing? And the kid raised his hand again and said, Teacher, I think if somebody gets caught stealing, that's a pretty big deal. I think they should get three lashes with the hickory stick. And teacher says, hey, if that's what you guys agree to, then here's the rule. And if you steal then it's three lashes with the hickory stick, and then that's all it took. I mean, one person got their rule on the board, and the next one raised their hand and got their rule, and the next one got till they were all completely filled up. Then they went about their day, and everything was going along great. They were all following the rules, and everything was working in the beginning, but one day after the teacher had dismissed everyone for lunch, big Billy wandered back in and said, Teacher, I've I've looked all around, but I can't seem to find my lunch. I think someone may have actually stolen my lunch. And so the teacher calls everyone back in, says, class, I hate to tell you this, but big Billy thinks that somebody stole his lunch. He can't find his lunch. Does anyone know anything about his lunch? Of course, everyone sits there again, just kind of looking around at each other. A few minutes go by, which seems like an eternity, and then all of a sudden, in the very back, little Tom stands up. Little Tom begins to walk to the front of the classroom, and when he finally gets there, he looks the teacher in the eyes and says, teacher, I am the one who took big Billy's lunch. I'm so sorry. Teacher, I'm so sorry big Billy. I know that what I was doing was wrong. I shouldn't have done it, but I saw his lunch sitting there. I was just so. Hungry. You know that my dad has lost his job, that we don't have any money. It's been three days since I've eaten. I saw it. I knew I shouldn't have done it, but I grabbed it and I ran out and I scarfed it down, and I really am sorry I was just so hungry.Teacher says, Thankyou for your honesty. Little Tom, thank you for your apology, but you broke one of our rules. We made up these rules. We said there were consequences for these rules, and we said the punishment for breaking the rule of stealing was three lashes with a hickor stick. Little Tom says, I know teacher, and willingly bent over to receive his punishment. The teacher goes up to begin to give the three lashes with a hickory stick, when big Billy jumps up from the back of the room and says, teacher, wait, please stop. Don't do it. Teacher said, Billy, I'm sorry, but I have to do it. He broke one of the rules, and so sit down, and he goes to give him his lash with the hickory stick. And big Billy jumps up the second time it says, Please wait. Teacher, stop. Don't do it. So Billy, we've already covered this. I know, but it was my lunch. Teacher, it was my lunch, and I forgive him. Thank you big Billy. I appreciate that you forgive him and you're willing to do that. That's really important, and I'm so glad that you're taking that step. But that's not how this works. This was a rule. He broke the rule, and there must be justice. I must follow through with giving him this consequence. Now sit back down. Billy sits back down and goes to give him the last the third time. Billy jumps up the third time. Teacher, wait, stop. Please don't do it big, Billy. I'm tired of this. Please sit down. Teacher, I thought of one other thing when we were going in class that day and coming up with the rules and the punishments for those rules. Did we ever say who had to take the punishment? What do you mean? Big Billy, he broke the rule. He's going to take the punishment for his rule. Well, teacher, if we never said who had to take the punishment for him, then I'd like to take little Tom's punishment for him. And so big Billy walks up to the front of the classroom, and he bear hugs little Tom and wraps him up, and with him tightly in his arms, he leans over and the teacher gives big Billy the lashes with the hickory stick, the punishment, while it may not encapsulate everything that Jesus did. This is a picture of substitutionary atonement. Billy substituted himself in little Tom's place. Jesus substituted himself in your place. You were the little Tom, you've broken the rules. There are consequences for those rules. God is a just God. He mustserve the punishment, and yet, Jesusraises his hand,says, Father, if we didn't say who had to take the punishment for them or them themselves. I'll take it for them. And he's the one who walks up and grabs you and receives the punishment for you.This is what Johnis saying that Caius was prophesying about Caiaphas didn't even know it. He was saying what he was saying he meant for evil, but God was at work for good. He wanted to substitute Jesus so that they could live and remain in a power of position and prestige. But God was at work even through his evil plan to substitute Jesus in the place of all people, so that we could live eternally with him. And so this was the plot to kill Jesus. On one level, it was an evil plot, buton a whole another level, the highest level of all levels, where God is at work aboveall things,this was God and His sovereignty working out his plan of salvation to substitute Jesus for us so that we could have eternal life.This event in the Sanhedrin, that day, changed everything for Jesus, and that's what John mentions in the last verse we'll look at today, verse 54 he says, Therefore, as a result of what the council had just said, Jesus no longer moved about publicly among the people of Judea. Instead, he withdrew to a region near the wilderness, to a village called Ephraim, where he stayed with his. His disciples. Up until that point, Jesus had been involved in a public ministry. He had been out among the people, teaching the people, serving the people, loving the people, meeting the people's needs. But Jesus had been and always, as we mentioned, been on this road to the resurrection, and the resurrection could only occur through His substitutionary atonement and death on the cross. And so Jesus withdraws and he begins to prepare for his death. We'll see next week that it doesn't take very long before the next steps on the road to the resurrection occur, but you'll have to come back next week for us to talk about that. For today, there are two things that I want you to think about in the way of application. First of all, we, of course, spent a long time talking about substitutionary atonement and unknowingly, where Caiaphas was prophesying about this, and Jesus would substitute himself for all people of all time to take their punishment for them so that they would never have to die. Can enjoy abundant life with him now and forever. And if you've never received Jesus' free gift of salvation, my hope and my prayer for you today is that in the same way that little Tom was saved by big Billy, that you would allow Jesus to save you, that you might even allow Him to save you right now, in this moment before you ever walk out of here today, if you place your faith and trust in Jesus to be your Lord and Savior, He will forgive your sins. He will come to dwell in you. He will give you eternal life, and he'll be with you now and forever. It'll change your life. You'll be made into a new creation in Christ, where you become the branches, and he's the vine, and his life giving stuff flows through you to produce fruit, things in this world that really matter. For those of you who have received Jesus, you've responded by placing your faith and trust in Jesus to be your Lord and Savior. There's something in here too for us to cling to in the way of application. We saw that God was at work to move things along in this world, to accomplish his plans, even when it looked like evil was taking place. I don't know what you're going through today in your life, in your marriage, with your kids, in your job, in your school, or with your finances or whatever. Maybe there's some things that the enemy is doing in your life to cause death and destruction, but what we saw today is that even during those times, God is at work to move his plans forward. So press into him. Lean into him. Experience Him as your life, him as your peace, him as your security, him as your worth him as your contentment. Trust that he is still moving things along in the same way that he was moving things along. Then trust that whatever other people and the enemy mean for evil, that he is up to something good, for your good and for His glory, and so fall into his arms and rejoice in all that you have in him today, believer, let's pray you.