#428 The Jesus Trip, By The Way….One Last Thing

#428 The Jesus Trip, By The Way…..One Last Thing
By: Zach Sloane

Click on the link below to watch the Sermon Video:
http://www.truthcasting.com/player.aspx#showSermon=196042

(Sermon notes, PowerPoint Slides & Group Discussion Questions at the bottom of the page)

Jesus wants to have one last dinner and share his heart with his disciples.

Just spent days being examined by religious leaders like the Passover lamb.

Mark 12:28-34 -“Whats the greatest commandment?”

Luke 20:27-40 – “what about the resurrection?”

Mark 12:13-17 “is it right pay taxes?”

After these trying days:

Luke 22:7-8 (NLT)
“Now the Festival of Unleavened Bread arrived, when the Passover lamb is sacrificed. 8 Jesus sent Peter and John ahead and said, “Go and prepare the Passover meal, so we can eat it together.”

John 13:1, 3-5 (NLT)
“…Jesus knew that the Father had given him authority over everything and that he had come from God and would return to God. So he got up from the table, took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his waist, and poured water into a basin. Then he began to wash the disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel he had around him.

He wanted them to see His lordship and authority is not diminished by service, not even by laying down his life for others. He wanted them to know it was ok… and… that’s the kind of leadership they would also exhibit if they followed him.

Mark 14:22-25 (NLT)
As they were eating, Jesus took some bread and blessed it. Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, “Take it, for this is my body.”And he took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. He gave it to them, and they all drank from it. And he said to them, “This is my blood, which confirms the covenant between God and his people. It is poured out as a sacrifice for many.

Jesus reframes the whole of their expectation and reorientates the basis of their whole relationship with God away from their performance of external covenant keeping behaviours and rituals, to a faith in the redemptive power of his shed blood to put lives back together and establish relationship with God, free from all guilt and shame.

Great time to start a fight about who’s going to be the greatest.

Luke 22:25-27 (NLT)
“…But among you it will be different. Those who are the greatest among you should take the lowest rank, and the leader should be like a servant…”

He also re-orientates their views and expectations about what real success, mastery, what real dominion and lordship looks like. He’s priming them to see what being in charge, being kings, being a son or a daughter looks like. It looks like taking the towel, it looks like service, it looks like taking the lowest spot and serving others.

New covenant, new commandment to go with it!

John 13:34-35 (NLT)
“So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”

In other words… all that you thought that you had to do to have a relationship with God, forget about that. I am instituting a new covenant in which I am keeping both ends of the deal, God’s and humanity’s. There is redemption, complete forgiveness and restoration of life, identity, and relationship because of my body given and my blood shed for you.

Forget about all that you think is important to God in terms of keeping the law, following the rules, doing the rituals, making sure you follow the letter of the law to the tee. Whats really important is this: Love. Simply love as I have loved.

Its not a love dependent upon mustering all your heart’s resources, your mind’s capacities, your physical strength, our your soulish energies… its “love as I loved you.” In other words “with the same love, with my power to love working in you!”

So the dinner party continues. Peter asks “hey, where are you going, and can I come too?” Jesus says:

John 13:36 (NIV)
“Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.”

The exclusivity and triumph of the Son of man… “you can’t come with me, I am going to do for you what only I can do. Trust me, you trust in God trust also in me… what I am about to do is going to prepare a place for you in my Father’s house… there is more than enough roomful you there, and when it’s all ready I will come and get you. You know the way that I am going.” (John 14:1-4)

John 14:6
“I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.”

In one convo Jesus again destroys all of their connection, their emotional and intellectual commitment to the law, to the revelation of God that is orientated around the image of a vindictive, punitive, distant, impersonal, angry God who is keeping tabs of all your wrong and only dishing out blessings as your earn them.

He demolishes all the religious systems, rituals, and lifestyle codes of conduct and behaviour, he abolishes all sense of distance between God and humanity by saying “I am the sum total of very true thing you ever thought about God. In me and my person is all the life you will ever need, and I alone can bring God to man, and man to God.”

John 14:12-14
“..if you know me you know the Father… I am in him and he is in me. The words I speak and the works I do… those are the words and the works of the Father in me. And you know what… if you believe in me too… if you believe that I am in you like I believe and know and manifest the Father in me, you too will do the works I do, and greater because I am going to the Father.”

How ?

John 14:16 (NIV)
“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever…”

He is going to be the one who:

Leads you into truth, councils you, reminds you of every thing I have told you, makes sense of it all, makes you alive in your sonship, and provides you with a grounding in ultimate reality. John 14:17, 18, 26
Will convince you, convict you and guide you into a true sense of what sin, righteousness and judgement is really all about. John 16:5-11
And he will show you things to come, taking from what is in my mind and my heart and giving it to you. He will be your relational connection with me. John 16:12-15

And sandwiched right in the middle of this discourse Jesus tell them how to experience and live this amazing life by the power of this Holy Spirit.

John 15:5 & 9
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing…As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.”

Remain… as in… “you are in, don’t leave! Get settled, be ok, don’t be agitated, rest, relax, stay in this understanding of yourself as a part of me, of you in me and I in you, and let love pervade your consciousness.”

He caps it off by saying… “because of the relationship I am making a way for, because of the relational connection you have with the Father through the very real and present Holy Spirit, go ahead and pray, relate to and approach God differently… talk to him directly but try this… use my name. Use the connection I am giving you with the Father that the Holy Spirit empowers. Try that… and you will get what you ask for.

What a night! What a dinner! Jesus wraps the night in prayer. The Lord’s Prayer!

John 17
“Father the hour has come, glorify your Son so he can give glory back to you… I have completed the work you gave me, I have revealed you to the ones you gave me, and as you sent me to do so, I am sending them to reveals us to others…I in them and you in me…”

Amazing… spells it all out, wraps it all up, says hey, Im outta here, and now I am sending you to do the same – go make God known though the power of our union together in the S(s)pirit!

The Jesus Trip, BTW…One Last Thing, Sermon notes to print, PDF

The Jesus Trip, BTW…One Last Thing, PowerPoint Slides, PDF

Group Discussion Questions – Week #7, to print, PDF