The World Has Gone after Him

we as Christians identify with Jesus Christ. And so our place is not to sit back and read and go, oh yes, look, there's Jesus, and look at what he did, and isn't that interesting, and we'll listen to how the Pharisees responded, and look at what the crowds did, and I bet his cross was heavy, and all these kinds of things. No, I want us to be as though we were there in our minds, understanding what was going on. And so before we even come to the text, consider for a moment what Jesus, what he would have been like. what would have been going on inside him as he's entering into Jerusalem? Because it's a triumphal entry, right? There's all this excitement around his coming in, and we're going to open that up here in a little bit. But consider for a moment what would have been going on inside of him knowing that he's going in to the place where he's going to be put to death, where they're going to kill him. Now, if it was one of us, we'd be overwhelmed. We'd be despairing. We would be trying to get away from it.

And yet Jesus is walking right into it. And so the only thing that was, you know, the fear or the worry or the despair, the things that we would have experienced had we been in that situation, that can't be all that was going on inside of him. There was something of the glory of his father being demonstrated and his kingdom being established that called Jesus on to press forward. into difficulty, into hardship. And so we ought to see, even as we begin our study, that difficult things are not something that we should run away from. That when we look into our path in the future, we go, here's something that's coming, and it's going to be unpleasant.

That we should not at that point as Christians go, well, because it's unpleasant, I'm going to withdraw from that. I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to participate in that. Why? Because it's hard. And the reason we shouldn't do that is because that's not what Jesus Christ did when he faced down the barrel of his death that was coming. And so today, Friday, and then next Sunday, this is what we're going to be studying. It's the last week of Jesus' life and what was going on around him with the people. as he was working to establish his father's glory and his kingdom in this world. Would you please stand now for the reading of God's word from John chapter 12, verses 12 through 19. This is the word of the Lord and it is eternally true. On the next day, the large crowd who had come to the feast, when they had heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took the branches of the palm trees and went out to meet him and began to shout, Hosanna!

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the king of Israel. Jesus, finding a young donkey, sat on it. As it is written, Fear not, daughter of Zion, behold, your king is coming, seated on a donkey's colt. These things his disciples did not understand at first. But when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written of him, and that they had done these things to him. So the people, This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Now, it's my normal habit to preach. You know, we're preaching through Luke. And so we have a clue of what comes before. But now we're in the middle. We've skipped forward in the narrative, the life of Jesus, right up to the triumphal entry. And so it's not at the front of our minds what just happened. And so I want to start this morning by saying what's just happened. There's mention of it in our text about Lazarus and Jesus having raised Lazarus from the dead. And I want you to know that that is what has preceded in Jesus' life most.

closely to his triumphal entry. Lazarus lived in a town called Bethany, which was outside Jerusalem, not too far away. And Jesus had been teaching and he'd been preaching and the time was coming near to the Passover. It wasn't six months away. It wasn't a long time away. It was not far away. And he comes into Bethany after being summoned because Lazarus, whom he loved, was sick. And by the time he got there, he actually delayed. He heard that Lazarus was sick. He stayed away an extra two days. Then he comes to Bethany. Lazarus has been dead at this point four days by the time Jesus gets to the tomb. And Lazarus has two sisters, Mary and Martha. And they come out to greet him outside the city, and they say, Lord, if you had been here, he wouldn't have died. And Jesus questions them, and he says, your brother will live again. And they said, yeah, we know with the resurrection he'll live again. And he says, no, before then.

Do you believe this? And they say, yeah, we believe it. So then he goes to the tomb and he says, open up the tomb. And they say, don't open up the tomb. He's been in there four days and he's going to stink. And there's all this crowd with them because Mary and Martha had been grieving the death of their brother. And so when they go out of their home and they go out of the city to meet up with Jesus because he's coming, this whole crowd goes with them. And so there's all these people around. When they go to the tomb, and they go to the tomb, Jesus says, open the tomb. And they say, it's going to stink. And he says, open the tomb. And when they open the tomb, he says, Lazarus, come forth. And what does Lazarus do but get up and come out? And all these people see this, this sign. And not only did the crowd see it, but the Pharisees heard of it. And we know that the Pharisees, as Jesus' life and ministry went on, they became more and more opposed to the work that Jesus was doing. They wanted him to go away. First, they wanted him to be quiet.

Then they wanted him to go away. And then through this miracle, they determined we need to kill him. We need to kill him. Our text this morning is John chapter 12 toward the beginning of the chapter. Just earlier in chapter 11, right after Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, we read this in verse 48. It says the Pharisees are talking amongst themselves and they say, if we let him go on like this, all men will believe in him. And the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation. And then a few verses later, toward the end of their meeting, it says, so from that day on, they planned together to kill him. And so you have to understand, as Jesus is coming into Jerusalem, the Pharisees have purposed together to kill him. And yet Jesus didn't go straight from healing Lazarus.

right into Jerusalem, it says that he retired for a while. In verse 53, it says that they purposed from this point on to kill him. In the next verse, John 11, 54 says, Now you have to put yourself into this situation. He's there. He's healed Lazarus. The crowds have believed. It says that many people believed when they saw that. And the Pharisees respond and go, we have to put an end to this or he's going to ruin everything and the Romans are going to come take over. We've got to kill him. And then Jesus retires. He goes away. He no longer walks about publicly. So why did he retire? Why did he go away? Well, it's because he knew that they wanted to kill him and it wasn't his time yet. Now, is he going to...

resurface? Yes, we know he's going to resurface. That's what our text is this morning, is Jesus coming out of seclusion or hiding. But what, if you were the Pharisees, what do you think they understood or perceived was going on when Jesus withdrew? They had threatened, and he knew about the threat, and he withdrew. So what happens when you threaten something and then the people back down? You think you won. You think, okay, we're making some progress here. We've gained some ground. They would have thought or hoped that Jesus would have been intimidated into silence, into seclusion. And yet, as the Pharisees are plotting in their way, the people who have just seen him raise Lazarus from the dead, they're amazed. And they go on proclaiming, you're never going to believe what this guy has just done. Can you go to the next slide, Miles?

We're going to kind of skip around. So if you read in verse 17, it says, So the people, these are the people who saw Lazarus raised from the dead. It says, They who were with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb, they were raised from the dead. What did they do? They continued to testify about him. So there's this weird division going on as the Passover's coming. The Pharisees have plotted to kill him. They've come under at least some thought that he's been scared away. And yet the people are saying, You'll never believe what just happened. We were just out there, and he raised this guy who was stinking dead. And Jesus raised him from the dead, and here he is. And so there's this division. I want you to see the people and the Pharisees are divided. They're not agreed. And Jesus is out of the picture right now. And so after Jesus retires and goes away for a few days, in John 11, 55 and 56, right after he goes away, it says this. Now the Passover of the Jews was near.

And many went up to Jerusalem out of the country before the Passover to purify themselves. So they were seeking Jesus and were saying to one another as they stood in the temple, what do you think? That he will not come to the feast at all? And so you've got to see that the whole city is abuzz. Is Jesus going to come? Look what he just did. If then he went away, do you think he's going to come out? Everyone's talking about it. And then six days before the Passover, he comes back to Lazarus' house. He comes back to Bethany. and he has a meal with them. And this is where he washes their feet. No, I'm sorry. This is where Mary anoints him with oil. And Judas gets angry and says, why would you waste all that money? We could have sold that and given to the poor. And Jesus says, no, what she did was right. And so then we come back, go back to the first slide, Myles. So then all of that is the context to, on the next day, the large crowd who had come to the feast at Jerusalem, when they heard Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, they went out to meet him.

They went out to Bethany and they wanted to see Jesus and they wanted to see Lazarus. All these people from the surrounding area, not the people who lived in Jerusalem, but all the people from the lands had come in to worship. They're excited. They're learning about this Jesus who's just raised this man from the dead, who the Pharisees want to kill. And then they hear he's right over there at the house of the guy that he raised from the dead. And so they, in haste, all go out there. This is the context of our text this morning. There's a lot of excitement going on. There's a big hullabaloo. In John 12, 9, just before our text, it says, But the Pharisees, they had other plans. It says in verse 57 of chapter 11, So Jesus is a wanted man who's about to be put to death, and he's an honored and loved and adored man by the people. And he, on top of all that, he knows what's about to happen to him. He knows that the crowds are going to abandon him, that the Pharisees are going to kill him, and that then he's going to be raised from the dead. And you can see the sort of tension or turmoil that's going on in this week, this last part of his life. So this is the lead-up.

to Jesus coming in. So who were the crowds? Who was this crowd that went out to meet him? Well, it was a mixed bunch. And we know that the Pharisees were among it because in a different account in Luke, the Pharisees tell Jesus, you've got to tell your people to be quiet. They can't be praising you like that. And Jesus says to them, if they're silent, the rocks will cry out. And so we know that there were Pharisees there. We know that the spies, the informants, those who were sent out to keep an eye, to see where he was, they hear, oh, he's out in Bethany, they go. Now who do they go with? Well, they go with the crowd who's amazed at who Jesus is and what he's done. These people who are so excited that as soon as they hear, they start cutting palm branches off of trees and they go out. Everyone wanted to see Jesus. And as soon as they heard that he was nearby, they dropped what they were doing and they went out. So did the people know about the division?

This is one of the questions you should have. Did they know that the Pharisees wanted to kill Jesus? Did they know about the tension? You think so, Ian? I think so too. I don't know how they couldn't have known about the division, at least at some level. They'd been there and they'd witnessed the division, the rebukes that Jesus leveled against the Pharisees. The opposition was public. He would be teaching and they would come to him and they would question him to try to catch him in something that he would say and he would respond to their accusation publicly for everyone to hear. And so these people would have known this guy we're going out to see is hated by the Pharisees. Now, just as an aside, what's that have to do with us? Well, one way you could describe the crowds is that they were willing to associate with Jesus Christ in the face of opposition. The ruling elites, Their leaders had no interest in Jesus Christ and they were not ashamed of him. They adored him and they loved him and they wanted to go see him. And what's true of them ought to also be true of us. Because there would have been a temptation to want to keep your distance. But it's a wicked temptation. And so you've got to be willing, like the crowds, to associate with Jesus, not just when it's popular, but all the time. Even when it's unpopular.

Matthew Henry on this text says this. He says, And so when they see an opportunity, when these crowds heard that Jesus was there, they saw an opportunity to go praise him and to worship him and to glorify him. And there wasn't anything that was going to keep them from doing it. And we ought to follow in their train. And these were not... high and mighty and powerful people. These were the country people. Farmers, if you will. These weren't sophisticated people. What they heard was that there was a man who could raise someone from the dead and they wanted to go see him. And they wanted to go worship him. And we know that that's what happened because they started shouting, Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the king of Israel. They go out and they greet him with praise.

because of what they had heard about him, and they weren't ashamed, and we ought not to be either. Now, have you ever wondered about palm branches? Why palm branches? It seems like a strange thing. Am I the only one who's wondered this? What about palm branches? Well, I'll tell you about palm branches. Palm branches signified victory or triumph. It's the sort of thing that you would do when your king had gone out to battle. As he came back in and he was victorious, You would do for him what's being done for Jesus. And so they were a symbol of triumph, of victory, of adulation over the war being done. And so it's a form of adoration or praise. And so as soon as they hear he's coming, they go cut palm branches and they go out to meet him. And then they begin shouting. Now, how many of you shout? All God's people raise their hands because there's not one of you here that doesn't shout.

How many of you shout for righteous reasons? Sometimes, not nearly as much. These people were shouting for a righteous reason. They were shouting in praise of Jesus Christ because of his victory. And they shout out, Hosanna! Now, what's Hosanna mean? Yeah, it's like an exclamation. It's an excitement. It's not simply a word with a meaning. It's a manner of speaking. You know, if you watch basketball and you see someone, you know, make an amazing play, what do they do? You always get the picture of them and they're always going, yeah, and they're yelling something, right? But their whole body is doing it. They're excited and they're saying, yeah, so they're in somebody's face or they're doing something that's like clear that they think this was the best thing. That's what these people are doing. They're praising God. They're with their whole bodies with palm branches. Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Even the king of Israel, they're excited, they're happy, they're unashamed. And after all, this makes sense because it's Jesus' triumphal entry, but there's this weird tension because what has he conquered? Here he is riding home from battle, and yet he's actually riding into the battle, right? And there's this weird paradox going on here where they're praising him as though the battle's won, but he's just about to join it. So were they wrong? They weren't wrong. They weren't wrong. And yet they were wrong. It's really a funny thing because what did they think Jesus, being the king of the Jews, meant? They thought he was going to come in and kick the Romans out and restore their land and their worship and all of that to them. They thought, here comes our king. Kings are military. They're militant. They're powerful. Here he comes. He's going to kick those Romans out of here.

And give us back what's ours and remove our oppression. And because he's just raised Lazarus from the dead, they have faith to believe he can do it. So they're praising him. But they are wrong in one sense. That's not what Jesus has come in here to do. He hasn't come in there to kick all the Romans out and to restore worship to the Jews. If they had known that he was coming in to die, it would have been a stretch for them to understand that to be victorious. Because how is death victorious? And so they were right and they were wrong. They were ignorant. They were as infants in their understanding of what was going on. Matthew Henry says, Christ was now by his death, which was coming, to conquer principalities and powers, and therefore it was fit that he should have the victor's palm borne before him, though he was but girding on his harness, yet he could boast as though he had put it off. The people were confident.

that he was going to win a victory. So confident that he was going to win a victory that they were having the celebration before the game. And we would do well to emulate them in that regard and to not sit and hold our praise and hold our worship and hold our confidence until all the dust has settled. Because that which we see is not faith. We don't live by what we see. We live by faith in the word of God. And so we trust that what's written, what God has revealed, what he has said is actually what's true. And it's actually what will come to pass.

And when things that we see with our eyes or experience in our lives seem to contradict with that, we understand the problem to be in our perception of what's going on around us, not in what God has said he will do. And so their praise was appropriate before the victory was won. And our praise for King Jesus would be appropriate before it's all said and done. You remember Thomas? I won't believe unless I see. And what does Jesus do? Well, he shows him his wounds. And he said, blessed are those who having not seen believed. That's what these crowds are doing. Having not seen, they've believed. And they've acted on their belief. And this is what we ought to do as well. Another way of saying it is that when they exclaim, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the king of Israel, they're truly excited. It's not coerced. They're doing it of their own free will, and yet there's ignorance. And oftentimes excitement doesn't correlate directly with understanding.

People often get excited before they understand what they're getting into, what's going on. Marriage is that way. Couples get married. Before they get married, they're excited. They're really excited. It's going to be great. It's going to be this and it's going to be that. And you try to do marriage counseling, pre-marriage counseling. And you try to talk to them. You say, listen, here's what marriage is like. And these are the sorts of struggles that go on. And it gets difficult. It gets hard. You both sin against each other, and it can get really dicey. And they're just like, not us. I've yet to meet an engaged couple that doesn't at some level think they're going to avoid. They will avoid those problems at some level. Well, yeah, I know we'll sin against each other.

Just let them be married for six months or a year or two years. And then the knowledge comes of like, this is what you were talking about. And it's like, that's right. This is what we were talking about. And we're still here to help and to talk through it now that it's real, now that it's not theoretical. But that excitement that they had wasn't in line with their understanding. They were really excited and their understanding was low. And what generally happens is as their knowledge goes up, their excitement goes down. And the purpose of marriage counseling is to level those things out, to bring your excitement and your joy and your contentment up, you know, with the knowledge that you now have. And you'll note that even the disciples, it says, didn't understand what was going on. There's all of this.

excitement. All of these people are coming out, all of these palm branches. Jesus has raised this guy from the dead. We're going to go see him. He's going to come in and there's, and he's going to come in riding on a donkey. And, and they didn't understand what was going on. Those who were closest to him, who had just been away with him, away from the people in public, in private. they didn't understand even then what was going on, and they continued in their ignorance until he was glorified. And it says, then they remembered those things, and then they understood. Only after the fact did they perceive what had happened. I want to point out to you that their lack of understanding didn't preclude or prevent their action. They didn't know they were ignorant. They were, but it didn't stop them from praising God. It didn't stop them from acting by faith.

And so you have to come to terms with the fact that you don't know now what you'll know later. And that's God's way with us. That the life that we live, we live by faith. And the things that you're called to do in Scripture, in obedience to God and to bring glory to his name, you don't understand them yet. And the fact that you don't understand them is no excuse for not doing them. Thank you, honey. If your children tried this out or your students tried this out or someone who lacked understanding said, well, I can't because I don't understand. I need you to explain it to me. You realize that when you're on the other end of the equation and you're the one saying, do this, that you know the value of them doing it because when they do it, what happens? Then they understand. Then learning, then it comes. Some of us, you say, oh, I'm a hands-on learner. You hands-on learners in here?

You hands-on learners? Then do it. Then do what Jesus says. You want to understand? Do it. And then you'll gain understanding. Some of us go, I want to understand the whole thing and I want to get all the details worked out. I want to work it out and go through it in my mind and get it all straight and narrow before I do anything. And I say, you're not acting by faith. You won't understand and you'll never feel like you understand. Here, I'll prove it. For those of you who've been Christians for a while, Does it make more sense to you now than it did when you first became a Christian? Did you think you were ignorant before? Or let me ask you this. Do you think you're a fool now? Sarah says, I do think I'm a fool. And that's what I love about you, Sarah, is you have the awareness of, like, I don't think I've quite, you know, in the past I realized I didn't have it all figured out, so I'm going to just say, you know, I probably still don't have it all figured out. I know more than I used to, and there's still a lot more for me to learn and to grow in.

And so what are we to do? Reserve action? Reserve obedience? Until we understand? No. We're to act by faith. You know who thought they understood at this time? The Pharisees did. They thought they understood. And what was their response to Jesus coming into Jerusalem and the praise, in ignorance, the ignorant praise of these crowds? What was their response? Jesus, tell them to shut up. This is inappropriate what they're doing. And yet those who loved God and just wanted to see Jesus and praise him, they had the better part. They were in the right. They were willing to be foolish. They were willing to have people think they were fools. They were willing for their reputation to be set aside for their love of Jesus. And you'll face people who will despise that. Say, well, that's not very becoming of you.

An adult. You're a pastor. You're a man. You're not a child. You're this or that or the other thing. And you'll think that about yourself. I can't act like that. Why not? Why not? Why can't you love Jesus before you worry about what other people are going to think of you? It's not that you can't. It's most likely that you won't. And if that's the case, then we need to be on guard against it and fight against it and be willing to love God before it's popular, before it's cool. That's how we'll grow in faith. That's how we grow in understanding. So these are the crowds. A bunch of simple people, a bunch of ignorant people, but they want to see Jesus. And they don't care that he's not the most popular person with everyone around. So they go out to him and they praise him. Then you've got the Pharisees. They're quite bothered by all of this. The whole thing is going from bad to worse pretty quickly. He's healed Lazarus, raised him from the dead.

People are going after him in droves, and they're losing control. Simply put, that's what's going on. They had a handle and a grip on religious worship, and they're losing it because Jesus is here healing people and teaching and opposing them. And up to this point, they've somewhat openly opposed Jesus. They've tried to catch him in something that he would say so that they could prosecute him and remove him and come out during that process looking like they're the righteous ones. Why else would they try to catch him in something he would say? Well, it's because the court of public opinion is a real thing. And if the people are opposed, you're going to have a harder time getting what you want done. So they work at first trying to do away with Jesus in front of people in a manner that would be palatable to them. They're trying to catch him in saying, well, he's blasphemed. Well, he said something wicked. Well, he's contrary. Therefore, you shouldn't trust him. You shouldn't follow him.

And once the people's affection is turned off of Jesus, then they can kill him and no one's going to care. And so the Pharisees have been pursuing their Jesus in this way. But it's not working. The crowds are coming and they're going after him. And they say the whole world's going to believe in him. At the end of our text, when they're talking to each other, they said the whole world's gone after him. And so they're losing it. It's slipping out of their hands. And so they say to one another, you see that you're not doing any good. Look. The whole world's gone after him. And it's kind of a funny statement. It was to me. By funny, I mean peculiar, strange. Like, what are they saying? Because it seems like they're turning on one another and saying, see, we listened to you and it didn't work. But that's not what's going on. This is the Pharisees' acknowledgement that they're going to have to take a more proactive approach in their pursuit of Jesus and their murder of him. That what they're doing is not working.

They're strengthening their resolve to kill him. As they see what's going on, they're looking at each other and saying, you see, what we're doing is not working. Everyone's going after him. Something has to be done about this. You could describe what's happening to them as simply that they're becoming harder. It's a difficult truth, it's a hard truth, but it's true nonetheless that the reason people don't believe is not because they don't understand or because they don't see. The answer is not always to people who rebel against God. Well, they just don't get it. They just need more education. They just need more teaching. No, they don't. The crowds, they needed more teaching. They were ignorant, but they loved Jesus. The Pharisees, they didn't need more teaching. And as the message of Jesus Christ and his gospel became clearer to them, they got harder. They doubled down on their opposition.

And we have to have a place in our minds for understanding that when people see who Jesus Christ is, that the problem is not simply that they're ignorant. The problem is that they don't want to have anything to do with him. And the more they see of him, the harder they get. That that's actually a legitimate response, a real response that people have to the gospel. And the reason I'm saying this all to you is that we all feel like everyone needs to love Jesus and they should. I'm not saying they shouldn't. What I'm saying is, whose fault or responsibility is it that the Pharisees didn't believe and repent? It's theirs. It's theirs. It wasn't God's fault. It wasn't Jesus' fault. It wasn't John the Baptist's fault. It wasn't anyone who had any of the prophets in the Old Testament. No one had failed them. They had refused. And because they had refused, their opposition to him and their hatred for him grew.

And we ought not to be surprised when we see this happen. Those who will not repent and will not submit to Jesus Christ as their Lord, as their King, as their Master, and as their Savior, will oppose him. They cannot be neutral. They will not be neutral. They don't want to be neutral. They might want to be passive in their aggression, but we all know that's a thing, right? We know passive aggressives like a thing. They're not bold enough to just be aggressive, so then they're passive aggressive. But they're still aggressive. They're still opposed. And so we have to have a place in our minds to see the tension that Jesus is walking into. And that those who won't repent are going to be those who pursue his death, who seek to kill him. And the application to us is that a pupil is not above his teacher. But everyone, after he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher. Jesus is our teacher. He's gone before us.

And it's our place to follow in his train. Now, does that mean that you're going to get killed for being a Christian? Probably not. It's not common now. After Jesus died and was raised and Nero got into power, that was just common. You were a Christian, you got killed. You were put to death. We don't live in that society right now. So I'm not trying to be bombastic and tell you, oh, you're going to die if you're a Christian. Realistically in America right now, that's not what's going to happen. That doesn't mean that you won't face persecution. It just means that the complexion of the persecution right now is not going to be you being put to death. And yet many of us, it doesn't take death for us to be scared to associate with Jesus Christ, does it? Someone doesn't have to threaten to kill us. They just have to seem like they might not like us. And all of a sudden we're like, oh, oh no. Who am I talking about? Who might it be?

Well, it could be your coworkers. It could be your neighbors. It could be your spouse. If you were here last week, we talked about that. It could be your children. Parents don't want to discipline their children when their children are in sin because their children will get angry and disown them. You know, they won't have anything to do with them. Okay, well, the question the parents have to answer is, what are your children rejecting? If that's the example we're going to use. What is it they're rejecting? Are they rejecting you? If that's the case, if they're rejecting God, then your place is to stand with him, not with your children. I think it was Charles Spurgeon's mother, it was either him or Augustine, I don't remember which, who said to her son one time, she said, listen, if you don't love and serve God, I'm not going to stand at the judgment seat and intercede for you. Something to that effect. That's not exactly what she said. But the mother said to him, you don't have my affections if you're a rebel against God, and I'm not going to feel sorry for you when God judges you.

And it was like a helpful thing to have his mom say to him, to know that she loved God more than him. And so it's enough for us as disciples to become like Jesus, our master, to not turn away from persecution, to not turn away from opposition or from people opposing us or thinking, oh, we're not going to invite you over anymore. I was just talking to a friend who said, man, I was just with a bunch of people and they all got drunk. And they're all Christians. And they all got together and they told me, this is like what they do. This is how they fellowship. They get together and they get drunk. And he's going, that's not right. And I'm going, you're right. He asked, he says, what does the Bible have to say about drunkenness? That's how the conversation started. And I said, well, who? I said, well, you know, we're not to get drunk. And I said, well, what's going on? And then he explains this. And I said, well, in 1 Corinthians it tells us not to associate with drunkards.

so-called brothers who are drunkards. It says don't even eat with such a one. So it's pretty serious. And what's this man processing? Well, he's processing whether he's ever going to get invited over again, whether they're going to be his friends or not, or whether he's going to become the weird one. And my work with him was just simply to say, it's okay for you to be weird. It really is. You won't lose any respect from me. Loving those people enough to say, this is not right, will glorify God if you do it by faith and with love. So that's what you should do. But simply the fact that they wouldn't talk to him anymore or that they'd murmur and whisper behind his back, that was enough to give him pause. And are you and I that different than he is? Nope. And so as we see Jesus going into Jerusalem, into his death, we have to remember it's enough for us to become like him.

If we'll be joined with him in his death, we'll be raised with him. So we must not fear. We must not fear. And that's actually, Miles, if you go back a slide, I think, one more. In verse 15, it says, fear not. The first part, when it says, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the king of Israel, that's what the people were saying. But this little part here, this isn't what was said when it was going on. This is what John said about what was going on. Jesus found a young donkey, sat on it, as it is written, Fear not, daughter of Zion. Behold, your king is coming, seated on a donkey's colt. He's saying to us, this is the prophecy that's being fulfilled that the disciples and the people didn't understand at the time. But it doesn't just say, oh, and he's going to come on a donkey. It says at the beginning, fear not. And so we as God's people are to fear not. We have a king, Jesus, just like these people did. And we're not to fear.

You're not to be afraid of what people will think of you. You're not to be afraid of the parties you won't get invited to or the money that you won't make or the jobs you won't get or the disdain of your coworkers or family members or children or spouses or whomever. You're not to fear it. You're not to fear it. You're to fear God and you're to act by faith. So as we celebrate Holy Week, I want you to take away from today that Jesus, as we remember each year, rode into his death, rode into the danger and didn't shy away from it, but rode in and acted in a way that honored his father. And we ought to do the same. And fear is the thing that's going to be the biggest deterrent. And I don't want you to be afraid. Scripture tells you not to be afraid. Don't be afraid to speak. Don't be afraid to act. You don't need to understand better because Jesus' praise come out of the mouths of babes and infants. That's us. That's these crowds.

Are you willing to be like the crowds or not? That's the question to us as we go away this week. Let's pray.