We Are Going Up To Jerusalem

So we're moving on through Luke, and this morning is an aside. Jesus is on his way up to Jerusalem. He's been teaching. He's been healing. He's been using parables. He's been doing all kinds of stuff. And here, this morning, there's an aside from all of that, where he takes his 12 disciples off privately, away from the crowds, and he tells them what's going to happen to him. And so it's not a parable. It's not some sort of a moral some story with a moral in it. It's simply a foretelling of what's to come. In effect, what he says is, when we get to Jerusalem, I'm going to be killed and raised on the third day. That's basically the summary of our text. And this event that Jesus foretells to his disciples is really the climax of the story of redemption. Without it, Nothing that comes before it and nothing that happens after it is of any benefit. There's no consequence to us if Jesus doesn't die and be again raised from the dead. And so everything that Jesus tells his disciples is going to happen, absolutely has to happen for salvation to be possible. Apart from these things taking place, we're still in our sins. They're still in their sins and we're without hope in this world.

And so this is our text that we'll be studying this morning. I'd like to read it to you now. Would you please stand and listen to the word of God from Luke chapter 18, verses 31 through 34. This is the word of the Lord, and it is eternally true. They will kill him. And the third day he will rise again. But the disciples understood none of these things. And the meaning of this statement was hidden from them. And they did not comprehend the things that were said. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Now it may seem like a strange thing to you that, as it did to me, that Jesus would take his disciples aside and he would tell them this news. And the natural question that arises is, Why did Jesus do that? Was there a particular reason that Jesus took a break, isolated his disciples, and told them about this? Our text in Luke doesn't give us any indication that there was, but a parallel account in Mark chapter 10 says this. They were on the road going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking on ahead of them. And they were amazed, and those who followed were fearful.

And so there are two things in this verse from Mark that stand out. The first is that they were amazed, and the second was that they were fearful. Why were they amazed? Well, they were amazed because they knew that Jerusalem was the nest of all who hated Jesus. All of the opposition that he'd faced from the Pharisees and the scribes and the Sadducees, that was their home base. And here they were going up to it. In their minds, he was walking straight into the mouth of the beast, straight into the conflict. And what was going to happen to him? It was not hidden that the Pharisees hated him and wanted him dead. And here he is walking right into it. Now think for a minute. I won't even push you to think about your own death. But think of walking into a hostile environment where you are the focus of the hostility.

It would be an amazing thing to see someone walk into this place. And none of us would be inclined to do it. And so they were amazed at what he was doing, but they were also fearful. And this is the second thing that stands out to us. If you were with him, you would wonder, we've got such a good thing going. Why not stay out in the surrounding area and continue to heal and continue to preach and continue to teach and continue to minister? Why go to Jerusalem and put it all on the line? This is the context for Jesus taking his disciples aside. It was their fear. Now, it's important to note that while they were fearful, they followed him. When you're fearful, are you inclined to go do the thing that you're afraid of? The answer is no. When I'm afraid of things, generally I turn around and go the other direction. And it's important to note that the people who follow Jesus here are fearful and they still follow him. And this is instructive to us.

That our fear ought not become an impediment to us following Jesus. We all stumble in many ways. There are all kinds of things that we can become afraid of. And it will be bad for us if that fear becomes the reason that we lay off of following the Lord. We want to be like these disciples who are following him. And so now we come to what Jesus actually told his disciples, these fearful men in private. From Luke, behold, we are going up to Jerusalem. And all the things which are written through the prophets about the Son of Man will be accomplished. He will be handed over to the Gentiles, be mocked, mistreated, spit upon, and after that, scourged, and then they will kill him. And the third day he'll rise again. The disciples are afraid, and this is Jesus' response to them. Does it make any sense to you? You're afraid to go up to Jerusalem because of the opposition you're going to face, and Jesus says, this is what's going to happen when we get there. They're going to kill me.

And they're going to torture me first. It doesn't seem to make sense, does it? Generally, when people are fearful, what you want to tell them is your fears are misguided and they're out of proportion and it's not going to be as bad as you think and you can trust God. But when you're afraid of something with cause, and by that I mean it's not some irrational fear. You have a legitimate thing to be afraid of. There's a high likelihood that something bad is actually going to happen. It's no comfort to you for some knucklehead to come tell you, no, no, no, it's going to be fine, don't worry about it. Because you know better. You know that it is going to happen. And so Jesus does them a great service by telling them the truth. What's going to happen is we're going to go up there, and they're going to mock me, they're going to mistreat me, they're going to spit on me, they're going to scourge me, and then they're going to kill me. And you have to think for a minute, how in the world is that helpful to fearful people? How is that helpful?

If you were listening, where would your mind have gone? Consider it this way. You're following the Son of God. And he tells you, this is what's going to happen to me. And consider for a moment, would you want that to happen to him? No. And if you say no, then you're only like Peter, who when later he was told that this is what's going to happen, he said, nuh-uh. And when they came to arrest Jesus, he whipped out his sword. and lopped off the guy's ear, you would not want this to happen. You wouldn't be able to stomach it. It would be unpalatable to you. And there's two reasons for it. One is you love Jesus and you don't want to lose him. What's the other reason? What's going to happen to you once they kill him? You know what's going to happen. Yeah, you're going to be afraid that they're going to come for you next. And so their fear is not misguided. They're not afraid of the boogeyman in the closet.

They have a real fear. And Jesus says, this is what's going to happen to me. And what he's doing is preparing them. When you have a difficult time coming, a fearful time coming, what's needed is not lies, but the truth. So that you'll be prepared for that when it comes. And so Jesus tells them, this is what's going to happen to me. Now, I've stopped short at this point of telling you what, of everything that Jesus said. He told them, I'm going to be mocked. I'm going to be mistreated. I'm going to be spit on. I'm going to be scourged. And then I'm going to be killed. And then what? And then on the third day, I'm going to be raised from the dead. And that's meant to be an encouragement to them and to strengthen them that as they see this horrid event begin to take place, that they will recognize that that's exactly what Jesus said was going to happen.

They were going to mock me. They are going to scourge me. They're going to beat me. They're going to spit on me. They're going to strip me naked and scourge me. And they're going to kill me. And if you're tracking closely, you'd say, that must mean that he's going to raise from the dead then too, because he wouldn't tell us the truth about all of this and then lie about the last part. It's meant to actually strengthen your faith. What do you tell a mom when she's about to have a baby? Tell her this is going to be very difficult and very hard. You've never gone through anything like this in your life. You'll never go through anything else like this in your life. And it's true. And then what do you say to her at the end of that? You say, when it's all over, you're going to hold your baby in your arms and it'll be worth it. You can do it. Go through it. Have your baby. This is how scripture speaks of the birth of a child. There's good that's going to come at the end, but there's difficulty before it. There's pain, there's hardship, there's agony, but there's blessing at the end of this.

And so don't shrink back. Don't run away. Don't be a mom who's in labor saying, I'm not having this baby. Because you can't stop that, can you? They can't stop this. And in the same way that there's blessing and joy in holding your baby after they're born, there's blessing and there's joy in Jesus' resurrection. But there's pain that comes first. And he tells them that this pain is coming, this hardship, this thing you're afraid of. is going to happen and it's going to look like this. So that when they see what's going on, they won't be overcome with grief and despair and run away and say, nobody told me it was going to be this bad. I think the bad guys won. And you have to consider for a minute that as they're sitting there watching these things take place, how is it that they could, how is it that Jesus could know with such accuracy what was going to happen to him if he wasn't the son of God? He's confirming to them, I am who you think I am in peacetime.

Because we're about to go into war. And as you've trusted me previously, you have to continue. Jesus saying this to his disciples would confirm their faith in him, that he was the promised one, the Messiah. No one else but God himself could foretell this future with such accuracy, mocking, mistreating, spitting, scourging, and then death. Do you remember what they said? We're getting ahead in this story. But when Jesus is being crucified, what do they say of him? The onlookers. He saved others. Let him save himself. If you're the son of God, come down off that cross. And what they're doing is questioning the thing that Jesus is confirming in his disciples' minds. He says to them, I am the son of man, the son of God. I am the Messiah. These are the things that have to happen to me. And those who are unbelieving, you thought of his death as the proof of whether he was the son of God or not.

And they said to him, if you're the son of God, come down from there. And he didn't. But what did the soldiers say after he died? Surely this was the son of God. Because of the earthquakes and the trembling and the raising from the dead and all of the calamity that went on when Jesus died. The rending of the veil. And so what we learn is that God's people have need of believing that Jesus' death is not the end. Because otherwise, they'll despair and they'll give in to their fear and they'll go to hell. And so Jesus tells them, I'm going to be tortured. I'm going to die. And on the third day, I'll be raised again. Now, this is all well and good to say their faith should be strengthened. If you can understand the reasoning and the logic behind what's being said, it makes sense. And in my head, it's helpful to, I get it, but we get it looking back on it.

Having read the account of his death, having read the account of his resurrection, having read the history of 2,000 years of Christ's work of redemption in this world since that time, our vantage point is not their vantage point. And so I want you to consider for a minute, after he died, did his people believe that he was going to be raised? They didn't. They didn't. When Mary and Martha went to the grave, did they expect to find a risen Lord? No. They were amazed. And their answer, when they went to the tomb and they looked in the tomb and there was no body in the tomb, they did not go, that's right. He said he was going to be raised. What did they say? Where have you taken the body of our Lord?

And so I don't want us this morning to simply come away saying, oh, it makes sense that their faith would be strengthened and we would be able to walk into hell's mouth and not stumble because they stumbled and they fell. There is no difference between us and the disciples in the way that we would have processed what Jesus said to them. We would have been fearful beforehand. We would have been despairing after he died. And then Luke goes on. In verse 34, it says twice that the disciples didn't understand or comprehend anything that was said to them. Now to you and I, from our vantage point, we look back and we can see. That's what happened to Jesus and we can see the resurrection and we can see all of history from then until now. Our faith is informed by that. It's impossible for any of us to be able to go and say, I live in the moment where I don't actually know if he's going to be raised.

I haven't seen it yet. And if you kind of wonder and it's kind of fuzzy what I'm saying, just consider for a moment the thing that you're afraid of right now. Are you assured that God's going to work it out? Or are you worried? And I mean worried to the point of really actually thinking this isn't going to work out well. It's actually going to fall apart. How's that sort of fear sit with you? And for us, what can we say except that yeah, I spend a lot of my life worried that the things that I'm afraid of, God's not going to resolve them well, if you're honest. And so we are like the disciples in their fear. And we're like the disciples in their lack of understanding. And in the middle of this, at first it says, the disciples understood none of these things. And at the end it says, they did not comprehend the things that were said. And then in the middle it says, the meaning of this statement was hidden from them. And the question is,

Hidden where? Hidden how? Hidden why? Why didn't they understand this? I can understand not getting a parable. The whole point of parables was that they weren't for everyone to understand. And the disciples would come to Jesus and say, that stuff about the soils and the seeds, what were you talking about? And he spoke in parables and they didn't understand. But this is not a parable. This is plain. This is simple. This is straightforward. This is just foretelling the future. This is what's going to happen to me when we get to Jerusalem. And so why was it hidden? Or better yet, who hid it? Was God hiding it from them? Or was it something else? Well, to answer the first question, did Jesus hide it from them? The answer is no. I could read that passage of Scripture to a three-year-old, and they could tell me back in their own words what it meant.

And so it's quite a stretch to say that they didn't understand very plain speaking directly to them from Jesus. He's not a poor communicator. There was nothing hidden from them in his words. So how was it hidden from them? Well, it was hidden from them because they simply could not conceive of this happening. They did not believe that this could happen, that God would allow it to happen. So it was hidden from them. They couldn't understand it. You ever in your own life or with other people have someone say, I refuse to believe that, even though it's true? That's it. It's hidden from them. They refuse to see it. They refuse to understand. They refuse to take hold of what's been said. I don't want to talk about that. I don't want to think about that. I don't want to be a part of that. I don't want to know about that. No. They've hidden it from themselves.

Something that's very unpalatable has come up and they say, no, put it back. Cover it up again. I don't want to see or hear. John Calvin says on their disciples' lack of understanding that the reason that they were held in such gross ignorance, like that it's so absurd that they didn't understand their gross ignorance. The reason that they were held in such gross ignorance, which was this, that they had formed the expectation of a joyful and prosperous advancement. They thought the way things have been, are the way things are going to continue to be. And I'm not willing to believe that it's going to change. They had conceived in their mind that this is what life's going to be like. Jesus is always going to be here. He's always going to be doing this sort of stuff. We're going to be the cool kids. We're going to kick the Romans out. It's going to be good. Therefore, they reckoned it to be in the highest degree absurd that Christ should be ignominiously. Yes, it sounded right in my head.

ignominiously crucified. Now what does it mean, Abram? Yeah. It was just absurd to them. Unbelievable that Jesus would suffer the way that he said he would. They wouldn't believe it. They couldn't believe it. And so they didn't. And it was hidden from them. And this is why they were afraid to go up to Jerusalem. Because they knew they were going to face some conflict up there. And it was a threat to their way of life, the things that they'd been enjoying and participating in. They didn't want the conflict. Another way of saying this then is that the disciples had no idea at all about why Jesus came to earth. They did not understand it. They thought that what they were enjoying and what they were a part of during his earthly ministry was what it was about. But everything that Jesus has done, up to this point in his earthly ministry, has saved no one from their sins. If this is where it stops. Do you follow me? Jesus coming and being a good moral teacher and healing people's bodies does nothing with their relationship with God if he doesn't die on the cross and isn't raised on the third day. It does nothing. And the disciples didn't understand it. You remember when Peter followed at a distance after they arrested Jesus and they confronted him?

Aren't you one of his guys? No. Little girl, you sure you're not one of his guys? No. No, I saw you with him. No, I do not know him. Or Thomas, when they go to heal Lazarus in Bethany, which is near Jerusalem. Lazarus is dead. They send word. He's been dead days. And Thomas, Jesus says, we're going to go. He's just asleep. And what's Thomas's response? Thomas says this. It says Thomas, in John 11, 16, it says, Thomas, who is called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, let us also go so that we may die with him. Now, why would they die? Well, because Bethany was only about two miles from Jerusalem, and he knew that the people in Jerusalem hated Jesus. Let us go that we may die with him. These men at this time had no understanding of what Jesus came to do, what he had to do, what his father's will was that he would do. They did not understand. And so Jesus tells them,

I have to go up there and I have to die. And I'll be raised on the third day. And to the natural man who doesn't understand why, you ask the question, why? Why do you have to go to Jerusalem? Why do you have to suffer? Why do you have to die? Why all of that? And the answer is because there is no other way for there to be peace between us and God. No other way. There's no hope for us. There's no hope for them. There's no hope for anyone. Because God is holy and he can have nothing to do with sin at all. And it's not a flaw in his character that he will have nothing to do with the slightest bit of sin ever in his heaven. When Adam and Eve sinned and they were put out of the garden, that garden, the tree of life was guarded with an angel, with a flaming sword, so that they would never get back in because they'd become sinful.

And there could no longer be the communion that they had enjoyed previously with God, where he dwelt with them and walked with them. That was no more. They had to get out. And they were not allowed to come back in, ever. And we're no different than them. No different than Adam and Eve. No different than the disciples. No different than all of the people who've come in between. If we're to be reconciled to God and to have peace with him, then he had to come and go through exactly what he told the disciples to go through. He was going to go through. Because his father is righteous and holy and full of wrath against every sin. And it will not be assuaged by our guilt. It will not be assuaged by our contrition and our feeling sorry for it. It will not be abated by us promising we'll never do it again.

or feeling really bad about it, none of that matters a lick to God in terms of the penalty that we are owed. It is of no benefit. What was necessary for us to have peace with God was that Jesus would come and that he would die. This was the whole purpose of him coming to earth. It wasn't an unfortunate consequence of his faithfulness to God in the preceding three years. It was the reason that he came. He came to die. That's it. Because he came to save. And to save, he has to die. Because his blood is the only blood that will satisfy the wrath of his father. There's no other blood that will do. Your blood will not do. If you don't believe in Jesus and his blood doesn't cover you, you will never escape hell, not for all eternity. Never, ever, ever will you get out. And it's a terrifying thought. What are we to do then? We're undone. Who wants to think of this? Who wants to talk of this? If your conscience is,

you're thinking of yourself and you're thinking of your life and you're thinking of the things you've done and you're thinking, but what about me? Is that for me? If you tell me he came to die and he had to die to save me, did he die to save me? Am I saved? Does his blood cover me? Or when his father looks at me, does he see me still? Because when I look in the mirror, I see me still. I see my sin. I see my failures. I see the ways that I've sinned against them. And they're not small. And they're not insignificant. They're not the kind of things that even I would overlook. And I'm not holy like God is holy. And so what about me? Do you have faith in Jesus Christ? Do you believe that this is for you? Historically, faith has consisted of three things.

are all necessary for you to be considered to have faith. The first is knowledge. Do you know the truth? Have you been instructed in the truth? Or is it foreign to you? The second is, do you trust that it is true? It's one thing to be told it's dry in the desert. It's another thing to believe that it's dry in the desert. And sometimes people who live in the desert think that there's water in the desert. There's mirages. So knowledge, have you been instructed? Trust, do you believe that it's actually true? And so applied to this, do you know why Jesus had to die? That's one thing. It's not sufficient to know that he died. Do you trust that he's died? Do you believe it? Do you say, yeah, I think that really actually did happen. I believe that that fact is true.

Those are the first two aspects of faith. The third aspect is assent. Do you hope in it? Do you place your hope in it? For you. Not for other people. Not for your family. Not for your loved ones. Not for your children or your spouse. But for you. Do you believe that that death on the cross is for you? Or do you not? And without believing that it's for you, you don't have faith. And I don't say that to discourage you in any way and to say, well, if you don't have this, you don't have faith and woe is you. What I tell you is, the reason I tell you that is to say, the knowledge and the trust are easy. It's easy to know the facts. It's easy to say, I think they're true. The hard part is to believe that they're true for you. Because when you look in the mirror, you don't see anyone worthy of such a gift. And Satan would have you say, yeah, I believe that that's true for,

Other people. Who are sinners but not like me. So do you believe that it's true for you? Or do you despair? And are you without hope? And I ask the question. And it's not even a question that you can answer definitively. Yes, I believe that. And I always will. Well, talk to someone who's been a Christian a little longer. And they'll tell you that that question is always being answered. As they process through their life and their sins and the things that they've done and the consequences that they've faced and the discipline that's brought into their life, it's common that they ask, is this for me? I'm not sure that it's for me. I don't know if it's for me. I'm afraid that it's not for me. I want it to be for me. This is the conflict that Christians live in. And what can we say against that whole wave of unbelief?

Except to say with the hymn writer, Jesus loves me, this I know. For the Bible tells me so. I believe because God said so. Not because of what I see. Not because of what I'm worth. Not because of what I can do. Not because of what I bring. Not because of what I've avoided. None of that. Because none of it's worth anything in God's eyes with regard to your salvation. Do you believe what God says? for you. I think that it's easier to believe that he would die than that he would be raised. But Paul tells us if we only believe that there's consequence for sin, which is what his death represents, if that's all we believe, then we above all men are most to be pitied. If all that we believe is that sin deserves consequences and that Jesus paid for them, then we're still in our sins.

Because if his death wasn't accompanied by his resurrection, his death is of no benefit to us. He just died like the rest of us will. So do you believe that Jesus, the Son of God, who was perfect, died and was raised to save you from your sin? Do you believe it? That's the question. Not do you deserve it. Not have you earned it. Do you believe it? If you believe it, it will bring you peace. It won't make you not a sinner. When you die, you won't be a sinner anymore. But until then, you'll still be a sinner. You'll be a different kind of sinner. You'll be one that's repenting. You'll be one that hates your sin. You'll enter into a struggle that will last the rest of your life. Believing this doesn't make you not a sinner. Believing this gives you peace with God. You know, when you've really mucked it up in a relationship, really mucked it up at work, you have no excuse.

Don't you just wish that someone would just whoop you for it? If you have some knowledge of your sin, don't you know that that's what you deserve? You deserve the boot. You deserve for him to throw the book at you. You deserve no mercy, no grace, no kindness. You deserve the consequence of your sin. That's what you deserve. Have you been in a situation where you are fully aware that that is what you deserve? Now, have you been in a situation like that and received mercy? What's the temptation that comes when you receive mercy? The temptation is to reject it and to say, that's not for me. I don't deserve that. I won't accept it. And that's a very real temptation that Christians face, that in the face of the gospel and of Jesus' death and his resurrection, they will say, I don't think that's for me. I think it's true. I think it's good. There's a part of me that wants it, but I'm convinced that it's not for me. I will not have it.

And you will find no peace in this life if that's where you are. And that is not a Christian life, way to live. If we are united with Jesus Christ in his death, we will be raised with him to a new life. And our former way of life and our former, all of the consequences and the penalty that we owe God is done away with. And it's not done away with in time. It's done away with now. Now. It's not something that you're to bear and to carry around and to decide I'll feel guilty for it for a week or a month or a year or a decade and then it'll be better. No, now. The work of redemption in the life of a Christian begins when they become Christians and it continues on through the rest of their life. And so it's for you now. And you have to be humble to accept it because a sinner knows they don't deserve it. And it's what makes it so sweet to us.

Is that it's an actual real gift that has actual real benefits in this life and in the world to come that we do not deserve. And so if you go, I don't know if I love God. I don't know how he feels about me. And I don't know if I want to serve him. You kind of get stuck in the mire of your own inward thoughts. Come outside of yourself and believe the gospel. That you're a sinner. And that you've done terrible things. until you die, you will still be tempted to do terrible things, and you will still, from time to time, do very, very terrible things. And becoming a Christian doesn't make you have an excuse for doing terrible things. But know that when you do terrible things, that is what Jesus came to die for. He didn't come to die for junior-level sinners. He came to die for the full-fledged ones, like you.

And trust God that what he said is true. Take him at his word. Don't allow it to be hidden from you the way the disciples did because you go, I can't, just won't believe that. Believe the gospel. Believe that you're a sinner and that God is holy and that he reconciled us to him through the death of his son Jesus, which is what he told his disciples to mitigate their fear so that they would continue to follow him and that they would persevere even when it got really bad. He told them there's coming a day when it won't be that way anymore. There's a valley to go through and a high place on the other side. Come with me. Come with me. Let's pray.