THE PHARISEES WANT TO KILL THE GUY DOING MIRACLES: Power creates blind spots.
- John 11:47-48, 53.
- The connection between v. 47 and v. 53 is almost unbelievable.
- In v. 47, the Pharisees admit that Jesus is doing many miraculous signs.
- Yet in v. 53 they plot to take Jesus’ life.
- What in the world?
- If we didn’t know human nature, we might be inclined to consider this story a poorly-composed fiction.
- But v. 48 brings the connection into clear focus: Jesus was threatening their power.
- Taking away their place refers to their power within society. Taking away their nation refers to the end of Israel. In both cases, the Pharisees presumed that they were the key to God being able to redeem the whole situation.
- Power creates blind spots.
- Here, the Pharisees cannot accurately see what’s going on because their power has them blinded.
- Three examples:
a. A church with spiritually immature power brokers.
- In many struggling churches (and especially in perpetually broken ones), you have spiritually immature people in charge. They resolve issues in destructive ways. They handle problems with worldly wisdom.
- They are the reason that the church continues to struggle or fail. It can be directly tied to their behavior.
- And yet if you were to ask them about their church, they see themselves as the ones who are holding everything together and the heroes of the story. If anything, in their own estimation, the problem isn’t that they have too much power but that they don’t have enough.
- They think they are the only reason the church is still alive when in fact they are the reason the church is almost dead. They have no idea that probably the best thing that could happen to the church is a few prominent funerals.
- Their power has blinded them.
b. America and prominent evangelicals.
- A similar dynamic is presently happening nationally as I just described in that church.
- There is so much emphasis on “winning America back” and the political work that needs to be done to achieve that. There is much thought and effort put into winning the culture war.
- As I have documented extensively before, the result of these efforts has been the ruining of the witness of the church in America as well as a failure to “win America back.” Nonetheless, prominent evangelical leaders presume that they are the last line of defense before America completely falls into godlessness.
- In reality, their removal from positions of authority and prominence would actually be a big step forward, yet they think they are the last line of defense.
c. A Christian’s personal life.
- The idea applies to many Christian’s personal lives as well.
- Whether it’s work, money, or some other measure, many Christians presume that God wants them to have more power and influence. It just seems a natural step for them to presume that God wants to prosper and increase them.
- While thinking that, they don’t consider whether their life is actually impacting their world for Christ. No, they just presume they need more influence.
A KEY MISTAKE: If we are on God’s team then it has to be God’s will for our power to increase.
- John 11:48.
- This verse clearly brings out the power dimension of the issue that we are looking at tonight. It shows the consequence that they fear – and it has to do with a loss of power for them.
- Note the progression in the verse:
a. If we don’t do anything then Jesus is going to get more popular.
b. If He gets more popular then the Romans will take away our power.
- What exactly is meant by “our place and our nation”?
- “Our place” refers to the position of respect and power that they held within Jewish society at that time. Sure, it was limited because the Romans were ultimately calling the shots, but that doesn’t mean that the Jewish leaders did not have substantial say in certain areas.
- “Our nation” refers to the Jewish nation. The religious leaders presumed that a loss of power for them would inevitably spell doom for the nation.
- All of this leads us back to the point on your sermon outline.
- The Pharisees were absolutely certain that they were on “God’s team,” so to speak. Because they were God’s guys, then it had to be God’s will for their power to increase (or, at least, not diminish).
- This is a mistake many believers have made down through the years.
- Let’s go back and unpack the three examples from the opening point in light of this.
a. A church with spiritually immature power brokers.
- The church continues to produce horrible results: church splits, short pastorates, and no noticeable spiritual growth. You would think that the leaders would humbly step down, acknowledging they have failed and must bear some responsibility for that.
- That pretty much never happens.
- Instead, they presume that the problem is that others have too much power and that they need more power. They obviously can’t be the problem – they’re God’s leaders!
b. America and prominent evangelicals.
- The same dynamic shows up nationally. Let’s talk about the culture war for a minute.
- Evangelical leaders have waged a culture war for forty years now. There is a strong argument to make that it never was God’s will to pursue that and that it represents a serious misunderstanding of the mission of the kingdom of God. I’m going to put that aspect of it aside for a minute.
- Instead, let’s just look at the culture war and judge it on its merits. Have evangelical Christians won the culture war? Absolutely not. Forty years in, abortion is still legal and homosexual marriage has become the law of the land.
- In the light of such failure, you would think that prominent evangelical leaders would be resigning in disgrace, saying that they’ve failed to produce a winning result. Is that happening? Not at all. No, the claim instead is that they need more power to try to “save America.”
c. A Christian’s personal life.
- In our personal walk with Christ, we often see similar things happen. I think here personality plays an important role because there are some people who avoid power and prefer to stay in the background. That can lead to different issues.
- For those with pride and power issues, the same thing happens as in the previous two examples. They cannot see how God would want them to have less power. After all, they’re working so hard to do His will!
HOW DO I AVOID THIS BLIND SPOT?
1. Remember Jesus’ teaching on exaltation.
- Luke 14:11.
- The first thing we need to remember is what Jesus said repeatedly about being exalted by God. It was not to happen by us constantly trying to grasp onto the brass ring.
- No, Jesus told His disciples that the exalted would be humbled and the humbled would be exalted.
- In fact, here in the Luke 14 passage, the context is also a power story – in this case, social power and prestige.
- If we want to see God’s power actually flow through us, we have to pursue it in the way Jesus said to.
2. Focus on fruit instead of power.
- John 15:8, 16.
- In John 15 we are reminded that one of the proofs of the genuineness of our salvation is the fruit of God in our lives.
- You’ll remember in some of the examples I used earlier that those power-hungry Christians never stopped to evaluate whether they were actually bearing fruit. Why? Because they were too busy tending their power.
- A better place to focus is our fruitfulness. How am I impacting lives? How am I growing myself?
- Doing those things may lead me to give up some of my power. Maybe I’m doing too many things and need to focus more on my growth and impacting the people I’m close to.
3. Beware that, one way or another, God may use you to accomplish His will.
- John 11:49-52.
- It’s incredibly ironic that the Pharisees objected to Jesus because they wanted to hold onto their power and in so doing presumed that they were doing God’s will. We are God’s guys and we are doing God’s will.
- In fact, of course, they were not doing God’s will.
- And yet in these verses we see that in their disobedience God still incorporated them into His plan. This involves no praise for them because they are being disobedient.
- But I guess the point that needs to be made is this: God is going to accomplish His will. If you humble serve Him, God will use you to bring it about. If you arrogantly cling to your power, God will use that to bring it about. But one of those people gets rewarded and one gets punished.
