Have you ever had something bad happen in your life, that God used to bring about something really great? Or even better than that, have you ever planned out your life perfectly, and decided how everything would work out, just to have God come in and shred your plans up right in your face? I sure have! I have completely given up on trying to plan my life, because every time I do, God says NOPE!, and sends me in an entirely different direction.
When I moved to PEI 10 years ago, I intended to go to Maritime Christian College for one year, and then go on to work in IT as a Network Administrator. But at the end of my first year, God said no, you’re going to stay at MCC and get a degree, and go into ministry. And I struggled to get on board for a while, but then finally I said, ok! Then a few years later, I had a really bad experience working in youth ministry, and I said you know what, maybe this isn’t what I’m supposed to do, maybe this isn’t what God is calling me too after all! So eventually I decided to go work at a software company instead. And I had a big plan to work my way up this company into a management position! But then God called me away from that! So I was like ok, now what! And then I ended up in the electrical program at Holland College! Not even sure how that happened. And so I said, ok God, so if this is where you want me, I can still use my gifts as a church member! But he was like nope, you’re still going to be a preacher! …Alright God!
So I started out planning to be in IT as a network administrator. And now, through a series of unfortunate events, I’m heading towards being a building supervising electrician preacher. Honestly, at this point, I’m just along for the ride. And I’m sure that most of you can relate very well to that feeling about life! Sometimes you just have to accept that God has a plan, it isn’t the same as YOUR plan, and you’re just along for the ride. You just have to accept that.
But my point is that God can use anything to achieve his goals and plans, but it doesn’t always make sense to us along the way. He makes all things work together for our good. He works through blessing, but he also works through the pain and suffering, and challenges and trials that we face as well. And through the death of Jesus, out of man’s GREATEST EVIL, he worked the greatest good of all time. He redeemed humanity through the greatest sin, the most atrocious act, in the history of the world: The unjust torture and murder of a completely innocent man, and not JUST a man, but God in the flesh.
We have been studying these prophecies about the Messiah for a number of weeks, and this week we have come to a prophecy that is very unique. First of all, it's not an Old Testament prophecy! It actually is a prophecy from just a week or two before Jesus died. But second, and more importantly: it is a prophecy that was completely unwittingly spoken, by the one man who wanted Jesus dead more than anyone else at the time: The high priest, Caiaphas. It is the perfect example of God taking our evil, and using it for his good. You see, Caiaphas was a scared man. Most Jews saw him as illegitimate, put into power by the Romans as an usurper of the high priesthood. His position as High Priest was only secure if there was a temple to be a High Priest over, and only if he kept the Romans happy. And he knew that the Romans didn’t like Messiah-types in their conquered provinces, because they usually were the instigators of revolts. So to him, Jesus was a personal threat to his position and his power. So he made a plan to remove the threat from the equation. But God used his plan for his own purposes. He caused Caiaphas to prophecy unintentionally as he spoke his plan out loud, and here is the kicker: He didn’t even know he did it.
So let's read this story. This is from John 11:47-53, right before this Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead, and a ton of people are beginning to believe in Jesus because of it. It says, “Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. “What are we going to do?” they asked. “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 nation.” Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was 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 that the whole nation perish.” He did not say this on his own, 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 make them one. So from that day on they plotted to take his life.”
Alright, so there are some things you need to know in order to get a full understanding of what is going on here, because at that time, the province of Judea was a political powder keg that was ready to explode at a moment's notice.
First of all, the entire Palestine region was occupied by the Romans. Before the Romans, they had been occupied by group after group, and so the local population, while subject to Rome, wanted their independence as a nation.
Second, Messiahs were not a unique concept in 1st Century Judaism, in any way, shape or form. In fact, Judea was known to be a hotbed of rebel activity against Rome, and most of these rebel groups were led by people who either self identified as the promised messiah, or who was identified as the Messiah by others in their cult or group. These groups would conduct terrorist attacks on the Roman authorities, collaborators, etc. I love history, and while it isn’t a perfect example, I think a good comparison to this would be a situation like France during the Second World War. France was occupied by Nazi Germany for the duration of the war, and there were multiple resistance groups throughout the country who would operate against the Nazi’s. They would conduct acts of terror and sabotage to cripple and demoralize the occupying Nazi’s, with the hope and goal of eventually driving them out. Now the Nazi’s of course did not appreciate these groups, and they would seek retribution against them for attacks, with the goal of destroying any resistance. On June 10th, 1944, the Nazi’s massacred an entire village as retribution for an alleged attack on an SS Soldier, completely destroying the village as they left. This is exactly the type of situation that Caiaphas feared as a High Priest. He was essentially a 1st century collaborator, but his position was completely dependent on the happiness of the occupying Romans, and the existence of a temple and capitol for him to be high priest of. If the Romans had to come and quash a rebellion, they might destroy Jerusalem and the temple as well, in retribution.
The traditional understanding that the Jews had of the Messiah, was that he would be a warrior, who would unite Israel as king of the Jews, and drive out the oppressors. So when all these people started to flock to Jesus as the Messiah, as Jesus was healing people and raising people from the dead, Caiaphas got scared. He knew something had to be done before Rome got wind of it, because if the Romans heard about it, they would probably assume that it was the beginning of another anti-Roman rebellion, and the Romans did NOT take kindly to rebellion. There had been many attempted rebellions before this by other messianic sects, and this could be the final straw. So the real truth is that the high priest and the Pharisees did not fear Jesus himself as much as they feared the response they thought he would draw from the Romans. It was more like, If we don’t deal with this Jesus problem right now, then Jesus doing miracles is going to be the least of our problems. So what do we do? And that is what is going on in this meeting of the Sanhedrin.
Verse 47: “Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. “What are we going to do?” they asked. “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 nation.” Then Caiaphas says, “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.” He’s saying, better for this one guy to die than for all of us to lose our positions, and have our capital razed to the ground!
I want you to notice what never is actually discussed here. They know Jesus is performing miracles. They know he raised someone from the dead. That’s the whole reason why they’re meeting! But they never discuss whether or not he is innocent or guilty of inciting insurrection. They never actually discuss whether or not he is really the Messiah. The Sanhedrin was the highest court of the land, a group of 70 of the highest Jewish scholars, led by the high priest himself. It functioned as the supreme religious, legislative, and educational body of Palestinian Jews. If anyone should have been on the lookout for the true Messiah, it should have been the Sanhedrin! But they didn’t even discuss it! Why do you think that is? Why would the spiritual leadership of the Jewish people NOT want to know whether Jesus truly was the Messiah or not?
We usually assume that they didn’t believe he was the Messiah, and in many cases that was true, but the bigger truth is sadder and even scarier than that: They didn’t care. We know that SOME of the Jewish leaders did in fact believe he was who he said he was, including some of the Pharisee’s like Nicodemus! But check this out: John 12:42-43, “Yet at the same time many even among the leaders believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they would not openly acknowledge their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved human praise more than praise from God.”
Wow. Just wow. Imagine being so hard of heart, that you can’t even be bothered to care whether Jesus is the Messiah or not. It is one thing to consider people crucifying Jesus because they truly believed he was a false prophet or a blasphemer. But this is a whole other thing. These leaders, some of them knew Jesus was who he said he was, they knew he was the MESSIAH! They just didn’t care. Or at least not enough to do anything about it. And then you have this Sanhedrin led by Caiaphas. And they don’t even care enough to consider whether he might actually BE sent to them by GOD HIMSELF. Apparently they had bigger fish to fry than worrying about whether Jesus was actually the promised Messiah, sent by God to redeem mankind to himself. For Caiaphas, it did not matter whether Jesus was guilty or innocent, sent by God, or just some crazy guy. What was important was that the death of one man was worth the viability of the Jewish nation under Roman rule.
Do you hear how that sounds? Absolutely wild. The plot to kill Jesus was not as simple as just jealousy or competition, or righteous anger. It was apathy and self preservation. It is one thing to kill Jesus, the promised Messiah, because you think he is a liar and a blasphemer, but it is a whole other thing to kill the promised Messiah to save your own skin, and your own position of power, without even a second thought as to whether he actually might BE the Messiah. Make no mistake, this is the greatest sin of all time. “Better for one man to die, then for the entire nation to perish” Better to kill Jesus, whomever he is, then to watch Jerusalem and the temple fall to the ground.
And yet in this moment, at this pinnacle of sin in human history, God’s will and God’s plan prevails. This statement by Caiaphas, this greatest sin of ALL time, is not just a statement. It is a prophecy. It was well known that God would prophecy through the high priest from time to time, but the best part of this story is that at no point did Caiaphas know that he had done so. John says this: “He did not say this on his own, 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 make them one. So from that day on they plotted to take his life.”
This statement, this prophecy by Caiaphas was truer than he could have ever imagined. He suggested sacrificing Jesus in order to alleviate political tensions, without realizing that he had just prophesied that Jesus’ death would be the spiritual salvation of the entire world. The ultimate substitute, the ultimate sacrifice. They plotted and planned against Jesus to preserve their own position, but God used Caiaphas’ OWN WORDS, his OWN PLOTTING, to prophecy his own victory. God took the greatest evil humanity had ever committed, and through it, he worked the greatest good of all time.
Ok, so now that we have heard this prophecy, here are three reasons why God’s plan is better than your plan, this is what I want you to take away from this prophecy.
First: God’s plan is better than your plan, because he sees the future. We work so hard to plan out our lives, and to make decisions based on what we know. We know where we would LIKE to be in 5 years! But that isn’t always the way things turn out, is it? The truth is, while we like to have vision meetings, and make life goals and plans, we can’t even see what will happen in 5 minutes. I’d like to think that when I finish this program at Holland College, I’ll land a sweet apprenticeship with no trouble, and fly right through my block’s to get my red seal. Or, maybe I’ll be dead tomorrow, who knows! My point is that it’s kinda hard to plan the future when we don’t know what the future holds. But God knows what the future holds. We can only take an educated guess, but God knows for certain what will happen tomorrow, next week, next year, and forever. Isaiah 46:9-10 says, “I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times declaring things not yet done” Caiaphas’ plan was to save his temple and capital, both out of self preservation, and because he believed it was the center of Judaism and therefore, God’s presence on earth. But GOD’s plan was to render the temple unnecessary, by purchasing freedom for all of humanity from the grip of sin. Caiaphas wanted to save the temple. But through GOD’s plan, WE ARE THE TEMPLE. God doesn’t live in a temple anymore, God lives in us. He has the full picture, and Caiaphas did not. So wouldn’t you want to trust God’s plan for your life over your own plan?
The second reason that God’s plan is better than your plan, is because his ways and thoughts are higher than our ways and thoughts. Not only does God have the full picture of history, but he also knows what is best for us MUCH better than we do for ourselves. We THINK we know what is best for us, we THINK we know what we need, but in reality we are like immature children. A child THINKS they know what is best for them, but their parents understand their needs much better. Now, do children appreciate correction and direction at the time? Nope! But as time goes on, and they begin to mature, they start to see the wisdom of their parents' direction. And the same applies for our relationship with God. As a child, it is hard to accept that we should eat vegetables when there is a cake on the counter in the kitchen. We know that the cake tastes good, and the vegetables tasted bad, why would we eat the vegetables? But thankfully, our parents said no, you have to eat your vegetables before you can have the cake! We didn’t understand why! Our parents told us that they were good for us, but how could they be good for us when they taste so bad! But now, as adults, we understand. Without the vegetables, we wouldn’t have gotten the vitamins and nutrients we needed to grow up and mature into healthy adults. When it comes to God’s plan for us, it is the exact same thing. God’s plan might not always taste good. Sometimes he works through pain and suffering. How can these bad things bring about something good? We have to remember that God’s ways and thoughts are higher than ours. He knows what we need to learn and to grow, and his plan is good. Don’t settle for cake, or you’ll feel terrible all the time! Trust God’s plan, eat the vegetables, because he knows what is ultimately best for you. Isaiah 55:9, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts”. The Jews in the lead up to Jesus couldn’t possibly have conceived God’s plan for the world, because it was completely counter to their entire way of thinking. But looking back, with the full context, I think we can all agree that God’s plan for humanity, was much better than their desire to overthrow the Romans by force, or Caiaphas’ plan to do whatever was necessary to appease the Romans, to keep the temple from being destroyed at all costs. God’s ways are so much higher than our ways, and we just need to trust that he knows what is best for us.
The third reason that God’s plan is better than your plan, is that we plan, but he directs. And you may be wondering what I mean by that. When we make plans, we create these big schemes, trying to control the circumstances around us. And what I mean by this, is that we make the assumption that we are in control to begin with, when in reality, God directs our path. Proverbs 16:9, “The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps”. And then Proverbs 19:21, “Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails”. Then finally, Jeremiah 10:23, “Lord, I know that people’s lives are not their own; it is not for them to direct their steps.” You can’t plan against God, and if your plan isn’t to follow God’s plan for your life, it will ultimately fail. Look at Caiaphas. God didn’t cause his plan to fail, he caused his plan to succeed! Why? Because it was GOD’S PLAN ALL ALONG. Talk about a plot twist! They thought that they were so smart, if they just kill Jesus, the problem goes away and peace is restored! But what they didn’t realize, was that Jesus HAD TO DIE in order to achieve GOD’s PLAN. Their success was ultimately their failure! When you compare our plans with God’s, It’s like we are all playing checkers, while God is playing chess. We can’t compete! We will lose. We will ALWAYS lose if we try to make our plans apart from God. It may not be today, it may not be tomorrow, but it will happen. And the irony is that even though they succeeded in killing Jesus, the Romans still came in 70 AD, they still tore down the temple, and they still destroyed Jerusalem, the city laid in ruins for 60 years, and the temple was never rebuilt. Even though they succeeded in killing Jesus, they only succeeded in fulfilling God’s plan, not their own, because God was directing their steps all along.
In conclusion: How small do our plans look in comparison to his plans. It is almost cute, the way that we think we can plan our lives out the way that we want them to be. And really, this is a lesson of humility. We think we know what is best for us. We don’t. We need to realize that and accept it. We need to let go of the wheel, and let God take control. This doesn’t mean to go home and throw your budget in the garbage and quit your job! It means that if your plans and life aren’t in line with God’s plan, you should seek his plan instead, because he knows what is best for us. Caiaphas thought he knew what was best for both himself, and for the Jewish people. He made a plan that involved killing the instrument of God’s plan. But God’s ways are better than our ways, and he will always win. Instead of just causing their plan to fail, he used their plan to fulfill his own. God took the greatest evil humanity had ever committed, and through it, he worked the greatest good of all time. So don’t get me wrong, his plan will prevail, regardless of whether you are on board or not. But I would argue that it's a little less painful if you aren’t fighting him the entire time. At some point, we need to realize and accept that God’s plans are so much bigger than ours, he knows what is best for us, he sees the future, and he is directing our paths. Stop fighting him, let go of the wheel, and take joy in wherever he sends you.
