Holy Week and Why it Matters

time.

Well, we're going to get in the message this morning and we're going to get into the book of Matthew and the book of John.

The book of Matthew and the book of John.

And last week you guys may have seen the air show.

How many of you guys saw the airplanes flying around in the air?

Yes, yes, how many of you guys you said I'm not fighting the crowds, I'm not fighting the traffic, I'm just going to stand in my front yard or go to a park and I'm going to.

Okay, yes, yes, I see you guys, you guys are the smarter people, I guess.

Okay, traffic fighter, right here, traffic fighter.

Yes, yes, it was rough, two hours from my house to parking.

It was rough, it was rough, but, but.

But when I got there, it was actually kind of cool because you couldn't just see the planes flying around, which I always get them confused Thunderbirds or blue angels.

Which one were they?

Blue angels, blue angels?

I was walking around like a moron, calling them thunderbirds, and I was wondering why people were looking at me and my friend I was with didn't even help me out.

It's like, yeah, thunderbirds, you get there and you see the blue angels in the sky doing all their cool stuff.

But you also, if you went there, you got to actually walk through the airplanes.

They had just a ton of airplanes around there and you could walk through them and you could go sit in the cockpit.

You know, my 10-year-old self was just loving this right, taking a picture of everything.

And they had some pilots, you know they were all dressed up in their outfit or whatever it was, you know their pilot uniform, and you'd go and ask them questions.

Now, I'm the guy that asks way too many questions.

Any of you, any of you like me, Do any of you know somebody that's like me?

Some of y'all are elbowing somebody next to you, right?

I'm asking you know what about this?

How long have you been flying?

How does this work?

How's that you know?

And they're like looking past me, like trying to give me a hint.

You know they have all these airplanes and pilots and military personnel.

And what was cool, at least for me, is that it really kind of helped give me a better understanding of how these massive objects got into the sky and what goes into being a pilot and what goes into actually working on the planes and being on the flight line, and it kind of just gave me an understanding that I didn't really have before.

And here's why I tell you this is because this week, the week leading up to Easter, is the most significant week in the Christian faith, and what I want to do today is I want to help you understand it, but not just from this academic standpoint.

On Sunday, this happened On Monday, but why this actually matters, in fact, can somebody tell me a little trivia question this week, this week leading up to Easter, can somebody tell me what is this week called?

It's called Holy Week, that's right.

It's called Holy Week.

It's called Passion Week.

So real quick, real quick, real quick.

I want to give you guys a snapshot so you guys can see what happened, and I know some of you you may have to take out your like binoculars or magnifying glasses.

It's kind of small, but I want to walk through this.

I want you to see what happened these different days.

Sunday, the first day of Holy Week, was the Palm Sunday, the triumphal entry, when crowds cheered Jesus' entry in Jerusalem.

On Monday, jesus was angered because there were people that were selling things in the temple.

What he did was he threw them out of the temple.

Tuesday, jesus confronts the hypocrisy of the Jewish leaders.

He gives what's called the Olivet Discourse and he teaches quite a bit.

On Wednesday, judas makes an agreement with the leaders to betray Jesus.

We get to Thursday, and on Thursday was the Last Supper where Judas betrayed Jesus.

Peter denied Jesus later on.

This is the time when remember, we talked a couple months ago when Jesus washed their feet, that's on Thursday.

Friday is when Jesus was publicly crucified, humiliated for a watching world to see, and Saturday, well, this was silent Saturday, nothing happened there.

And then, well, sunday came and that was the resurrection.

Now, what I really find fascinating about Passion Week, and just about how much time is given to Passion Week in Scripture, is that much of the Gospels, which are the biographies of the life of Jesus the Gospels, it's Matthew, the books Matthew, mark, luke and what's the last book of the Gospels, john's right.

You're newer to faith and when you think about the Bible you're like, oh, this is one book.

This is actually a collection of 66 books.

Somebody just had their mind blown there for a second 66 books divided in the Old Testament and the New Testament.

Jesus divides the two, and the first four books of the New Testament are biographies about the life of Jesus and there's a little bit about his birth, and then it's all about his ministry on this earth, and a disproportionate amount of the time spent talking about the life of Jesus is given to the last week of his life A ton of time.

This is my goal today.

It's really simple.

I want you to see and understand Holy Week and I want you to see and understand why Holy Week matters.

So we're going to start on Sunday, on Palm Sunday, in John chapter 12.

John 12 · chapter mention

And if you're ready for the word, would you say amen, let's go.

John chapter 12.

John 12 · chapter mention

I've been looking forward to this message all week long.

John 12, verse 12, it says this.

John 12:12

It says the next day, lazarus had just been resurrected.

The next day, a large crowd had come to the festival.

The festival is the Passover and the festival of unleavened bread.

They heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem.

So what had happened is you have crowds from here, here, here, here.

People everywhere had come together in Jerusalem because there's this feast they're going to celebrate.

And it says they took palm branches verse 13, and they went out to meet him.

Now, who is the him in verse 13?

The him is that's right, jesus Christ, you're right.

They went out to meet him and they kept shouting Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, king of Israel.

In other words, hosanna means save us.

Save us Now.

What they didn't want.

They didn't want to be saved from their sin, they wanted to be saved from those pesky, annoying Romans that messed everything up.

Save us from those Romans and Jesus.

He found a young donkey and sat on it.

Just as it is written.

Just as it is written.

Can we say that phrase together?

80?

Just as it is written.

This is referring to prophecy.

So prophecy said that this was going to happen.

Verse 15, fear no more, daughter Zion.

Look, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey's colt.

In Zechariah, chapter 9, we see the prophecy.

Zechariah 9 · chapter mention

It says rejoice greatly, daughter Zion, shout and triumph.

Daughter Jerusalem, look, your king is coming to you.

He's righteous and victorious, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

In other words, 500 years earlier in Zechariah, chapter nine, it was prophesied that this was going to happen.

So, jesus, what he's doing is he's riding into Jerusalem and he's fulfilling a prophecy that was made about him.

This is what happens on Sunday.

On Monday, he goes into the temple and he sees people buying and selling and the house of God had been kind of twisted into a place of selfish gain and getting money.

And this was the response of it of Jesus in Luke 19.

He went into the temple and began to throw out those who were selling and he said and I don't think he said this very nicely, it is written my house will be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.

And what these people had done is they distorted worship.

They had made it about them.

No, what this doesn't mean is I don't know if you've ever been to a conference or a church or something and they were selling church merch in the lobby.

This doesn't mean that you now have the right because Jesus did it to go to the table and flip the table and say the house should be a house of prayer.

Okay, that's not the context.

The context here is that worship was being distorted.

It was about selfish gain.

People were coming and they weren't coming to worship the Lord.

They were coming to make money.

People were coming to advance their self.

They were coming to advance their power, and Jesus says it ought not be.

This is what he did on Monday and then Tuesday he gives this Olivet Discourse, the smart theologians say, where he's preaching about having faith and about the end times.

And he preaches and says I'm going to die, but I'm going to resurrect.

And he spent several chapters preaching to people.

We get to Wednesday, and Wednesday's the day that things really started going down.

That things really started going down.

Wednesday's the day when things started coming together, or it may have seemed like things were actually falling apart, because Wednesday's the day when Judas made an agreement to sell Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.

In fact, it says in Luke 22,.

I want you guys to see how it actually went down.

The festival of unleavened bread, which is called Passover, was approaching the chief priests and the scribes.

They were looking for a way to put him to death.

Now, who is the him?

Jesus?

Right, they're looking for a way like we gotta get rid of this guy.

They were afraid of the people because they were afraid of the people.

And then Satan entered Judas called Iscariot, who was numbered among the 12.

He was one of the 12 apostles, one of the 12 closest friends of Jesus.

Satan enters him.

Now this right here is how we know that Satan wasn't truly a Christian.

He wasn't truly a follower of Jesus, because Satan cannot possess a Christian.

Now he can oppress, but he cannot possess.

Here Satan enters Judas and it says in verse 4, he went away and discussed with the chief priests and temple police how he could hand him over to them, and they were glad and agreed to give him the silver.

So he accepted the offer and started looking for a good opportunity to betray him to them when the crowd was not present.

Now, stop, stop, stop, stop.

You ever thought what did that meeting look like?

Where did that meeting happen?

Were they doing it at a campfire at night?

Or maybe there was like sinister music playing in the background?

Were they doing it in like a closed off location where nobody could see?

Did they barter back and forth as far as?

Maybe Judas is like I want gold.

Maybe they're like no, you're getting silver, and Judas is like, okay, I'll take the silver.

There's a line here that we don't exactly know all the details, but my mind and my heart would love to have been a fly on the wall and seeing how that conversation shook out.

That conversation shook out and Jesus was about to be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver by one of his closest friends.

Wednesday in Holy Week this is when this agreement happened.

It says in verse seven then the day of unleavened bread came.

So this happened.

Then the day came when the Passover lamb was to be sacrificed.

And this takes us to Thursday where Jesus washes the feet of the disciples.

Like we gave a message a couple months ago, you guys have seen the picture of the Last Supper, where Jesus is in the middle and there's all the guys on this side and all the guys on that side.

The Last Supper.

That's what happened on Thursday.

They had dinner.

He washed their dirty, nasty feet.

Then, after that, he went to go pray.

In fact it says in Luke, chapter 22,.

Luke 22 · chapter mention

It goes on in verse 39, it says he went out and made his way as usual to the Mount of Olives and the disciples followed him.

We know that he went to the Garden of Gethsemane and other places, and I kind of want to give you guys a visual of what this actually looked like.

So if you look up on the screen, here's a picture of the Garden of Gethsemane as it is today.

To the left there is actually a church building that was built quite a long time ago and this is what is in the Garden of Gethsemane today.

Now, some of these trees not all of them, but some of the trees in the Garden of Gethsemane actually date back 2,000 years.

So there's actually original trees again, not all of them, but some of them date back to the time of when Jesus was there.

There's another picture, I think we have, where you can get an idea of what the garden looked like.

And Jesus goes to this place and no doubt sees one or two of these trees that we see and he prays.

And verse 40 says when he reached the place, he told them pray that you fall, not into temptation.

Then he withdrew from them about a stone's throw.

So they're all praying.

He withdraws from them about a stone's throw away.

That's the distance.

And then, when he does, he kneels down and he begins to pray.

Now, what did Jesus pray?

What did Jesus pray the night before he was about to die?

He prayed this Father, if you're willing, take this cup away from me.

Nevertheless, nevertheless, what's those three words?

Not will, not my will, but yours be done.

Then an angel from heaven appeared to him, strengthened him.

Being in anguish, he prayed more fervently and his sweat became like drops of blood falling to the ground.

Can you imagine the anguish and pressure he must have felt, where his sweat was like blood, where blood came out.

It says in verse 45, when he got up from prayer and came to the disciples, he found them sleeping, exhausted from grief.

Why are you sleeping?

He asked them Get up and pray so that you won't fall into temptation.

And while he was speaking verse 47, suddenly a mob came and one of the 12, named Judas, was leading them and he came near Jesus to kiss him.

And Jesus was betrayed with a kiss.

And then Jesus is tried unlawfully.

He was tried unlawfully one because trials could not happen during Passover, and two, if there's a trial, there needs to be accurate representation for the accused.

Jesus had no representation.

And he's finally brought before Pilate where his sentence is decided.

Pilate says in verse 20 and verse 13 of chapter 23 of Lou he called together the chief priest, the leaders and the people and he said to them you've brought me this man, jesus, as one who misleads the people, but in fact, after examining him in your presence we examined him.

I have found no grounds to charge this man with those things you accuse him of.

Neither has Herod Pilate, the Roman, leader of that region, herod, the Jewish king of that area, because he sent him back to us.

Clearly he's done nothing to deserve death.

So Pilate, upon examination of him, tells the people guys like Jesus did nothing wrong, there's no grounds for him.

Therefore, I Pilate, says I'll have him whipped and then release him.

Then they all cried out together take this man away, release Barabbas to us During the Passover.

They would always release a prisoner.

Well, tell us about this Barabbas.

Who's this Barabbas guy?

Well, we know verse 19.

He'd been thrown into prison for a rebellion that had taken place in the city and for murder.

This Barabbas guy, he's not in there because he stole a candy bar from the store.

He's not in there because he cheated on his taxes.

He's not in there for a DUI.

This guy's in it for murder.

Okay, this is a big deal.

Verse 20, wanting to release Jesus, pilate addressed them again, but they kept shouting crucify him, crucify him.

A third time.

He said to them why, what has this man done wrong?

I found in him no grounds for the death penalty.

Therefore, I'll have him whipped and released.

But then they kept pressure.

They kept up the pressure, demanding with loud voices that he be crucified, and their voices went out.

So Pilate decided to grant their demand and release the one they were asking for, who had been thrown into prison for rebellion and murder, but he handed Jesus over to their will and with that, jesus was sentenced to death.

And this is what happened on Holy Week, the week leading up to the death of Christ.

Here's a question why does this matter?

What can we get from this?

Is this like?

Okay came to a church building on Sunday morning.

Of course the pastor is going to talk about this Holy Week, okay.

Okay, this is the intellectual.

I get this All right.

See you later.

Why does this matter?

What can we learn from this?

You know what Holy Week shows us.

Holy Week shows us that you can be a fan of Jesus, but that does not mean that you're a true follower of Jesus.

This is what this shows us.

The fans that at one point were crying out on Sunday, on Palm Sunday, save us, hosanna, hosanna.

These people, they wanted Jesus to further their agenda.

They wanted Jesus to take out the Romans.

They saw Jesus as useful.

Like he can heal me, he can do this for me.

They weren't truly following.

They were just a fan of Jesus.

They weren't truly following.

They were just a fan of Jesus.

They wanted to use Jesus.

And Tim Keller writes about this and he says religious people find God useful, but growing Christian people find God beautiful.

That's good.

Yeah, you can clap on that one.

That's a good one for real.

Right, I'll read it one more time.

Then we'll all clap together, okay, because thanks for leading the way.

Religious people find God useful, but growing Christian people find God beautiful.

Religious people say, okay, god, I want to use you to further my agenda and further my personal goals and how I view success and advance my career and make my family the cute, perfect family so I can make the amazing Instagram post and make everything how I want it to be.

I want you to do this, but that's not what a follower of Jesus does.

See, what a fan does is a fan wants Jesus to follow their plans, but followers surrender their plans to follow God's plan, and there's a difference here.

See, a follower lays down their agenda and their dreams and even their hopes and says Jesus, I just want you.

I'm not here like we sing a great song.

I'm not here for your blessing.

I'm not just here so you can do good things for me.

No, I'm here because of who you are, and even if I don't understand your plan, I'm still here to follow it.

Now, sometimes we don't understand everything that God's doing.

We don't understand God's plan.

You know we don't always understand what's best for us.

I mean parents, you know this.

Sometimes, what you know is good for your kids, they do not think is good for them at all.

What you know is good for them, they deem as completely unreasonable and unloving and you're just being mean to them.

Like, for example, eat your vegetables.

How about this?

How about this?

Turn off the video games.

It's almost like you told them that you're going to send them to boarding school or something.

You have your toddler.

They deem it completely unreasonable that they can't go run out in the streets.

They give you that face, that cute puppy, I want to go out.

And you, as a parent, you don't say, yes, go run in the street and have fun, it's going to be a blast.

You don't do that Because you understand things they don't understand.

Because you understand things they don't understand, because you have a bigger, better plan that involves their future that they don't fully grasp.

Now, this is what can happen in our lives and we all, for the most part, and some of us more than others, we do this.

We have like a neat, tidy plan for our lives.

I don't know if any of you are like me, but I'm like a planner.

And you guys look at me and you're like a big time planner.

Okay.

Okay, how many of you guys are kind of more like go with the flow, right, I'll see your pants.

Okay, so I'm.

So I would be, I would be the extreme, I would be the like I'm going to plan and then I'm going to have plans for the plans, for the backup plans.

I drive some of y'all crazy.

That's why me and Edgar are such great friends.

He's kind of like that too.

But even if you're kind of more like I'm not super organized and super planned, you still kind of have an idea of some semblance of a plan for your life.

Probably involves comfort, security, no hardships, no difficulties.

It might include a place to live, it might include an age you're going to retire, it might include amount of money you're going to have in your retirement account or your bank account or a type of car you're going to drive, or we kind of have a semblance of our plan and there's nothing wrong with that I think it's wise to have plans, but here's the danger.

The danger is that we can take our plans and project them onto God, rather than surrendering our plans to God.

See this?

So what we can do is we have these plans, are neat and tidy and they're comfortable, and we say god, do this.

And, if we're honest, our prayer life is more about demanding god than growing a relationship with him, because our prayer life is more about god, you need to do this and god, you need to do that.

And before we know it, it's like are we talking to God or Santa Claus?

And what we do is we're projecting our plans to God instead of coming before God humbly.

And there's nothing wrong with asking and we should ask but saying God, here's my plans, but I surrender my plans to you, I surrender my ways to you, even if I don't understand, even if it's difficult, even if it's hard.

And this is what fans of Jesus do.

Fans of Jesus, they project their plans onto God.

They look at Jesus as somebody and they wouldn't say this, but as somebody they can use for their own personal advancement.

But true followers of Jesus say, hey, your will be done, not mine.

Hey, hey, your plan's not mine.

Hey, my life right now it seems like it's a complete wreck and it's a complete mess.

And I mean, I didn't mean, I don't even know how this happened and I want to fix this, but, lord, ultimately it's yours and this is what we see in this text is we see that you can be a follower of Jesus or you can be a fan of Jesus.

Those people that were shouting Hosanna wanted Jesus to overthrow the Roman government, the people that were yelling crucify him where were those people?

Where were the people that were like, hey, no, no, no, no, no, like you shouldn't crucify him?

Where were those people?

They were gone.

Maybe some of those people were actually a part of that crowd yelling crucify him.

And it's amazing how fast we can shift when things get difficult and things are a little challenging.

We can be a fan or we can be a follower.

Number two the compassion of Jesus led him to Golgotha.

Golgotha is the place where Jesus died, also called Calvary.

It's the place of the skull.

Now Hebrews, chapter 12, verse 2, there's this verse.

Hebrews 12:2

It's kind of crazy.

I really thought about it quite a bit.

It says that Jesus, for the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross.

Okay, he endured the cross for the joy that was set before him.

The cross is not joyful.

Being publicly executed while you're naked, while you're bleeding, that's not a joyful experience.

That's a terrible experience, to put it lightly.

And Jesus says he endured this.

He endured it for the joy that was set before him.

There's no joy in that, there's no joy in the crucifixion.

But you know what his joy was.

It was you.

His joy was in you.

His joy was your forgiveness of sin.

The joy was the fact that now you could have eternal hope.

The joy was the fact that now you could have eternal hope.

The joy was the fact that now you could have a home in heaven.

And he endured this for the joy for you, because you were set before him.

It was his compassion that led him to Golgotha.

And then number three is for a resurrection to be possible.

Him to Golgotha, and then number three Is for a resurrection to be possible, there first must be a death.

The gospel shows us that a dark, painful event or season can eventually be a celebration of a resurrection.

Next week we are going to celebrate Easter and it's going to be amazing.

We are going to celebrate our risen Savior, and I hope you'll bring your friends and your family, and I don't even know where we're going to put all the people, but we're going to figure it out.

Just come on, bring them all, bring your crew, bring know where we're going to put all the people, but we're going to figure it out.

Just come on, bring them all, bring your crew, bring your mom, bring your dad, bring your neighbor, somebody on the way out.

They got some flowers and they were like I got, like these people I'm going to invite and I'm going to invite I guess they're renting a car I'm going to go to know about the good news and the hope of the resurrection and before there's a resurrection, hope, there has to be a death.

And I'm talking to some of us this morning.

They've experienced some death in our lives and I'm not just talking about a physical death, but I'm talking about, for some of us, we've had the death of hopes.

But I'm talking about for some of us, we've had the death of hopes and the death of dreams and the death of goals and things that we were praying and we were hoping would come to fruition.

And it's very obvious either they're not or the unlikelihood of them coming to fruition is very small.

And what do we do?

We really wanted this to happen in our career or in our family, or in our health, and it didn't happen.

And we grieve and we should because of death that did not happen.

And it's hard and I want to illustrate how resurrection can come from death.

But before I do, I want to share a comforting but, if I'm really honest, a confusing verse too.

It's in Romans 8.28.

If you've been around church for a while, you've heard it.

It says we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.

Now, I personally, I've wrestled with this verse very deeply.

I have, because there are things that are bad Anxiety is bad, mental health challenges are bad, financial hardships are bad, health difficulties are bad.

How can this be good?

How can this work out together for something good?

Maybe you've gone through a through a hard time and you've had a well-meaning but, uh, totally kind of off christ follower.

When you're going through a bad time, they come up to you and they're like brother, I know that you're going through a challenging season, I know this is hard, but it's going to be good because Romans 8, 28.

And they quote it Be like, bro, calm down.

It ain't good right now.

It's not good.

Losing your job is not good.

Having a hard time with your kid is not good, all these things are not good.

But I want to show you what God can do.

And I want to show you by showing you something absolutely amazing and wonderful and life-changing, and it's right over here.

Any guesses what I'm going to show you?

Somebody said a Bible.

You're so spiritual.

Somebody, at 9 am service, said chocolate Better A beautiful, wonderful cup of coffee.

Do I have any coffee drinkers in the room?

Oh, yes, it's still good, bro, still good.

This thing keeps it hot.

I really like coffee.

I really like it a lot.

I mean, I drink coffee every day.

How many of you guys drink coffee every day?

I'm not the only addict in the room.

It's wonderful.

Drink coffee.

Any of you guys, any of you, have a favorite coffee shop, favorite coffee shop.

In fact, does somebody want to shout out what's your favorite coffee shop?

Starbucks, starbucks, people, starbucks, people, yeah, whatever, somebody else?

Mcdonald's Okay, curtis likes McDonald's.

You guys have McDonald's coffee.

That's the one coffee I'm not really a big fan of.

Fcc, bro.

I'm going to tell you right now the Lions, then they be bringing it for real.

That's right.

What's another coffee place?

You guys like Pete's?

Pete's people?

You guys like Pete's coffee?

Yes, how about?

Here's a place that I want to come to Fairfield so bad.

How's it come to Fairfield?

So bad?

How does it come to Fairfield?

Phil's Coffee.

Phil's Coffee.

Yes, leah's with me?

Okay, come on.

You know I go to the Bay Area and they got all these really good coffee shops.

I'm like, come on over here.

How many of you guys like Journey Coffee?

Journey, it's a good one.

9 o'clock service a bunch of people raised their hands.

Okay, some of y'all, I don't know.

Journey people.

Okay, we like coffee, coffee's good, but have you ever thought about what goes into actually making coffee?

Have you ever thought about the parts that make up this wonderful, amazing cup of?

How about coffee?

I'll show you, since I know you guys you don't know, so you want to see so bad Coffee grounds.

Aren't these amazing?

These are so good.

In fact.

Is there anybody that wants to taste these coffee grounds right now?

Anybody?

Here's what's funny Nine o'clock service front row middle schooler raises their hand.

She stands there and has some coffee grounds.

It was awesome and then she was like trying to act like she liked it.

But then she's great.

Coffee grounds okay, I'm not going to taste these.

These are not good.

Okay, I also have a.

Also part of the making.

Coffee is creamer.

How many of you guys put creamer in your coffee?

Take that back.

How many of you you put coffee in your creamer?

Right, you know what I'm saying.

I see you, I see it.

Coffee and creamer.

You know, creamer is great in coffee, but creamer by itself I'm not.

Nobody in their right mind would want to drink this.

I mean, probably you got some knuckleheads in the youth group that are like, oh you know, but here's something else.

Sugar, sugar, sugar's great in coffee.

I put this in my coffee every single day some stevia sugar, but this by itself, no.

In here, uh, it's some hot water.

Well, it was hot earlier.

Hot water by itself is not very good, but you gotta have your coffee hot.

I mean, think about this have you ever had a cup of coffee sitting there and you expected it to be hot and you grab it and you go to take a drink and it's lukewarm.

Gotta have some hot water.

No, coffee grounds good or bad by themselves.

Good or bad, they are Bad, okay.

So you're still with me.

Creamer good or bad by itself, it is Okay.

Sugar, good or bad by itself, it is Okay.

And then hot water good or bad by itself, it's bad.

If you say, good, y'all got problems right, but if you put all of these together, it can make something good.

Now watch this.

What God can do is God can make something amazing and wonderful come from things by themselves that are not very good and are actually bad.

What God can do is God can bring a painful situation and, in a way that only he can, he can make purpose come from that pain situation and, in a way that only he can, he can make purpose come from that pain.

And what God can do from that trial that is so hard that in the moment it's really bad, and it is really bad is God can bring a testimony through the trial.

And what God can do is God can take that brokenness in your life or that broken season or that broken thing and, in a way that only God can do, he can make something beautiful come from that.

And some of us, what we're doing and it's totally normal and I understand it is we see this is bad and this is bad and this is bad and it seems like that was a death and that was a death and that was a death and you're maybe a little cynical and you're maybe growing a little bitter because life has been tough and man, honestly, life has just sucked for you, especially recently, and you're like, how can these things happen by themselves?

They are bad.

This is not some like preacher talk like, oh, this is good, no, it's not, it's bad.

But what a miracle-working, redeeming God can take the bad things and he can make something beautiful from them.

And what a miracle-working, all-powerful God is.

He can bring resurrection from what was a death.

What God can do in a way that only God can do, is God can take the brokenness and the pain and the difficulty and the anxiety and the depression.

And what God can do is God can turn you into an empathetic, loving, forgiving, grace-filled, merciful person.

God can do that.

What God can do is God can take somebody that's hard and cynical and bitter and God can put some things in your life and cause you to experience some transformation that allows you to love people better than ever before.

And what God can do is God can take a hard heart that's been hardened by things, and his gospel message can pierce you and change you and you can be a completely different person.

Why?

Because there was a death of something in your life, but resurrection power happened.

This is what I want to ask.

You want to ask you.

This is what I want to ask you, and this is not an easy question.

In fact, some of you are not even ready for it, and that's okay if you're not ready for it.

But I want you to try to think what can God bring about from that bad thing that is currently happening or has happened?

So this is what I'm going to invite you to do To try to remove yourself from the situation it's really hard to do From the financial hardship, from the difficulty, from the challenge, and say what good thing can God bring from this?

What is it If it's nothing else?

Paul tells us in Corinthians that when we have hardships, the God of comfort comforts us, so we can comfort somebody else.

And maybe the trial you're in right now isn't even about you, maybe it's about somebody else.

And then I want to ask you another question.

I want you to be honest.

I want you to be honest Are you a fan of Jesus.

Are you a follower of Jesus when you think of your relationship with God?

Do you see God as useful or do you see God as beautiful?

Do you see God as okay?

His job is to help me live my best life now so I can get what I want, and his job is to deliver me from.

Or is it God?

Not my will, not my plans?

But I just give these to you Because that's what a follower does.

Holy Week it matters, it's important, and these truths have the power to change your life.

Let's pray together.