The countdown to Easter – The Wait of glory

• From the perspectives of Jesus’ disciples
• The roller coaster week leading up to
• The previous week – Jesus coming to Jerusalem
• Thursday night – The Passover meal
• Jesus on the cross – the worst thing imaginable
• Embarrassment
• A friend dies
• They had been fooled – God is angry
• Can’t go back – they are being hunted – or run out (Jesus was run out of His own hometown)
• Truth -God allows evil and it seemingly wins –God doesn’t explain
• Confusing Thursday

1. Trauma Friday –Good Friday
2. The silence of Saturday
3. What does Friday reveal?
   1. Evil exists and it seemed to win
   2. The Devil’s tactics
   3. The vulnerabilities of man when they don’t trust God
      • Our inability to see beyond the moment we are in
      • Our inability to remember the past accurately
      • Our inability to trust there is a mind able to work out all things for good in spite of what we are seeing

John 6:66–69 (NIV) ⁶⁶ From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. ⁶⁷ “You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve. ⁶⁸ Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. ⁶⁹ We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”

Matthew 26:52–54 (NIV) ⁵² “Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. ⁵³ Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? ⁵⁴ But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?”

Matthew 26:73–27:1 (NIV) ⁷³ After a little while, those standing there went up to Peter and said, “Surely you are one of them; your accent gives you away.” ⁷⁴ Then he began to call down curses, and he swore to them, “I don’t know the man!” Immediately a rooster crowed. ⁷⁵ Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken: “Before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.” And he went outside and wept bitterly. ¹ Early in the morning, all the chief priests and the elders of the people made their plans how to have Jesus executed.

John 19:26 (NIV) ²⁶ When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,”

Luke 24:20–21 (NIV) ²⁰ The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; ²¹ but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place.

Hebrews 12:1–3 (NIV) ¹ Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, ² fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. ³ Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

2 Corinthians 4:4–7 (NIV) ⁴ The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. ⁵ For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. ⁶ For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. ⁷ But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.

1. What does Jesus show us? He had His eyes on Sunday
   • He suffered through His Thursday and Friday with a blend of sadness and confidence
   • He came to live His life in front of His disciples –what holiness and love look like in a person
   • He modeled what discipleship looks like –how to do it
   • Jesus reveals the enemy – the reality of who he is and what he tries to do
   • How to do the will of God in the face of the enemy
   • What potentially happens in the war
   • What evil looks like and how we survive and thrive in it
   • He shows us how to handle evil because after the resurrection we will have to live in evil for a time

     Luke 22:39–43 (NIV) ³⁹ Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him. ⁴⁰ On reaching the place, he said to them, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation.” ⁴¹ He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, ⁴² “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” ⁴³ An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him.

     1. When tragedy happens
        • Why did Jesus come?
        • We trust what we learned from the story – the pattern in all of scripture – the Old Testament –Abraham, Joseph, David, Daniel, Isaiah
        • We trust in what Jesus reveals
        • We trust in what the stories in the New Testament reveal
        • We look beyond – ahead and focus our eyes on Jesus
        • See Philippians 3

     2 Corinthians 4:8-5:5 (NIV) We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; ⁹ persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. ¹⁰ We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. ¹¹ For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. ¹² So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. ¹³ It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.” Since we have that same spirit of faith, we also believe and therefore speak, ¹⁴ because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you to himself. ¹⁵ All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. ¹⁶ Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. ¹⁷ For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. ¹⁸ So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. ¹ For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. ² Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, ³ because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. ⁴ For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. ⁵ Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

     The Old statement we Christians remember: ITS FRIDAY BUT SUNDAY IS COMING!!!