# John 12.12-19 - The King Who Fights for Us!

- I. Introduction
- a. When things aren 't going OUR WAY, we often use 100% words. Wesay things like, nobody like me…no one cares…everybody is against me…so and so always does ???...I never do anything right.
- b. This scene ends like that. The Pharisees are watching what is going on and they 1) do not like it and 2) seem to have no answers for stopping Jesus. They conclude that the whole world has gone after him!
- c. After some 400 years of silence and anticipation, the crowds are stirred up in a frenzy over the possibility of messiah coming. Based on this sign that Jesus had done in raising Lazarus from the dead, they believe he needs to be their King.
- d. The Judges and Kings were to save them from their enemies. Like the Philistines of old, Rome rules them now. They longed for the day when their King would rule from sea to sea! But the fact was, they had a far greater problem. They needed peace but not the way they thought they needed it.
- e. Their desire would not have been much different than many in our day. Whether it's a desire to be saved from the left's policies or the right's policies those were the similar enemies they would have wanted delivered from. While those are important issues, they are not ultimate issues.
- f. I might have you consider, what are the most important issues in the world? I believe the eternal matters of most importance. Let's see how the world responses to Jesus.
- II. Main Point
- a. Jesus is the King of Israel and He is bringing peace to the World!
- III. Outline
- a. Will they turn him in?
- b. The King Arrives riding a what?
- c. The King's disciples are confused
- d. The whole world has gone after him
- IV. Exposition
- a. As word spreads that Jesus is coming to the feast, will the crowd turn him in?
- Back Back in (Jn. 11:56-57) They (part of the crowd that saw him raise Lazarus from the dead) were looking for Jesus and saying to one another as they stood in the temple, "What do you think? 57 That he will not come to the feast at all?" Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where he was, he should let them know, so that they might arrest him.
- Containment of what Jesus had done to Lazarus didn't work. This demand from the religious leaders was meant to subdue the crowd and put fear in them. But it doesn't seem to have worked.
- The night before, a feast had been held for Jesus and last week we saw the tale of two loves. Mary displayed her love for Jesus by pouring out this costly oil on his feet. Yet, Judas, one the disciples, is upset that he didn't get to love himself by taking some of the proceeds had they sold this costly oil.
- While we focused on Mary's love and worship of Jesus, there seems to have been more to this pouring out of oil. In fact, we should see not only see this as extravagant worship but it was also the anointing Jesus as King and he was being prepared for burial.
- 1. Anointed King and prepared for burial in the same act. It's very possible that none of them fully understood this, even Mary.
- 2. I am moved to such joy from all of this in a strange way. I see their imperfect understanding and imperfect worship and I see Jesus remaining and fighting for them.