Slide 1

Jesus

Son of God

Angry young man

Injustice. Wrongdoing.

Slide 2

Mission – combat wrongdoing and injustice

Destiny – to bring in God’s kingdom and to become God’s king

Just baptised

Time of tempting

Chance to short-cut his way to his goals

·         Anointed king

·         Receive worship

·         Be adored by the crowds.

Examine in a little more detail.

Slide 3

1.       Turn these stones into bread.

Don’t bother fighting injustice – just toss them some bread. Instant popularity.

Long hard road of obedience

o   Not a grand gesture – a life of self-sacrifice.

o   Don’t dupe them with something that cost you nothing

o   Share life with them

o   And lay your life down for them.

Slide 4

2.       Throw yourself off the temple

Temple – seat of religious power.  Status quo.

18,000 priests.

Controlled who got forgiven. Who got access to God.

Opportunity to upset the status quo.

Do a showy miracle and parachute yourself into religious history

Long hard road of obedience

o   Your life will be the sign

o   You will become the sacrifice.

Slide 5

3.       High mountain – worship me.

Seize political power. Have the worship of everyone on earth.

Long hard road of obedience

o   Your crown will be made of thorns

o   You can’t tackle the injustice of the world by embracing its systems of power

o   You are here to turn the power structures of the world upside down, not take them  over.

But short-cuts are often dead ends.

Show how these would have been…

So Jonty and Joe

Show film – youtube clip

You’ve embarked on a lifetime of discipleship

I hope someone told you it would be hard.

Jesus in the model – can’t take the easy way.

Slide 6

No shortcuts to a healthy body àlikewise, no shortcuts in this journey of discipleship.

Ahead lies the long hard road of obedience

Don’t be lured by the shortcuts the world offers. à dead ends.

Temptations ahead – short cut to Slide 7 intimacy, to Slide 8 happiness, to success.

Slide 9

Not for wimps.

Adventure.

Endurance.

Stamina.

 Courage.

 Strength.

 Anything but boring.

Can’t trust your intuition! The right way is often counter-intuitive. Counter-cultural. Radical.

The ride of your life!

Gethsemene

Show film – Passion of the Christ  scene 1 (start at 4’25 finish at 6’57)

This is where Jesus’ path of obedience took him

The easy path – flee or fight

The long hard obedient path of the cross.

Today’s message is

not a call to embrace martyrdom.

Not a call to hair-skin shirts and daily fasting.

Not a call to masochism.

Slide 10

An invitation

to enter by the narrow gate, and to walk the long hard obedient path which is filled with adventure and life.

An invitation to turn off the wide easy path which turns out to be a dead-end.

And the gate to the narrow path is the cross of Jesus.

And that’s why it mattered that Jesus was obedient. So that you and I could get onto the narrow path, and off the short-cut that is really a dead-end.