God’s Unpopular Plan

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There’s an old saying that you all are probably familiar with that says something along the lines of if you want to make people happy, don’t try to be in charge of anything, go sell ice cream. I’ve heard pastors say that for years. I’m not even sure that’s true nowadays.

You see the way people complain about everything on social media. You could sell ice cream and still not make everybody happy. But I found this to be true.

If you’re trying to make plans as somebody who’s in charge, invariably those plans are going to be unpopular with somebody. And I’m not going to use church examples this morning. So I just want to clarify that.

This is not to call anybody out. But I find this to be the case at home with the kids. I think of a few weeks ago telling one of the kids, you know, you’re going to come with me, the rest are going with mama, but you’re going to come with me.

And getting some complaints about my plan. This particular child didn’t want to go with me that day because you just go to the hardware store all the time. I don’t want to go to Lowe’s.

Okay, first of all, Lowe’s is my happy place, so let’s step back for just a minute. Let’s lose the attitude. But this child did not realize that the plan was not only to go to Lowe’s, but we were also going to go to Brahms. So just zip it and go along with the plan.

It doesn’t seem fun to you, But it’s going to be good. You know, it’s going to be for your good in the long run. And they did.

They begrudgingly came along, and then we went to Brahms, and they saw the benefits of what I had planned. This came up last night. Again, as a matter of fact, I know some of you have already seen the pictures and posts on Facebook and have asked me about it.

We got a batch of laying hens yesterday that we put in the brooder, little chicks, cute little chicks. We put in the brooder and the kids immediately fell in love. Now I’ve been preparing them for weeks.

When these chickens get here, understand they’re not all going to make it. That’s just one of the sad realities of farm life. And so the chicks arrive and they’re looking at the chicks and they’re just falling in love.

They’re arguing about what to name them and which one’s going to belong to which one. I’m saying, guys, we’re not naming them. We’re not naming them, not saying we can’t ever name them, but we’re not naming them yet.

We’re not naming them yet. Oh, why not? You know, they kind of grumbled.

They didn’t like that plan. They didn’t like what dad had to say there. But I’m telling them, we’re not naming them for a few days.

We’re not picking out each one’s favorite chick for the next few days. Ah, dad, come on. Well, more than half of them didn’t make it through the night.

So, by the way, I’ve got a call in to the hatchery. Those numbers aren’t right. But more than half of them didn’t make it.

And I said, that’s why we didn’t name them. That’s why we didn’t let ourselves get attached too early on. See, I have a plan, and I know it wasn’t popular, but I knew best. And as frustrating as that is, if you’ve ever raised kids, you’ve experienced that too.

If you’ve ever been around kids or you’ve ever tried to be in charge of anything, you’ve probably experienced that. But as frustrating as that is, we do the same thing to God all the time when it comes to His plan. God’s plans are not always popular are they as a matter of fact we need to look no further than than to watch the news each day and and recognize that most of the problems going on in our world are because we’ve tried to do it our way as opposed to God’s way and we’ll hear people say why is there if there’s a good God why is there so much evil in the world don’t don’t blame God for this God created the world to be a certain way and we chose a different way so we can’t blame him Because we did something other than what he told us to do.

You know, when, well, I’m going to leave that alone. We’re going to look at another example in Scripture of where somebody did this to Jesus. They looked at God’s plan and said, no, I think I’ve got a better way here.

We’ve been, if you’re just, if you’re new with us, we’ve been studying through the book of Mark for quite some time. And we’ve been going passage by passage through the book of Mark and learning about the ministry of Jesus Christ. And we’re moving toward the crucifixion and the burial and the resurrection and the ascension of Jesus Christ. We’re getting very close now to the point of the crucifixion. We’re during the time of the Last Supper, which was the final Passover meal that Jesus and his disciples observed together.

And we’re going to be in Mark chapter 14 today. And look at what happened when God’s plans entail what is ultimately best for us, even if it doesn’t seem to be that way, from our short-sighted perspective. I think we would all acknowledge we don’t see as much as God does.

We don’t understand as much as God does. And so sometimes we just have to step back and acknowledge He knows more than we do. And so if it seems like the plan isn’t a good idea, just it doesn’t seem like a good idea, but God knows better than I do.

And yet we’re going to see what happens when somebody tries to formulate a different plan that they think is better and is actually worse. At the final Passover meal here, Peter didn’t particularly like the plan that God had laid out for the next 24 hours. And he tried to formulate his own instead.

And that’s where we’re going to be this morning. Mark chapter 14. We’re going to start in verse 27.

If you’d turn there with me, if you haven’t already. And if you can’t find it or don’t have your Bible, it’ll be up here on the screen. And once you have found it, if you’d stand with me as we read together.

It says then, verse 27, spoke more vehemently. If I have to die with you, I will not deny you. And they all said likewise.

And you may be seated. Now, one thing we need to understand, and hopefully you’ve picked up a copy of the grids that I put out here, where we can see that the Gospels complement each other, they don’t contradict each other, and so I’ve laid out for you how they do that. We need to understand that the Gospels, particularly at this point where they’re talking about the Lord’s Supper, they don’t all lay things out in chronological order.

That’s not what they intend to do. They tell things in thematic order sometimes. They may talk about the cup and they may put everything to do with the wine all together.

They may put everything to deal with a certain conversation together, even if that conversation was spread out at various parts during the meal. And I say that because there are other gospel accounts that make it sound as though this took place during the supper, this conversation, and I believe it did take place during the supper. And yet Mark here, in most of our English translations, it’ll say, when the supper was ended, they sung a hymn and they went out to the Mount of Olives, then this happened. That is not a contradiction in the gospel.

There is a word in Greek, kai, K-A-I, that has a wide variety of meanings, including and, or then, or and then, and so we have to go by context and figure out which one of those it means. In this case, I think it means, probably a better translation would be and, instead of then. It does not mean that this necessarily happened after the supper.

Mark is just moving from one topic to the next without intending to go in chronological order, I believe. So we see this during the meal. We’ve had the whole conversation where Judas has been told he’s going to betray Jesus. He’s been identified to everybody as the betrayer.

Judas gets up in a huff and leaves. I mean, the mask has been pulled off the monster. He gets up and leaves.

They continue on with this supper. Everybody thinks they’re doing well. Jesus brings up again that he’s going to be crucified.

He brings up again that he is going to, that he’s going to die. And he begins to lay out the plan. And this is not the first time they’ve heard all of this.

This is maybe the first time that they’ve heard, oh, it’s going to be tonight. Now, earlier Jesus has told them, you know, in a couple of days it’s going to happen. But now he’s saying this is happening tonight.

And Peter doesn’t like it. Peter objects to this. And we see from this back and forth that Jesus and Peter have and the other disciples join in as well.

We see from this that God’s plans don’t require our understanding or our agreement. Do not ever put God in the box of saying, you can’t do this because I don’t agree. Or you can’t do this because I don’t understand.

The Bible tells us that before there was anything else, God created the heavens and the earth. Before there were any of us to understand or agree. And as we read the scriptures, how many times does God do things that people didn’t understand at the time?

How many times did he do things they didn’t agree with at the time? How many times have we seen just in the book of Mark that Jesus did things that we still wrestle with trying to understand and things that the world still doesn’t agree with? And yet God is unfazed by that.

God is not cowering in a corner somewhere saying, oh, they didn’t give me their permission. If that’s a God you want to worship, I mean, go have fun with that. But I don’t want to worship a God who’s cowering in the back waiting for me to give him permission to do things.

Jesus, God the Son in human flesh lays out here what the plan is, and Peter says, no, no, this is not going to happen. And Jesus just charges right ahead and says, yes, this is what’s going to happen. So he taught about what the disciples were supposed to do in his absence.

We see that in John chapter 13. And then toward the end of that, he tells, because Peter says, where are you going? You know, you’re teaching what we’re supposed to do in your absence.

Where are you going? So Jesus responds in John 13, 16, where I am going, you cannot follow me now, but you shall follow me afterward. This raises more questions for them.

This is again during the supper. Peter objected. He said he’d rather follow Jesus anywhere.

He would sacrifice anything for Jesus. Jesus says, you can’t go with me. What are you talking about?

Of course, I’m going to go with you. That’s in John 13, 37. And that is what brings us.

See, when we take the gospels together, we get the full picture. And that’s what brings us here to verse 27 in Mark 14, where Jesus says, all of you will be made to stumble because of me this night. You see, God’s plan was for the Messiah to be betrayed and to be rejected and to be sent to the cross.

There were a lot of people studying the Messiah as he was taught and as he was prophesied in the Old Testament. But they were sort of selective about what they wanted to understand the Messiah to be. Because there are a lot of passages that point to the Messiah being a conquering king, and we believe that he will be.

But they ignored the parts that were inconvenient. The parts like Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 that talk about the suffering of the Messiah. Talk about the Messiah being cut off.

They ignored those parts. And a lot of the conflict that goes on during Jesus’ ministry is just trying to get people to understand that the Messiah is both things. The Messiah comes the first time as the lamb to the slaughter, And he comes back as the conquering king the second time.

But they were missing that. And so he says, you’re going to be made to stumble because of me tonight. Because I have to be rejected.

I have to be betrayed. I have to go to the cross. That’s the whole plan.

This wasn’t something he was making up on the spot. He even quoted here, Zechariah 13, 7, when he says, I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered. That’s a quote from Zechariah.

Hundreds of years before this took place. And he didn’t just leave things there and say, I’m going to be struck down, you’re going to scatter. He does tell them the rest of the plan.

He says, but after I’ve been raised, I will go before you to Galilee. In the first part of that, he paints a bleak picture that he’s going to be rejected, they’re going to run off, this little band of ministers that they’ve got together is going to fall apart, and yet all is not lost because he says, I am going to rise again, and I’m going to go ahead of you to Galilee. There is a future coming out of this.

and he’s also told them this multiple times. It is necessary for me to go to Jerusalem and to be killed and to be buried and to rise again. He’s been telling them this all along and they’ve argued with him every chance they’ve gotten.

A lot of you will probably remember the incident where Jesus tells Peter, get behind me Satan, because it seems such a strange thing for him to say. But this is right after Peter has just confessed that Jesus is the son of God and the savior of mankind. He’s confessed all of these things.

And then Jesus says, so I’ve got to go to Jerusalem. I’ve got to be betrayed. I’ve got to be rejected.

I’ve got to be crucified and rise again. And Peter says, no, Lord, I’ll never let that happen to you. And so he says, get behind me, Satan.

Is he saying Peter’s literally Satan? No. He’s saying you’re looking at this from Satan’s perspective.

You’re not looking at this from God’s perspective. Your perspective of, oh, I’m going to stand by you and never let this happen to you, is going to doom all of mankind. You’re playing into what Satan wants happen.

I, on the other hand, am fulfilling God’s will, and I have to go to the cross for you. And then I’ve got to rise again. So they’re familiar with the plan, and he’s telling them this again.

And after all of this, this night, when Jesus says, I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered. And after I’ve raised, I will go before you to Galilee. Peter objects to this in verse 29 and says, even if all are made to stumble, yet I will not be.

He says, oh Lord, you’re talking about all of them. You’re talking about all these others. They’ll betray you.

Sure. Thomas, Andrew, John, all these guys that he’s known and loved, he just throws them all under the bus. Yeah, they’ll all, everyone, betrayer, betrayer, betrayer, betrayer.

He just throws them all under the bus, but I will never, I will never leave you. Imagine the audacity of telling Jesus, no, you’re wrong. If your argument, by the way, ever hinges on, oh, Jesus was wrong, rethink the argument, okay?

Little hint there of how to figure things out. He tells Jesus, you’re wrong. I will never be made to stumble.

But Jesus said he would. That’s why he says in Luke 22, in the midst of this conversation, Simon, Simon, indeed Satan has asked for you that he may sift you as wheat. He says Satan is just waiting.

That rhymes. I didn’t mean to do that on purpose. Satan is waiting to see what he can do to you.

but I have prayed for you that your faith should not fail. And when you’ve returned to me, strengthen your brethren. So while all of this is going on and in preparation for this, Jesus is praying for Peter because he knows what Peter is about to go through.

And he knows Peter is about to fail. But he’s praying that even while Peter fails, that his faith will not fail. And even at that, Peter announced in Luke 22, 33, Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death.

and now we tend to think as we read this that this is Peter just reacting to the suggestion that he’s going to deny Jesus we think this is another instance like with Judas where Jesus said yeah it’s you and Judas gets mad and leaves that this is another reaction to Jesus saying yeah you’re you’re going to betray me too and Peter just gets mad at that suggestion and that’s what he’s arguing about and I think that’s part of it but in reality he’s he’s dismissing the entire plan here Peter doesn’t like that any of this is about to happen he loves Jesus I mean we can give him credit for that he loves Jesus and he doesn’t want to see Jesus on the cross he doesn’t want to see Jesus go through the things Jesus is about to go through the scourgings the crucifixion and we’ll talk at some point about what that entails but if you’ve ever studied what happens with crucifixion you wouldn’t want to you wouldn’t want to see people you don’t like go through that and yet here’s somebody he’s he’s loved who has poured his life into into Peter Peter doesn’t want to see that happen.

And he’s dismissing the plan. He’s saying, no, Lord, I won’t let them do this to you. It’s not just about I won’t deny you.

It’s I’m going to stand by you to make sure this thing does not happen. As I’ve already pointed out, Peter had a long history of rejecting this talk about the cross. He had a long history of saying, I don’t like this plan.

He had a long history of saying, this plan is not what we’re going to do. No matter how many times Jesus reminded him that this was the Father’s plan. Peter had better ideas.

In his mind, better ideas. Even after this, they go to the garden and the guards, even after Jesus has set him straight yet again, they go to the garden and the guards come to arrest Jesus. Peter whips out a sword and cuts a guy’s ear off.

It wasn’t a good idea. Peter wanted Jesus to be spared. But here’s the problem.

Here’s the problem with that plan. If Jesus is spared, then you and I remain condemned. In God’s plan, Jesus had to be condemned so that you and I could be spared.

That was the only way. If there was any other way for us to go free, if there was any other way for us to be forgiven, if there was any other way for us to be restored to a right relationship with God, if there was anything we could do by being good, by being religious, by trying harder, if there was anything we could do, then the cross was a horrendous mistake. But it was God’s plan.

As a matter of fact, the Bible says that he was the lamb slain before the foundation of the world. God created us knowing what trouble we were going to be, and he created us and loved us anyway, knowing that we were going to fall and knowing that he was going to have to make the ultimate sacrifice in order to redeem us. It was God’s plan from before the foundation of the world that Jesus Christ would go to the cross for us.

Now today, some people will object to that, object to the plan in hindsight and say, well, then God the Father is just brutal, sending His Son. Listen, Jesus Christ was involved in the conversation. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit were absolutely united on this.

Jesus went willingly. Even in the garden, when it looks like He’s praying for a way out, He says, nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done. And by the way, the more I’ve come to study that, I don’t think he’s talking about avoiding the cross.

I think he’s talking about the separation that he’s about to experience between himself and his father. Jesus was a willing participant in this. At any time, he could have backed out of this.

At any time, he could have called legions of angels to set himself free. At any time, he could have raised a defense with the Romans or with the Jews, and he didn’t. Because the disciples noticed early on, the Bible says he had set his face like flint to go to Jerusalem.

He was determined. He had a single-minded determination to go to Jerusalem, to go to the cross for you and me, because it was God’s plan. And so he announced to them, as Peter is all this bluster and all this bravery, Peter is announcing it’s never going to happen this way.

Jesus says, yes, it will. You’re going to deny me. You’re going to flee.

Jesus is announcing that it’s going to be just as God said it would. Regardless of Peter’s objections, regardless of what anybody else thought it was going to be the way God said it would be, because God’s plans don’t require us to understand or agree. God is sovereign, and he will ultimately have his way.

Now, I also believe he created us with free will. And if you want somebody who can fully reconcile for you the idea of God’s sovereignty and God’s free will, man’s free will, you’re going to have to get somebody smarter than me up here. I don’t always understand how those two things work together, but I believe they’re both taught in scripture.

I believe God works through the free will of his creatures to accomplish sovereign purposes. And I like what Mike Scott said last Sunday night about Genesis, and I think it applies to a lot of things. We may not understand it now, but one of these days, we’ll either understand it or we’ll just be so awed by the glory of God, we won’t care.

But right now, I just accept that both of those things are taught and that God is sovereign. He’s ultimately going to have His way. So our job then is not to come up with a better way.

It’s not to argue with God. Our job is to trust God as He’s working out His will, and trust that He’s going to work in such a way that it’s going to bring Him glory, and it’s going to work out for our benefit in the long run. So all throughout Scripture, we see these plans that God has, and the world objects to Him.

Sometimes we object to Him. Has God ever done something in your life that you thought, this is not fun, this is not the way I want this to go? Because that’s happened for me.

Have any of you ever whined at God? Because I do that a lot, and I’m not necessarily asking for a show of hands. I know some of you are like, I don’t want to admit it.

It’s fine, because you know and God knows. I don’t have to know. I just know that I do it.

And yet God’s plans work as he works them, whether I agree to it or not. Just like I hope that my kids will trust that I love them and I have their best interest at heart, even if they don’t understand my plans, I have to trust that even if I don’t understand what God is doing, I have to trust that I do know him and that he’s got my best interest at heart. And so Jesus was working the plan.

He was determined to go to the cross for us, and he was determined to do whatever was necessary to get there. The plan, we’ve got to understand the plan was not just to die. It was to die for us.

And that’s why he told Peter, after I’ve been raised, I will go before you to Galilee in verse 29. He promised that he was going to come back, and he promised that they were all going to be together again. There was hope because of the resurrection, and then they were all going to be reunited in Galilee.

And so when Peter and the others protested against this plan, they were really undermining the only hope that they had. Because what he was about to go through, as much as they hated it, it was the only hope they had. And by the way, don’t miss that in verse 31 where it says they all joined in.

We tend to pile on Peter, and we tend to look down on Peter for his arguing with Jesus, but they all did it. As a matter of fact, I mentioned this on Wednesday, that I had my sermon for this morning down to about two points, that number one, Peter was kind of an idiot, Oh, can they say that in church? Yeah.

Peter was kind of an idiot, and point two, I’m frequently the same kind of idiot, because I do the same thing. But it wasn’t just Peter. Verse 31 reminds us they all did it.

So when they argued against this, they were arguing against the one thing that had been put together to give them hope and eternal life that had been put together to bring them back to the Father, which is what we all need. Fortunately, though, Jesus was not as weak-willed as a lot of other leaders. Jesus was determined to see the plan through and to go to the cross.

He could have backed out at any time. But instead he said, no, we’re going forward, we’re going to do this, and when I’m being tried, you are going to deny me. He said they were all going to turn on him or they were all going to turn from him that night.

And Peter, who is the most vocal of all of them, the biggest braggart of all of them, saying, I’m going to stand by you regardless. is the one who denies him most dramatically. Verse 30 says, Assuredly, I say to you that today, even this night before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.

I know a lot of people have problems, by the way, with the idea that Mark says the rooster crowed twice and Matthew and Luke say the rooster crowed and it was before the rooster crowed or before the rooster crowed twice. I don’t have a lot of time this morning to get into an explanation of that. We can maybe talk about that tonight during our study in the fellowship hall.

But I’ve also given you something on that grid that you can look at, a website that has an article that I think explains that well. But it’s just another instance where one gospel writer says something happened, and another gospel writer gives a little more detail about how it happened. So Matthew and Luke point out that the rooster crowed, and Mark says how many times?

I don’t see a contradiction there. But he said, you are going to deny me. Within this frame of time, you’re going to deny me three times.

But this was the plan. He needed to go to the cross. In order to go to the cross, he needed to be betrayed by his own people.

He needed to be abandoned and denied and rejected. All of these things needed to happen in order for Jesus to go to the cross and do what he came here to do. And it cannot have been a pleasant experience for Jesus.

I mean, if that isn’t the understatement of the century, I don’t know what is. The crucifixion and the abandonment, everything that went along with it, that cannot have been a pleasant experience for Jesus. But he was determined to do it.

if that’s what it took to fulfill the father’s will if that’s what it took to carry out the plan if that’s what it took to bring us salvation he was determined to do it and it didn’t matter what anybody else’s plans were and all the disciples are running around saying no this can’t happen we’ll stick by you we’re going to make sure that that you’re protected we’re going to they had these plans and for Peter his hope was apparently in his sword and his ability to resist but hopefully we learn out of this that our hope doesn’t rest in our plans and our abilities. It rests in Jesus alone. It wasn’t Peter’s sword that was going to get them out of there that night.

It wasn’t Peter’s sword that was going to bring them a relationship with God. It wasn’t gathering a crowd of supporters of Jesus that was going to change anything for them. It wasn’t a few more years of walking around Galilee watching him do miracles that was going to change anything for them.

Their one and only hope was not in any of their plans, any of their opinions, any of their abilities, any of the other stuff that they thought they could work out, their one and only hope stood right before them, and that was Jesus Christ. And that’s important for us to understand, because Peter had plans to defend Jesus, he had plans to fight for an earthly kingdom, he boasted about his loyalty and his perseverance in what they were about to face, but none of this mattered compared to what Jesus was actually doing. And today you can find no shortage of people who will give you ideas about where to find hope. That you can find hope in your bank account.

That you can find hope in a church or in a religion. That you can find hope in a political leader or a movement. You can find hope in social change.

You can find hope in any number of false gospels that are being peddled to the American people. You can find it. But our hope is not in a movement.

It’s not in a leader or an organization. Our hope is not in what we have. Our hope is not in what we can achieve.

Our hope is squarely and only in what Jesus Christ did for us. When he went to the cross and shed his blood and died as the only sacrifice for our sins. The only thing, the only sacrifice that would ever be acceptable to the Father to cleanse us once and for all from our sins.

And then to prove that that wasn’t the end. To prove that he was able to do what he promised. He rose again three days later.

And these same people that watched him die, these same people that fled and denied him, they saw him alive again, and they were so convinced by the experience of having watched him die, of having known where he was buried, having seen him alive again, that they entirely changed. Their entire lives changed. Peter went from being this cowardly lion to being the man that he portrays here that he wants to be.

He went from being somebody who denied Jesus and ran and hid to one of the most bold, vocal, public defenders of the Christian faith. Thomas went from doubting to being martyred for his faith. His own brother, Jesus’ own half-brother, went from thinking he was crazy to being one of the leaders of the church, giving his life, proclaiming the fact that Jesus Christ was God in human flesh.

What would it take to convince you that your sibling was God? I’m not going to answer that. But the resurrection is pretty good evidence.

See, they were convinced that there was hope, not because of what they did, not because of what they planned or accomplished, but because of what Jesus Christ did. And what brought them hope is the only source of hope we have today, that Jesus Christ suffered, bled, and died for sinners and rose again three days later to prove it. And this morning, if you understand that you’ve sinned, meaning you’ve disobeyed God in some way, through your actions, through your words, even through your thoughts and attitudes, if you’ve disobeyed God, it separates you from him he is completely holy.

And there’s not enough good that you or I could ever do to erase the wrong that we’ve done and make us right with a holy God again. That sin is there. It has to be paid for.

It has to be punished. But Jesus Christ took all the punishment on himself and he made the payment in full so that we could go free, so that we could be forgiven. And now it’s not up to you to try to earn it, to try to deserve it.

It’s offered to you freely to believe that Jesus Christ died for you and rose again. And on that basis, to ask God for the forgiveness that Jesus Ch