“Defeating the Status Quo”
In the first century “life as usual” for the people of Israel included poverty, illiteracy, hunger, sickness, and being under the thumb of the Roman empire. “Life as usual” is what we mean by the status quo, and for Israel the status quo was depressing, to say the least. But then Jesus came, and through his teaching and healing and feeding the hungry he overcame many of the most negative elements of the status quo. Then he was put to death on the cross, but what follow...
“Defeating the Status Quo”
In the first century “life as usual” for the people of Israel included poverty, illiteracy, hunger, sickness, and being under the thumb of the Roman empire. “Life as usual” is what we mean by the status quo, and for Israel the status quo was depressing, to say the least. But then Jesus came, and through his teaching and healing and feeding the hungry he overcame many of the most negative elements of the status quo. Then he was put to death on the cross, but what followed his violent and humiliating death brought about the greatest reversal of the status quo the world has ever seen. In what ways did the resurrection of Jesus defeat the status quo?
I When we look at the Passion Story we see first that Jesus said No to the status quo of lying to protect oneself.
A. The religious leaders wanted to kill Jesus because he claimed to be the long-awaited Messiah, but they knew the Romans would not allow them to execute Jesus for r________________ reasons.
1. So, they accused Jesus of p______________ wrongdoing by saying that he claimed to be the King of the Jews.
2. The Romans punished rebellion, or treason, as a c______________ crime. In other words, they e______________ anyone who claimed to be any kind of King.
3. That is why Pilate asked Jesus the question, “Are you a King?” That is the only thing that m______________ as far as Pilate was concerned.
B. In John 18:37 Jesus says to Pilate, “You are right in saying I am a King.” There are two things here that are very much u___________________:
1. First, Jesus got himself into a f___________ predicament by saying that he was indeed a king.
2. The second thing that is unexpected is that there seems to be a non sequitur here. A non sequitur is when a statement does not f__________ logically from a previous statement.
3. Jesus admits to being a king and then, in the middle of the sentence, he suddenly changes the subject to t___________.
4. I believe that what Jesus is doing here is to shine some light into the darkness of P_____________ life and career.
5. Jesus speaks as if being born a King and telling the truth are o_______ and the s_________ thing.
6. Jesus was not only speaking to Pilate, second, he was speaking to all the people who would read the G______________. He was letting us know that we can t___________ him.
7. Jesus understood that if anyone claiming to be the Savior sent by God ever spoke a lie, then we could never be c___________ of our salvation.
8. What Does all this mean to us? It means that lying to protect ourselves is a part of the status quo that we must learn to f________________.
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