Sunday 13 April 2025

Speaker: Milton Gabrielson

Sermon Title: The Centrality Of The Cross

Scripture Reading: John 12:12-19

Today's reading is from John chapter 12, verses 12 to 19. The next day, the great crowd that had come for the fees heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. They took palm branches and went out to meet him shouting, Hosanna. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the king of Israel.

Jesus found a young donkey and set upon it as it is written. Do not be afraid. Oh, daughter of Zion. See, your king is coming, seated on a donkey's coat. At first, his disciples did not understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that they had done these things to him.

Now, the crowd that was with him when he called Lazarus from the tomb raised him from the dead, continued to spread the word. Many people because they had heard that he had given this miraculous sign, went out to meet him. So the Peres said to one another, see, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him.

Here, the words from the holy bird.

Thank you. Thank you, Catherine. Catherine. Good morning everyone.

Um. It's good to be together. It's good to have, um, Laura back with us and, um, apparently she finished plating all of the bananas in Queensland and now she can come home. So welcome home and, uh, also good to see our friends from non pen here this morning. Um, and I probably missed a few, but. Also, um, it's good to see Anna with us again.

And now, just very quickly this morning when my wife and I went to Canada, because we have a son in Canada, uh, first time we went over, first, second time we went over there, uh, we, we really were looking for a more local church. First time we went to a central church and we went to a local church. Now, lemme tell you quickly about this church.

Well, this church. Was almost an inner city church and it had a, a seating capacity of 700 or seven 50 people. It had big alies all the way around. And guess what? Most of the congregation were young people like here, of course. Um, and, uh. And, and they were about 85% all from Asian countries. And then to top it off, they had a, a born and bred Japanese minister who'd had an amazing conversion, uh, because conversions don't come easy in.

So, uh, one morning they had a guest speaker. This guest speaker was from South Africa. And, um. He was a founder and one of the workers with what we call an African Christian enterprise that did a great job across Africa. But one morning he was talking and he was an older man, probably around his seventies.

And um, he talked to, to this crowd, which was mostly young people, and he said this, he said, be very careful about how you choose your life's partner. He said, if you want to have a long and a happy relationship, I suggest you fall in love with an archeologist.

You know why? Because he said archeologists like old things. Now I think our pastor's a bit of an archeologist because he chose one of the old things to preach this morning. Thank you Jamie. Um, and, um, whatever. We'll get into this. Let's just pray for moment. Father, we are here because of Jesus. We are here because the Holy Spirit has anointed and called us to proclaim Christ.

As the central person to this whole universe, and we wanna say hallelujah for him. Bless your words to us Lord, and open our hearts. Get our attention, and please help the preacher and the listeners in Jesus' name. Amen. Now, I would say that, um, Catherine read to us from John, uh, chapter. Uh, 12 and verses 12 to 19.

And I would say why we call this Palm Sunday. Uh, and we center much around the, uh, the triumphant entry into Jerusalem. Uh, I believe this Palm Sunday was the pinnacle of Jesus' popularity. I believe it was when his fame really shot. Now we know that he did many miracles, uh, and when we, we know that he raised the dead and he did lots of things.

But on this day, the crowds were there. 'cause the, the, the, at the end of that week or following that week, uh, we have, um, the Passover. So people came from near and far for the Passover of Jerusalem. Uh, so here we have it. Um, now this morning it's great that we can remember Palm Sunday, but I wanna suggest this morning that this was not only the pinnacle of Jesus' popularity and of Jesus' fame in terms of how people saw him, but I wanna suggest to you that we keep it all in context now.

If we're gonna keep something in context, we, we talk about what happened was happening, it's still happening and will be happening. And then the other reason why we keep it in context is about the characters that are involved in the story. Now, of course, the central person was Jesus. We know that. But then there was that lovely family of Mary and Martha and Lazarus.

And, and you know, there was also Jesus' enemies. Um, and, and they were a bright bunch. I must tell you. You know, uh, Jesus had certain enemies and they were the religious leaders of the country, if you please, and they, they got, they were so green with envy, they. They were so jealous. They, they wanted to kill Jesus.

And then this man that had been dead for four days, they wanted to kill him also. I reckon they're pretty intelligent. What do you reckon? And they were the, the chief priests and they were the Pharisees and they were the sad. You see somewhere in the background who didn't believe in the resurrection.

Somebody said that's why they were so sad. You see? And of course there was a Sanhedrin. Now I reckon these were a scrawny bunch, but whatever. Uh, when we read in chapter 11 and verse 53 that they had formed the plot to kill Jesus, and then a bit later in chapter 12 and verses nine to 10, they had also.

Planned to kill Lazarus. Now, I would say they were a bunch of bright sparks. Hey, I think I've said this to you before, that the mortality rate around this globe every 12 months is not less than 65 million people go through the gateway of death. It's a lot of people. And here's, somebody comes to this planet who claims to be the resurrection and the life who claims that whoever believes in him, though he die yet shall live, and whoever lives and believes in him will never die.

I've got some scary news for you. Milton GA are never gonna die.

You know what? We were in the big gathering here on Friday and my wife and I sat about halfway down there and this lady come and sat alongside of me and it turned out I had a chat to her and she seemed to know everybody that I knew, and I asked her, did she know everybody in Western Australia? Anyway, she sitting there talking about this one and that one and more.

Very interesting. We exchanged notes, you know, go good notes, of course. And, um, anyway, then she said, have you ever heard of Milton Goon?

How to answer a question like that? Well, I was thinking since I should have made a bit, a bit of mileage out of it and said, Hmm, you know, I have known him for a while. What do you think of him? Well, I, I missed out on that chance. Um, and, and she said, have you ever heard of him? Oh, I said, I am. He,

and, and I'll tell you what, she, she saw an lovely fell off a seat.

Good on her. She was a lovely lady and she had that great blessing of meeting the man himself. Okay. I wanna say something to you. I think these enemies of Jesus weren't very bright spiritual leaders because in um, Paul's letter to the Corinthians, he talks about the last enemy to be destroyed, his death.

Now I want a quote from a great author and his name is Henry Blackaby, and I'm just gonna read his comment.

He says, over the centuries death has been our relentless unyielding enemy. No one, regardless of worldly rank, strength, wealth. Is able to escape death. Now, almost every night on the news you hear about a celebrity or a film star or a president or somebody that has um, passed on now, he says that, that as soon as we are born, death becomes our destiny.

Many have tried, but no one has developed an antidote for death. I'm sorry to make the subject so exciting, but here we are. You know, Wendy, we were all blessed on Friday because your dear mom had a long life of godliness and all her descendants. Seemed to never stop coming. A big family, hey, and of course they were the smoker family from bas from, and there was only 16 in the family, so they spread themselves around a bit.

Now the writer goes on, he says, the reality of the resurrection is that death has been defeated. It is no longer the impregnable enemy. For Christ marched through the gates of Hades and claimed decisive victory over death. He conquered death completely. Now he assures us that his followers also will share in that victory.

And that's what I told you earlier, that Milton Gamble is gonna live forever.

I didn't say on this earth, but he said he who lives in Belize will never die. And you know, when I got saved, I knew straight away that was true. I just knew that I'd be around forever. And I, I still know that even though when I get up in the morning. The hope is slightly d, dwindling a bit

death and the fear of death. Hebrews chapter two and verse 14 and 15 tell us, have been the burden of humanity

now. Then I want you to see that Jesus. Not only said he was the resurrection of the life, but a few days later or a few hours later, he demonstrated it because he went to the grave of Lazarus. Now, Lazarus was being dead for four days and uh, I think it was Martha was there with him and, and she said, but Lord, he's been dead for four days and he's on the nose.

He's got the stench of death on him. And Jesus said the beautiful thing in verse 40, and I love this, I love this verse. He said, didn't I tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God? And he praises here, gosh, you're quite, you all believe you're gonna live forever, but you didn't say amen.

Amen. Oh, that's better.

You see, Jesus demonstrated his power over death and then he demonstrated the glory of resurrection.

Now then we move into chapter 12 verses one to three. And there we read and that, um, um, this little family. That lived in Bethany in chapter 12. It tells us that they put on a special dinner for Jesus in chapter 12, and it says that six days later before the Passover, um, Jesus arrived in Bethany, where Lazarus lived and was raised from the dead.

He was the same one raised from the dead. Here a dinner was given. In Jesus' honor, Martha served like she always did, and with Lazarus among those at the table. Then Mary took about a pint of ARD and expensive perfume and put it on Jesus' feet and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled. With the fragrance.

Now, when I read that,

I'm not thinking about how good this perfume smell. I just realized that the real fragrance was her love for Jesus. And I'm gonna apply this this morning and I, and I don't want anybody to be offended, I want you to be encouraged, but I wanna say this. I understand that the presence of Jesus is the real fragrance.

Any amens to that? Amen. And I believe that when people come to a church like this or, or any church, it should be filled with the fragrance of love. Amen. Amen. People walk in here and they should know that they're not only in the midst of love, but they are loved not only by Jesus, but they're loved by everyone here that loves Jesus.

Now, I wanna tell you something. We can talk about church health. We can talk about church growth, but what we need is resurrection power. We need resurrection glory. We need resurrection love.

I'm living for the day when I see this outpouring of the Holy Spirit where whole churches are moved by the power of God and you cannot shut up the praises.

Pastor, we love you and your family being among us.

I've got news for you. We're not gonna let you go.

Did you all say amen then? Amen. You've got no agenda at all.

You know what? I've had a battle in my Christian life. I'm not trying to be critical or smart here. I've had a battle of my Christian life because what I see in the word of God, uh, about the power of the risen Christ and what I see about the promises for when the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the church and what I don't see in the Christian Church these days, I get very confused.

I do

now, let's decide this morning. It wasn't about the palm branches and it wasn't about all the other things that happened. It's about this living Christ. You know what the title I put over this message, I put over the fact of the centrality of the cross. The centrality of the cross, because at the end of all these events,

there was not such a justice. Applause and this praise and this honor happening. But guess what? The intelligent here turned up They for the Greek.

They, they were the people that loved knowledge and thought they had it all together and they said, we wanna see Jesus in all this excitement and all this carry on with all these massive crowds that are around Jesus, and hence the poor old Pharisees do something. We didn't know what to do because the whole world's gone after him.

And I'd like to say to the service says hallelujah.

I'd like to say to the FA about the time you old bearded boys woke up and got with resurrection Life instead of all that tradition, you follow

and don't anybody here get excited about me talking like this, will you? Because the revival might break out. And we might rather send Jamie away for six weeks holiday, and I know he would love that at the moment. He just said, amen. But really, folks, I want to be serious and I wanna be earnest and I wanna be zealous about the potential that we have in being partner with the resurrected Christ.

You see a lot of people think Pentecost was back, woo whoop, Pentecost was and is and continues to be. Okay? Now, I'm not saying everything that happened at Pentecost is gonna just happen here. I'm saying that the same power. And what I love about this Pentecost story is it says in chapter four that the apostles preach powerfully the resurrection.

They preach powerfully that Christ had risen, that he broke through the, the bars of Hades, that he came to life again after three days, and that he ascended to the right hand of God. And let me tell you something, well, that I get very excited about. There is a man in the glory now, Jesus at the right hand of God and he represents every one of us.

Hallelujah.

Now, what else do we see? We see that when the Greeks came along,

the, uh, the, uh, disciples told each other and, and then Jesus said something like this. All this, what you are seeing today and yesterday, it's all, it's all gonna end in death. All your excitement, all your praise, all this fighting among the enemies, it's all gonna end in a grave.

It's just like Jesus was to kill joy. No he wasn't. I'm gonna read to you what he said, and this will lead us into the end of this message. But in chapter 12, in chapter 12 and verse 20, it says, there were some Greeks among those who went to worship at the feast. That's the feast pastor. They came to Philip.

Who was off from best in Galilee? Will they request, sir? They said we would like to see Jesus. Philip went through Andrew and Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus and Jesus said this, listen, please listen. Jesus said the hour has come for the son of man to be glorified.

The hours come and he said, I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seed. The man who loves his life will lose it. While the man who hates his life in this world will keep it unto eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me.

And where I am, my servant will be. Also, my father will honor the one who serves me. Now, let me quickly explain to you something, you know, when you've got a big, uh, glass jar and, and it's full of that. Lovely golden wheat.

Did you know that some years ago the archeologists, uh, found a jar of wheat in the pyramids of Egypt and, and this wheat was 3000 years old?

So they got some of it and they put it in the ground and what Jesus was saying, unless the grain of wheat goes down into the wet, dark, damp sod and, and actually dies, there'll be no fruit.

Did you ever think when you drove out in the wheat fields that the millions of heads of, of grain you see that produces some, uh, millions upon millions of tons of wheat? Each one of those died before it lived again. I wanna tell you something that they, I got this 3000, uh, old web jar week and they put some in the ground.

And you know what? Today you can buy flour made by that same grains of wheat.

It was estimated about 30 years ago if you took one grain of wheat. And allowing it to grow into a wheat head and replanted that over 11 years you would produce enough wheat to feed the whole world. Can you believe that? Now, as long as that wheat stayed in the, in the, in the jars for thousands of years and never come to a place of death, it would never reproduce.

And Jesus is telling us that this is. The way of the cross, this is the way of death to self, death to my meanness, death, to my selfishness, death to my old life, and until death to self and death to sin takes place. Through faith in Christ, you will remain barren.

Took me a long time to understand this. And I'm still getting to understand about my own life.

We don't have the time to explore this the way we should this morning, but let me close with this.

I see. The centrality of the cross, right through these events that we've been talking about, because Jesus finally says this. He says, now is the judgment. Now is the time for judgment on this world,

and that means that the cross was a place of God's judgment on the person. This darling from heaven. This sinless Lamb of God

on Calvary's Hill fell the judgment of God on sin. He was made to become sin Who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God.

I, I'll never get over this. And why? I see lives being changed by the power of the death and the power of the resurrection, and I see them starting to live a new life of righteousness and holiness and love, unconditional love for the unloving. It's because self has been crucified. The old life has been put to death.

A new life has begun in the power of the resurrection of Christ.

And then he said something else, and of course he, he went on to say, now is the prince of this world driven out? Who's the prince of this world? Satan. And what does Satan do? He holds people in fear of death all their lives. What else does he do? He drags 'em down to hell. Then he went on and he said this he, he said, if I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men unto myself.

He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die. Death on the cross.

I'll tell you something as we close, I get so burdened about the unbelief that I see among Christian circles. I get very burdened when I see people struggling with rubbish. Like we have a lovely, um, niece who's. Come out of hospital yesterday, uh, because she's struggling with, um, anorexia.

God made her to enjoy what he created. And I believe folks, I, I'm not going down the scientific line here, but I believe that anorexia is a tool in the hand of the devil. If you, if you knew this girl, she's a lovely girl. She's a beautiful young person, but she's been in hospital for weeks struggling with anorexia and I wanna say this morning with all authority as we sang, he is law, the Messiah is law.

He's got the victory over all this garbage. Then people. US slaves of drugs. This drug thing is destroying our community. It's destroying some parts of our economics. It's destroying everything. Let's get hold of the fact that Jesus rose victorious over sin. Satan's death and hell, and he lives my Jesus lives.

Terry, let's sing Hosanna.

And remember, it's not about all the excitement and all the praise and all the crowds. It's about the one who rose from the death. His name is Jesus. Now, I hope we're gonna sing with all our hearts. I hope we're gonna. Lift this roof a bit when we sing HO with that big crowd that walk with Jesus in Z Jerusalem.

Okay, let's stand if you can.