G'day. Welcome to Stories of a Faithful God for Kids.

Dave here.

Have you signed up for the club yet?

It kicks off this Friday with the very first 10 minute video episode.

@ the end, there'll be a couple of questions for you to answer.

One of them will help decide what wacky things we do in future episodes.

Parents, there are even bonus episodes for you.

There's a lot there for as little as $5 a month.

Five Australian dollars.

So why not hit pause, follow the link in the

show notes and sign up for the Stories of a Faithful God Club.

And if you don't like it, you can cancel any time.

Now, on with the show.

I want to tell you something wonderful and

amazing.

Before I do though, I have to tell you

something very, very sad.

The very, very sad thing is that in this

world, lots of people hate God.

They don't want it to look like God is

winning.

And they'll do anything to stop people

believing in Jesus.

No matter what Jesus says, no matter how good

he is, they want to do everything they can to stop God and His good plans.

Sometimes it feels like they're winning.

Sometimes it feels like Jesus is losing.

That is very, very sad.

But there's something wonderful and amazing to

tell you.

For God to do his good plans to save people

through Jesus, to give people life forever.

To bring people into his family.

He doesn't have to stop those people who hate him.

He doesn't have to stop what they're doing to get in his way.

God is so powerful and so good, he can actually use their bad plans to make his good

plans happen.

Don't know what I mean?

Well, you're about to find out.

It's time for our next episode of Stories of a

Faithful God for Kids.

At the end of our last episode, Jesus did

something amazing, something astounding, something no one else can do.

Jesus raised the dead man Lazarus back to life.

He did it so that people would finally believe in him.

So that people would see his glory, his greatness, and say, I can trust him with

anything.

Even with life and death.

Lots of people who are there do start believing in Jesus.

They've seen Jesus glory and they believe.

Which makes sense, doesn't it?

If you've just seen someone wake up a dead person, of course you're going to believe in

him.

Except when people prefer sin instead of

salvation, they can do horrible things.

And so some of the people who saw Jesus raise

a dead man to life run off to the Pharisees to tell on him.

I know after everything Jesus has done, they still prefer to be in the Pharisee's good

books rather than believe in Jesus.

You may remember that that's exactly what the

man who'd been healed after 38 years had done.

Also, the parents of the man born blind.

They didn't want to make the Pharisees angry by saying that Jesus healed their son.

This time.

You'd think the Pharisees would say, wow,

Jesus raised a dead man to life.

We were totally wrong about Jesus.

We should stop trying to kill him and start believing in him.

That's what they should have done when Jesus did all his other signs.

But just like when those things happened, they only want Jesus out of the way.

They want him dead.

They get together with the chief priests and

they call together a meeting of something called the Sanhedrin.

The Sanhedrin is like a government or council for helping Jewish people trust and follow

God.

They're about to do a really bad job of that.

They all get together, there are about 70 of them, and they worry.

In verse 47, they ask, what should we do? This man is doing many miracles.

Now, I hope you know the answer to that.

What should they do?

First person in your family to answer gets 10 points.

They should believe in Jesus.

They don't want to believe in Jesus, though.

Instead, they're really worried about what will happen if Jesus keeps doing these

miracles.

They think that the more miracles he does, the

more Jewish people will want to follow him.

They also think that the Jewish people will

start to say, hey, let's make Jesus our king.

He'll make us into an army and we'll go and

fight the Romans and kick them out of our land.

The problem is, everyone who fights against the Romans tends to lose really badly.

Lots of people get crucified, Lots of people get sold as slaves.

So they say, what should we do? This man is doing many miracles.

If we let him continue doing these things, everyone will believe in him.

Then the Romans will come and take away our temple and our nation.

And the thing is, they're not completely wrong.

They know the Jewish people.

In fact, back in chapter six, the people had

tried to make Jesus king, just like the Sanhedrin are afraid of.

What they're wrong about, though, is to think that that's what Jesus wants.

He doesn't want it at all.

When the people had tried to make him king,

he'd got out of there as quickly as he could.

Jesus is a king, the greatest king.

He's just not the sort of king to lead armies to beat up the Romans.

He's the king who's come to save people from their own sin, not from the Romans.

As the Sanhedrin are all sitting around worrying, the high priest stands up.

His name is Caiaphas.

Caiaphas isn't a worrier, he's a doer.

He makes things happen.

Unfortunately, the things he makes happen are

really evil.

He wants the Sanhedrin to stop messing about

and get on with killing Jesus.

He says to them in verse 49, you people know

nothing.

It's better for one man to die for the people

than for the whole nation to be destroyed.

But you don't realise this.

Is that how you deal with your problems? Just killing the person who's getting in your

way? I really hope not.

And the person who's talking about killing isn't just anyone.

It's Jesus.

The one who's come from God, who's healed the

sick, who's raised the dead, the one who gives hope to a world without hope.

Caiaphas is saying it's better that we just kill him and save everyone else from the

Romans.

He's actually talking about killing the only

person who can give people eternal life.

That's nuts.

But John tells us something really strange in verse 51.

He says, Caiaphas did not think of this himself.

He was high priest that year.

So he was really prophesying that Jesus would

die for the Jewish nation and for God's scattered children.

This would bring them all together and make them one.

Prophesying? Prophesying?

John, what are you talking about? Prophecy is a message that comes from God.

And Caiaphas is saying something really evil.

He's saying, let's kill Jesus, the one who's

come from God.

As if God would send that message.

But wait, do you remember what I told you at the beginning?

I said that God is so powerful and so good, he can actually use people's bad plans to make

his good plans happen.

Jesus came into the world to save people.

How's he going to do that? He's going to do it by taking the punishment

we deserve for ignoring God on himself.

We deserve to have the life God gave us taken

away.

But instead, Jesus will have his life taken

away.

He'll be killed and punished by God in our

place.

And then he'll be raised to life so that we

can have new life with him.

Which means, even though these people are

being really evil, by wanting to kill Jesus, God is actually using their evil plan to do

something really good.

He's using their evil plan to save people.

Do you remember John 3:16 it says, for God loved the world so much that he gave his only

son.

God gave his son so that whoever believes in

him may not be lost, but have eternal life.

He gave his son Jesus to die on the cross.

And this isn't a surprise for Jesus.

He said, the Father loves me because I give my life.

I give my life so that I can take it back again.

No one takes it away from me.

I give my own life freely.

I have the right to give my life and I have the right to take it back.

This is what my Father commanded me to do.

So when evil people are working so hard to

stop God's plans, they just end up being a part of God's good plans.

Nothing can stop God from doing good.

Nothing can stop Jesus from saving people.

When Caiaphas said, it is better for one man to die for the people than for the whole

nation to be destroyed, he was just thinking evil thoughts.

But God was using his evil thoughts and evil words to say something completely different,

to say something really good.

Jesus will die so that all of God's people,

all the people who believe in him are saved.

John tells us in verse 53, that day they

started planning to kill Jesus.

So Jesus no longer travelled openly among the

Jews.

He left there and went to a place near the

desert.

He went to a town called Ephraim and stayed

there with his followers.

Ok, so you've got the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem

planning to kill Jesus.

You've got Jesus out in the desert keeping

well away from them.

Everything seems safe until it's time for the

Passover festival.

The Passover is in Jerusalem.

Jesus has been to lots of festivals in Jerusalem.

Almost every time he's gone, it's ended with people wanting to kill him.

Now people aren't going to just suddenly get angry and want to kill him.

Now they're making a plan.

They're going to make sure the job's done

properly.

In verse 56, heaps of people who have

travelled to Jerusalem for the Passover are standing in the temple and they're saying, is

Jesus coming to the feast? What do you think?

There's tension in the air.

John tells us that the leading priests and the

Pharisees have given orders about Jesus.

They said that if anyone knows where Jesus is,

he must tell them, then they can arrest Jesus.

Will he come?

Will they arrest Jesus? Well, that's a story for another series.

For now, let me remind you of some of the things we've heard in John's Gospel.

We've heard how Jesus is God the Son.

He came from God the Father in order to save

people and bring us into God's family.

He takes away the sin of everyone who believes

in him and he'll raise us back to life when he comes again.

Believe in Jesus.

Trust Him.

Let him be your king and saviour.

I hope you sign up for the club that launches

this week.

Bye for now.