The Right Kind of Danger
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[00:00:00] My upcoming book, the Edge of the Inside, comes out on March 31st, 2026. I wrote this book about my journey, leaving my dream job as a multi-site megachurch pastor in 2020, and how I learned to see both the church and God differently from the edge. If you've ever felt like the Christianity you were handed doesn't match the Jesus you read about, this book is for you.
If you'd like to read a copy before it comes out, we'd love to have you join our book launch team. You can find out more in the link in the show notes.
jeremy_1_01-02-2026_124955: Welcome to another episode of Rebuilding Faith.
These are 10 minute Bible messages for people with questions and doubts. Today we are finishing John chapter 11. This is a chapter where Jesus has raised his friend Lazarus from the dead.
Last week we saw that a lot of people. Shockingly believed in him after this, right? You see guy come back to life, you think, Hey, maybe there's something there. But we also saw that some people tattled on him to the religious authorities and didn't believe, and so the tension is [00:01:00] rising as well. Evidently you can't win 'em all, even if you raise people back to life.
You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.
jeremy_1_01-02-2026_124955: But today we're gonna see the conclusion of this story as the tension in this gospel is going to intensify.
This is John chapter 11, beginning in verse 53. So from that time on, the Jewish leaders began to plot Jesus' death because he healed Lazarus. As a result, Jesus stopped his public ministry among the people, and he left Jerusalem. He went to a place near the wilderness to the village of M and stayed there with his disciple.
Now this is less about these religious leaders developing a plot against him and more of John acknowledging the resolution they have in what they've already decided. So they have been thinking about this for a while, plotting this for a while, and now there is a sense of resolution. We for sure are going to [00:02:00] have to take this guy out.
This is too much of a threat. This seals the deal. So the decision has been made. It remains only to be carried out. Jesus is not going to be arrested in order to be tried. He's going to be tried because he's already been found guilty. This is important to remember from this point on as we understand what takes place.
Now it's interesting that God as Jesus, God in the flesh is going to withdraw and stop doing his ministry because of this threat against him and his followers. So he takes his followers to the village of Ephraim. And in the book of Ezekiel, there's an Old Testament connection here in the book of Ezekiel F RM was one of the symbols.
Of the Northern Kingdom, and this was during a time when the idea of Israel was split between the north and the South, and there there were some of these iconic cities that represented each parts of that. I wanna show you Ezekiel [00:03:00] chapter 37, beginning in verse 15. Again, a message came to me from the Lord, son of Man, take a piece of wood and carve on it these words.
This represents Judah and its Allied tribes. Then take another piece and carve these woods on it. This represents Ephraim and the northern tribes of Israel. Now, hold them together in your hand as if they were one piece of wood. And when your people ask you what your actions mean, say to them, this is what the sovereign Lord says.
I will take Ephraim and I'll take the Northern tribes and I'll join them to Judah. I'll make them one piece of wood in my hand. Okay, so this is a pretty iconic Old Testament reference here. So not only does Ephraim provide a safe place in this moment for Jesus and his disciples, but it also symbolically represents what Jesus is doing.
Jesus is uniting all people together, and it starts by uniting Israel, by uniting this [00:04:00] idea of the North and the South and bringing them back together, but then also going to unite beyond Israel and in all of the world, as we've seen already in this book, we get to verse 55. It was now almost time for the Jewish Passover celebration, and many people from all over the country arrived in Jerusalem several days early so they could go through the purification ceremony before Passover began.
They kept looking for Jesus, but as they stood around in the temple, they said to each other, what do you think? He won't come for Passover, will he? Meanwhile, the leading priest and the Pharisees had publicly ordered that anyone seeing Jesus must report it immediately so they could arrest him. Now a lot going on here.
First I wanna point out, this is the third Passover that's already mentioned in the Gospel of John. And you may not have realized we haven't made a big deal about him so far. But now that we've got to the third of the [00:05:00] three, we can point this out. The first one we saw was John chapter two in verse 13.
It said it was nearly time for the Jewish Passover celebration, so Jesus went to Jerusalem. Okay, so that's the first Passover we had.
Then in John chapter six, verse four said it was nearly time for the Jewish Passover celebration. Now at this one, Jesus doesn't go to Jerusalem. Okay? So the first one he does, second one, he doesn't.
Now the third one, he is back in Jerusalem, and so this is where we get the idea. If you've ever wondered, why do we think Jesus's ministry lasted about three years? Because there's three Passovers that are mentioned and there's a lot of scholarly debate and different gospels record this differently, and so some people think maybe it was one Passover, but John seems to imply there are three at three different points throughout Jesus's ministry.
Now, more important, what we see here and what John is doing here is he is building the tension of where all of this story. Is going right. There are a variety of people, as John's [00:06:00] describing, that are eagerly wanting to see Jesus. The news about him keeps spreading these stories about him. I heard he raised the guy back to life.
I mean, you can just imagine how this keeps building bigger and bigger. You can imagine people wondering, is he going to, you know, fully come out and claim to be the Messiah? You know what, what's gonna happen with if he does that? Others are probably thinking, is he even gonna show up?
They have no idea that the religious leaders are actively hunting him. They are actively pursuing him because as we've seen in these verses, they now have resolution. On what they're going to do. They're just looking for how to do it. They're looking for the right moment, the right way to put their plan in action.
Dread it run from it. Destiny arrives all the same
jeremy_1_01-02-2026_124955: so you have this tension building between these people who love Jesus and are fascinated by him and want to experience him. And the people in power who are saying, we are not okay [00:07:00] with this. We're going to stamp this out. We are going to eradicate what he's doing. As I reflect on these verses, this is the line that stands out to me that Jesus doesn't avoid danger.
He avoids being controlled. This is what I think about when I think about what we just looked at in these few verses that Jesus basically saying, no human court is going to force him to the cross. So he's not about to let them determine how this is all gonna play out. And so as they ramp everything up, he gets wind of it.
He withdraws, he leaves. Jerusalem is like, all right, I'm not doing it, at this moment because the heat is too hot, right? There's too much going on, but he's not running from it. He will indeed face the cross. He's gonna face it head on. But sometimes as we see here, wisdom means taking a step back.
Wisdom means realizing the situation, realizing what's going on, realizing when people around you are trying to control you and saying, no, I'm not going to [00:08:00] participate in that. So it's not the same as running from danger, but there is a sense of running from this desire that others have to control you.
And I say that because as we begin another year, I want you to reflect in your own life, do you need to step back from something? Are you in a faith environment, a religious environment, or there's a sense of control, or they're trying to tell you what you can believe and what you can do and the role that you have to play.
And you may be realizing this is actually keeping you from what God wants to do in your life, keeping you from the new things that the spirit is trying to lead you into this season. A lot of times, and I know this from my own journey, we can. Get stuck in a place that it's comfortable and it feels safe, and yet we can have this sense of this isn't going to allow me to be the full version of me that I sense Jesus is inviting me to be.
And [00:09:00] so what would it look like for you to follow Jesus intentionally into the right kind of danger? And the danger's only gonna intensify as we continue this story in the Gospel of John, and I believe Jesus invites us all into not an environment of control, but into the right kind of danger. I'll see you next week on Rebuilding Faith.
