Holy Week
Wednesday
But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him.
Zechariah 11:10-14
And I took my staff Favor, and I broke it, annulling the covenant that I had made with all the peoples. So it was annulled on that day, and the sheep traders, who were watching me, knew that it was the word of the LORD. Then I said to them, “If it seems good to you, give me my wages; but if not, keep them.” And they weighed out as my wages thirty pieces of silver. Then the LORD said to me, “Throw it to the potter”—the lordly price at which I was priced by them. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the LORD, to the potter. Then I broke my second staff Union, annulling the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.
Matthew 26:14-16
Then one of the twelve, whose name was Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What will you give me if I deliver him over to you?” And they paid him thirty pieces of silver. And from that moment he sought an opportunity to betray him.
Matthew 20:17-19
And as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside, and on the way he said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day.”
A Perfect Sacrifice
The Lamb of God
It was now two days before the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to arrest him by stealth and kill him, for they said, “Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar from the people.”
Mark 14:1-2
Pride
Why did the religious leaders want to kill Jesus? Simply put, it was pride.
Pride can be a dangerous thing, among many other sins it will produce jealousy and covetousness. Jesus was teaching the people about Him, about God and it was contradicting many of the rituals the religious leaders had developed. This threatened their stature and their wealth.
Do we covet? Don’t answer so quickly. Do we desire recognition, money, fame? When we desire the things of this world more than we desire a building relationship with Jesus, we find ourselves being very similar to the men who persecuted and killed Jesus.
How do we not fall into this trap? True knowledge of God. It begins and ends in prayer. Prayer will produce humbleness. Pray for strength, pray for wisdom, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of God and that will crush pride.
Steps to Freedom in Christ | Pride vs Humility
In this message we consider the traPpings of pride and the freedom of humility.