Reading: John 12:20-36.

Jesus had just finished being the Guest of Honour in the Palm Sunday parade. His arch-enemies, the Pharisees, had finally admitted defeat by saying: “The whole world has gone after Him” (verse 19).  There was nothing that they could do about it. For the poor and wandering Teacher from Nazareth, this was His shinning hour. But His highest honour was yet to come. A short time later certain Greek visitors in Jerusalem requested a private audience with Him. To be sought by the Greeks was a tribute to His popularity, not just by the poor and the outcasts but by the elitists and the intellectuals of His contemporary world.

Suddenly the story takes a strange twist. When Philip told Jesus the Greek visitors wanted to talk with Him, He apparently ignored the request. Rather, a mysterious shadow cast a pall over the scene and Jesus confesses the tension He feels between His will to live in the glory of human acceptance and acclaim and His will to die for the glory of God. The flavour of His tension can be felt as He says “... unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” One of those paradoxes of life!

John 20:24-25

“Now Thomas, called the Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” So he said to them, “Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.” 

Today, in the Christian Calendar is the Palm Sunday, it is the day Jesus rode on a donkey into Jerusalem. It is just five days before He was crucified. It is the day people cried Hosanna, Hosanna to the son of David. (See Luke 19:28-44). The same people who on Sunday shouted Hosanna were the same people who on Friday shouted crucify Him; Crucify Him. How fickle?

Exodus 32:26

Then Moses stood in the entrance of the camp, and said, “Whoever is on the Lord’s side—come to me!” And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together to him.

Moses had gone up the mountain to receive the Ten Commandments from God. For forty days and forty nights the Israelites waited for him to come back. They became restive and asked Aaron to make them another god who would lead them on. Aaron obliged them and made a golden calf and presented to them as their god. God then called on Moses to get down for his people have deserted God. Moses came down on the day they were celebrating their new god. He was so angered by their action that he threw the two Tablets in his hands to the ground and broke them to pieces. He called for a separation of the Israelites into those on God’s side and those on the other side.

Life is constantly requiring us to decide on choices – one or the other. What work, what career, what wife, what...? We need constantly to make decisions based on facts. Tonight, the question is: Who is on the Lord’s side? Before you shout I am or I am not, let us examine what is involved.

We have so far discussed the definition of business, if a Christian should be in business, the prerequisites for business venture and guidelines for successful business enterprises. We now wish to emphasize one aspect of Christian business – it is that every Christian business is a partnership – the Senior Partner being God Himself. If we all agree that God is our partner in our businesses, then this introduces a new dimension to business deals and dealings.

Business is the ability to manage men and materials to produce profitable results. This definition is not complete without taking into consideration the fact that business is one field where our faith in God is tested to the extreme. Men are deceitful and we require the grace, wisdom and patience of God to effectively manage them. Materials are fleeting – can disappear fast so you cannot rely on them, yet you have to manage them to not only to stay, but make gains. You need more than anything else, the grace of God to keep you going.