CIBC 8-28-22

Jesus enters Jerusalem on a donkey, fulfilling prophecy and receiving praise from the people. They throw their cloaks on the donkey and wave palm branches, shouting "Hosanna!" Jesus is hailed as a king, but the people do not fully understand his true purpose, which is to bring salvation through his death on the cross. This is the beginning of the end and the start of a new hope for humanity. Last week we closed out Mark chapter 10 with the healing of a blind man called Bartimaeus, if in fact that was his real name. Bartimaeus had his life changed in two different ways that day through one encounter with Jesus. There was a physical healing. He was blind, but now he sees. But what he found in his spiritual healing was that the best thing that he could do with his life, with his time, was to follow Jesus where he went. And so he followed Jesus from then on. And so as we go into this story, we can imagine Bartimaeus now with sight walking alongside Jesus. We even talked about last week that that might be the reason why they used his name was the fact that the readers of the Gospels would look at Bartimaeus and say, yeah, we know him. We know that story. We were there. These are great stories, but these happened. And so the people that were reading this first would know these people, just like when we tell about the stories of the history of this church or the history of the church, we can say, yeah, we knew those people. So that's where we were this week, that long journey. It really has been a long journey. That long journey of Jerusalem concludes. It's funny, there's only 16 chapters in Mark, but one of the commentators, one of the commentaries talked about the fact that the way Mark writes his Gospel is it's basically a 10-chapter lead up to the Gospel message, which is for us captured in these holy week events. If I was talking to you about this in late March or early April, this is Palm Sunday. This story, you've heard this story time and time again. We would be thinking in terms of that. And Mark spends five, six full chapters, I have terrible math, spends six full chapters talking about this week. He had spent 10 chapters talking about the first three years of Jesus' ministry. And so Mark is telling us this is what's important, right? As hopefully you've been getting from me that Barnabas' physical transformation is wonderful, but secondary to his spiritual transformation. So what matters is what is your relationship with Jesus? More to the point, when Jesus says, who do you say that I am, right? That is the fundamental question that every one of us has to answer. And there is no amount of persuasion, preaching, education that any one person can do to make somebody else believe something, right? That is the Holy Spirit moving in them. That is us softening our hearts, the Lord softening our hearts so that He can work in us, so that we can answer that question. And ultimately that question makes all the difference as to when you present your life as a body of work in the gates of eternity, are you going to rely on you or something else, right? And as for me in my house, I hope we serve the Lord. So this is called Jesus' Triumphant Entry. That's probably the way that it is spelled out in the title of that chapter or that section in your Bible. I hesitate to call it a triumphal entry, quite honestly. So in my sermon title today, I said, entering Jerusalem, because that is in fact what happened. But you will see, hopefully over the next two or three hours that we have together, that this is a triumphal entry in the fact that Jesus did whatever He wanted to do. There was nothing that man could thwart Him. But when you compare this to this kingdom that we've been comparing Jesus to, this is quite a different triumphant entry than would be if a different king would come in. So, excuse me. All right, so I guess if we can have Christmas and July celebrations, we can have Palm Sunday and August celebrations too. So with that said, let's read Mark 11, 1 through 11 together. Now, when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethpage and to Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of His disciples and said to them, Go to the village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find a colt tied on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, why are you doing this? Say, the Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately. And they went away and found a colt tied at a door outside the street, and they untied it. And some of those standing there said to Him, what are you doing untying the colt? And they told Him what Jesus had said, and they let them go. And they brought the colt to Jesus, and they threw their cloaks on it, and He sat on it. And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields. And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of the Father David! Hosanna in the highest! And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple. And when he looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve. The Lord blesses the reading of His Word. Now, a little background here. I try to do this every week, but many of our lessons have been shared across different Gospels. I talk about Matthew, Mark, and Luke as being the synoptic Gospels, and they generally speaking follow the same path. Not many of our lessons have included all four Gospels, right? So this one does. This should speak to us about the fact that you had four authors of the Bible who are all telling Jesus' story. Anytime all four of them come together in one lesson, we should pay attention, right? And so ultimately, the entrance into Jerusalem was told in Mark 11, Matthew 21, Luke 19, and John 12. But what actually happens in our verses today? Basically it's this. This is the last major appearance that Jesus makes before His crucifixion, before His arrest. He approaches the city, He gets on an animal, He rides into town, He's treated like a king by the people that walked with Him. He goes back to Bethany with His disciples. End of story. That's it. But there's a lot more. The Scripture marks the beginning of the end. But it also marks the end of the beginning, and in fact, it marks the end of the end. So that was me trying to confuse you. If you're confused, you're right where I want you to be. Alright, it is the start, as I shared earlier, of the real purpose of Jesus. All of this led to this entrance into Jerusalem. He came to fulfill the law and restore the broken relationships. He came to restore the broken relationships that we created through our sin. We know that our Bibles begin with, in the beginning. If you can't quote any other part of the Bible, you can probably quote, in the beginning. If not, now you can. Look at that, you learned something. That is the start. And it goes great for two chapters. Right? Two whole chapters. And then in chapter 3 of Genesis, named generally speaking, the fall, or the fall of man. Man has broken his relationship with God. He chose our way over His. Right? That is another way to say sin. There's a couple of simple ways to describe sin. One of them is that you missed the mark. But what is the mark? The mark is God. The mark is God's plan. So anytime you would choose your way over God's way, that is inherently sin. Even if it feels good. Even if it profits you. If it is not God's way, it is sin. Right? So that's the baseline. That's where we're at. The separation from God is eternal from that moment, because sin has now entered the world through man. All the restored vision, all the miracles, the multiplying of food, water into wine, the lame maid to walk. They don't change the fact that in Romans 5, 12 it says that sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin. And so, death spread to all men, because all have sinned. Sadly, in this case, women don't get off on this, right? Men and women are the same in this. They just use that word. So I want everybody listening. But that is the end, and that is the state of man at the end of Genesis 3. And if you want to know, it continues that way for the next 926 chapters of the Old Testament. That's how many is in there, right? 929 minus 3. So for the next 926 chapters, we are living in sin. And if you go through the Old Testament, basically what you're going to find is man rebels against God. God, in His mercy, shows them that they are living in sin, has mercy on them. There is punishment and judgment. Causes them to align themselves back with God, because quite honestly, they find that the world is not as good of a plan as God's plan. And then we come back to God. And then the cycle starts over. And that is what we have, whether it's through the judges, whether it's through the law, whether it's through the sacrificial system. That is what you will read in the Bible. That and a lot of He begot Him and He begot Him and that sort of thing too. So get ready for that, Don, as you're reading. But that is where we are for 926 chapters of the Old Testament. That's where we are for the first 30 years of Jesus' life. And that's where we are through the first three years of Jesus' ministry. But here we come to chapter 11 of Mark and He is entering into Jerusalem for a purpose. And His purpose is, as I approach, as He, as Jesus approaches Jerusalem, He also approaches the cross. The purpose is the cross. Which, by the way, He predicted at least three times that are recorded for us. And in each of those times, His disciples, followers, the people closest to Him, begged Him to avoid that. They prayed that He would not follow that path. But yet, just like thousands of other times that you and I have prayed for things that we think we want, God knows better, right? God knows better and He knew the right thing and His path is the right way. And that is the good news. This is when Jesus puts death to death. That's the end of the end, right? Because when sin entered this world until Jesus came in, our only end was death. But now we have a new beginning, right? As us Star Wars fans know, the first real movie of Star Wars was called A New Hope, right? That's really what it's called. Jesus coming into the world, it gives us this new hope. In this case, unlike some mythical Jedi, Jesus is the living hope. He gives us an eternal hope. And it starts right now. Now, what I told you guys, probably for many of us, maybe even most of us, that's stuff you've heard your whole life. And I'm going to tell you, it's a problem sometimes being too familiar with the story of the Bible, right? It can happen. You hear it all the time and you tune it out like you tune everything else out, right? And the Lord I listened to yesterday talked about the fact that we can have a head knowledge, the demons had a head knowledge, we can have a heart knowledge, but if we don't change our lives to orient ourselves and say, not my way, but Your way, Lord. And when we say, not my way, but Your way, Lord, that means whatever that is, right? Not my way sometimes, Lord, and Your way when I don't quite know what to do. That's 88% of us, right? And what I'm telling you is, Jesus didn't necessarily want this path for Him, right? We will see as we get into the Garden of Gethsemane where He says, if there's another way, but not my will, Your will be done. That's how Jesus lived and we are supposed to be followers of Jesus, which would mean that we would live the same way. Not my will, but Your will be done. A lot of people had a head knowledge of Jesus, they kind of knew the story. I want us to stay in that frame of mind as we walk through this. We ended last week's message being reminded that not just the twelve were following Him, that there was a group of people, a crowd would follow Jesus. Some of that crowd was just about what they could get out of it, some of the people were genuinely learning from Jesus and giving their lives over to Him. And the King was entering the kingdom, but the kingdom didn't know about it, right? This was a kingdom that had a king. I don't know if they were fine with that king or they weren't fine with that king, that's not really my call, but even now we know when a new leader comes in, most of the time we find some way to have a little bit of hope with that new leader, and this one's got to get it right, right? And in this movie musical, maybe I shared this quote with you before, but in this movie musical Les Mis, it talks about, you know, we didn't like the king, so we overthrew the king, but the next king was worse than the previous king, right? And so it sounded better because they were singing it. But that's what they said, and so in this moment, that is the cycle that we had lived under. By the way, who asked for kings? We did, because we had found ourselves in the Old Testament saying, we don't know what's right from wrong, put a king in front of us. And so you have a king, and if that king doesn't follow God, then you are under the lordship, little l, right, of this king that isn't leading you towards the king. So all of that is what's going on in this moment. Jesus walks into Jerusalem. Now, when we talk about the celebration that's to come, right, I want to tell you how I got this wrong in the past. In a week's time, Jesus will go from having people say, Hosea and Anahias, to crucify Him, right? And I do believe that people are fickle, and I do believe that the masses change over time, and I do believe, and I use this joke every time, if you want to know if trends change over time, just look at your high school yearbook photo, right, and know that what was popular then isn't probably popular now, or maybe it isn't, and then it gets back into popularity as I went to the fair back in Ohio, and half the kids there were wearing bell bottoms, so dust them off, people. But anyway, so people are fickle. God's way is perfect, and God's way is unyielding and unchanging. So we remember that last week, Bartimaeus referred to Jesus as son of David, this messianic title. But the people in Jerusalem didn't know Jesus that way, at least not all of them, not many of them. But the same thing is echoed here. As we walk through this, and these are the Scriptures we're going to go through, but I want to put up our Scripture just so that you guys can kind of see it as you need it. You can certainly look in your Bibles as well, but I want you to kind of see where we are. There is a lot that is happening here, and God knew what is happening here, and this is also the fulfillment of many Old Testament prophecies, as well as just simply His people performing the customs of the day. There's this thing in the army called drill and ceremony, right? And that's when you see the guys marching and all that sort of thing. If you're in this situation, this is how you stand. This is what you say. This is the custom of the army. This is the custom of the navy, or whatever, right? So the customs of the day, if you were around a king, were this and that, right? And so that is what we're seeing here. So let's kind of dive in. Jesus starts at the Mount of Olives, and the Mount of Olives is referenced in Zechariah 14, verse 4. It says, On that day His feet shall stand at the Mount of Olives that lies before Jerusalem on the east. Right? Jesus was there. Now, we know that there are millions and millions of people that know, even today, about Jesus, but do not see Him as the one who fulfilled these prophecies. If you're in this room, you do see it that way, or you don't know any better, right? But we see that Jesus came to fulfill the Old Testament prophecies, and He is, in fact, the chosen one that is referenced in Isaiah and all of these other books, and that's who He is. Now, interesting little side piece right here in the middle of this. Jesus says, now go and grab this colt or donkey or whatever it's referred to in your Bible, and it says, if anyone asks you about this, just tell them the Lord needs it. Right? Try that someday, if you want to just go to somebody's yard and just be like, hey, if anybody asks you about it, you know. Anyway, it is an interesting and really unknown backstory behind this. Was this worked out? And this is just, this is the fulfillment of prophecy, and so His disciples went ahead, or Jesus somehow coordinated with somebody to say, hey, when I come into town, I can use your ride, right? And then that sort of thing, and I'm not trying to make light of it, but I don't know if that conversation took place, or if this was just a glimpse into Jesus's supernatural understanding of the human heart, and He knew that there would be one there, either through the reading of Scripture Himself, or because God just told Him it would be that way. And then I also don't know if He just knew that the heart of the person that was chosen would respond this way because the Bible says so, or again, whether or not this was worked out. I don't know. That's an interesting thing we can ask when we're on the other side, right? But I don't know. By the way, you won't care that day, right? You won't care. You'll be praising and that sort of thing. But ultimately, it's a wonderful story just about, bottom line is, Jesus knew infinitely more than what we knew about what was going on in the grand scope of things and in the minute to minute, right? So that's true today, too. The animal that Jesus rode into is addressed in Zechariah 9, it says, Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you. Righteous and having salvation is He, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. There we go. Alright, so, look, I know fowl isn't right. So as Jesus is getting ready to ride it, it is mentioned that the people threw their cloaks on the animal, which is similar to a story that we get in, help me out, in 2 Kings 9, when Jehu is crowned king. And this is kind of an impromptu crowning of king, too. Like it's one of those things where somebody tells you they're coming over while they're pulling into their driveway. And you know, you're like, I got to get the house ready, right? And you throw all the pots and pans in the oven, you know, and that sort of thing. Whatever it is, but, is that just me? But ultimately, it's like we need to celebrate the fact that Jehu is our king, right? But we didn't have the time to prepare for... They didn't have time for them to prepare that Jehu is king. So this is what it says in 2 Kings 9, 12, and 13. Thus says the Lord, I anoint you king over Israel. And this is what it says. Then in haste, every man of them took his garment and put it under the bare steps, and they blew the trumpet and they proclaimed, Jehu is the king, right? So this is them, you know, you've seen people that, you know, I'm going to bow to the king. I'm going to do this. This is my act of submission to my worldly king in this case. But now, while many of these people still think they are bowing down to Jesus as a worldly king, the reality is, is he is more than a worldly king. But most of them, as we're aware, do not know this, or they wouldn't have fled, you know, later in this week. So anyway, and then the palm branches, right? We see in Mark, it doesn't mention the word palm branches. In fact, it doesn't mention the word palm branches in Mark, Luke, or Matthew, but in John, it does. And so we tend, since that's the only time it was identified, we tend to celebrate by using palm branches. And that comes from Psalms 118, 25 and 26. Save us, we pray, O Lord, O Lord, we pray. Give us success. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. We bless you from the house of the Lord. Now, hosanna simply means, and I think I covered this once before, but I love this, hosanna means save us, we pray. So when you say hosanna, which probably is not something most of us say in our daily vernacular, what you are saying is to whomever you are saying hosanna for, I pray that you would save us, right? So that's what that means. And throughout this, you just see those types of prophecy fulfilled. You see those types of ceremonies performed for Jesus because they knew who they were around, even if they didn't fully know. There's a term that we have talked about throughout the last 10 chapters into this 11th chapter, which is saying that Jesus basically kept a messianic secret, right? That he didn't reveal to many people who he was, even to his closest people. There's a couple of reasons for this. We've talked about them, but just in summary, one, we weren't ready, right? And the other reason is that it wasn't his purpose at that time. To Jesus, elevating himself to a king-type status, first of all, is not very humble in the way that Jesus, you know, Jesus went about his humility in the way Jesus was humble. And the reality is, while we should absolutely be terrified of God and terrified of Jesus and all that for his awesome power, ultimately, he wants to come to you as a servant. He wants to come to you. He wants you to choose to love him. He could absolutely lord over us and make us. He is our Lord. He is our Savior. But he allows you to go about your daily life choosing whether or not you think he is, okay? And so, for him to just come out and say, the king has arrived, was not his plan. That's why he didn't do it. Not to mention just the reality of the fact that all the ministry that he's done and all his ability to walk throughout town would have all been thwarted immediately if he said, I'm king, because of course, the king would have arrested him as is about to happen, right? So all of those things happen, and we just have to know all that. Mark says that it was late when they got to Bethany. I mean, when they got to Jerusalem, they went into the temple. It's possible that they walked all the way from Jericho that day, which is 21 miles. That's a long walk. I've never been there. But again, geography is that that's mostly an uphill walk, so 21 miles uphill both ways to school, you know. And so, it's understandable why it was late. It's understandable why they were tired. And that's where Mark leaves it, okay? That's where it ends. But I want to tell you, that's not where Luke ends it, okay? So if you look at Luke, which I don't have it here pulled up, but look at Luke, and I think it's verses 41, 42, 43, but I'll read you, or I'll tell you about what Luke 19, 41 says. And when Jesus drew near to the city, He wept over it. It always interests me and baffles me in some ways when Jesus weeps over a situation that He's in control over, right? We think about that when He comes across Lazarus, and it says He's dead, and Jesus knows full well that Lazarus is not going to be dead. I mean, He is dead, but that He's not going to be dead. And it says Jesus wept, right? Why? Same thing here. Why? Knowing what's about to happen, knowing the beauty that's going to be performed in a week, it is understandable why Jesus would weep if you think about Jerusalem as it was compared to Jerusalem as it should have been before the fall of man, right? When we see somebody, and we have a funeral in this place, we mourn their death, even if they were a believer from six years old. We also celebrate the fact that they're reunified with Christ, and we celebrate that. But death was not part of the plan. Death entered the world through sin, which we brought in. So we should weep when we see a city like Jerusalem dying. But we can also rejoice knowing that Jesus saw that same city and kept going in and went to the cross. He does this because He loves us. He didn't have to do it. He could have just as easily wiped the face clean, dry erased the board and earth from starting over, right? He could have just as easily made us like ants where we have no free will to do anything and ultimately just follow in line. He could have just as easily done that. But He did it. He did it. He did it. He did it. He could have just as easily done that, but He chose you. He chose to give you choice every day that you are around, every day that that person that you have in your life that has not yet found Jesus, every day that God gives them breath in their lungs is another day that they, like the thief on the cross, which is going to happen in the same week, every day that person has the opportunity to choose Jesus. That's a gift. Okay. We have prayer requests all the time. Pray for this person. They don't know God. They don't know God. That's the prayer request that we should be focused on. They do not know the Lord. In Stephanie's prayer request to me, she said, I pray that this family helps them. I mean, that this situation helps this family know God because they don't know God. It's not the accident that we're praying for. It's the fact that there is a ticking clock going on that we have absolutely no control over. But we can jump that clock into eternity if you align yourself with Jesus. Captain Crowns has a song called While You Were Sleeping. I talked last week about my entry into Christian music. I'm going to end this one the same way with less Dolly Parton lyrics. Okay. But there's a song, Captain Crowns, While You Were Sleeping, and it talks about, O Bethlehem, what were you doing while you were sleeping? That Jesus came into a manger today and you missed it. Right. And they talk about the fact that Jesus has come down onto earth and you were sleeping. Don't be asleep. Right. We know the parable. We know the parable of the fact that Jesus is coming back and do you have oil in your lamp or are you sleeping? Jesus comes alongside of His people and says, Pray with me. Would you pray with me? And He comes back and they were sleeping. Don't be sleeping. Right. What is happening while you're sleeping? What does it mean to be asleep? Quickly, what it means is, are you paying attention to the wrong things? Are you living in some dream world that doesn't exist? So, I'm going to tell you, this is our warning as well. The bridegroom is returning. Wake up. Don't be asleep. It's our warning as well as we are asleep. Information doesn't save you. I have plenty of books that I've never read. Knowledge doesn't save you. I've read plenty of books that I don't understand. Work doesn't save you. Works doesn't save you. Jesus said, it is finished. He's the only one that gets to make that declaration. Even if other people are praying for you, it doesn't save you. Jesus Christ is the path to salvation and it's your personal choice. Come alongside people. Encourage them. Pray for them. Never stop praying for them. But don't own that burden of thinking that's your choice. All right. Take care of yourself. Love the Lord. Go where He leads you and don't deviate from it. Let us pray. Dear Lord, just thank You so much for all that You've given us. Lord, we come to You as we are. Lord, I just thank You so much for all that You've given us. We turn this church over to You. Lord, we turn our time over to You. Lord, I pray that we don't hold anything back. As the song said earlier, Lord, I want to be a Christian. What does that mean? What does that mean? What does that look like, Lord? Well, it means like what the last song said. I surrender. Lord, I give my will to You. I align my will with You. Lord, it's hard. I'm stubborn. We're stubborn. Lord, guide us, direct us, help us. Soften our hearts, Lord. Let the Holy Spirit guide us. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.