April 9, 2017 - The Crucified King

And I want to continue that this morning by looking at someone 10. David says and as we get into this sermon in this song, you'll see why it fits Palm Sunday. So I'm not ignoring Palm Sunday. We are still squarely on Palm Sunday, but Psalm 110 begins up David a song the Lord says to my Lord sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. The Lord will extend your body scepter from Zion saying rule in the midst of your enemies. Your troops will be willing on your day of battle a raid in holy Splendor. Your young man will come to you like glue from the mornings Woon. The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind. You are a priest forever in the order of McAlester that the Lord is at your right hand. He will crush King is on the day of his wrath. He will judge the nation's heaping up the dead and crushing the rulers of the whole earth. He will drink from a brook along the way and so he will lift his head high. on Palm Sunday I wrote Psalm Sunday on Palm Sunday Jesus rides into Jerusalem to Proclamation that he is King But the irony and the Challenger of Palm Sunday. Is that just Days Later? He's crucified. Now that doesn't fit the way we normally think about narratives of Kings. We don't have stories of Heroes who ride into cities and everyone announces. He's here. He's a king and then a few days later. He's crucified. Especially when you add to the fact that Jesus went voluntarily to the cross.

So it really presents a dilemma. We're kind of used to celebrating Palm Sunday, but I think if we ponder it for a few moments we end up saying no, wait a minute. How do we understand this properly and I think someone 10 is a great chance to understand it some interesting facts about someone 10. It's the most quoted Old Testament passage in the New Testament. I'll let that sink in for a moment.

It is the most quoted Old Testament passage in the New Testament the New Testament writers quote Psalm 110 in the New Testament more than any other passage in the Old Testament. One of Peter's text in the first sermon the first Christian sermon in Acts chapter 2, he quotes from Psalm 110 and psalm 16, which by the way, we will talk about some 16 next Sunday on Easter Sunday because I figure if some sixteen was a good enough text repeater on the first Pentecost the first Easter Sunday, then we can do the same next Sunday. So we'll talk about psalm 16 next Sunday, but the two songs he quotes or someone 10 + 116 in his Acts 2 sermon and really someone 10 is a paradoxal Psalm. It's about the paradoxical Kinks that the king is a God and a man that he's powerful and vulnerable those paradoxes. It was highlighted. Look for example in verse 1 of Psalm 110. Lord says to my Lord sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. Now, when you think about this passage one of the best places to go was to look at New Testament authors and the best New Testament voice is the voice of Jesus and we find Jesus teaching and speaking in using Psalm 110 in his own preaching and conversations with leaders in Matthew 22 & Enmark 12 the context of that passage. Yes, he's been ambushed verbally, it's almost like a a press conference. That's really a set up with all these plants and they want to catch him in some way that will cause him to alienate his supporters because he's not fitting their expectation until the leader starting with all the commotion we pay taxes to should we give taxes to Caesar? What about marriage and heaven and they gave him all these tough question and he answers every question perfectly. And really kind of frustrated and refused them and then when he gets done answering all their question, he asked them a question based on Psalm 110, which in their ears in the understanding of the Jewish audience and leaders, especially that were confronting him Psalm 110 is a core, Messianic song. There was this long history in the Old Testament of prophecies about one day this Messiah who would come and he would redeem and deliver and restore God's people and so the leaders especially knew that song 10 was one of those core songs that was believed to be about the approaching Messiah. And so Jesus after they kind of try to get him with a gotcha question and he passes every question. They give him well he then ask them a question. He said if this is David son because that was the traditional interpretation among Jewish leaders that someone 110 one is talking about David son. Then why does the psalmist call him Lord?

To the Jewish assumption was that this Messiah was really this this this human purely human Champion that was going to come and do these great things for Israel. It was all about keeping the lineage in place. It's got to be David's son. We got to have the throne again in Jerusalem. They're very focused on this world on geography and and and those sorts of things and Jesus said if it's David Son as you assume as you say then then why would David call him Lord?

Why would he call his own son Lord and answer forces he wouldn't. David would never use that Divine term Lord for human. Let alone even his own son. And the question is also who would God speak to in this manner.

but he would say to this person your enemies will be a footstool and inverse to he talks about sharing this rain together this scepter that usually God's he said you will share it to so he really overturns the cart of their assumptions about the Messiah because the Messiah is more than their human leader their political Champion expectations can contain I kind of have this box about who's Messiah is what it should look like what he's going to do. They've already interpreted all the prophecies the way they want to interpret them in a nationalistic way and Jesus comes and turns that whole cart over because the Messiah is so much more than what they're thinking think about the things that Jesus said Jesus said things like I am the way and the truth and the life no one comes to the father except through me.

He said things like for those who were clearly centers and everyone's eyes your sins are forgiven.

He said to those who were crippled and couldn't walk. Rise up.

Take your mat. and walk you went in the worship services and lifted up a man with a withered hand and simply straightened it out.

Right there on the spot.

the magnitude of who Jesus is demands our all and even then the leaders were resisting that can't we put it in a box we wouldn't be this kind of Masai. We wanted to fit these parameters because then we can control we can announce and we can Proclaim. Here's the future. Here's what's going to happen. It's going to be this way or that way. It's going to be this people versus all people. We even still try to contain him today that I've got to be careful not get on a hobby horse here as a pastor. I subscribe to lots of emails and I listen to lots of books and lecturers and professors and reboots. Can I like all that kind of stuff and I see this consistent theme and Scholars outside of Christianity that look at the New Testaments. They're consistently trying to say Jesus was not Divine but that was something the early church invented and added to the New Testament that they added this interpretation to it and all these great Publications will will Elevate these Scholars a new book that shows how the early church made Jesus divine when he really wasn't still don't get the awards and accolades and it drives me nuts because there's no merit to their books any good scholar and on a second or scholar would say the methods are using the way they go back in the New Testament and ignore the oldest text in document signor. What's obvious itself? Waiting that they have an agenda just like the Jewish leaders. They don't want Jesus to be divine because then he has a claim on us and they take that agenda into their to their work and they think they distort it the same way the Jews distorted the Old Testament and Jesus had to come and teach at the Messiah was so much more than what they had in their mind. Because the magnitude of who Jesus is demands our although even today we're trying to find a way to put him in a box to keep him at arm's distance to not realize that everything that he said was the things that he said they were his worth some of the oldest manuscript. We have more authenticated than Shakespeare or any classic literature that's called him once if I don't think Shakespeare wrote that the Lord has made up by later Century. We we have so much more authentification for the New Testament cuz you're so many more copies the most ancient documents include Corinthians 15th and and Philippians 2 that are the core passages where it says Jesus resurrected verses that Jesus was God's but didn't hold on to that and grass mats, but instead took on the form of a servant and slave and was sacrificing died and Resurrected. There's no disputing the reality of who Jesus claimed to be. And what the New Testament teaches that he claimed to be and so just like the Jews we are confronted with that reality. this man Jesus came preaching and doing good. and healing and Performing miracles. rising from the dead

and announced himself as God Among Us. So tempting, but don't want that that claim on her own life to kind of make Jesus into something else CS Lewis said this about this this this temptation. We have the kind of put God in a box or keep him at a distance. He said an impersonal god well and good a subjective god of beauty and truth and goodness inside our own heads better still. A formless life or surging through us a vast power which we can tap. Best of all. You can see in those first three descriptions the way our modern culture wants to think of God. Look if I can just put God in a box if he can just be a resource for me that I can go to whenever I needed but the reality is I'm the captain of my own destiny. Destiny. I steer my own ship. I'm the real God of my own life. God is just there when I need him and don't miss steak. The reality that that happens inside the church just as much as it does outside the church that we want to put God in a box and just call on him in time of need or crisis, but we really don't want the magnitude of who he is. to come rushing into our minds and hearts because when we realize who he is it demands our all Lewis continue to seasons, of course those things are wonderful things but he says but God himself alive pulling at the other end of the cord perhaps approaching an infant Spieth the hunter The Kinks the hell that is quite another matter. Louis is always so good at kind of getting at the heart of our own human interaction with the divine.

So it's not only the fact that Jesus. Is this king who is yes in The Flash in human form, but also God In the Flesh and divine and Powerful Among Us that Paradox that he's both human and divine. He's both all-powerful and yet he has willingly self-limited himself by taking on the form of Flesh and being vulnerable in Christ. But this passage also reminds us the fact that the Divine human King is also a priest He says you are a priest forever in the order of the counter deck. Now that's an obscure reference to a Genesis passage before even the time of Israel and the priesthood where gentleman shows up and bless his Abraham and he's a priest he's making sacrifices to God and he's also a king and then later in Hebrew seventh the author refers to a sink out of all the orders of the priesthood. Jesus is like this one. Because he's both King and priest. Jesus is this Divine King? And he's this priest but in Israel Kings were not priests and Priests were not Kings Kings represent a God to the people showing strength and judgments and Priests represented the people that God showing compassion and forgiveness. And so again, Jesus comes and who he is does not fit the boxes that human minds and thinking have constructed that you're either a king or you're a priest but you're not both and Jesus comes and says, I am both Today in our human culture. We still have those two categories that naturally are needed. If you think about it, I'll policeman in today's world are kind of like the Kings they they represent Authority and and they come and they show strength and judgment and we need policeman to do that. We can't live in a world in which there's no police. There's no Authority we need those who will step in and say, you know, we also have a world in which we have social workers who who kind of represent the person that going and in full of compassion as I will you're in this to let me help you let me connect them. And so there's all this care and concern a draw from we think of those things as being opposed as if it's either one or the other because we think in those terms but Jesus comes and brakes that thinking and says he is both at the same time. He was equally King and priest think of his behavior and Matthew 23, you talk about Authority. He's speaking to the establishment the leaders. The day and that he says you guys are like a bunch of tombstones that's been washed over but in reality what's inside is Beth and rot. Those are pretty bold words. How far would that get us today? If? I went down to the powers-that-be the courthouse or the capital and just boldly announce. You guys are rotten to the core on the inside. A brave would I be? Jesus had that kind of boldness in John Chapter 2. He puts together a whip because he goes to the temple and he sees that instead of God's temple being a house of prayer for all nations, which is what the scriptures commanded instead. They're favoring only the Jews only the Hebrew people and they block the area for the non-jews with the little table set up to do exchanges. We always get this wrong when we get obsessed with the idea that they were changing. My swell will not sell Donuts in the 4-year and we think that we're fulfilling that passage what Jesus is upset about is the fact that they were just for themselves as Jews. They were like they were God's people this is our temples. This is our house will do things for us for our way when she was this area. We won't make it friendly for those who are outside of Judaism. That was a church ever guilty of that today.

Where everything is kind of design for us. I want to sing those songs that I don't know when they're not my favorite. I don't think I'm on my life. I'm going to cater to those who are outside the king.

Jesus comes into that setting makes a whip. Start turning over the tables and says the scripture say that my father's house is supposed to be a house of prayer for all nations All Nations. reybold in it We don't have enough Bowl preachers today. We're afraid to say those things cuz you say things and then somebody Whispers And then for you know, it gossip spreads and then maybe you should pack your family and just move, you know, we just it happens all the time in North America where there's these turnovers of ministry leadership and some of it is related to that idea that we don't want to hear the truth sometimes and John 8 may be the most radical thing. He does a woman is brought before him who's caught in adultery. There's no doubt about the reality of her sin and the adultery and he says to her your sins are forgiven. I mean that's a crime in the Jewish culture worthy of his instant death. But proclaiming that he is divine that he's God that he can announce your sins are forgiven and yet he does that. When they're tempted to be upset, he does something in this and we don't know what it is. Right and they all just look at their shoes stuff there for a little bit and walk away. There's this tremendous power and boldness and Authority that we see in the character in the life of Jesus that is unmatched in all of history.

No one dared to speak and talk and act as he did he is. the king The King Almighty Who has the authority to say and do everything he said and did at the same time you get passages like Luke 8 where a little girl is dead in her home in the professional mourners are there morning and it comes in he says get out. This is what we're here for the family paid us. We're here to mourn to make this as a mournful event. Get out. He goes over to the little girl and he tenderly says and it in there are maggots. It's the words a mother would say to a child when they're waking up in the morning. It's just time to get up, honey. psoriasis in Luke chapter 11 when it comes to join Mary and and Lazarus has already passed and Mary says they have of her brother Lazarus. If you had been here Jesus if you had been here, he would not have died. I could have prevented this. And while I've been tempted to several, let me give you a correction to rebuking me human. Instead. It's the verse that we all know from childhood, right Luke 11:35. He cries.

He weeps with her. He feels such compassion for her that he reacts to her pain to her weeping to her tears. Or in Matthew 26 when he says to his disciples look on I'm so overwhelmed by going to the cross that I've got to pray and I need you to come with me. You're my only friend to the world. I need you to come with me and I just want you to stay awake with me while I pray. Will you be with me while I pray we know this passage, right? And what do all the disciples do? Play fall asleep. And he says in the Old King James, you know, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

And when you look at the original language of that passage what he's really saying it's not condemnation. It's understanding. We might want it today by saying something like I know your intentions were good.

Even in the midst of that anguish, he has this tremendous understanding and patience with his disciples. He doesn't condemn them for falling asleep instead. He says I know you meant well.

There's this tremendous character in Christ. That is both the king who has Authority and the priest who shows compassion and forgiveness and love the one author said about Palm Sunday, Jesus identified himself as Lord, but one that will ride on an ass a creature not normally associated with what it means to be a king Victor's in battle do not ride into their capital cities on asses rather They Ride On fearsome horses, but this team does not and will not try them to Force of Arms.

On Sunday is one more announcement that I don't fit the Box you want to put me in? Cuz if you fit the purely human box of their expectations in the box that was purely power than he would have written in on a fierce Steed and announced himself as king. They've been one of John Wayne moment. When you think a tall man, they're all in so much trouble. I mean, this is the guy that they ridiculed they spit on him and called him names. They've arranged for his demise and here he arrives, beautiful horse with power for the snap of the fingers. There's an army behind him. Hey, boys, I'm here.

That's what we think would happen if he's a king. Why doesn't he write in with this Army and make everyone shake in their boots? Isn't that what a king does? And Jesus says I am so much more than what you can imagine so much more than what you have in your head. I won't Triumph through force that way so he rides in on a donkey. You people don't want to do what Jesus said. This is the weekend. This is the big. It's all going to happen. We have those moments where the disciples are confused. I mean, can I sit on your right hand and I mean wasn't it going to be? And then they take him away scripture says he's LED like a lamb to the slaughter doesn't open his mouth.

With the trust Jesus when he doesn't fit those expectations that we kind of have for him. It's really the same Paradox. We see in Exodus 34 when Jesus or when God passes before Moses with Moses says, I want to see all of your goodness. And God says look, if you saw me unfiltered you would simply dissolve in the moment. It's too much but I'll give you a glimpse of me. I'll I'll pass by and you can just get a little bit as much as you can possibly handle and when he passes by Moses, here's what it says in the scriptures and he passed in front of Moses proclaiming the Lord the Lord the compassionate and gracious God slow to anger abounding in love and faithfulness maintaining love to thousands and forgiving witness wickedness rebellion, and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished. He punishes the children and their children for the sins of their parents to the third and fourth generation. Let's be honest. Do you see the Paradox there? I mean don't we want to divide for 6 from verse 7 and just say it's just for 6. It's just the priest who says I'm loving and compassionate I'm here to announce forgiveness or maybe sometimes we just want the second verse. We just want to say to people. Hey, you better straighten up and fly right God is Holy and he's going to come one day and I hammer of judgment is going to drop and you're going to get yours. We always want to kind of pick one or the other and Jesus says no. both both they won't let us pigeonhole him into just one box. Listen God is the judge who issued the penalty because no good judge. Would Overlook Injustice. Right? Could you think of a judge is good? Who would have a trial come before him and someone is guilty of awful crimes? embezzlement or murder or rape and that judge would just say I'm good. I'm good. He took his shoes off me a little hippie Force for a moment. You know, I'm good. I'm just going to say no big deal. All Is Forgiven we would say not a good judge. A good judge deals with Injustice a good judge issues judgment and Advocates righteousness right over wrong. It's all God is the judge who issues the penalty no good judgment overlooking Justice and then he's also the judge after he pronounces that judgments has the holy powerful God that we long for him to be that he he steps down. Takes off his robe and says I will pay the price for Humanity's debt.

So that any who call upon him. Will be justified. redeemed twins forgiven made. Holy not do any Merit of our own but through his grace. The amazing offer to trust not in ourselves but to trust in him. both so that man's debt is paid and Justice is done. We said this last week John Stott British Christian scholar said the essence of sin is we human being substituting ourselves for God's while the essence of Salvation is God substituting himself for us. We put ourselves were only God deserves to be and God puts himself where we deserve to be.

not the invitation for us when we look at these passages as we approach Easter as we look at Jesus is to let the beauty of Christ transform Who We Are When we get out of the either or ditches of our thinking that either God is pure judgment and everybody better snaptube or or God is is all lovey-dovey Grace where there's no real judgment needed when we realize that judgment has to come for justice to exist and that God took that judgment himself in our place. The beauty of the goodness of God that refuses to let go of Justice. Is Exodus said look like I cannot simply forgive sin and let it go there has to be a reckoning. Justice requires it that's part of God's Beauty. He is both merciful and mighty as we will sing in a few moments. That's part of his Beauty. And equally is the beauty that shown when he says now a price has to be paid. I'm going to pay it. And that he sacrifices himself and the call of the Gospel is to understand who Jesus Christ is what the gospel message has to understand that he represents God both coming as king and as priest he represents judgment and forgiveness. He represents the Law and compassion. He represents God In the Flesh. Etowah the beauty of Christ of who he is to transform Steven the song kind of tips attached to this understanding this new understanding of what the key is in the inverse 3. The Simon says your troops will be willing on your day of battle a raid in holy slender. Your young men will come to you like do from the morning room. There's there's they're not forced into service. It's not this king who stamps his feet and says get up here and serve me because I am the king if you don't serve me there's going to be so much trouble. It's not that sort of King the song that says this willing group comes and serves him willingly serves him. Remember, he's the king who refuses to try and through Force. This is as opposed to what said and verses 5 through 7 and verses 5 through 7. The Samus was referring to the old delivers in the Old Testament that the reference to drink in for the water is a reference to to Samson and it's this this this old delivers where look the way they delivered was they little it says they piled up bodies. They filled the Earth with the dead bodies of their enemies.

And this sinus is announcing that the Messiah is a different kind of King. Not the king that you normally want to write about in the nomatic Old Testament days the king who Stomps his foot and everyone shakes in their boo two piles up fills the Earth with the bodies of his enemies. It's a different kind of King. So you get this amazing fact, I told you some 110 is quoted throughout the New Testament in a fusions one, but he speaks not with these piled up bodies of his enemies. He speaks of Christ filling up the Earth with his body. and you know what the New Testament teaches the body of Christ is you and I

it's those willing people who come to serve the king. He feels up the Earth the glory of the Lord filled the Earth in God's plan through Jesus Christ as Paul says and cautious. The hope of glory is Christ in you God's plan is for us to hear the gospel that our hearts turned by his kindness to devote ourselves to him to love him to worship him to be transformed by his Beauty sold at his glory fills the Earth through you and I The whole Earth is filled with the glory of God as people encounter our youth in Ireland. But they encounter if we people who are kind and compassionate who believe in right and wrong and stand up for justice, but also will compassionately serve and sacrifice for the sake of others so that the Earth is filled with these Kings and Priests because we follow Christ the King and the priest so that you and I would it would Minister to others like a priest simply serve them regardless of what they believe regardless of who they are. We would simply serve them with compassion and Grace and at the same time we be unafraid to have that boldness that Christ has to be the key who announces the kingdom and the truth and proclaims it and caused people to see the king for who he truly is at the fall at his feet and serve him willingly. that's his plan to fill the Earth with his body the body of Christ you and I

Is a great verse in Hebrews Twitter. The author says through Jesus therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise and here's the definition of the sacrifice. We offer to God the fruit of lips that openly profess his name. Amazing what God wants for us is another convert and another convert and another convert. What he wants from us is to offer to him lips that confess his name. Hey god, this is my neighbor. I've been trying to be kind and just understanding and caring with them at every point. I talked to them about who you are. And they want to follow you.

That's the sacrifice God wants for us. He wants us to have that boldness that Christ exemplifies that we would be willing to share the gospel with all who need it.

If you know Christ. as your lord and savior thank God wants you to share the goodness of who Christ is the good news itself with those who don't know him. Every chance you get every day if possible. We ought to be double or triple the attendance next Sunday.

We are all bring one person with us.

and if you're like

You can't get it done this week then shoot for Mother's Day. You are at you ought to have ongoing relationships in which you're hoping and Desiring to lead that person to Christ. You're hoping to show them the goodness of God As I said at the end of last week service because what we have to share is good news that through Christ Our Judgment Day has already occurred. He took judgment on the cross in the end. He calls us to be his ambassadors right says that they're going to lead others to be reconciled to God. We have the Glorious privilege what he wants us to bring to him his lips that will freely and openly willingly confess his name. That's the king that announces the king of and do not forget to do good and to share with others for with such sacrifices. God is also pleased So not only are we to Proclaim. I'm not letting us off the hook your okay, so I've said it pretty clearly right if we follow Jesus. We have an obligation to verbally witness to others to tell them about Christ and his goodness about the gospel about how they can be saved to invite them to church to worship him to hear messages. And at the same time. We also have this obligation simply to do good and share and serve whether that person knows the Lord or not and whether they're going to respond to us or not. It's simply being like Christ. right being like God the Father who makes the rain fall down on the good Fenty no matter what because it's an expression of God's character. It's not a reaction to that person either being open or closed it simply us living out the character of God. And so we're call to be these people who do good and care for all people everyone regardless of what they believe when they like us or don't like us what they like and don't like Christianity. We are called to be servants even to the point like our savior that we would suffer abuse Peter talks about that for the Christians that we would still none the less serve the way Christ did and we're also called to be bold and Proclaim to profess who he is to invite others to know him. I'm going to buy the worship team to come forward.

And as we sing our invitation if you've got a decision to make, I'll be in the back you don't you come up front and be on display. You can come to the back and talk with me. Pray with me. I can answer any questions you have. I'd love to talk to you about anything on your mind. Your heart will also have folks both in the back and the front for prayer if you simply want to be prayed for we have a special prayer request, but during this song as we sing. My request for everybody is is open your eyes to the beauty of God. worship him in this song Realize As we sing about his Holiness. His Holiness is both this presence of Might and mercy both its true goodness. That will not simply overlooked evil. But the same goodness that will step in and say I will suffer the price so that you and I don't have to it's true goodness and righteousness through the life death and resurrection of Christ offered to us. And so now you know why it makes sense that we would worship. That we would worship God that we would worship Christ.

So during the song don't worry about anybody else around you. Don't worry about how you sound don't worry about any of those sorts of things. Just praise God. Play Stand.