Arrival

John 12:12-16 Find your way

This week we are wrapping up our series we’ve entitled the kingdom. We’ve talked about entering the kingdom, leaving the past behind and taking on new identity in Christ. We’ve learned that citizenship in the kingdom means what we seek has a new direction, and that living righteous lives and spreading the gospel are staples to living in HIs kingdom. And last week we acknowledged that any kingdom is bound to have enemies. And everything from powerful forces of evil to our own evil desires can oppose the kingdom. As we near Easter and celebrate Palm Sunday, our key word as it relates to the kingdom is the word arrival… very fitting for the Biblical story that we associate with palm Sunday. As we will discuss this morning, Palm Sunday served as symbolic inauguration of the King Jesus as He arrived in Jerusalem, on a day that we now remember as the triumphal entry.

We pray… Our father who is in heaven, hallowed by your name. Your kingdom come…

In various services and occasions here at Cap City we have slowed down the Lord’s prayer to talk about what we are really saying. We’ve articulated particular aspects of the prayer to drill down on the surface statement that we may have just prayed in order to unpack a deeper meaning.

YOUR KINGDOM COME…is a big one to unpack. We are inviting the rule and reign of God to take its rightful place, and if you remember the remainder of the prayer we are saying we want things to be here on earth like they are in heaven. Put a pin in that and let’s look at our text in John chapter 12 today.

John 12:12–16 “The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, “Hosanna!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Blessed is the king of Israel!” Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, as it is written: “Do not be afraid, Daughter Zion; see, your king is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt.” At first his disciples did not understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that these things had been done to him.”

The last couple of weeks we’ve said that if a verse uses a word or phrase that indicates that we should look backwards to understand the context, then we should do just that. Because our text today starts out with the phrase, “the next day” we should probably be aware of what happened yesterday right?

From the first 11 verses of this same chapter, here’s what we know about the day before:

The day before was 6 days before the passover so Jesus is riding in on a donkey 5 days before passover

Jesus is eating in Bethany at Lazarus’ house whom He raised from the dead… maybe in His flesh he found some comfort in the reminder that resurrection is a reality

Lazarus’ sister dumps about $50,000 worth of perfume on Jesus

Judas gets mad because he would have sold it to give it to the poor… after he took his cut of course. This was probably the last straw for him, and why he went after that 30 pieces of silver.

So… Somebody at the table snapped a picture with Jesus and Lazarus and a crowd showed up.

The chief priests didn’t like this so in addition to Jesus they added Lazarus to their hit list. Not sure what it feels like to have a death threat out against you when you have already been resurrected from the dead. But nevertheless…that catches us up. Let’s start with what it means to say that the King has arrived…If we want to see His kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven, the first step in kingdom arrival is to…

Recognize the King -

Now the entire message is not going to be focused on the aforementioned “on earth as it is in heaven phrase” but it’s super relevant to this point.

I’m not sure we are going to meet each other for beers in heaven, but one thing I can be for sure of is that because we recognize Him as king then, we should recognize Him as king now.

Look at 1 John chapter 3

1 John 3:1–3 “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.”

We shall see Him AS HE IS. Before we can see him in a physical sense one day we must acknowledge Him now in a spiritual sense for who He is and the position that He is supposed to have in our lives.

Back to our primary text for a minute… in 3 of the 4 gospel accounts we see the word Hosanna used. The word hosanna means save us now. This was a cry for help. More on that in a few minutes. In all 3 of the occasions where the word hosanna, or save us now, or a cry for help was used, it was preceded by the usage of palm branches. The use of palm branches in this time and place in history, symbolized victory, triumph, and peace. They were used to welcome royalty or conquering heroes. On Palm Sunday, they represent the crowds welcoming Jesus into Jerusalem as a king, while also symbolizing his victory over sin and death, fulfilling biblical prophecy. The house of Lazarus was rich. So Mary felt compelled to dump 50g on Jesus. BUT NOW Jesus comes to the poor and oppressed, while they don’t have the finances to praise Him, they want to make sure that He knows they recognize Him as king.

So the first parallel that I want us to see between the arrival of Jesus to Jerusalem, and the arrival of His Kingdom in our hearts and lives is that for “your kingdom come” to work, we have to recognize Him as king.

What does that look like?

It means we acknowledge that He is control - that means we are not.

It means acknowledging that we will value what He values - rather than pursuing the things of the flesh.

It means that we will wage war not with hate, anger, vengeance, and bitterness - rather we will overcome our enemies with love, peace, forgiveness, and humility.

It means understanding that He has power that we do not, so we must patiently wait for Him to execute justice.

It means knowing that in our best attempt to save ourselves we still find ourselves in bondage to the kingdoms of this world and we need Him to save us.

That leads us to our second parallel this morning…

Receive Your Salvation -

A relationship with Jesus always start with acknowledging who He is. It moves forward as we acknowledge our need to be saved. It’s very difficult to save a person that doesn’t acknowledge their need to be saved. In fact it’s more difficult, right?

Throughout history we could argue about why God allowed evil or difficult times to fall on His people, but because we are creatures of freewill, it could be argued that God was waiting until He knew that was truly their desire.

Hosanna! Save us now! The people were publically acknowledging their need to be saved. Perhaps from the enemies, or like we talked last week, perhaps simply themselves. Either way they had positioned themselves to receive their salvation.

While these might seem like basic principles to consider this morning, especially for the long time Christian, how often do we feel like we are crying out for help, but our cry is not being heard? I think this has much to do with that which Jesus quoted from the prophet Isaiah where He spoke of the way we live lives that confess Jesus as king but our hearts are far from Him.

To truly receive the saving work of Jesus, not just in salvation, but in all of the situations of our lives, it means that we daily and consistently acknowledge the reality of God’s position above us and OURS… below Him. This is where the King David positioned himself in Psalm chapter 8 when he said that he couldn’t believe that God saw fit to think about us as low as we are, and this is where I believe we have the most to learn from Jesus’ entry into the city. Though He had the right to wear a crown, though he had right to demand our submission, he models humility by entering the city riding on a donkey.

There a few things we can learn from Jesus’ choice to enter the city in such a way. So much about this choice exemplifies the character of Christ that we are to reflect.

Reflect His Character -

Jesus rode in on a donkey because it fulfilled the prophecy of Zechariah that said our king would come riding on a donkey. So if for no other reason Jesus did it to fulfill prophecy. Throughout Jesus’ earthly ministry He did things that fulfilled prophecy, in other words the plans and the desires of the Father. The Father said it needed to be done so Jesus did it. The first way that we reflect His character is through submission to authority. Which I’ll remind you this morning doesn’t mean that you only answer to God. Submission is a spirit that you do or do not carry which can be measured when you are told no, when someone disagrees with you, or someone asks or tells you to do something when you would do it differently. Jesus modeled a submissive spirit.

Jesus’ donkey ride exemplified humility. You ever do a good deed, and kind of wait around for someone to notice? In our current time in history where pictures and images rule the day, many of us find ways to post pictures of ourselves or our spouses doing something to be “proud of”… don’t act like we don’t know you are in cahoots. Some of us don’t even try to hide it, we make sure anything we do that could get affirmation gets posted, especially if it’s something we did for God.

I know you took your neighbor a meal one time, and need to get 50 likes on it, but Jesus was about to give His life for all of mankind. He could have called for a chariot, or a stallion of sorts, but even in the midst of one of the greatest moments in history, when He had every right to to embrace His royalty, He said guys go grab a donkey. Christian rapper Lecrae said well that if you live for people’s acceptance, you will die from their rejection. Jesus literally experienced the reality of this statement within the timeframe of one week. The praise of people is fleeting and empty. Jesus allowed others to praise Him, but never sought it out, and we should do the same.

A donkey meant peace and not war. We see multiple times in the gospels where someone tried to pick a fight with Jesus and he ignored the question, or changed the subject. Be careful if you are known as someone that likes a good argument. There’s enough war, there’s enough arguing, there’s enough debate. When the world looks at us, they need to see a picture of peace in the midst of utter chaos.

INVITE COLTON

Jesus modeled these things for us that first Palm Sunday and we should model them for others.

Today as we look towards the Easter weekend, recognize Jesus as your king. If you are still holding onto control rather that turning things over to Him it will be difficult to receive all that He has for you.

Embrace a spirit of submission

Model humility… by definition humility that doesn’t need affirmed

Proclaim peace

and ultimately then we can join Him in victory

Earlier we read a few verses from 1 John chapter 3 and I want to circle back to 1 John 3:2 “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” Earlier we emphasized that we shall see Him as He is, but now we bring emphasis to the phrase we shall be like Him. Let’s not wait for that day but let’s begin to show the world a picture of Christ today.

STAND

The altars are always open here at cap city, but if you don’t feel called to come and pray today, could we let this song be a prayer that we lift to Him in a week that is easier to share our faith and invite people to church than any other week of the year.

Above and below me Before and behind me In every eye that sees me Christ be all around me

POST RESPONSE

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