Untitled Sermon

“Good morning, my name is Mark Dell, Senior Pastor here at Legacy Bible Church. I would like to welcome all of you here today. And I would also like to welcome those who are listening online too as we know people listen online if they can’t make it or if they haven’t made it yet. We look forward to meeting you soon.

INTRODUCTION (10 minutes)

Jab 1 Have you ever been disappointed? Have you ever been so excited about something just to be let down? Or there was so much hype surrounding an thing or an event that never really panned out?

Remember y2k? When the 1990’s were getting ready to turn the century into the 2000’s there was this huge scare that caused a panic world-wide. What happened was this: Many computer programs used a 2 digit year instead of a 4 digit year. So when the year turned 00 nobody knew what was going to happen.

Banks were scared, financial institutions were scared. People had to go to the atm to get cash before New Years because we thought that anything that dealt with a computer might crash.

How many people bought lots of bottled water? Because the water treatment plants weren’t sure what was going to happen. People fueled up their cars. How many people bought a back up generator?

But in the end, the ball dropped and life moved into the 2000’s with no issues. Although we are glad nothing bad happened we are still a little disappointed when nothing really happened.

Jab 2 Some of you might remember the TV special where Geraldo Rivera was supposed to open up the vault that was supposed to be Al Capones hideout. They had a two hour special that was supposed to have a big reveal which was supposedly the place where Al Capone was buried.

INTRODUCTION (10 minutes)

They hyped this special and on live tv opened up the vault to find nothing.

A big big disappointment on live TV. People walk away shaking their heads. They feel ripped off, they feel like they have been duped.

Have you ever felt duped like that?

Jab 3 I remember buying a VCR at the goodwill only to find out that there was something really wrong with it, it didn’t work, It was disappointing.

Jab 1 Have you ever been disappointed? Have you ever been so excited about something just to be let down? Or there was so much hype surrounding an thing or an event that never really panned out?

How about the blizzard that was supposed to happen? Remember when we were supposed to get a foot of snow but it turned out we got nothing? Really disappointing.

Remember y2k? When the 1990’s were getting ready to turn the century into the 2000’s there was this huge scare that caused a panic world-wide. What happened was this: Many computer programs used a 2 digit year instead of a 4 digit year. So when the year turned 00 nobody knew what was going to happen.

Banks were scared, financial institutions were scared. People had to go to the atm to get cash before New Years because we thought that anything that dealt with a computer might crash.

How many people bought lots of bottled water? Because the water treatment plants weren’t sure what was going to happen. People fueled up their cars. How many people bought a back up generator?

But in the end, the ball dropped and life moved into the 2000’s with no issues. Although we are glad nothing bad happened we are still a little disappointed when nothing really happened.

Jab 2 Some of you might remember the TV special where Geraldo Rivera was supposed to open up the vault that was supposed to be Al Capones hideout. They had a two hour special that was supposed to have a big reveal which was supposedly the place where Al Capone was buried.

They hyped this special and on live tv opened up the vault to find nothing.

A big big disappointment on live TV. People walk away shaking their heads. They feel ripped off, they feel like they have been duped.

Have you ever felt duped like that?

Jab 3 I remember buying a VCR at the goodwill only to find out that there was something really wrong with it, it didn’t work, It was disappointing.

How about the blizzard that was supposed to happen? Remember when we were supposed to get a foot of snow but it turned out we got nothing? Really disappointing.

Have you ever been really excited about a Restaurant and then you go and then you are underwhelmed?

How about the blizzard that was supposed to happen? Remember when we were supposed to get a foot of snow but it turned out we got nothing? Really disappointing.

The Quiet Before the Storm

s.

Have you ever been really excited about a Restaurant and then you go and then you are underwhelmed?

Or what about that Movie you have been waiting for that fails to please? (Star Wars the Phantom Menace anyone?)

Or what about that Movie you have been waiting for that fails to please? (Star Wars the Phantom Menace anyone?)

Or even that you are really hopeful for a Political Candidate who doesn’t really do anything once they are elected?

Right Hook Think of all these things we built up to be great only to disappoint us

We deal with these high expectations only to find ourselves upset and angry that our expectations don’t pan out.

UMBC The upset

Have you ever had that happen before?

That’s how these guys felt about Jesus

Today we celebrate Palm Sunday. The day that Jesus comes triumphantly into Jerusalem to start the Passover week. And when He came in He came in with all sorts of high expectations attached to Him. That’s how the crowds felt about Jesus. But a few days later they would be disappointed.

Less that a week later and they would be shouting crucify him! Their disappointment would turn them against Jesus.

Or even that you are really hopeful for a Political Candidate who doesn’t really do anything once they are elected?

Jab 2 Jab 3 Right Hook

Right Hook Think of all these things we built up to be great only to disappoint us

Do we find ourselves in that same boat? When we don’t get what we want from Jesus we can very easily abandon Him to do our own thing. That is the same rejection that they gave Him.

We deal with these high expectations only to find ourselves upset and angry that our expectations don’t pan out.

Luke 19

Have you ever had that happen before?

Attacks the temple traders and against the religious leaders forces them to pick a side. We have to do the same

Today we celebrate Palm Sunday. The day that Jesus comes triumphantly into Jerusalem to start the Passover week. And when He came in He came in with all sorts of high expectations attached to Him. That’s how the crowds felt about Jesus. But a few days later they would be disappointed.

Less that a week later and they would be shouting crucify him! Their disappointment would turn them against Jesus.

Do we find ourselves in that same boat? When we don’t get what we want from Jesus we can very easily abandon Him to do our own thing. That is the same rejection that they gave Him.

EXPLANATION (10 minutes)

Jesus is on a mission, He is on a mission to Jerusalem. It isn’t as if He hadn’t been there before but Jesus needed to get to Jerusalem to accomplish what He set out to do from the very beginning. You see it was no mistake that He ended up in Jerusalem, He willingly determined to be there. He was on a journey to get there.

And it is interesting because Jesus, throughout the 3 years that He ministered on earth generally speaking, kept a low profile. There were instances when He would shine, like the feeding of the 5000 and times like that but Jesus would usually shy away from a huge public outpouring.

But this trip to Jerusalem would be a special one.

The story is in all 4 gospels

Luke 19:35–40 ESV

And they brought it to Jesus, and throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. And as he rode along, they spread their cloaks on the road. As he was drawing near—already on the way down the Mount of Olives—the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

Luke 19:

So here comes Jesus. He is headed into Jerusalem for the Passover. Remember that the Passover was the most important of holidays for the Jewish people. The passover was a yearly holiday to celebrate the Jews freedom from slavery by the Egyptians. They were enslaved for 400 years and Moses led them out after God sent 10 plagues on them.

Remember that the last plague was that the firstborn of every family would be killed by the angel of death if the family didn’t have the lambs blood on the door posts. True Story.

And so every year after that, Passover would be celebrated by sacrificing a lamb and sharing that special meal together which would remind them of God’s power and will to get them out of Egypt.

So Jesus is riding on this donkey, a symbol of his kingship. Jesus at this point is now accepting the title of King from the masses. And there were masses.

Every Jew is in the area because of the passover. Pilgrims everywhere. If you were in the area you had to come. Not everyone there lived there, and not every person there was a Jew by birth some were Jewish because they followed God. Ao there were many out of towners.

Just to tell you how many. A Census 30 years after said that there were 250,000 lambs slain for passover with a minimum of 10 people per lamb means that there were at least 2.5 million Jews in town for the passover.

Jesus knew what he was doing when he would come in as a “King”. This whole thing was planned out. We could accurately say that this was the best marketing plan that has ever been. Jesus knew of the crowds because of the Passover and he made sure that when he accepted the kingship of the people that he would do so with the most people around.

And the people were in a frenzy. They were doing what people in that day would normally do when they would inaugurate a new king. They lay down their coats, they cut branches off of trees for the new king to come into town. They shout cries of Hosanna and Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord. That is why churches would hand out palm branches on Palm Sunday, to give a visual as to how they did it when they celebrated Jesus.

Jesus began this parade at least a mile away from Jerusalem. He had a crowd following him already by this point because He had just raised Lazarus from the dead. Kind of a big deal. The people knew what was going on and they followed him all the way into Jerusalem. And as he got closer the crowds grew larger. They screamed, they shouted, they raised their hands because their Savior had come!

This scared the Jewish priests and scribes and Pharisees and Sadducees to death. They were really scared of Jesus. They couldn’t stand him and here he comes riding on a donkey. Which by the way is what a king would do when they were announcing their reign. They get so mad that they tell Jesus to tell the others to be quiet. To stop their screaming and Jesus says. NO! If they don’t cry out the rocks will.

They were so excited because they had the king they had the messiah. Life was going to be great.

Until a few days later when everything calmed down. He didn’t take over. He didn’t overturn the Roman occupation. It seemed like things kind of went on as usual. Yeah he preached some and yes he healed some but not a lot happened.

Except that the true King would disappoint wouldn’t he? Jesus didn’t measure up to the expectations placed on him by the crowds or the religious leaders.

And when Jesus didn’t measure up to their expectations, that was it. They were done with Him. Their disappointment in Him would have him arrested and tried in an illegal court.

That is what the Jews did to him. It didn’t look right, even from the Romans point of view. It just didn’t look right.

Matthew 27:15–18 ESV

Now at the feast the governor was accustomed to release for the crowd any one prisoner whom they wanted. And they had then a notorious prisoner called Barabbas. So when they had gathered, Pilate said to them, “Whom do you want me to release for you: Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?” For he knew that it was out of envy that they had delivered him up.

Matthew 27:15-

Matthew 27:20–23 ESV

Now the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus. The governor again said to them, “Which of the two do you want me to release for you?” And they said, “Barabbas.” Pilate said to them, “Then what shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?” They all said, “Let him be crucified!” And he said, “Why? What evil has he done?” But they shouted all the more, “Let him be crucified!”

When Jesus didn’t measure up to their desires they settled for Barabbas.

This is scary to me because this is what we do. “Well, if God doesn’t give me what I want I am going to go after it anyway.” Are you settling for a Barabbas in your life? Are you not receiving God’s best because you are scared that it won’t be good enough?

Don’t settle for a Barabbas when you get disappointed.

Are you settling for a Barabbas when you could have had Jesus?

Do you trust that Jesus is better for you than_________ what you are tempted to do or say or act? Even when it doesn’t seem like anything is happening?

And I remember being a teen ager, a young adult and it was so hard during those years because you are entering into adulthood and you have all these choices that are in front of you.

Your friends are starting to party and to drink and here you are trying to do what’s right but you also feel this immense pressure to fit in.

And I have to tell you that I think it is worse now than it was when I experienced these things.

Especially when our culture is embracing all these liberal things. The Bible is still truth even when our culture says differently.

What are you turning to when Jesus disappoints you?

And that may sound funny but when i say that Jesus disappoints it means that He is doing His perfect will, he is doing what is right, but our feelings dont always line up with His perfect will.

Look anytime we lose faith that Jesus is in charge of this or that and we act on our own wisdom, we are settling for a Barabbas. This is what the crowd did. This is how they handled their disappointment in Jesus. They settled for less, they settled for Barabbas.

But surely Jesus’ disciples wouldn’t do that. These guys were solid. After all, they spent 3 years with them, they knew what was going on . And besides, Jesus told them at least 3 times in the Scripture that He would die, that He would be handed over and that 3 days later he would come alive again.

They wouldn’t settle would they?

After Jesus was arrested they all fled. They all ran away. Peter followed at a distance and was able to get close to where they were holding Jesus but would deny him three times, he would not even admit to knowing Jesus! Just earlier that day Peter said he would go to prison and even die with Jesus.

Jesus would be brutally beaten. He would be whipped with leather straps that had bone and rocks and metal woven into them. He would be beaten so badly that the scriptures say that he wasn’t even recognizable as a man.

Then Jesus would be nailed to a wooden cross. They would drive stakes into his hands/wrists and into his feet where he would basically not be able to breathe. The only way for a man to breathe while nailed to a cross would be to stand up on that nail, take a breath and then let themselves down. Over and over until exhaustion and pain took over and finally they would asphyxiate.

Jesus would die on the cross and where were those disciples who had spent so much time with him? What would the disappointment look like for them as they saw Jesus taken down from the cross?

Now they are outlaws, now everything they put their hope in was being lowered from a cross and the body was being prepared for the grave.

What did they do?

What would we do? When Jesus disappoints us we are tempted to go back to our old life, back to the familiar. This is what the disciples do.

John 21:3 ESV

Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We will go with you.” They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

Look. if we go on in the Scriptures. We see that Peter and the crew went back to work, they went back fishing even though they had quit that occupation. They went back to the familiar, they went back to that old life. They saw Jesus’ crucifixion as a failure but the reality of it is that it was a total victory.

Look. if we go on in the Scriptures. We see that Peter and the crew went back to work, they went back fishing even though they had quit that occupation. They went back to the familiar, they went back to that old life. They saw Jesus’ crucifixion as a failure but the reality of it is that it was a total victory.

But notice this. When they went back to their old life they were expecting the same results they had before they knew Jesus.

Now, when they go back to their old success they aren’t successful. It took Jesus to remind them of who they were in him for them to succeed.

APPLICATION (10 minutes)

What may look like a failure to us could really be a victory for Jesus.

When we look at the cross it looks like a terrible failure. When we look at the cross it symbolizes death, it symbolizes the end. It could very well look like it is the end of the story.

For those crowds, for even those disciples the cross looked like a tragic end to an otherwise great story.

What do we do with that body that was taken down from the cross? What do we do with the savior of the world dying a cruel death? What do we do with that?

We quit our jobs. We sided with Jesus and now he is dead.

He was dead you know. After being hung on the cross he was stabbed with a spear in His side where we are told that blood and water flowed which means that he was dead. Physically. He wasn’t passed out, there was no conspiracy, Jesus physically died on that cross and those who followed him were greatly disappointed.

Because Sunday hasn’t happened yet. There would be 3 days. Even though Jesus said that there would be 3 days the disciples weren’t looking at it that way. They weren’t counting the days. They didn’t show up at the tomb on the third day did they?

No, they went back to their old lives. I guess that’s over. Let’s go back to what we know.

And this is where we are left today. What do we do when things look bleak? What do we do when it seems like Christ has disappointed us? What does it look like when the King doesn’t seem to be on the throne?

You cannot give up on Christ.

Because Sunday hasn’t happened yet. Jesus did his best to prepare the disciples about what was coming. You see it all throughout His teachings.

John 16:33 ESV

I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

Even when our problems seem so huge we must remember that Jesus is still on the throne. Even when your circumstances are terrible and it seems so dark and it seems like there is no hope and it seems like there is no way out Jesus is still on the throne. Sunday hasn’t happened yet.

But we have such a hard time believing because we can’t see past our feelings most of the time. We can’t get over how it feels and we can’t get over our disappointment and we can’t get over the fact that we are out of control.

But Jesus said that this kind of stuff was going to happen. He said that he would die and not only that, but that he would be raised again.

He is telling them that He can be trusted. Jesus can be trusted

Luke 9:22 ESV

saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”

Luke

Luke 18:31–33 ESV

And taking the twelve, he said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise.”

Luke 18:31 ESV

And taking the twelve, he said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished.

Restaurant

Movie

Political Candidate

Mitt Romney.. Hillary Clinton

Luke 9:44 ESV

“Let these words sink into your ears: The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men.”

UMBC The upset

That’s how these guys felt about Jesus

Jesus was not the underdog

Jesus was telling them that this was going to happen.

Movies that were supposed to be really good

Can’t we learn something from this? I want there to be a little tension today because Easter hasn’t happened yet. We are still in the season where Jesus will be tried, killed, embalmed and laid in a tomb.

Does your faith reflect the Jesus in the tomb or the Jesus that promised to come back to life? Is your faith stuck in the grave? Or is it waiting with anticipation for that moment when he comes back out again? Where are you this morning?

What challenges are you facing today? What prayers haven’t been answered yet? What area of your life is showing up as disappointed?

Understand this… Sunday is coming! Sunday is coming and the author of life and the author of our lives will rise again.

What are you struggling with today where you think that Jesus can’t do anything about it because He is just in a tomb? What’s going on?

Because you can trust Him with anything that you face.

It’s not too late, its not too far gone. Jesus can reach into that area of your life and bring healing and to bring wholeness.

But you have to make a conscious choice to surrender it to Him. If you have never surrendered your own heart to him then you can do that now. You can invite Him into your heart but telling him, Yes, Jesus I believe you to be the one and only SOn of God and I ask for forgiveness of my sin. I don’t want to life like that anymore Lord and now I surrender my life to you.

If there is an area in your life where you have never given it over to Him you can do that now too.

God, I have this addiction and I cannot shake it on my own. Lord I am addicted to Pornography, I am addicted to alcohol, I am addicted to risky behavior, I am addicted to sex. Please Lord, deliver me from this.

He will do it, He will deliver you from whatever has a hold of you.

If you have been disappointed in Him you can trust in Him to make you whole.