He Held Steady For You
Rev. Delwyn and Sis. Lenita Campbell
God's Mission • Sermon • Submitted
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· 19 viewsJesus' entrance into Jerusalem was not to fulfill the will of the people, but to fulfill the will of God. His goal was much higher than theirs, and HIs enemy much more encompassing.
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Illustrations for Biblical Preaching Christ, Lordship of
The story has been told of a farmer who was trying to teach his son how to plow a straight furrow. After the horse had been hitched up and everything was ready, he told the boy to keep an eye on some object at the other end of the field and aim straight toward it. “Do you see that cow lying down over there?” he asked. “Keep your eye on her and plow straight ahead.”
The boy started plowing and the farmer went about his chores. When he returned a little later to see what progress had been made, he was shocked to find, instead of a straight row, something that looked more like a question mark. The boy had obeyed his instruction. The trouble was, the cow had moved!
Jesus is an object that will not move. He is the foundation of our faith, the faithful Rock who never moves, never changes in his love for believers. We can be sure that if we set our eyes on him, our path will be straight!
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Blessed Lord, You have caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning. Grant that we may so hear them, read, mark, learn, and take them to heart that, by the patience and comfort of Your holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life. … through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Today marks the beginning of the series of events that lead to Christ’s being “lifted up”. Yet, the image that comes to our minds with those words is generally the opposite of that which Jesus declares in this Gospel. There is a song, which literally quotes the Lord, and by which the singers are referring to praising the Lord: (ESV)
32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”
The problem with this picture is that the Scripture explains what Jesus actually meant: (ESV)
33 He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die.
The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!” And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written, “Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt!” His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him. The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness. The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard he had done this sign. So the Pharisees said to one another, “You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him.”
Speaking of songs, there is a song that I remember from my youth, the lyrics of which are:
I been in the right place but it must have been the wrong time
I'd have said the right thing but I must have used the wrong line
I been in the right trip but I must have used the wrong car
My head was in a bad place and I'm wondering what it's good for
I been in the right place but it must have been the wrong time
My head was in a bad place but I'm having such a good time.
They were celebrating, saying the words that belonged to the Messiah at His enthronement:
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.
So here they are, the crowd that followed Jesus from Bethany, the crowd coming to met Him from Jerusalem, the disciples, Jesus. Jesus the Rabbi - Jesus the Healer - Jesus the Food Supplier - Jesus the Conqueror of Death. Jesus, the Son of David...
How did you feel as we walked into the Sanctuary this morning, as we sang that hymn and shouted out the words to ? Did it feel like a celebration to you? Like you were celebrating the coming of King Jesus?
I bet it felt that way to the crowds too, especially as word spread about Jesus’ raising of Lazarus from being dead four days. If you felt some excitement, and we have nothing coming today but coffee and pastry after service, how did they feel as they looked at Roman soldiers watching them for a sign of trouble? How did they feel as they thought about the Idumean Usurper to David’s throne, Herod the adulterous son of a murderous father? How did they feel as they thought about the meaning of Passover, hearkening back to the first deliverance from bondage, or the more recent deliverance two centuries before under the Maccabees, all of which were just foretastes of the deliverance that they knew would come when the Messiah the Son of David came?
They were in pain, the people who joined Jesus on the road to Jerusalem. They needed relief, those people who thronged about the colt-riding King. They needed a Savior, those people who began, for the first time, to say the words that the angels longed to hear from the Children of Israel, the seed of Abraham:
Hossanna - Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!
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They said everything right, but they wanted everything wrong. So eager were they that they didn’t notice that Jesus was riding a donkey’s colt, rather than a war-horse. They didn’t consider that Jesus had said nothing about an uprising, nothing about removing either Pilate or Herod.
The disciples were confused - and with good reason. Jesus had told them the entire journey to Jerusalem, ever since Caesarea Philippi, what He expected to take place in Jerusalem, and it wasn’t a coronation, it was a crucifixion. Yet, there was Jesus, surrounded by throngs of shouting, praising people, and He seemed to have no problems with their words. He didn’t rebuke anyone, didn’t correct them with grim words about rejection and crucifixion… They didn’t know WHAT to think anymore; had Jesus changed His mind about all that stuff? Was He going to go ahead and use His power to fix everything after all? That’s what everyone wanted, after all...
That’s what we want, too.
We want a Jesus who will stop cops from killing unarmed black people. We want a Jesus who will take the burdensome, distant government policies that grind us and our futures away. We want a Jesus who will make us “the head and not the tail, the lender and not the borrower.” We want our “best life now,” “purpose-driven,” “positioned to prosper.” We want to be the cool crowd, the movers and shakers, the place where everybody who’s anybody just has to be, and we just know that Jesus wants that for His church, and isn’t that who we are?
I’ll be frank, I don’t know that God wants us to be so small that we have less influence than Westboro Baptist, I don’t think that He thinks that small is beautiful, and He is saving the best for last, anymore than I know that He wants the Lutherans to rule the Region.
I know that He wants us to be faithful to His Word, faithful to the Gospel, faithful to the ministry that He has committed to us. No one has the right to expect to rule over much if he hasn’t been faithful over a little. No one who has hidden the Lord’s treasure in a hole in the ground has a right to expect a promotion. No one has the right to expect that he will
“ ...be carried to the skies
On flowery beds of ease,
While others fought to win the prize
And sailed through bloody seas?”
In our sinful flesh, that’s the Jesus we look for, whether we are church members in good standing, or rebels who fled as soon as we could get out from under mama or grandma’s demand that “everybody in this house goes to church on Sunday!” Those who ridicule the Gary churches for their lack of influence are no different from those who try to win friends and influence people through bribes and giveaways, or scare them with visions of a God who is lying in wait to pounce upon them for failing to keep the “Man of God” living large on the outside of the city while parachuting in with “nuggets of wisdom from the mountaintop” on Sunday morning.
Jesus allowed them to have their moment, have their “hosanna,” because He knew, it wouldn’t change a thing. God’s will wasn’t going to change because of their “positive confession.” Instead, God’s will, His “good, acceptable, and perfect will,” would be fulfilled rather than short-circuited, just as it is with you today. You might get by, but you won’t get away. The wages of sin have not changed - it is still death!
The good news, my friends, is this: Jesus was coming into Jerusalem, not to dethrone Herod or Pilate, but to dethrone an even more potent, more dangerous foe - death itself! He was coming to look death and the grave dead in their eyes, and they were going to blink! If Hell felt something when Jesus called “Lazarus come forth,” It had seen nothing yet! Lazarus was just a sample; the main event was just a few days away, and Jesus had already declared the result - Victory in Three!
We know better, but we don’t. We know that Jesus rose, but we still think that His victory was supposed to pay for something on this fading, corrupt place that will pass away, to be replaced with a New Heavens and a New Earth.
knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.”
They know what they were taught on Grandma’s knee, but they try to play you when you want to remind them of their baptism.
For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.
So I don’t care what your friends say or do, or what you daddy says or does, or even if it is your mama. I’m going to remind you about what Jesus said:
The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.
He’s coming back for you just as surely as He went to the cross for you. He knows what He said about His promises, just as surely as He knows about the gifts He gave to you, to His bride the Church.
But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
Where will you be found then? Wherever you are found today, if you do not repent, but instead, harden your heart until the day of redemption, the redemption that Jesus purchased for you at Golgotha:
And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Will you continue to see what you want to see, or will you surrender to His purpose for you, the purpose of a transformative, holy and forgiven community, identified with the Christ who died and rose for us, Who enables us to love one another as He gave us commandment, who equips us with gifts of the Holy Spirit to set us apart to Himself,
who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.
8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Today, as we remember how Jesus prepared to deliver us from our bondage to sin, even as His people sought another way, I invite you to receive the grace of God through the Gospel.
The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.
The water of life is the water where His promise rests. The water of life in Christ Jesus that sets you free from the Law of sin and death. The water that enables you to let the peace of God, that passes all understanding, to guard your hearts and minds, through Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.