Jesus is King
Notes
Transcript
What do I want them to know? Jesus is King
Why? It brings hope
What do I want them to do? Follow the King
Why? It brings life, joy, and peace
ME
Have you ever found yourself in a hole you could not get out of? A situation that no matter how hard you tried you could not manage to get out of the hole?
I quite literally found myself in this precarious situation as 16 year old who just started driving, and as a 16 year I felt since I went to drivers ed I could handle the road and as a 16 year old I felt the only way to drive was SLOW…no fast…I did that to my detriment. ....I did that to my detriment as I was driving to my friends house on wet fall day. One of the fun parts of driving to my friends house is there was this windy road about a mile from his house that many of us would like to drive it like we were driving for NASCAR even though the signs said “warning slow dow” SPEED LIMIT 25 MPH…but I drive back and forth and eventually go in the ditch.
It was surreal
There was nothing I could do to get my car out of the ditch.
I ran to my friends house and told him what happened and we tried to get it out but there was nothing we could do to get the car out.
I was in a hole I could not get out of.
The good news that while we were in the ditch a construction truck came by with chains and pulled us out.
US
Some of us this is where we feel we are at. We are in a hole we cannot get out of, and every time we try to get out we seem to sink deeper and deeper.
Some of us it is a financial hole
Some of us it is mentally, we are in hole
Some of us it is a with our relationship with God
Some of us look at our nation and we see our nation is in a hole and we cannot get out of it.
The interesting thing for many things we are in a hole with it was not always this way, you were not always not in a hole financially, relationally mentally, our country was not as bad as it is now.
TENSION
This is what see the nation of Israel say before the time of Jesus.
They are in this HUGE HOLE that they cannot get out, not to make lite of our hole, but there hole was much much deeper and we will see it is a hole we are all in.
They were in a hole 600 B.C., 600 years before Christ.
But that is not where they had always been.
Some centuries earlier from 1500-1000 B.C. the nation of Israel was on upward trajectory.
In 1500 B.C. God raises up a leader named Moses to deliver the nation from their 430 years of slavery in Egypt for them to inherit the Promiseland.
Then something happens as they are marching towards the Promiseland, that is an 11 day journey away.
SHOW PICTURE
They send 12 spies into the land to spy out the land.
And what happens? Do the spies come back and say “God got this?”
No 10 are shaking in their boots “Yes land of milk in honey, BUT THERE IS GIANTS in the LAND”
They just saw God split the seas, feed them with manna, deliver them from Egypt and then they see with human eyes.
But not Joshua and Caleb…they say the LORD their God will deliver them.
As result because of their unbelief the nation of Israel had to 40 years to enter the promiseland…they had to wait for that generation to pass away.
For Joshua and Caleb to lead them into the land
Joshua and Caleb led them into the land to inherit that Promisland that God had given to them they inherit the land and settle into the land and they were growing and prosperous. FOR 400 years....they were not perfect, they had some good leaders and bad leaders.
SHOW PICTURE
They keep growing and growing and you have King Saul, King David, then King Solomon.
Solomon built the temple of the lord
SHOW PICTURE OF TEMPLE
Things are amazing, the nation of Israel is at it’s peak but then 1 Kings 11 comes
They had it all....
1 Kings 11:1-13
Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women,
from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love.
He had 700 wives, who were princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart.
For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father.
For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.
So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not wholly follow the Lord, as David his father had done.
Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem.
And so he did for all his foreign wives, who made offerings and sacrificed to their gods.
And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice
and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods. But he did not keep what the Lord commanded.
Therefore the Lord said to Solomon, “Since this has been your practice and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes that I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you and will give it to your servant.
Yet for the sake of David your father I will not do it in your days, but I will tear it out of the hand of your son.
However, I will not tear away all the kingdom, but I will give one tribe to your son, for the sake of David my servant and for the sake of Jerusalem that I have chosen.”
Solomon walks away from the Lord and what happens?
- He leads the nation of Israel away from God.
The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
We then see shortly after that the nation of Israel split into 2 under Solomon’s rule.
SHOW PICTURE
Northern kingdom 10 tribes and 2 southern tribes…Judah and Benjamin.
Things start to unravel more and more and people were not turning back to God but doing what was right in their own eyes.
722 B.C. Assyria takes the northern tribes captive.
BUT WE STILL HAVE JUDAH....WHAT’S SO SPECIAL ABOUT JUDAH? THERE IS A PROMISE
“Judah, your brothers shall praise you; your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; your father’s sons shall bow down before you.
Judah is a lion’s cub; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down; he crouched as a lion and as a lioness; who dares rouse him?
The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.
A KING IS GOING OT RISE UP FORM JUDAH
BUT WHAT HAPPENS?
605 B.C. JUDAH GETS ATTACKED BY BABylon, THEY DO NOT CAPTURE IT YET..whew that was close
597 B.C. Attacked again by Babylon and they are not completely defeated but they are tear it apart.
And Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to the city while his servants were besieging it,
and Jehoiachin the king of Judah gave himself up to the king of Babylon, himself and his mother and his servants and his officials and his palace officials. The king of Babylon took him prisoner in the eighth year of his reign
and carried off all the treasures of the house of the Lord and the treasures of the king’s house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold in the temple of the Lord, which Solomon king of Israel had made, as the Lord had foretold.
He carried away all Jerusalem and all the officials and all the mighty men of valor, 10,000 captives, and all the craftsmen and the smiths. None remained, except the poorest people of the land.
Daniel, Shadrck mechshak and obedinago go.
BUT JUDAH IS STILL THERE
586 B.C. Bablyoian attacks again this time is it completely destoryed
And he burned the house of the Lord and the king’s house and all the houses of Jerusalem; every great house he burned down.
And all the army of the Chaldeans, who were with the captain of the guard, broke down the walls around Jerusalem.
And the rest of the people who were left in the city and the deserters who had deserted to the king of Babylon, together with the rest of the multitude, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried into exile.
But the captain of the guard left some of the poorest of the land to be vinedressers and plowmen.
the temple destoryed....People went through the streets weeping and in sack cloth and ashes. The king from the tribe of Judah is not going to come....there is not more Judah.
And for the next almost 600 years we see Israel fall apart, they walked away from God, to the point of almost annihilation.....that’s where we pick up the story, the Palm Sunday story....at the time of the story Israel is under Roman occupation. Roman leadership and rule.....
But the people keep hearing about this man named Jesus who is causing the blind to see, the deaf to hear, the lame to walk…He is preaching Good News....maybe it is not over.
Maybe the king has come.....THE LION FROM THE TRIBE OF JUDAH
And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.”
Show pictures
Then the WORD spread Jesus is coming Jerusalem during Passover. Jesus is coming! (this is one of the times where all there are three pilgrim feast where people all journeyed to Jerusalem Passover, Pentecost, Feast of Booths)
What is Passover? What’s significant about Passover and Jesus coming then?
Let’s read
- Passover is the feast where they celebrated God Pass over them
The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt,
“This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you.
Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household.
And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb.
Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats,
and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.
“Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it.
They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it.
Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts.
And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn.
In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover.
For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord.
The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.
It is during this time Jesus that Jesus travels into Jesus. During the time they are celebrating God Passing over them and protecting them.
Let’s read
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!”
They shout Hosanna....SAVE US.....
You see the captivity
You see the oppression
They are thinking save us from Rome…Get us out under this oppression…Bye bye Herod and Caesar
- Then what does Jesus do????
Then what does Jesus do? He gets a donkey? A donkey? Verse 16 says his disciples did not under what Jesus was doing until he was glorified.
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!”
Why is Jesus riding a donkey? A donkey is symbol of PEACE? Is he going to make PEACE with ROME? PEACE with Herod and Caesar?
This is not good
Have we been tricked, deceived? JESUS WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
JESUS IS NOT MAKING PEACE WITH ROME…HE is riding into Jerusalem to make PEACE…PEACE WITH WHOM?.....
Us and God
WAIT WHAT IS WRONG WITH US AND GOD???
I thought God loved us? He does. He loves us so much that he makes peace with us and God.
Why are we not at PEACE with God?
SIN
Romans 5:10 Our sin makes us ENEMIES of God…we are against God...
For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.
This is not how always was....We were not always enemies....At the very beginning of time in our ancient history our great, great, great, grandparents Adam and Eve live in time there was no sin, but they disobeyed God and sinned and made us enemies of God and not only enemies but it also brought death.
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—
THIS IS NOT GOOD NEWS....ALL OF HUMANITY IS IN A HOLE THEY CANNOT GET OUT OF.
There is nothing we can do make this right.
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
BUT THERE IS GOOD NEWS....There is a lion and a lamb riding on the donkey into Jerusalem to bring PEACE between us and God.
Jesus is going to make peace not by a SWORD but by a SACRIFICE....He is going to sacrifice His body for us.
but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God,
When Jesus did this He made PEACE between us and God.
He defeated sin
Hallelujah
When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”
“O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
and not only does He make PEACE between us and God....God exults Him....makes Him King Jesus
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.
US
Believe in Him
because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.
Follow Him
And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.
I have decided to follow Jesus;
I have decided to follow Jesus;
I have decided to follow Jesus;
no turning back, no turning back.
Though none go with me, I still will follow;
though none go with me, I still will follow;
though none go with me, I still will follow;
no turning back, no turning back.
Expect Great Things
and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us,
If God can get you out of your biggest hole ever, will He not be able to get you out of your other holes in His way and timing?
This is what God told the people
As John Stott says, “The essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man.”1
