Behold, Your King!
Notes
Transcript
"If Jesus had of entered into one of our modern cities, leading the parade, He would have been arrested immediately. He would be a wanted man.
The FDA would want Him for turning water into wine without a license;
the EPA for killing fig trees;
the AMA for practicing medicine without a license;
the Dept. of Health for asking people to open graves, for raising the dead and for feeding 5000 people in the wilderness without a food permit;
the NEA for teaching without a certificate;
OSHA for walking on water without a lifejacket;
PETA for driving hogs into the sea;
the NATIONAL BOARD OF PSYCHIATRISTS for giving advice on how to live a guilt free life;
the ABORTION RIGHTS LEAGUE for saying that whoever harms children, it is better that they had never been born;
the INTERFAITH MOVEMENT for condemning all other religions,
and by the ZONING DEPT. for building mansions in Heaven without a permit." (A Wanted Man - Shared by Sermon Central - Sermon Illustrations - SermonCentral.com)
Jesus would be a wanted man today. Well let me tell you, He was a wanted man on this day 2000 years ago. While the crowd was praising Him, the religious leaders of the day were plotting to kill Him.
The parade that begins with people praising Jesus, ends with the son of God in tears; and the week that begins with shouts of Hosanna ends with cries of crucify!
Imagine being in the crowd that day- the day Jesus made his final decent into Jerusalem. The crowd dropping cloaks and waving branches in the air to celebrate the coming of Christ into the capitol city.
We understand the significance of this moment in time, of course, a lot more than they did in that moment. For example, most of them might have not realized that the moment they were in was a fulfilment of prophecy. Long before anyone standing there that day was on this Earth the prophet Zechariah wrote:
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall speak peace to the nations; his rule shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.
We also have a glimpse into the future that the people did not have on that day. We know that just a few days later many of the people in that crowd would soon be yelling for the crucifixion of the same Jesus they cheered that day. We know that the people of Jerusalem would save a thief and sentence this same man to death. We know how this week ends, but they do not. Those folks did not know how quickly the cries of “Hosanna!” would become cries of “Crucify!” The did not know all that was unfolding in their midst.
And many of them likely did not know- or did not realize- that the Kingdom of God was unfolding before their very eyes. How many of them that day remembered the words of the prophet Daniel in his book 2:44?
And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever,
So, when Jesus came to Earth he brought the Kingdom of God to Earth with him. The central teaching of Jesus was the Kingdom of God. All of Jesus’ teaching and ministry was linked back into establishing this New Kingdom in us, around us, and throughout all of creation.
And Jesus is never shy about this. In fact, Jesus overtly teaches from this position the entire time that he is on Earth. Jesus even started his ministry from this truth, the first public words we have recorded from Jesus are in Matthew 4:17 when he declares “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Jesus begins the implementation of his Kingdom’s mission, values, and rule from that moment forward.
So many Christians are convinced that Jesus came to Earth merely to pay the price for sin so that we can have eternal life, but that is just a facet- a piece- of Jesus’ ministry. As the old saying goes “Jesus came not just to get you into heaven, but to get heaven into you”
Also, make no mistake, this Kingdom was very different than the Kingdom of this world- Jesus himself said so.
Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.”
This verse is taken from the final conversation between Pilate and Jesus as Jesus is being taken to the cross. Pilate is afraid of a political uprising and is suspecting that Jesus has begun to instill a revolution in the Jewish community. What he does not realize is that Jesus has started a revolution, but not an Earthly one- but one in the Heavenly realms.
This is why Jesus commands us to seek first the Kingdom of God- not things on this Earth.
But make no mistake, just because Jesus’ Kingdom is not of this world does not mean that the two are separate. In fact, the opposite is true. Jesus wants the practices of his Kingdom to infiltrate our lives and then our lives impact the world around us.
If i were to ask you what are some of the most American things you can think of, what would your answer be? We could come up with quite a list I am sure, but three that came to my mind were apple pie, baseball, and pickup trucks. But, like many other American things, they were not American first.
Take apple pie. Apple pie can be traced back to the 1300s in Great Britain, some 400 years before American was even founded. The poet and writer Chaucer wrote about the delicious pies in some of his works.
Or Baseball- the great American pastime. The first recorded baseball game may have been played in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1846, but the game and its rules were lifted from the U.K.
As writer Daniel Luzer explains, "According to an 1801 book by Joseph Strutt called The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England, baseball goes back to at least the 14th century and a game called stoolball, in which a batter stood before a stool and hit a ball thrown by a pitcher with a bat. If the ball hit the stool, the batter was out."
Or pickup trucks. While many consider the first truck to be the work of Henry Ford- The first motorized truck was built in 1896 by German automotive pioneer Gottlieb Daimler. Daimler's truck had a four horsepower engine and a belt drive with two forward speeds and one reverse
Apple pie, baseball, pickup trucks, started somewhere else, but they were adopted and infused into the DNA of this country in such a way that we consider them to be ours. This is how the Kingdom of God should be for us. While its practices and values are not of this world, we are Christians should adopt them and practice them so much that they influence all of our worlds.
Part of lent is our preparation to receive and declare this kingdom in all of our world.
Finally, make no mistake, this was a war- it still is a war.
Jesus riding into Jerusalem that day was more than just a casual ride, it was the Kingdom of God marching into battle against the Kingdom of this world. We also know, and Jesus knew at that moment, that he was descending into Jerusalem for the biggest battle of his Kingdom- Jesus was marching into war. This is an act of aggression- aggression towards death, sin, and evil. Even if the crowd did not know what was unfolding before them; Jesus knew. Jesus knew he was about to roll up his sleeves and battle against all evil and sin. And make no mistake, Jesus wins this war; there is no defeat here.
Colossians 2:15 lays it out like this “He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.”
Our Jesus rides a colt into war and tramples death. So, what does that mean for us today? What do we carry with us from this place? I can think of three truths for us to hold tight and lift high as we carry the Kingdom of God.
1- The war is won, so we can fight battles with hope. Jesus has defeated sin by his Resurrection from the dead. The Kingdom of God has already triumphed. The fulfilment of all things and the coming of the Kingdom of God is foretold to us in Revelation. The challenge for us is that we are still fighting battles. Each day we are called to battle with sin and temptation in our lives. But we can battle with hope and confidence that our Jesus has already won.
I wonder, if you told an NFL quarterback that they were going to win the Superbowl- it was a 100% chance that no matter how the games went, they were going to win the big one- how much different would they play?
2- The Kingdom of God is here and now. I love this quote by T Z Koo “The kingdom of God does not exist because of your effort or mine. It exists because God reigns. Our part is to enter this kingdom and bring our life under his sovereign will.” There is so much hope in this quote. No matter how much I mess up, no matter how many times I slip and fall, no matter how many times we as a church miss it; no matter how many Christian leaders miss the mark or end up in sin; we cannot dismantle the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is based on Jesus and his authority, victory, and work; not mine.
3- The Kingdom of God is not yet, but coming. But there is more to this Kingdom than what we see. Many people see the brokenness of the world and they reflect “this is not how it is supposed to be” and they are right. But there is more to that sentence. This is not how it is supposed to be, and by the grace of God this is not how it is going to be in eternity. There is something better on the other side of glory.
When we see death, pain, and sickness; we can have hope that all of that will not exist in Heaven- the Kingdom of God is no place for that.
Listen to this promise from Isa 25:
On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.” For the hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain, and Moab shall be trampled down in his place, as straw is trampled down in a dunghill. And he will spread out his hands in the midst of it as a swimmer spreads his hands out to swim, but the Lord will lay low his pompous pride together with the skill of his hands. And the high fortifications of his walls he will bring down, lay low, and cast to the ground, to the dust.
Throughout the next 3 weeks we will center in more about this Kingdom of God.
Next Week “A Kingdom of Holiness and Humility” John 13:1-20 (Jesus washes feet(
“A Kingdom of Truth and Witness” John 18:33-38 (Jesus is confronted by Pilate)
A Kingdom of Salvation and Grace” Luke 23:32-43 (Jesus saves a thief on the cross)
We will study more about this Kingdom of God because it is not just Jesus who brings the Kingdom of God to Earth. No, Jesus has commissioned each of us to carry the Kingdom as well. That we, as followers of Jesus, would be ambassadors of that same Kingdom to the world around us. And we cannot faithfully represent a Kingdom we do not understand, so together we will seek the Holy Spirit’s guidance to teach us more.