Felix's Big Day

Introduction

you know, I don't know about you all but I can totally picture Stacy Johnson, Mary post, or Melanie alvey in this skit. I pictured them as the guy so excited that they're Felix, their beloved animal got to participate in the parade they almost forget about Jesus who's actually riding the animal. I know I know you ladies would have loved Jesus as well but you would have been very happy for your pet donkey or whatever the creature was.

It's amazing to Live Today now one week in 2000 plus years later after those amazing events that happened. I love the skit that we got to watch here today because I can totally imagine that exact conversation happening. I can picture people reliving those moments of Jesus coming into the city on the donkey especially in light of his resurrection. And while this may seem backwards for us to take a look at events that happened on the triumphal entry today I hope to show how considering this moment will help point us forward in allowing ourselves to be used by God.

In fact I know for me that story of the moment where the disciples go take someone elses horse or donkey has always been a fascinating slash interesting story. Did Jesus really tell someone to go steal a donkey?? So let's take a look at the account as found in mark and see what we can learn today from this story.

Mark 11:1–11 ESV

1 Now when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples 2 and said to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it. 3 If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately.’ ” 4 And they went away and found a colt tied at a door outside in the street, and they untied it. 5 And some of those standing there said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” 6 And they told them what Jesus had said, and they let them go. 7 And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it. 8 And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields. 9 And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! 10 Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!” 11 And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple. And when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

Jesus had an amazing ministry. Think about the three years he spent when you read any of the gospel accounts you read story after story of him healing the sick restoring sight raising the dead. And then on top of that he was an extraordinarily good teacher he used stories to communicate powerful messages that were magnetic to the people around him people came in droves to listen to Jesus teach. He was a very popular person.

In fact that's one of the reasons... Jesus and his popularity... that was one of the reasons that the religious leaders wanted him gone so much wasn't it? They were afraid of how popular he was. And it wasn't just the religious leaders that had an issue with the popularity of a teacher like Jesus. The Romans were very interested in maintaining control of the area. And so one of the reasons Jesus was so particular about making his message about changing the heart was that Jesus did not want to present a threat that the Romans had to deal with. He came not to provide political overthrow but to instead provide a heart solution to a greater problem.

so if Jesus had entered Jerusalem on a horse... like a War Horse then the Romans might have responded in forest. They would have put the kabosh if you will on this parade and everything that happened and perhaps things would have happened differently. But instead Jesus came into Jerusalem on a donkey and of course we know who know the rest of the Bible know that Jesus also came into Jerusalem on a donkey in order to fulfill scripture as he was doing his entire ministry.

take a look at this passage here:

Zechariah 9:9–13 ESV

9 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. 10 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. 11 As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. 12 Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope; today I declare that I will restore to you double. 13 For I have bent Judah as my bow; I have made Ephraim its arrow. I will stir up your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Greece, and wield you like a warrior’s sword.

For hundreds of years the Jews and other followers of God around the world had looked at this passage and others describing the coming of the Messiah. Describing the coming of a king who had finally saved them. And Jesus steps into this prophecy. Jesus shows himself to be the one that everyone has been waiting for.

But you know the crazy thing about this story is how quickly everything goes South. I can imagine all of Jesus followers and everyone that showed up to watch Jesus coming into the city expected a revolution. They expected the Messiah to continue 2 gather his people and show his power and deal with the political problems of the day. They thought that he would finally free them from Roman influence. They thought they knew exactly what God was going to do next.

But God did something unexpected for many of them that week. We know that Jesus went from being one of the most popular men in Jerusalem to being one of the most dead men in Jerusalem within seven days. And there were crowds calling for his execution as much as there were crowds praising him as he rode into the city.

It's hard when expectations and reality don't match up isn't it? Whether it's a new job or a new relationship and things just aren't what we expect them to be.

That's one thing I love about the Bible. It's full of surprises. It's full of times when God just doesn't exactly do what we expect.

I love how biblical scholar Eugene Pearson puts it:

“Every careful reader of the Bible is struck by how odd and unaccommodating it is to what we are used to and expect.” -Eugene Peterson

when you really read the Bible and think of it in comparison to how life is today or how you might expect things to turn out is very often surprising.

Think of some of the surprising things that are revealed in the Bible: in the teachings of Jesus:

“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

“The greatest among you will be the greatest servant.’

“If you want to save your life, you must lose it. For those who lose their life for my sake will save it.”

Jesus is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and He was born where: In a stinky stable.

A king wears a crown of gold and sits upon a throne to be worshiped; Jesus wore a crown of thorns and hung upon a cross as people spat on him and mocked him.

We serve a surprising king.

How many times in your life has God moved and done things differently than you would have expected them?

The characters in our video today were used by God because they were willing to say yes to God when others might have said no to him. The reality is that we do not always have the perspective and wisdom to know how God is going to use us. We don't always get to know the situations that God wants to put us in.

You might think that God wants you to succeed in your career and work in order to be a good witness to those around you.

It might be that God wants you to struggle your whole career to find great traction and success so that you can be a witness and and encouragement to other people.

You might think that God wants you to be disciplined about your health and wise in how you live so that you can be healthy and capable and there to serve others.

But instead it might be that God wants you to experience a dehabilitating illness that limits severely what you can do so you can learn to trust him and you can learn to let others care for you. And perhaps you can be a witness to show how someone can find peace in hard moments.

You might think that God wants you to pass on your faith to your children and grandchildren through these moments of inspiration and encouraging conversations where they hang on your every word.

but instead it may be that God allows you to stumble through sharing your faith with your kids time and time again so your children understand how important God is to you that you're willing to even embarrass yourself to get a crucial message across. You love Jesus just that much that you're willing to cross any generational divide to introduce your kids and grandkids to him.

The Bible is full of surprises and things that make us ask questions from the beginning to the end. The Easter story is magnificent because it completes the greatest work ever done. The saving of mankind. The beating of death. The gift of life to every human being who would have it. We worship God on Sundays instead of Saturdays because of when Jesus was resurrected. We have hope no matter how dark the world is because Jesus was resurrected. We have life because Jesus was resurrected.

But the reality is no matter how much we want to make the Easter story look pretty and complete we must remember that we are looking at it in hindsight. And hindsight is always 2020. God's work is complete because of the Easter story.

But everyone who lived through that story lived through times when they were surprised by how God was working. They lived through times when God did unexpected things and asked unexpected things of them. Sure we can look back on the events of resurrection slash Easter week and say oh it all makes sense. But the people that God used in that story where people that had to just simply trust God and walk in obedience to him.

Conclusion

so the question before us today is are we willing to be used by God today? Or we want to place our trust in him for our eternity and our peace until lunchtime? Are we willing to say yes to him and obedience even when we don't understand how everything is going to workout? Are we willing to quiet our hearts and minds and set aside our problems to just be present with our savior each and every day? God wants to use you and I in extraordinary ways. Will we let him?