Luke chapter 19, verse 28. A special thanks to
Miss Angela and Mr. Ernest for these beautiful
flowers that we have in here and out front. Palms.
Well, I'm sorry. Thanks for the correction. Thank
you for the palms. It is, of course, Palm Sunday.
You may not have known that. You may not even
know what Palm Sunday is, but that's okay. We're
going to talk a little bit about that today.
We're getting close to Easter. It's a time that
we just set aside just to praise the Lord, just
to remember that we have hope, that we have a
reason to rejoice today, that Jesus Christ came,
that he was crucified, that he was buried, and
most importantly, he was resurrected. And so
because of that, our sins are forgiven, and we
have a reason to have some hope today. Praise
the Lord for that, and that's what we come and
celebrate every week, but we certainly want to
be reminded of that around the time of Easter.
Luke chapter 19, verse 28, Jesus had been ministering
for probably a little over three years. He spent
time with his earthly ministry traveling from
place to place. He had been healing people, and
he had been teaching people. He had been trying
to point people to really what God desired the
people to do. What God really wanted was people's
hearts to be right. It wasn't about outward actions.
It wasn't about going through motions. Jesus
really taught what really matters is what's in
your heart. It doesn't matter what goes on on
the outside if it's not coming from a good place,
if your motives are bad. And Jesus had received
a lot of folks that had welcomed him in and were
grateful to see him, but there were always folks
that really were... coming against Jesus, that
weren't so happy to see him, that doubted him,
that were his opposition, that were trying to
stop what he was trying to do. And this was a
constant struggle throughout Jesus' ministry.
And throughout his ministry, Jesus had kind of
avoided, you know, these situations where they
were trying to corner him and they were already
trying to kill him. I mean, they wanted to get
rid of him from the get -go, really. And Jesus
had always kind of made his way out of these
situations. Jesus had told people that he had
healed or done great things for. You know, keep
it quiet. Jesus wasn't trying to draw attention
to himself. He was trying to complete his mission.
But there came a point where Jesus was going
to have to do what had to be done. And Jesus'
mission was not just to come and to heal people
and to share with them the good news and to point
them to the Father and to let them know that
he was the way. to everlasting life, but for
that mission to be complete, Jesus was going
to have to give his life on a cross. And so during
the last week of Jesus' life, Jesus made his
way into Jerusalem for the final time. He made
his way into Jerusalem to fulfill what was prophesied
about him, to do what God the Father had called
him to do, and that was to give his life as a
ransom for you and I. For all who have sinned.
And so the time had come, and that's what we
see in this passage today, is that Jesus is coming
into Jerusalem for this final week of his life.
Luke chapter 19, verse 28. Excuse me, verse 29.
Luke chapter 19, verse 29. As he approached Bethphage
and Bethany at the place called the Mount of
Olives, He sent two of the disciples and said,
Go into the village ahead of you. As you enter
it, you will find a young donkey tied there,
on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring
it here. If anyone asks you, Why are you untying
it? Say this, The Lord needs it. So those who
were sent left and found it just as he had told
them. As they were untying the young donkey,
Its owner said to them, Why are you untying the
donkey? The Lord needs it, they said. Then they
brought it to Jesus. And after throwing their
robes on the donkey, they helped Jesus get on
it. As he was going along, they were spreading
their robes on the road. Now he came near the
path down the Mount of Olives, and the whole
crowd of the disciples began to praise God joyfully.
with a loud voice for all the miracles they had
seen. The king who comes in the name of the Lord
is the blessed one. Peace in heaven and glory
in the highest heaven. Some of the Pharisees
from the crowd told him, Teacher, rebuke your
disciples. He answered, I tell you, if they were
to keep silent, the stones would cry out. Let
us pray. God, we come to you, we thank you for
these good words. We thank you for Jesus, for
coming, for coming into town that day, dear Lord.
We thank you for what Jesus was going to do in
the coming days. I pray, dear Lord, that as we
look at this passage, that we see the humility
of Jesus, dear Lord. That we see the response
of the crowds. That we would check our response
today, dear Lord. As we hear this same good news.
that happened all these years ago, as we hear
about Jesus today, God, will we be those who
rejoice at his coming, or will we be those who
reject him? God, I pray that you would just let
your Holy Spirit be among us today, free us of
distractions and worries, all the things of the
world that may be competing for our attention.
I pray that in these few moments you meet us
where we are, dear Lord. that your Holy Spirit
would be among us, and that everything that is
said and done would be for the glory of Jesus
Christ. And I ask these things in Jesus' name.
Amen. On July the 23rd, 2009, in a little neighborhood
in New Jersey, it was a rainy day, and a homeowner
in a neighborhood had called the police. They
called the police because there was a kind of
disheveled -looking man wearing a pair of black
sweatpants and two raincoats, kind of wandering
around the neighborhood and had wandered into
their yard. And so they called the police, and
they said, hey, look, there's this eccentric
old man, and he looks kind of shady, and he's
in our neighborhood. Could you send somebody
out? And so they did. They sent an officer out.
And the officer arrived, and sure enough, the
man was still there. And he asked the guy his
name, of course. The guy's name was Robert. His
friends called him Bob, but his name was Robert.
And the police officer was questioning him, and
he proceeded to tell the police officer that
he was on tour with Willie Nelson locally. He
was on tour. And, of course, the officer knew
better than that. This old homeless guy was not.
on tour with Willie Nelson. But the officer nonetheless
humored the guy and said, well, I'll give you
an opportunity. The guy said, I don't have my
ID, but if you'll go back with me to my hotel,
I'll get my ID for you. And so the officer took
the guy back to his hotel and he pulled out his
driver's license. And sure enough, he was Robert
Allen Zimmerman. Now, you probably don't know
Robert Allen Zimmerman, but you probably do know
Bob Dylan, and that's who it was. This officer
was getting ready to arrest Bob Dylan, and he,
in fact, was on tour with Willie Nelson. And
this disheveled old man was simply walking around
before they got ready to perform that night.
And here was a legend, a legend. Most everybody
has probably heard of Bob Dylan. You may have
even heard a song of his that you didn't know
it was him. Or perhaps if you saw him on the
street, perhaps you wouldn't recognize him either.
But Bob Dylan was a legend. But because of his
appearance, because of what he looked like, he
had been written off as a lunatic. And that's
kind of similar to what happened with Jesus.
And Jesus had accomplished many things. Man,
you look at what Bob Dylan has accomplished.
He's got all kind of medals. He's won the Pulitzer
Prize. He's a ten -time Grammy winner. He had
all these accomplishments that were well known,
but not to the people who saw him that day. The
people who saw him that day didn't see a rock
star with all these accomplishments. Had they
been in a stadium and he had been introduced
and called to the stage, here's Bob Dylan, they
would have cheered. They would have rejoiced.
But seeing him on the street in sweatpants with
two raincoats on, they wrote him off. This is
a crazy dude. And so it was with Jesus. Jesus
had accomplished many great things. Jesus had
healed people. Jesus had healed the sick. He
had raised the dead. He had caused the blind
to see. He had caused the lame to walk. He had
caused the deaf to hear. And Jesus' name had
spread, and some of them wrote Jesus off as a
lunatic. They said, this dude is crazy. What
they were looking for, in a sense, was a rock
star. There were a lot of people who were looking
for the Messiah because what we call the Old
Testament was full of prophecies of this Messiah
who was going to come. And the Messiah that was
going to come, He was going to be a pretty big
deal because he was going to free people. He
was going to deliver people. He was finally going
to bring victory for God, for God's people. And
God's people in their mind had a certain way
that they thought that that was going to look.
I mean, they knew what kings looked like. Kings
were pretty spectacular folks. I mean, they had
palaces and they sat on thrones. They wore the
finest of clothes. They had servants. They would
speak and things would happen and they would
rule with an iron fist and they would let their
authority be made known to all that I am the
king and what I do, what I say, you do. And they
had this expectation, I believe, of this type
of king, that the Messiah would come, he'd be
ushered in, that his kingdom would look... like
other worldly kingdoms that kings had and that
he would begin to rule with an iron fist. But
when Jesus came onto the scene, he did not really
look like all the other kings. There's one thing
that is key about when Jesus came and how Jesus
served and how Jesus left this world. And the
key that we see throughout the life of Jesus
is humility. Jesus did not come as a proud king,
as a showy king. Jesus came with all authority
in the world, but he didn't lord it over people.
Jesus didn't say, I am the son of God, bow before
me. He could have said that, and rightfully so.
He is the son of God, and one day we shall all
bow before him. Jesus didn't come with that type
of heart. He came with a humble heart. He even
told his disciples, he said, look, the rulers
that you see in this world, that's how they use
their power. They lord it over people. But Jesus
told his disciples, he said, it must not be that
way among you. He said, you must be a servant
of all. That's good for us to think about. We
probably don't want to have that type of heart.
We probably... in some ways have a proud heart.
We want to be the one that's barking out the
orders. We want to be the one that's in the place
of honor. I think our human tendency is we kind
of like those things. We like feeling like we
have the power and we like feeling like we have
the authority and we like feeling like we're
somebody. But Jesus warns and the scripture warns,
hey, you got to be careful not to fall into that
trap. Jesus not only came and told us, What to
do? Jesus showed us what to do. For three plus
years, Jesus came in humility. He was born, born
with the cattle. He was born and laid in a manger.
There wasn't any fanfare. There weren't royal
trumpets blasting in the streets. He wasn't laid
in a golden crib. He laid a little hay wrapped
in swaddling clothes. From the get -go, Jesus
came in humility. Jesus' concern was not about
drawing attention to himself. Jesus' main goal
and desire from beginning to end was doing the
will of his Father. That's what Jesus wanted
to do. Father, I want to do your will. I want
to serve you, God. I want to serve these people.
I want to help these people. I want to show them
the truth, God. I want to lead them on the way.
I want to make a way for them. God, they cannot
do this on their own. They cannot be forgiven
of their sins on their own. And so Jesus humbly
came to this old nasty world that's full of all
the junk that you and I go through, and Jesus
said, I'm going to come, and I'm going to make
a path that they can follow me. It takes a lot
of humility. So Jesus was unlike all the other
leaders of his day. The other religious leaders,
it was a lot of them we see in Scripture, and
their heart wasn't right, and Jesus called them
out on that. And Jesus came with a whole different
heart. He came with a heart of humility, and
people recognize that. Now, I think we would
all agree that we probably aren't drawn as much
to leadership. That rules with an iron fist.
We probably aren't drawn as much to someone who
has the authority that always says, I am the
one in charge. You do what I say. I'm the leader
here. Well, that's not very appealing. When Jesus
came onto the scene, he didn't have that heart
at all. Jesus just loved people. People that
other religious leaders didn't love. Jesus would
hang out with kind of the rough folks, the tax
collectors and the sinners. And he was even called
out for it. Like, why are you doing this? Why
are you associating with these lower people?
Because that's who Jesus came to save. He said,
look, I came to save the sick. It's the sick
that need a doctor. The well don't need a doctor.
There were plenty of religious people that thought
they were well, that thought they were holier
than thou. And there wasn't a whole lot of hope
for them if they continued to have that heart.
But Jesus said, I'm here to have compassion on
those of you who are struggling, those of you
who are sick, those of you who know your sin.
Jesus wasn't okay with their sin. He told the
woman caught in adultery that was brought before
him. Man, they were ready to stone her. They
were ready. And Jesus so cleverly said, okay,
that's fine. You want to stone her? Well, whoever's
never sinned before, you go ahead and start the
stoning. You throw the first one. And the scripture
says that nobody threw a stone and all of her
accusers were gone. And Jesus said to her, does
anybody condemn you? She said, no, there was
nobody there. And Jesus says, neither do I. Perhaps
we are not so unlike that woman. Maybe our sin
is not adultery. Maybe it is. But whatever our
sin is, when we read the scripture, we are brought
before Jesus with our sin before us. And we feel
the condemnation and the guilt of that. And maybe
those around us make us feel that even more.
But as we sit at the feet of Jesus, If we would
come and seek him and look up to him and acknowledge
our sinfulness and ask for forgiveness, Jesus
would say to you, neither do I condemn you either.
And he told her afterwards, go and sin no more.
And so Jesus' humility was evident in the way
that he treated people, in the way that he interacted.
He's willing to associate with anybody. Sadly,
the most religious people, a lot of them, Didn't
want anything to do with him. He would have associated
with them just the same. Anybody who would come
to seek and to try to learn and to be healed,
those with faith and those with the desire, Jesus
was willing to explain to them, even the disciples,
they didn't understand a lot of stuff Jesus said.
They were so clueless. And they'd say, you've
got to explain that to us. And he would. They
were slow, and he was so patient with them, as
he is with us. And we see in this story that
we read today the humility of Jesus once again.
Now, he didn't come into town with this big,
beautiful horse that he was riding on. He didn't
come being toted into town on a gold chair with
people toting him in for all to see. He didn't
come with horns blowing. He didn't come wearing
a fancy robe. He didn't come with anything. that
probably would have been associated with a king
coming into town. Instead, he came to town on
a donkey. That's a pretty lowly animal. Even
the fact that he came on a donkey showed his
humility, a beast of burden. Not a war horse,
not fancy, not extravagant, but Jesus continued
coming into town at the conclusion of his mission.
In the same way that he had started his mission.
In humility. Now there were certainly plenty
of people who recognized who Jesus was. We see
it in the passage we looked at today. That Jesus
had told his disciples, go find this donkey.
If they ask you what's going on, tell them the
Lord needs it. It all worked out the way Jesus
said. It was prophesied that the Messiah, the
Savior would come riding on a donkey. And sure
enough, Jesus was fulfilling. that Old Testament
passage. And as Jesus began to make his way down
the road on the donkey, the crowds that were
rejoicing in him began to humble themselves before
him. They began to take their robes and their
coats and whatever they were wearing, they began
to take it off and they began to place it on
the ground so that the king of kings would at
least have a... A path to walk on that wasn't
bare ground. He was at least worthy of something.
And they would take those palm branches. And
they would place them on the ground. And in a
sense they were rolling out the red carpet for
him as best that they could. And people were
praising and they were rejoicing. This is the
one. This is the Messiah. This is the King. Hosanna.
You see that in some of the gospel accounts.
Hosanna in the highest. That is a praise to the
Lord. That's acknowledging that Jesus is the
Savior. Save us, Lord. We praise you. Son of
David, they said. Acknowledging that, hey, we've
read the Old Testament Scriptures. And we know
that the Messiah was to be a descendant of David.
And we recognize, Jesus, that you are the Son
of David. We recognize, Jesus, that you are the
Messiah. And the people rejoice. And they humbled
himself before Jesus that day. There were some
who recognized who he was. They weren't sidetracked.
There were a lot of people who were looking for
the wrong kind of Jesus. They were looking for
that big, fancy, earthly -looking king. And when
all they saw was this humble... Crazy old man.
They wrote him off. They said, I don't know who
this guy is. But perhaps they should have paid
a little more attention to what he was doing
and to what he was saying. Some in the crowd,
they rejoiced. They said, this guy, this is the
one. But as we see at the end of the passage,
There were some that said, what's going on with
these people? These people are, this is crazy.
These people need to shut up. And Jesus says,
hey, look, even if everybody was to keep quiet,
even the stones would cry out. There were some
in the crowd that day that humbled themselves
before Jesus. They laid their robes on the ground
and they laid their palm branches on the ground
and they rejoiced. But there were others that
day who rejected him. They had seen him just
as everybody else had. No doubt they had heard
the stories. At least some of them, they had
to have. You don't see a guy walking around raising
people from the dead. Word like that kind of
spreads pretty quick. And they had heard of him.
But they chose to reject him. Because it wasn't
the Jesus they were looking for. I don't know
what kind of Jesus you're looking for today.
Some people, I think, are looking for a Jesus
that's just going to be more like a genie in
the lamp. He just grants our wishes and makes
all of our problems disappear at once and gives
us everything that we ever want. But Jesus has
given us everything that we ever need. I don't
know what kind of Jesus you're looking for. I
can only tell you about the Jesus of the Bible.
He is a Jesus who loves you. He is a Jesus who
gave his life for you. He is a Jesus that did
not come and rule with an iron fist. He was a
Jesus that even though all authority had been
given to him, he did not use it for himself,
but instead he gave his life for you and I. Jesus
was a faithful servant. He was a humble servant.
He was full of love and full of grace and full
of compassion. I don't know what kind of Jesus
you're looking for, but I can tell you that's
the Jesus that you need. For that is the Jesus
who has compassion on you today, who wants to
forgive your sins today, who wants to give you
grace today. Who wants to give you peace today.
Who wants to give you hope today. And no, I can't
guarantee you that the Lord's going to make all
of your problems go away. Perhaps He will. Sometimes
He very much answers our prayers. But other times
we still have to go through the struggles of
life. But I can promise you this. Even if all
of your problems don't go away, the Lord will
give you the strength to get through them. And
a peace that you cannot imagine. And a joy that
you cannot imagine when you know that your sins
are forgiven. And that comes from a humble Savior
that we have in Jesus Christ. He has humbly come
to serve us and has done so by giving His life
on the cross. Will you humble yourself before
Him today? I have to lay our robes and our palm
branches down today. But perhaps there are acts
of service in our life that we can humble ourselves
and serve Him in some way. That we just humble
our heart before Him and praise Him. That we
humble our heart before Him and acknowledge our
sins and ask Him to forgive us. That we humble
ourselves and say, Lord, here am I. Send me.
I want to serve as You have served, dear Lord.
As You have given me an example. May I serve
others in that way. May you give me a heart of
love and grace and compassion. That I live a
life that is not about me, but about serving
God to follow. And that's exactly what Jesus
did. Jesus rode into town all those years ago.
Some rejoice. Others reject it. What about you
this morning? Will you rejoice in the Messiah
or will you reject him? The choice is yours.
Let's pray. God, we come to you this morning.
We thank you for your good words. I thank you
for each one that's here today, dear Lord. I
pray that if we have heard the gospel of Jesus
Christ and heard that he has come, dear Lord,
that we would be those who humble ourselves before
you today. I pray that there are some that don't
know Jesus. They would repent and seek him today.
I pray that those who do know him would rejoice
in him. That those who don't would come to know
him and rejoice in him, dear Lord. Help us not
to be those who walk away here today rejecting
him. What a foolish decision that would be. Help
us to be those who have humility and who walk
in it. And I ask these things in Jesus' name.