Palm Sunday 2020

So while we're required to remain apart and yet still we want to worship the Lord, study the word together, and pray together, um, I'm gonna continue on in our series, Christ Our Hope in Life and Death.

And um I want to remind us on this Palm Sunday, 2020, this is precisely why Jesus came.

The world in darkness, covered over in darkness, fragile, vulnerable, filled with fear.

And here comes God taking the initiative to come to us and to bring us salvation, to bring us good news of God's gift of salvation.

If you'll open your Bible, I'm gonna look at Luke chapter 19.

Luke 19 · chapter mention

Uh, it's a story I think you're familiar with, a Palm Sunday story, just taking verses 37 to 48.

And um, I want to read that, and then we're gonna connect this all together with Psalm 27, one of my very favorite of uh King David's uh ancient songs.

Remember King David, one of the ancestors of the earthly Jesus.

Well, in Luke chapter 19, the story of the triumphal entry, as it's called, um, in verse 37, it says, As he was now approaching near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles which they had seen.

Luke 19 · chapter mention

And I love this because um, first of all, you got to imagine who's in this band of people following Jesus, all the disciples.

So it's kind of a ragtag band of uh you know uneducated fishermen and uh former tax collector named Levi, who's now named Matthew, whose name means gift of God.

So the guy that was taking their money in taxes is now the gift of God to them.

Um, and who else is in the crowd?

Mary and Martha, surely, uh and the formerly dead guy, Lazarus, uh, the formerly blind guy, uh Bartimaeus, who's probably all along the road going, what's that, what's that, what's that?

Because now he can see for the first time and uh in his life, and he's just probably constantly saying, What's that, what's that, uh all over the cell.

But this is an amazing crowd of people.

And uh there are children dancing, people singing all along the way, and and it's just it it it's it's the time of uh of the great feast, and so the it's like rush hour.

There are people everywhere, campfires everywhere.

I mean, there's there's there's people singing and dancing all over the place.

The temple, they're headed for the temple to celebrate uh this feast of the Passover.

And here he comes, approaching the Mount of Olives, and the whole multitude is praising God, and they're saying, Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord, verse 38 says, Peace in heaven and glory in the highest.

And then it says, And some of the Pharisees in the multitude said to him, Teacher, rebuke your disciples.

You know, every time uh Mr.

Jones, who who uh uh who sold us the building there in Hillsborough Village, he's such a wonderful man.

He always said interesting stories to tell.

And the other day I was talking to him, and uh he said, Every time God wants to do something just a little bit differently, uh, it seems like Satan sends along a Pharisee to try and spoil it, right?

And uh, here they are, these uh Pharisees, and there's they're basically gonna say, Stop, rebuke your disciples.

And Jesus' answer to them was, I tell you, if he's become silent, the stones will cry out.

In other words, God will be praised.

That's so important for us to know and to keep in mind.

And as Jesus comes to lay down his life uh on the cross that week, um, he's he's very intent.

It's very deliberate what he's doing.

It's dramatic too, but it's very deliberate.

And um, we also see it just demands a response.

And the Pharisees, for one, are responding negatively.

They want to shut it all down.

Um, but Jesus says if we if they become hot, the stones will cry out.

And when he approached, he saw the city and Jesus wept over it.

Some of us uh probably surprised to hear that that is true.

So some of you may have been aware that uh when Jesus came to the tomb of Lazarus, he wept.

Shortest verse in the Bible, right?

Um but here's another instance of Jesus weeping.

Why was he weeping?

And it says here in Luke's gospel that he had been saying while he was weeping, if you had known in this day, even you, the things which made for peace.

Wow.

So, in other words, the religious folk, the folk that should have got it, that should have understood what Jesus was up to, they didn't get it.

And if they had known the things which make for peace, that his coming, that his approaching Jerusalem to lay down his life is what would actually make for peace, would bring reconciliation between God and sinners like us, um, would bring not only to us peace with God, but the peace of God as well, which we so desperately need.

Um, but now, he goes on to say, they've been hidden from your eyes.

For the day shall come when your enemies will throw up a bank before you, and that doesn't mean a financial institution.

Uh that means Jerusalem will be under assault.

And this happens indeed when the Romans come in uh in 70 AD, they destroy Jerusalem and tear the temple down.

And they'll throw up a bank before you, a rampart, and surround you and hem you in on every side and will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another.

And that's exactly what happened in 70 AD.

Um, you can go there today, and in uh one of the valleys uh just down from the Temple Mount, you can actually see some of those gigantic stones that have been just literally pushed over the edge when the Romans were there in 70 AD, tearing it all apart, trying to get the gold out from in between each of the giant stones that made up the temple uh foundation.

And he says it's because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.

In other words, when God came to visit, when God came with salvation, you didn't recognize it.

Again, uh Jesus' approach to Jerusalem was deliberate, it was dramatic, and it demanded a response.

And their response was to not recognize it.

I hope that's not our response today.

Um He entered the temple, began to cast out those who were selling, and this may have happened a couple days later, we're not really sure, saying to them, It is written, and my house shall be a house of prayer, but you've made it a robber's den.

He was teaching daily in the temple, but the chief priests and scribes and the leading men among the people were trying to destroy him.

And they could not find anything that they might do, for all the people were hanging upon his every word.

And one of the reasons that the religious leaders wanted to destroy Jesus, of course, is because he made some rather bold claims about himself.

One of them is in John chapter 6, where he says, I'm the bread of life, the bread of heaven.

John 6 · chapter mention

Um he also in John chapter 8 says that he's the light of the world.

John 8 · chapter mention

Pretty amazing claims for anybody to make.

With that one in mind, look at Psalm 27 with me in your Bible if you have it.

And uh let's read that.

Because when you start to hear Jesus make these kinds of claims, it at least should stir us to ask some questions.

Who is this man?

Who does he think he is?

Who does he claim to be?

And I think any rational observer would be within rights to ask those kinds of questions about Jesus.

Is Jesus just another run-of-the-mill rabbi, just another one of many world religious leaders, or is he somehow or another different?

Is he somehow or another, perhaps, as the Christian faith claims, as the Bible teaches, the Son of God, God's Messiah, come to bring salvation, the light of the world.

The one that one of Jesus' ancestors, King David, talked about.

I love this.

Psalm 27 the Lord is my light and my salvation.

Whom shall I fear?

The Lord is the defense or the refuge of my life.

Whom shall I dread?

And when you think about Christ coming on that Palm Sunday and the impact that that has made, um, to the point that, you know, in the 14th century, um uh people would uh, like like Pietro uh Lorenzetti, the Italian uh painter, uh here's a here's a here's an image for you up on the slide of of his uh painting, Entry into Jerusalem.

Uh so all the way to the 14th century, people are remembering that Jesus came on Palm Sunday, that he took the initiative, he wanted to come and bring peace.

But everyone didn't really recognize him.

Everyone did not.

There were many who were dancing and singing Hosanna, Hosanna.

Uh some of them probably turned into the same crowd that yelled, Crucify Him, crucify him later.

Maybe not all of them, but perhaps some of them did.

So crowds can be fickle.

Religious people can be real set in their ways.

The disciples were emboldened by the approach of Jesus.

Umy, I'm sure, recognized Jesus and were so thrilled at the approach of Jesus to Jerusalem to bring salvation.

And that moment, so important, that First Palm Sunday, that paintings like this one, or uh even in our own time, you can see these three photos.

I'll put these up on the screen for you too, remind us that um uh modern-day pilgrims would go to Jerusalem.

And uh here they are on what would be a typical year, although that won't be happening this year, I don't think.

But uh coming with palm branches to celebrate that that Jesus came to celebrate the fact that he brought salvation to us.

Um as I say, this Psalm, Psalm 27, a thousand years before the time of Jesus, um, is speaking about God's salvation and that it's still on offer, it was on offer back then, and now even more clearly on offer as we look through the sort of lens of the New Testament back to the end of the Old Testament, and where we read in an ancient song like this that the Lord is my light and my salvation.

And that's great news.

Why?

Well, because it's dark sometimes, it gets really dark sometimes, and some of you are really feeling that right now, and that darkness, the only answer for it, is light.

And I love it that in this psalm, what God says, as he speaks through the ancient songwriter David, is that the Lord isn't just bringing us light, the Lord is my light.

The Lord isn't just offering a plan of salvation, he is our salvation, he himself is our salvation, and that is fulfilled in the person and work of Christ.

Um back in Luke's gospel, uh, chapter 24, verse 44, Jesus would even make that another one of those bold claims that the psalms, that the prophets, that the law all find their fulfillment in him.

And so what we read here in Psalm 27, um, which I want to go back to because it's so awesome, uh, the Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?

I love that question.

It reminds me of Romans chapter 8.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

We studied it just a couple weeks ago, when it has those five unanswerable questions at the end of the chapter.

If God is for us, who can be against us?

Answer nobody.

So if the Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?

And the question it's the same answer implied.

If the Lord is your light and your salvation, you don't need to fear anybody.

When you, we've said it before so many times, when you have a proper fear of the Lord, you don't need to have an improper fear of anything else, including death itself.

Why?

Because the Lord is my light and my salvation.

Verse 2 goes on When evildoers came upon me to devour my flesh, my adversaries and my enemies, they stumbled and fell.

Though a host encamp against me, my heart will not fear.

Though war arise against me, um, in spite of this, I shall be confident.

And I love all of this.

This is uh um the you know, this this is the psalmist declaring his confidence in God.

And that's why this might be called a psalm of confidence.

A lot of these ancient songs would have different styles, but it's not about the musical arrangement.

Um it's it's about the content, it's about what it has to say and what it reminds us of.

All of our psalms are songs of revelation and response.

Um, God revealing things that he wants us to know about himself, and then God also providing for us the kind of response that he's looking for from us.

Um, old church father Athanasius used to say the Psalms not only speak to us, but they speak for us.

And that's so true here with Psalm 27 as well.

His confidence in God is such that he doesn't have to fear anybody, he doesn't have to dread anybody, and when evildoers or anybody comes against him, um they'll stumble and fall, and my heart will not fear, though war arise against me, verse 3 in spite of this, I shall be confident.

I love that resolute confidence in God.

I need to remind myself that I don't need to just gin that up.

That's not about the way I feel, that's about what I believe about God.

And that's why it's so important that we study through books of the Bible here at the village chapel to remind us how God has revealed himself and how he wants us to respond to him.

Verse 4: one thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to meditate in his temple.

I love this, to meditate on him, to meditate in his presence, uh, to remind myself over and over again that he never leaves me, he never forsakes me.

These are such important truths and things that we need to really meditate on and dwell on as we meet with the Lord and to behold the beauty of the Lord, not just the, not just the pragmatism of our faith, not just the practicalities of who God is and how we might be able to somehow another manipulate him to join us in whatever it is we want to do, but how we can come to know him in such a way, to trust and hope in him in such a way that we believe him.

You'll see how important that is at the end of this psalm as well.

In the day of trouble, he, God, will conceal me in his tabernacle.

In verse five, there are three different things that the Lord will do, and this is amazing.

And verse six is uh David's response, and I think our response to uh as well, uh, because verse five is three he wills, and verse six is three I wills.

All right, so watch in verse five.

Look at it.

For in the day of trouble he will conceal me in his tabernacle, in the secret place of his tent, he will hide me.

Sometimes you need uh a place to shelter, a refuge, a hiding place, if you will.

Um, and God is the one that will do that.

He will lift me up on a rock.

What that means is he'll give me a solid place to stand.

When when it seems like everything that can be shaken is being shaken.

Um I was talking with my doctor a couple weeks ago, and he said, Yeah, this is one of those times it seems like a lot's being shaken.

He said, but um the kingdom of heaven won't be shaken.

Um the the king is on his throne.

He said, We're stirred, but not shaken.

I think that's a great way to say it.

Yeah, we're stirred, and we need to be stirred up, don't we?

Stirred up to be reminded of who God is, who this Jesus is, who made an approach to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday to bring salvation, to bring peace between sinners like we are, fearful people like we are.

And the God, the Almighty God, creator of the universe and everything that exists, who holds everything, including human history, including this moment, as crazy as the storm that's blowing may seem to us, he holds this in his hands.

He's ultimately sovereign and in charge.

And we can be like David and have confidence that the Lord will lift us up on a rock.

Verse 6 is the is the our response where we, you know, God said uh or David said that that God will do these three things.

He will, he will, he will.

And now, verse six, and now my head will be lifted up above my enemies around me, and I will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy.

All right, there's the first of the three I wills.

I will offer sacrifices with shouts of joy.

I uh I love this because I know it's gonna probably, you know, some of us brought up in the frozen chosen, you know, Presbyterian Methodist, whatever.

We we come into church, we fold our hands and sit down quietly.

There's not much shouting going on.

Um, but every now and then we need to do a little bit of shouting.

I remember when uh I was in youth group we did some shouting, and I used to look back on that and say, oh, that's kids, they just have to do that.

Um and I remember uh we used to, there's but we used to say this sort of call and response thing.

We used to, the youth director used to say, God is good, and we'd all yell all the time.

And then the youth director would yell, all the time, and we'd all yell about, God is good.

Just reminding ourselves that God is good.

He's not always safe, as we learned from C.S.

Lewis, but he's good.

And when we can't figure out what he's doing with his hands, with his arm, with the way he's steering and guiding history, we can still yet trust his heart because he's good.

That's so important for us.

Um I will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy.

I will, second one, I will sing.

That's so awesome.

Um, boy, here's here's God who conceals us, here's God who hides us in his in his tent, in his secret place.

Here's God who lifts us up on a rock.

So we now our response is to offer to him uh sacrifices with shouts of joy.

I will sing.

And David says it twice, yes, I will sing praises to the Lord.

So that's beautiful.

Yeah, I will sing, I will sing praises to the Lord.

I don't know about you, but I don't always feel like that.

I certainly don't always feel like shouting, as many of you don't either, I'm sure.

But from what I'm reading here, it might do our souls some good to respond with our wills to the Lord, to purpose, to intentionally worship him, to intentionally sing his praises.

This is a really amazing psalm when you start to think about it.

Verse 7 Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice, be gracious to me and answer me.

And so this is very honest of him.

This is the way I feel, uh, probably the way that you feel often.

When you did say, Seek my face, my heart said to you, Your face, O Lord, I will seek.

It's interesting.

That's what the God, that's what the God of the Bible calls us to do, is to seek him.

Uh, he it's actually an invitation, isn't it?

Uh, because he responds.

Um, do not, the psalmist goes on to say, do not hide your face from me.

Do not turn your servant away in anger.

You have been my help, and that's so true.

God has been faithful, he's been his help.

And we, when we look back on our own lives, we can see many, many times that God has been our help and he's responded to our cries for mercy.

The psalmist goes on to say, Do not abandon me nor forsake me, O God of my salvation.

For my father and my mother, or if, in verse 10, it could it should be translated actually, if my father and my mother had forsaken me, the Lord will take me up.

In other words, when when the the ones that you think should not have, the ones that you think you should be able to trust the most because they love you the most, even if they were to forsake you, God will not forsake you.

I love that verse 10.

That's so powerful.

Uh he turns now in verse 11 uh to speak directly to the Lord.

Teach me thy way, O Lord, lead me on a level path because of my foes.

Do not deliver me over to the desire of my adversaries, which would be a desire for his demise.

Um, false witnesses have risen against me, and such as breathe out violence.

I would have despaired, verse 13 says, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

I would have Despair.

In other words, I haven't, and it's because I've seen the goodness of the Lord.

This is beautiful in the land of the living.

And then verse 14, so powerful, and I'll just make a couple points after this.

Wait for the Lord.

He's talking to himself again here.

Be strong and let your heart take courage.

Yes, wait for the Lord.

I don't know about you, but I don't like to wait for anything.

Waiting is probably one of the worst things on the planet for me.

But this psalm of confidence in God that not only tells us that God is our light and our salvation, that God's desire is for us to seek Him.

Just as when Jesus came down that Palm Sunday road, He came to reconcile us to God, to bring us peace, to bring us God's salvation as a gift.

As we put our faith and trust in Jesus and in his finished work on the cross, in his glorious resurrection.

We see that God has done everything necessary.

He's taken the initiative to come to us so that we might know him and be reconciled to him.

Here are the four things from this Psalm that I think you need to see.

The Lord is my light and my salvation, verses one through three.

That's all capital letters, Lord, because it's God's personal name.

It's not just his title.

God is a title, Lord is a title, but Yahweh is his personal name.

That's how this God of the Bible distinguishes himself from every other God, little g God, that might exist in the universe.

Yahweh, David said, is my light and my salvation.

And number two, Yahweh is my safety and my security.

Are you looking for more of that?

I am.

Are you you sensing uh sort of an uncertainty, uh uh a timidity, uh, just about even getting up in the morning sometimes?

Uh let's be honest.

We, yeah, we we need to be able to be honest before the Lord, uh, to to grieve the sort of disorientation of our disconnection with one another and and the and the sense of uh uh uh uh just uh uncertainty and exhaustion that we all have.

But to go before the Lord is say, remind ourselves that he's our light, that he's our salvation, that he's our safety, that he's our security, as David saying in this verses four through six.

And to be reminded uh throughout the psalm and even in the passage from Luke 19 that the Lord is faithful, that he's true, that he's trustworthy in a world that is so lacking in all of those things, uh, where we've been let down by so many people that we thought we could trust.

Even as David expresses it here, even if my parents, he says, were to forsake me, you will never forsake me, Lord.

Um, and the psalm reminding us to look to God and to trust God because he's faithful, true, and trustworthy.

And then fourthly, and finally, the last point I'd like to make is that uh springing off that last verse, verse 14, where he says, wait for the Lord, be strong and let your heart take courage.

Yes, wait for the Lord.

I love that.

Um, because we never waste our waiting when we are waiting on the Lord.

Um again, these Psalms, 150 songs, so beautiful in their honesty, every human emotion on display.

Um they stir our imagination.

Um, they give voice to our emotions, the things that we're feeling.

They inform the mind, they direct the will, but ultimately they inspire worship, and that's what waiting on the Lord means.

Not wasting our waiting, not disbelieving, but going before him in all honesty, telling him exactly what's going on.

And the Psalms uh show us that we can do that.

But we we we we can even say to God, How long, O Lord?

How long before you'll come and push this virus back?

How long, O Lord, before we can crawl out of the hole we found ourselves in financially or whatever.

How long, O Lord?

We can be honest, that's what the Psalms are so beautiful for.

It's one of the reasons I really believe the Christian faith is true.

It doesn't ask us to just sweep all of this under the rug, you see.

Um we grieve, but we don't grieve without hope.

We have all the hope in the world.

Why?

Because Christ has come.

He took the initiative, he rode on that donkey down that Palm Sunday road to bring us salvation.

The Psalms teach us it's perfectly okay to cry out to God and to pray, help God, where are you, God?

Don't you hear me, God?

Why is this happening, God?

Please come to our rescue, God.

Uh even I'm angry, God, I'm frustrated, God.

My heart is broken, God, my spirit is crushed, God.

See, here we have the God who inspired these pages, these writings, these ancient scriptures, telling us to come to Him and to bring all of who we are to Him.

And at the same time, while we do that, we're reminding ourselves through these Psalms of how God is faithful and that we don't waste our waiting when we wait on the Lord because He's faithful, He's true, and He's trustworthy.

While we at times must wait, we need not despair.

Yeah, that's so true.

We can take courage when we wait upon the Lord, because we always wait with hope.

Not hope in ourselves, not hope in the culture, not hope in our money, not hope in the some some solution to the big problem here.

We hope in Christ.

He's our hope in life and death.

And uh the ancient psalmist looking forward to foreshadowing all of that in this old song, verse 13 and 14.

I would have despaired unless, see, unless I love this, unless I had seen the and believed in the goodness of the Lord.

And there's faith at work there.

It transforms uh our moments of weakness and frailty, our times of doubt.

Um, see, Jesus himself, he never he never scolded uh honest doubters.

It were it was the willful unbelievers, you know, the in in his time, especially the self-righteous religious ones, that Jesus scolded.

But when, especially that one man after the Mount of Transfiguration, that one man came to Jesus and said, Lord, I believe, but help my unbelief.

Jesus doesn't throw us out when we have doubts, when we have struggles, when we're shaken a little bit or whatever.

We run to him.

That's what we should do.

And he will turn what feels like a shaking into just a stirring up of our faith.

Tornadoes, worldwide pandemics, financial collapse, all of that stuff on top of the regular sicknesses and the regular losses that some of us are experiencing.

Friends, I don't know why God is allowing all of this to happen.

But I want you to know, as your pastor, I finally um stepped out of the explaining business several years ago when I started to grow up a little bit in the ministry.

I'm not in the explaining business anymore.

I'm puzzled a lot myself.

But here's what I am in: I'm in the listening, I'm in the weeping business, I'm in the comforting and the encouraging and the helping and the praying business.

And I want you to come and join me in that business.

And that the last thing I want to say is I'm in the trusting God to be my light and to be my salvation, to be my refuge and my strength.

And I hope you'll come and join me in that as well.

Warren Wearsby in his book, Be Amazed, said this.

We don't live on explanations, we live on promises.

And the promises of God are based on the character of God.

And folks, here's a God who is faithful, true, and trustworthy.

Um, he is the one you want to run to.

He's the one with the power of life and death.

He's the one that we can uh put our hope in, and he will be faithful to us.

John Stott, in describing Christianity, says Christianity is in its very essence a rescue religion.

And folks, that's what we need, isn't it?

Yeah.

And we need it more, uh, or maybe I should say it this way.

We've always needed it.

We're just more aware of our need for it right now.

And the great news is, yes, Jesus, our Savior, our Lord, he has come with rescue, with salvation, with redemption in his hand, and he's offering it to you and he's offering it to me.

How will we respond now?

Will we be like David to turn to the Lord, to find in him our light and salvation, to verbalize our confidence in him?

An occasional shout, perhaps, even, some of us.

Uh, but to sing his praises, uh, to remind ourselves to wait on the Lord and not waste uh the time that is sort of the in-between times, but to trust in the Lord and hope in the Lord.

John Piper says this Jesus came the first time, and he's talking about the Palm Sunday coming, and he's coming again as the king over all kings, king of Israel, king of all the nations, king of nature and the universe.

Until he comes again, there's a day of amnesty and forgiveness and patience.

He still rides a donkey and not yet a white war horse with a rod of iron.

We'll read about that in the book of Revelation.

He, Jesus, is ready to save all who receive him as Savior and treasure and king.

Come to him, know him, receive him, live your life in allegiance to him.

And I say amen and amen.

John Piper's right there.

This Palm Sunday, as we reflect on Christ's approach to Jerusalem, let's think about it this way.

He's approaching your heart and he's approaching my heart.

And even in Jerusalem's darkness, even in Jerusalem's brokenness, that might parallel ours right now, uh, gripped by fear, um, uncertainty, exhaustion, will we turn to him and trust in him?

Um, he has come for you, he's come for me, and he has come with redemption and rescue and restoration in his hand.

How will we respond?

I want to be like the crowd that was singing Hosanna to the Son of David.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Hosanna in the highest.

Oh, hallelujah! What a savior!