Spiritual Momentum | Rev. Derek P. Elphick

Well, good morning and welcome to this Palm Sunday festival service, our adult service.

So those of you here in this room and those who are joining us online.

Our celebration of Palm Sunday begins with the account of the triumphal entry as it is recorded in the Gospel of Luke.

And it came to pass when Jesus came near to Beth Parj and Bethany at the mountain called Olivet, that he sent two of his disciples, saying, Go into the village opposite you, where as you enter you will find a colt tied on which no one has ever sat.

Loose him and bring him here.

And if any one asks you, Why are you loosing him?

Thus you shall say to him, Because the Lord has need of him.

So those who were sent departed and found it just as he had said to them.

But as they were loosing the colt, the owner of it said to them, Why are you loosing the colt?

And they said, The Lord has need of him.

Then they brought him to Jesus, and they threw their own garments on the colt, and they set Jesus on him.

And as he went they spread their clothes on the ground.

Then as he was now drawing near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen, saying, Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord, peace in heaven and glory in the highest.

But some of the Pharisees called to him from the crowd, Teacher, rebuke your disciples.

But Jesus answered and said to them, I tell you that if these should keep silent, the very stones on the ground will burst out cheering.

And further from the teachings of the new church, two passages, one from the work True Christianity and the other from the work Heaven and Hell, both of which describe how our faith grows and gathers momentum.

Since faith in its essence is truth, our faith becomes more spiritual and more perfectly spiritual depending on the quantity of truths that we have and how well they fit together.

That is, our faith becomes less and less sense-oriented and earthly because it then rises up into a higher region of our mind.

From that perspective, it sees below itself a host of things in the nature of the world that strengthen and support it.

True faith, achieved through a quantity of truths that fit together like strands in a cable, also becomes more enlightening, perceivable, obvious, and clear.

True faith also becomes more easily united with acts of goodwill, and therefore more alienated from evils and progressively more remote from the enticements of the eye and the cravings of the flesh.

Therefore, faith becomes more truly happy.

Above all, it becomes more powerful against evils and falsities, and therefore more and more living and empowered to save.

It is not so hard to live the life of heaven as people think, because it is simply a matter of recognizing when something attractive comes up that we know is dishonest or unfair, that this is not to be done because it is against the divine commandments.

If we get used to thinking like this and from this familiarity form a habit, then we are gradually united to heaven.

To the extent that we are united to heaven, the higher levels of our minds are opened, and to the extent that they are opened, we see what is dishonest and unfair.

And to the extent that we see this, these qualities can be dispelled.

For no evil can be banished until it is seen.

This is a state we can enter because of our freedom, since everyone is free to think in this way.

And once the process has started, the Lord quickens or strengthens all that is good in us, and causes us not only to see evils, but to refuse them and eventually to turn away from them.

This is the meaning of the Lord's words.

My yoke is easy and my burden light.

Amen.

And may the Lord add his blessing to the reading and hearing of his word.

And it is based on this text from Luke chapter 19, verses 39 to 40.

Luke 19:39–40

And some of the Pharisees called to Jesus from the crowd, Teacher, restrain your disciples.

But he answered and said to them, I tell you that if they kept silent, the very stones in the road would burst out cheering.

It's a wonderful thing when we have momentum.

There's nothing quite like it.

Everything clicks, we get in a zone, and the momentum we have for whatever it is that we're doing propels us forward in such a way that we almost lose track of time and the task at hand becomes effortless.

During times like these, there is very little that can discourage us or weaken our resolve.

Of course, there are plenty of times when we lack momentum, when even the smallest task ends up being incredibly difficult to do.

But even then, we are not deterred because we know that we can get this momentum back again.

Today's sermon addresses the idea of spiritual momentum as it relates to our rebirth and regeneration.

Spiritual momentum has many similar attributes to the mental and physical momentum that we experience when we are focused on a task or activity that we're enjoying.

But the type of momentum we'll be discussing today is an even stronger kind of one, and it is more satisfying and consistent because the Lord is the hidden force behind it.

So let's turn to our text to see what we can learn.

By writing into Jerusalem as king, the Lord set in motion a series of events that became unstoppable.

The Pharisees were deeply worried.

It was becoming embarrassingly obvious that they were losing control and almost laughably tried to shut down the festivities.

Teacher, restrain or rebuke your disciples.

Stop them from being happy.

Stop them from cheering, from celebrating, from joining together to praise you for all the mighty works they had seen.

And what was the Lord's response?

It's possible that his answer came with a smile.

I tell you that if they, his followers, kept silent, the very stones in the road would burst out cheering.

In other words, it was too late.

The momentum for truth, for goodness, for love had grown so strong, so massive, so unstoppable, no human being could stand in its way.

The Lord's reference to the stones crying out is a beautiful reminder of Isaiah 55, which says that the whole of nature itself will celebrate the Lord's salvation alongside humanity.

For you shall go out with joy and be led out with peace.

The mountains and the hills shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

The events of Palm Sunday leading to the last week of the Lord's life on earth mark a dramatic shift in the gospel narrative.

Even after the Lord rode into Jerusalem as king, it seems on the surface as if he continued doing what he'd always been doing during his public ministry: teaching in the synagogues, healing the sick, and making new disciples.

But today's scripture adds a new layer, a peak behind the curtains, if you will, of something else that was going on.

The work of the Lord's life on earth was creating an unstoppable kind of momentum, a new kind of power, a new kind of order, a new kind of strength, and one that was making the world practically burst at the seams.

So what was going on?

Well, we tend to think of Old Testament teachings and New Testament teachings as what you might call standalone sayings, as not necessarily being connected to each other or even needing each other to gather momentum.

Now, there's some truth to this in that the two great commandments or the golden rule do hold a power and relevance all on their own.

But it's equally true that they gain even more power and momentum in our lives when they are connected to other truths, other teachings that broaden our perspective on what it means to love the Lord and each other.

This brings us to the striking lesson you heard read this morning, which said, quote, our faith becomes more spiritual and less earthly based on the quantity of truths we have and how well they fit together.

That's a challenging statement, isn't it?

The strength of our faith is based on the quantity of truths we possess.

Shouldn't it say the strength of our faith is based on the quality of the truths we have?

Isn't quality more important than quantity?

Well, when it comes to the truths of the Lord's word, every truth is of the highest quality.

So that's not the issue.

The question is, why do we need lots and lots of truths to make our faith strong?

Won't a few key ideas or teachings suffice?

Well, speaking of volume, people will sometimes point out that the Old and New Testament contain many individual books, sixty-six all told, thus many words, which essentially teach the same thing, that we are to love the Lord and our neighbor by keeping the Ten Commandments.

The same could be said about the heavenly doctrines.

Why do we need 30 volumes of new church teachings to tell us the same thing?

Isn't that redundant?

Well, the answer can be boiled down to one thing: evil.

The presence of evil in and around us makes it so very difficult for us to hear the Lord.

And that's a huge problem, a salvation problem, actually.

The presence of evil in and around us makes it so that we don't take spiritual matters seriously.

This means that evil, if we don't do anything to confront it, will turn us into terrible listeners.

It will make us think that we know better than others, including the Lord.

It will pit us against each other and create our own reality, a reality that is shockingly self-absorbed and uninterested in helping other people.

This is why we so desperately need the Lord's truths and many of them.

They give us the spiritual momentum that we need to push through the confusion and the contradictions and the hardship and the inertia that we experience in life in this world.

The lesson we read this morning revealed a remarkable sequence, chain reaction or domino effect, if you will, of what happens when we equip ourselves with quote-unquote, many truths that, taken together, the passage said, gain strength like strands in a cable.

It said, many truths will make our faith less and less sense-oriented and earthly.

Many truths will open up the higher regions of our mind.

Many truths will enable us to see confirming evidence of the Lord in nature.

Many truths will give us the clarity that we will need to follow the Lord in his word.

And this will become more perceivable and obvious.

The list goes on.

We will find it much easier to reach out to others with acts of goodwill when we have many truths to guide us.

We will find it easier to separate from the evil in and around us, and the quote-unquote enticement of the eye and the cravings of the flesh will become less appealing.

And above all, it will give us more power, more momentum against evils and falsities.

This acquisition of many truths sounds intellectual, like an academic exercise.

But it is far from that.

It is a very personal thing and very much a part of our rebirth and regeneration.

It's a desire that the Lord's many truths, which are actually all expressions of his love and his mercy, grow in us and gain momentum in us until his work of salvation in us becomes unstoppable, and the evil spirits represented by the Pharisees can do nothing about it.

This hidden process of redemption parallels the Lord's own glorification.

By the time he rode into Jerusalem as king, the inner work of uniting his divine to his human was almost complete.

Nothing could stop the celebration from happening that day.

Now, as much as we might like to think that we can handle any and all truths that the Lord might might point out to us in his word and take it on the chin, so to speak, the reality is quite different sometimes.

One very helpful teaching in our church says that we can only accept these specific truths, these many truths from the word, if an affection for the general idea already exists.

I want to read the teaching out to you.

General concepts from the word have to be present in our mind first, before particular ideas.

If the broad concepts from the word are not welcomed first, the particulars cannot possibly gain entrance.

In fact, they trigger boredom.

Another translation says that they trigger disgust, because the broad concepts have not been received with affection first.

So what is this saying?

Well, take some practical examples first.

If someone has a passion for cooking or gardening or woodworking or mountain climbing, they will have no problem, no hesitation diving into all the details, the specifics that they need to help them perfect their craft, their skill.

So take by way of example the general teaching that the Lord is our Savior.

This is what the name Jesus means, Jehovah saves.

We all have an affection for this general concept, the general idea that the Lord is our Savior.

So far, so good.

But it gets a little trickier when we encounter specific teachings, these particulars in the Word, that challenge us to repent, which simply means turn away from, things that we may not be ready to turn away from, and things that we may not be ready to let go of, like an angry feeling, or our pride, or a grudge, or a feeling of ingratitude.

Suddenly we aren't so interested in those details, the particulars, because we discover that the Lord our Savior is very serious about healing us now, in the moment, not sometime down the road.

The same principle applies to all other general teachings in the Word.

We may have no issue with the grand themes of the Word faith, charity, repentance, freedom, providence, marriage, the afterlife, but the many particular truths which are given in support of these general themes and which broaden our perspective won't.

Gain momentum in us until we are ready for them.

Again, it's not that we don't have an affection for these general truths.

We do.

It's just that the timing and the sequence of when we are actually ready to change, to actually tackle something deeply spiritual, that's the question, and this is different for everyone.

Well, thankfully, the Lord is in charge.

He knows us better than we know ourselves.

And in terms of sequence, the Lord is acquainted with our grief, our struggles.

He is leading us every day, as that passage from Heaven and Hell said, quickening or strengthening our resolve to do the right thing whenever we turn to Him for help.

And in this way we gain spiritual momentum from the Lord when we go to His Word and build up our knowledge base, when we seek new truths to tackle new and difficult challenges.

This makes us stronger and happier people.

We become less fearful, less intimidated by setback and disappointment.

So all of the many truths of the word, all of these spiritual treasures, are given to us to broaden our perspective on what it means to truly love the Lord and each other.

All of this is possible because of what the Lord did for us when he came into the world.

When he rode into Jerusalem as king on what has come to be known as Palm Sunday, he changed the spiritual trajectory of the whole human race.

The momentum for truth, for goodness, for love had grown so strong, so massive, so unstoppable, no human being could stand in its way.

And this is why there was a celebration that day, and this is why we join in that celebration today.

Amen.