Gold or Crown? (Palm Sunday 2019)

Uh NBA superstar Dwayne Wade retired.

I don't know really anything about the state of uh his faith, but I will tell you this.

The guy was both a remarkable basketball player and has and continues to do remarkable things for his city, Miami, where he's played for so long.

13 all-star appearances, three NBA championships, holds the record for the most blocked shots by any shooting guard in NBA history, and on and on and on.

This being his last season, one of his sponsors knew that he wanted to collect the jerseys of some of his mentors in basketball and some of the guys that he was mentoring.

And so after each game, he would trade one of his jerseys with uh one of the guys from the opposing team.

And uh one of his uh sponsors took each of those jerseys and framed them and put them on this giant wall and produced a uh three-minute video that I'll challenge you to make it through without crying.

Um if you do, you let me know.

Um and in the middle they reserved this uh this space for five more jerseys.

And they brought Wade into the basketball court where he has played his entire uh NBA career, and with the center spotlight shining on him, they brought out one by one five different individuals that he has affected in significant ways over his time as an NBA basketball player.

A lady who came out uh whose uh family was uh too poor to send her to college, and so he, hearing about it, uh, provided her full tuition and scholarship to go to college.

A lady whose uh house just a handful of days before Christmas burned to the ground and received a call from uh somebody in Dwayne Wade's uh camp that said, Hey, would you mind if Dwayne took you out on a shopping spree to replace some of the things that were lost?

A young woman whose brother was uh shot when he was just a teenager, uh whom he honored by writing his name on his shoe and honoring him before one of the games that was played.

A young man who grew up in a really depressed area of town similar to where uh Wade grew up in Chicago, and through his inspiration, he interviewed and found a job and is growing uh in his career.

And lastly, Wade's mother, who because of her actions spent a significant time of his childhood in prison, and through Wade's faithfulness to her, continued to show her grace.

And what they traded wasn't NBA basketball jerseys, but something far more valuable than that.

Each person brought with them a different article that represented what he had done for them.

The woman whose brother was shot brought the jersey of the last basketball game that he played in as a teenager, and the family wrote a message on the jersey.

Woman who graduated from college brought her cap and gown.

The guy who interviewed for a job and was progressing his career, the sport coat that he wore to his first job interview, and on and on and on, and and and it was as if each one of these people were communicating something that really only Wade's mother, who was the last person to come, articulated, I think best.

She said, I am more proud of you as a man than as a basketball player.

You are so much bigger than basketball.

In a world that creates superstars made of glory, what do you want Jesus to do for you?

What do you want Jesus to do for you?

In this passage, I think we're faced with a choice.

We can choose what I'm gonna call this morning the gold or the glitter, the NBA championships and all-star appearances of this world.

Or the crown, the stuff that endures forever.

And God puts this passage before us in John chapter 12 and says, choose.

John 12 · chapter mention

When the large crowd of the Jews learned that Jesus was there, they came not only on account of him, but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.

So the chief priests made plans to put Lazarus to death as well.

Because on account of him, many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus.

On the next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem.

So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the king of Israel.

And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as was written, Fear not, daughter of Zion, behold, your king is coming sitting on a donkey's colt.

His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him.

The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness, and the reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard he had done this sign.

So the Pharisees said to one another, You see, they're gaining nothing.

Look, the whole world has gone after him.

Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks, so they came to Philip, who was from Beth Betheda in Galilee, and asked him, Sir, we wish to see Jesus, and Philip went and told Andrew, and Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus, and Jesus said to them, The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.

Truly, truly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone.

But if it dies, it bears much fruit.

Whoever loves his life loses it.

And whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

If anyone serves me, he must follow me.

And where I am, there will my servant be also.

If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.

King Jesus, we pray that this morning you would teach us something about you.

And that we would see, instead of what you can do for us, what you've already, in fact, done for us.

And that we would see through the eyes of faith what you want us to see in this word.

And we pray it in Christ's name.

Amen.

The crowd in this story represents what I'm calling desiring the gold in life, the glitter, the stuff that's fleeting.

The crowd is following Jesus and has been following him now with increasing numbers since the very beginning of his public ministry.

By now the following is much bigger than any Dwayne Wade sighting in Miami.

By now it's superstar status.

Everybody is following Jesus.

The Pharisees even say the world has gone after him.

Everybody we know is going after him.

So many that in different occasions he'll have to get into a boat and push off from shore in order to teach the crowds.

He'll have to hide from the crowds in order to get any kind of rest whatsoever.

The crowd is pursuing him and pursuing him, pursuing him.

And the text even tells us why.

It says, the reason that they're following him is because they saw him raise Lazarus from the dead.

Now that's amazing.

But let's put it together a little bit more.

Why exactly was that so important to them?

Not just the raising of Lazarus from the dead, but all of it kind of coming together.

Even this quote from Zechariah chapter 9, verse 9 Fear not, O Zion.

Zechariah 9:9

Behold, your king is coming to you.

Humble and mounted on a donkey, we we recited it in the call to worship.

Let's remember what we learned through our life as mission series in part this past uh this past semester.

Some of the things that we learn, remember, is that Israel's history is marked by being ruled by other nations.

Remember, they were slaves for 400 years in Egypt.

After they come out of slavery, after 400 years, they wander around in the wilderness, they come to the Promised Land, they enter it, they start casting out all the nations, but they don't deal with all of them.

And slowly, bit by bit, just as God predicted, those nations would enslave them back.

Now there'll be a period of Israel's history, about three or four hundred years, where Israel will have its own kings, but those kings will be increasingly more and more wicked throughout the history, so much so that the kingdoms will be divided, north, the kingdom of Israel, south, the kingdom of Judah, and even those kingdoms will fail, and the people will be carried off into captivity for 70 years, and when they come back, it's in slavery all over again.

And now it's just slavery to the Romans.

They've really known in their history nothing but servitude to another.

So when they start, remember, this is a predominantly Jewish audience that know the scriptures.

They're more biblically literate than we are.

They know the scriptures, they know the prophecies, they see Jesus doing these miracles, they see him riding in on a donkey, just as the prophet Zechariah predicted the Messiah would do, and they start to say, Oh, here we go.

Jesus is gonna do his thing.

The Romans are gonna be gone.

I mean, even the disciples think this.

Right?

Do you remember in Matthew, as they're approaching Jerusalem, Jesus says to the disciples and the crowd that's with him, When we get in here, I'm gonna be handed over to the authorities, and I'm gonna be crucified.

In three days I'm gonna rise again.

And one of the mothers takes her two sweet little boys named James and John and says, Yeah, we heard that part, but when you establish your kingdom, you promise that my good little boys will sit at your right hand and one at your left hand.

Even his disciples that have been with him for three years don't understand it.

Why is that?

Because everybody wants what Jesus, what they think Jesus will do for them.

They want the gold, they want the stuff, they want the NBA championships, they want the all-star appearances, they want comfort, security, meaning, purpose, significance.

Those aren't bad things until we make those things ultimate things.

How do we know that we're making those things ultimate things?

The text goes on to tell us that desire results, Jesus says, in losing our life.

Whoever loves his life, verse twenty five, loses it.

Well, that's confusing, isn't it?

After all, the scriptures talk all the time about loving your neighbor as yourself.

What's wrong with loving your life?

Well, when we make the love of our life the ultimate thing, then that which we're placing our hope and security, which was never meant to hold, our hope and security, crumbles.

Another way of saying whoever loves his life will lose it is whoever idolizes his life or her life will lose it.

Whoever makes an idol out of reputation or career or relationship or power or money or comfort or significance.

Whoever makes an idol out of those things, whoever makes those things the ultimate things, that my kid's gonna grow up and be okay, that my health is gonna be okay, that my relationship's gonna be okay, those are okay things, but when we take those okay things and make them ultimate things, Jesus says, then you'll lose it, because none of those things are ever meant, dear friends, to save you or to provide you significance.

How do we know that's what's really going on in our hearts?

Well, we're told in a verse actually that I didn't read, chapter 12 and verse 43, verse 42 and verse 43.

It says, Nevertheless, many of the authorities believed in him, this Jesus, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so they'd not be put out of the synagogue, for they love the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.

Boy, that's tough.

Because I'm really good at loving the glory that comes from man, and so are you, and making those things the ultimate things.

Because here's the thing: even though Jesus won't do it, he's powerful enough to do it, and we know it.

What I mean by that is this when the guards came to arrest Jesus a handful of nights after this happened, and his disciples, you know, pull out their swords and start chopping off the ears of the guards, Jesus says, put away your swords.

Don't you think that I could appeal to my Father?

And he would at once provide me ten legions of angels, warriors in heaven, or on the cross, even, as he's hanging on the cross, and they're mocking him, and they say, You who said you could destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, come down from the cross if you're able.

He could have.

He could have garnered the whole host of heaven.

He could have come off the cross.

He could provide you comfort, security, significance.

All the gold you could ever wish for.

He could make you the greatest NBA player, salesperson, doctor, plumber, lawyer, candlestick maker ever to live.

He could do it.

He's that powerful.

He could do it.

But if he did it, you wouldn't need him, would you?

Because you'd think you're pretty cool.

And you'd think you're pretty great.

And we're not.

See, Jesus says, rather than the gold, I'm going to give you something better.

Rather than what you think you want, I'm going to give you a crown.

This is what he says of the cost of the crown.

We're going to talk about what that means, don't worry.

It says, verse 24.

Truly, truly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone.

But if it dies, it bears much fruit.

Now that's really strange.

Philip and Andrew are going to Jesus, and they're telling him that a bunch of Greeks want to come see him, and Jesus answered, The hour has come for me to be glorified.

And then he gives this agriculture analogy.

It's not confusing if we think about it.

What Jesus is saying, he's trying to describe what's going to happen in his own death in order to give you the crown, in order to give you the glory that he wants to give you.

Not because you're good or not because you deserve it or anything else, but because he's good and he deserves it.

But in order to give you the glory, he's got to divest himself of glory.

And the way that he's going to do that is he's going to be like a seed that is vindicated when it dies and produces a great crop.

So too is Jesus vindicated when he dies and produces a great crop and host of believers.

So there's a cost to the crown.

And it's not just to Jesus, it's to you too.

It's to me too.

It says, whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

It's not talking about hate in an in an objective sense.

We're not to hate ourselves.

What he's saying is, in comparison to me, you're to hate your life.

In comparison to me, everything else ought to pale in comparison.

I must be the most beautiful thing in the world to you.

And if I'm not, then you're seeking the glory that comes over here rather than the glory that comes from me.

Jesus must be more beautiful to you than job security, relational security, advancement in your career, doing well in school, being liked, finding significance in your life, feeling like you've got meaning and purpose.

Because when you begin to put put those, put all your energy into finding those things, make your ultimate thing, you'll find that at the end of the day, you've missed the whole thing that will give you significance and will give you purpose and will give you life and will sustain you through the rocky times and relationships or career.

When we begin to see Jesus as the most beautiful thing, we begin to prefer Jesus over more whatever it is that you're thinking in your mind right now.

Whatever aspect the Holy Spirit is working in your heart right now.

When Jesus is more beautiful than that.

So what's the result?

Well, there's a reward.

It says in verse.

25, you'll keep it for eternal life, and the Father will honor him in verse 26.

The reward of seeing Jesus like that is eternal life.

So we started the day by saying, What do you want Jesus to do for you?

And I said, We've got a choice in the passage.

So the important thing to ask now is, how do we choose?

Because if every single person in this room was honest on our best day, our desires, the Bible says, are like filthy rags.

And that's a problem.

Because the glory that comes from man sounds really good.

The answer comes in understanding that when the crowd followed him and waved palm branches, as was tradition in the ancient Near East, to celebrate a military victory, they were doing far more than they could possibly imagine.

They were wrong about what kind of kingdom he would set up, but they were right in that he had come as king and had conquered.

And what he conquered was sin and death and hell forever.

And the way that he conquered that was that he took your sins.

Some that he had known since the foundation of the world.

He took your sins and he put it on his son Jesus on the cross.

An event that will celebrate this Good Friday.

And in full payment for your sins, he crucified his son.

And the third day he rose from the grave.

So you see, friends, the way that you choose Christ is to recognize that he has, in fact, already chosen you.

Another way to say that is we love because he first loved us.

And so you see, there really there really is no choice when you're confronted with the reality of what God has done for you and Jesus.

Because there's nothing else to do.

And so my prayer for me and for you this holy week is that we would be moved by what God did for us in Jesus Christ, and be different because of it.

Heavenly Father, I thank you that you don't give me what I think I want.

The applause of people, the glory that comes from man, as verse forty-three says.

But you give me something far more eternal than that.

A crown that I don't deserve.

And you give it to all these friends too.

In fact, you offer it to the whole world.

Would our hearts be so affected by the radical nature of your loving us that everything that we thought we wanted would show itself to be a shadow compared to you.

And we pray it in Jesus' name.

Amen.