Lent: The Humble King Reigns

So today is Palm Sunday.

So we are looking at this story in the scriptures, which is called the triumphal entry.

This is Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, heading into the last week, the final week of his life.

So our text is John chapter 12, verses 12 through 15.

John 12:12–15

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 out, 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 it is written, Fear not, daughter of Zion.

Behold, your king is coming sitting on a donkey's colt.

So we're going to talk our way through this passage this morning as to contemplate the story and really discover the heart of Christ that we get to see in this moment and in this story.

Point number one for us this morning is we easily hold false expectations of who God is, how he regards us, and how he operates.

It's so easy for us to fall into false expectations.

Now remember, this story is full of irony in this moment because kings rode in on horses, and yet Jesus is on a donkey, which is a symbol of humility and peace.

And palm branches, if you remember, are a nationalistic symbol.

And then they're singing Hosanna, which means Savior or Save Me.

And so if we add all that up, maybe some of these people here had it all put together from the Old Testament and Jesus' teachings, and they get it, he's headed to the cross.

Maybe some people, it's very possible, but it's also very, very possible that a large portion of these people they think that Jesus is coming in some measure to deliver them in a political way from the oppression of Rome.

They had false expectations on some level of who Jesus is for them and who he should be.

So this scene is there, and it's like it's like a Super Bowl champ that returns to their city, right?

And they have that parade and everybody lines the streets.

I mean, that's the caliber of excitement here, the expectation.

But when they would think he's going to come in on a war horse, he comes in on a donkey.

And if you remember last week we talked about the difference between a theology of glory and a theology of the cross.

And here's just another moment that we get this difference that's so good for us to get.

It says something like maturity in life is at the top of like an endless incline of improvement.

Right?

Like even as a Christian, like if only you're gonna you're just gonna constantly get better.

And that being a Christian and maturing or coming into fulfillment will be in the increase of betterment.

That will actually be where it is at.

So both moralism and prosperity gospel are kind of rooted into a theology of glory, which eventually, if you live long enough both in this theology of glory foundation, they will exhaust you and condemn you because you're never quite enough.

Right?

We never quite have it all together, and therefore the whole thing breaks down.

I mean, that was easy for me for a long time as a Christian to embrace that and without realizing it, that this sort of like false expectation of what a Christian life should be, a constant improvement over time, started to condemn me and exhaust me because I wasn't constantly getting better.

There was just parts of my life that would pop up.

And then what did that mean if this was my faith?

But Jesus gives us another way, a theology of the cross, which says, God provides salvation, wholeness, and fulfillment as I die into Christ.

So the practice is not getting better and better and better.

The practice is dying in more profound ways into Christ's sufficiency for you.

That life is actually in the sacrifice.

Right?

We get the donkey, we get the cross.

So in the honest facing of our weakness and shame and guilt and hurt, and in our honest facing of our need, that that's actually where life is found.

That's actually where we move into abundant life and eternal life.

And here's what I know at the end of all that.

That sounds really kind of philosophical, perhaps.

And here's where it hits, I think, just life is it definitely for me.

God has to break something, constantly has to break something in me to create a heart prepared to receive his grace.

And both the breaking and the receiving is God's grace.

Because without the breaking, I just go my own way over and over again for self-sufficiency and self-justification.

Point number two is this our false expectations about God must be replaced by God's revelation of himself to us.

So we have false expectations, but fortunately, praise God, he reveals himself to us.

The gift that we have in history is Jesus, that God didn't stay hidden.

If we want to know about God, we don't have to go and stare at an oak tree.

As much as I love a good oak tree and I would love to, I love hugging an oak tree or stare at the ocean and experience God and nature.

As much as I do that and I love that.

We have the person of Jesus in history to concretely know what God is like.

And then the gift of the Bible is that we have truth outside of what we conjure up.

So we have truth to confront our false expectations.

And I need that because I can convince myself of all sorts of stuff depending on my emotion of the day.

So we have all these different biblical writers writing in the Bible, and if you've read the Bible enough, you start to realize these different biblical writers take sort of like different slants and tones about God.

Now, it's not contradiction.

What this is for us is the gift of different aspects of this one true God for us to relish in even more.

And then we get this biblical arc that's given to us in the scriptures, this meta-narrative of redemption and grace, that we get to understand his justice and his love.

And then our practice becomes to dive into his word, so his word will dive further into us to reveal our false expectations and falsehoods and the lies we're believing and to be comforted by his truth and grace.

So we have false expectations, but God's revealed himself, and then we have his word.

And so in his Holy Spirit is for him to root out those falsehoods and those lies.

Last week I watched the documentary on Netflix about fake art.

Have you watched this one?

It's called Made You Look.

Has anybody seen this?

It's kind of popped up on kind of like the thing that's popular.

And so I watched it.

It's a story about the biggest scandal in art history.

And so it's this gallery in New York, the Nodler Gallery had been around for 150 years.

I mean, they made their way through three wars.

Okay, that's how long this gallery has been in New York selling paintings to collectors and other galleries around the world until a very unassuming lady showed up years ago and started to sell them or have them sell her art on her behalf, about five, six paintings a year.

She had a very vague story about where these paintings originated.

They were mostly abstract, expressionist paintings from like Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko.

And her story was just enough.

Like was just enough.

But she didn't have like any paperwork.

She didn't have any like the trail of origination back to the artists.

But the painting looked really good.

Her story was good.

And if it was true, it meant millions and millions and millions of dollars.

I mean, they sold 60 paintings for over$80 million of fake art over the years.

Here's one painting they sold.

This is a Mark Rothko.

The one on the right is real, the one on the left is fake.

Can't you tell?

And by the way, the one on the left sold for$8 million.

That's what they sold it for.

Perhaps you also saw the Westside Elementary art exhibit that they had.

I'm certainly just like a country boy.

Like I taught- I thought Thomas Kincaid was expensive at Lifeway when it was like$70, and I'd walk by and be like, oh my, who's buying that?

That's unbelievable that somebody would go that far.

Alright, so here's what I started to realize is now the painting, the fake one, right?

It's not really fake.

A real guy painted it.

It was a Chinese immigrant artist in Queens.

Like he painted it on real canvas with real paint, and he's a real artist.

It's a real painting.

And then these paintings that he painted, real paintings.

They're not fake paintings.

The painting is actually real.

The expectation upon the painting, that's what's fake.

And they hung all around the world.

In people's homes and galleries, and maybe we, I don't know.

I went to the MoMA one time.

Maybe I walked in and marveled at some painting that, you know, like people marveled at them.

And the whole time the painting was real.

It was just a lot more humble than we thought.

Right?

This is this moment in John 12.

Not a perfect illustration, but pretty good.

They wanted King David.

Like they wanted somebody to rule a political nation.

They wanted Moses.

Their expectations here, certainly at the cross, they're not matching what they thought would play out.

So we don't have crowds of supporters at the cross six days from here.

A couple questions for us to contemplate as to grow in our faith.

And what ways do I attempt to make Jesus my kind of king rather than who he actually is for me?

See, when we have the false expectations and then life, something in life that we think God should have done something and he should have solved something or he should have, and then that doesn't happen, then we're disillusioned.

And then we can so easily blame God or walk away, but God never promised for so much of these things to happen for us.

It's just false expectations.

Question number two What false expectations do I have of God that He never promised to give?

So for me, those answers usually lead me toward idols in my heart that like I want something, He never promised it to me, or I want something a certain timeline, never promise that.

And I sort of like project onto God like my expectations for what I want for my life, and the whole time, he's not on a mission in my life for my comfort.

He never promised that.

Point number three.

Jesus as the humble king means Jesus moves into your heart to hold humble reign.

Now, what does that mean?

Well, at first we think God should march into the city like powerful force, powerful force.

But then we realize like if that's how God operates, then like that's how he would like operate in our hearts, like all power, all conquering, all force.

And then all of a sudden we're like, I don't know if I want that in my heart.

Like I want that like out in the world, but I don't know if I want that in my own heart.

And what we see with Jesus on a donkey, and then the humility that he portrays in this final week, is the way in which he brings salvation into our hearts is by a humble reign.

That's not by war.

It's by wooing us with his love and his sacrifice.

I mean, Jesus certainly had moments of force and anger, but as an overarching kind of principle of his life, his heart is a heart of sacrifice, tenderness.

Let's look at just a few verses I pulled just to kind of contemplate this.

Philippians 2, 5 through 7, have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God, a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

John 10, 11, Jesus says, I am the good shepherd.

The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

Hebrews 4, 15, for we do not have a high priest, speaking of Jesus, who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

2 Corinthians 8:9.

2 Corinthians 8:9

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.

And then our text today, John 12, 15, it ended with fear not, daughter of Zion.

Behold, your king is coming sitting on a donkey's colt.

So we don't have to be in fear in our walk with Christ because he became lowly, because he humbled himself.

So we we don't just have reverent worship, but we actually have an affectionate walk with him because of his regard to us and the fact that he came into our poverty.

A few years ago, Christy and I went to the Garth Brooks concert.

Yes, I've mentioned Garth Brooks in back-to-back sermons if you're keeping track.

So the concert was at the Benz.

This is, you remember, he came out of retirement.

He came out of retirement.

He had not he had not done a tour in 14 years.

And I didn't think I was a big Garth Brooks uh you know fan.

I had his greatest hits in high school, and I did wear that thing out in my 1985 Toyota four-wheel drive jacked up truck.

I mean, I was kicking that country album in my truck, but we ended up with free tickets.

I hadn't listened to Garth Burst in so long at that point.

We ended up with free tickets, so we went down to the bins to watch this concert.

The concert starts.

Sure enough, I know every word to every song.

I am all I had no clue how big of a fan that I was in that stadium.

That stadium.

Not arena, okay?

Not arena, stadium, stadium tour.

Okay, we got to distinguish the difference here.

This is the biggest of the biggest of the big time here.

Place was packed out.

Everybody singing.

In a case, you're young or you have lived in a cave, okay?

Garth Brooks is the only artist out of all musical artists in history to have released nine albums that achieve diamond status.

Better than the Beatles, is what this guy is.

From 1996, 1998.

So if we rewind all the way back to 1996, 1998, he tours the world for two years packing stadiums.

For two years straight, he tours the world.

And then in 01, he's still packing stadiums, not arenas, all over the world.

People go not.

He is at the height of his fame, his influence, his power, his wealth.

But he has three little girls.

And he is destroyed as his marriage.

And they get divorced.

He retired.

He moves back to Oklahoma.

Right?

You know the story.

He moves back to Oklahoma and raises girls.

And he sees his girls every day.

He makes their lunches.

Lowers himself.

To be in relationship.

Right?

He became approachable by becoming humble.

What a picture of a gospel.

Sovereign creator God lowers himself into humanity.

Into our poverty, our our littleness, our little Oklahoma.

And becomes approachable because of that.

Now that's not natural expectations for grace allergic people like us that God would pursue us like that.

But that's why he's on a donkey.

That's why he goes to the cross, and our sins are put upon him, and his righteousness is given to us, because that's the pursuit he is on as the loving father to have a relationship with us.

And that's why the passage says, fear not.

So there's this prophet in the Old Testament.

It's actually what this passage is referring to there in verse 15.

The people of Israel, they had just returned from being prisoners in Babylon.

They're rebuilding their country, but then they move into a season of apathy and discouragement.

And then this guy, Zechariah, starts to speak to them about a king will come one day.

King will come one day.

But he won't come by the war bow or the war horse.

He'll come by humility and love.

And here's what Zechariah says, Zechariah 9, 9 through 12.

Behold, your king is coming to you, righteous and having salvation as he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

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.

As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.

Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope.

Today I declare that I will restore to you double.

So these people would have remembered being prisoners, or they certainly would have known the stories of their families being prisoners.

And then we get that phrase, and I love that phrase every time I read it.

Prisoners of hope.

It's not to control us.

It's to give us hope and it's to love us and to walk with us in a loving relationship.

So my brothers and sisters, Hosanna, the humble king, reigns with you.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you for your grace and mercy to us.

That we can know you because you came toward us.

And that what you're like is not left up to our own conjuring.

Forgive us for all the ways that we have expectations upon you that you never promised toward us.

And help us in greater and greater ways to look to the life of Jesus, to know your heart for us, to look to the cross, to know our salvation is secure, and to each day just desire because of your love for us, to love you and walk with you.

I thank you that you are a heavenly father that desires to be with us.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.