Palm Sunday 2016: Situational Bliss and Inner Peace

Well, happy Palm Sunday.

So this is the classic Palm Sunday passage that we're gonna be working our way through this morning.

So there's a principle at play in this passage.

And it's sort of one of those life principles that you know, as soon as I say it, you'll you'll you'll recognize it and go, yeah, and I I know that.

But if we miss it, if we miss this principle, what we find ourselves on is we find ourselves on a path where we're we're constantly looking for peace.

We're constantly looking for inner peace by outer circumstances.

Um and this principle speaks to how we dream so desperately and work so hard really for the next income bracket or the next romance, the next friend group, the next house, the next level of influence, all of which can be great things, but they're not quite capable to bring inner peace.

I mean, it speaks to how we uh we can spend so much time looking forward to and planning a vacation, uh thinking that we won't be cranky there, and then we get there and we're still cranky, and you're like, I thought this was gonna be the one where I wasn't cranky and you're still, and that you know the problem, right?

You're still there.

I mean that's the that's always the problem, is this common denominator, and it's us.

Uh it's why people dream of retiring and then finally you retire and you're bored.

Uh it it's it's why you can dream of a great achievement and then finally you accomplish it, and you thought that that would be the thing that would relieve you of anxiety, then in fact, all of a sudden you have more anxiety.

And so the the principle that that's in here is this, and it's simple.

It's situational bliss does not bring inner peace.

You already knew that, right?

You know that by life experience.

I mean, in the scriptures we see it, and this is verifying what you already know.

Situational bliss does not bring inner peace, and we think it will, that's why we plan for it and we dream for it, and then we get there.

But no external situation can actually deliver inner peace.

Now, just to clarify and be realistic, let's be realistic people here, let's not get too lofty.

Now, a bad situation turned good, that's a great thing, right?

I mean, all of us have had that.

Like you've been in a bad situation and it's difficult, it's difficult on your inner life, it's difficult on family or friendships, it's it's it in that bad situation turned good, that's a great thing.

But this is about constantly looking for the next situation to bring the peace you've never known, and you're looking for it to do that.

You're actually looking for it to deliver you.

And deliverance is comes by God's grace toward you, not by anything else.

Nothing else has that ability, that power to relieve you of sin.

Not a great popular word right now, but maybe you're more comfortable with imperfection.

Same thing.

Your imperfection before God, your sin, your brokenness, uh, to relieve you from the penalty of that before God, to relieve you of the shame of that and the guilt of that.

Only God's grace, no external situation can do that.

Uh, maybe you saw this interview.

I mean, this has been about 10 years ago.

It was so popular, it went around on YouTube, still on YouTube.

I think every church in the universe has used this interview, and Tom Brady probably had no idea that the Christian world was going to use this to such degrees, but it's so profound, like you can't resist it.

And so I've used it several times in the last 10 years, and it just came back up this week.

I was thinking about this because he was 27 years old, about 10, 11 years ago.

He had won three Super Bowls, he had tens and tens and tens of millions of dollars, quarterback for the Patriots, in case you hadn't caught up with that.

And so uh dating supermodels, houses, um if anybody, if anybody has the external situation as bliss, this guy has it.

I think even every man in here would even say that's an attractive man.

Like Tom Brady, like male crush, like he's an attractive man dating attractive women with lots of money, incredible talent.

The guy's got the external situation figured out, got it solved.

And this is what he says on this interview.

He says, Why do I have three Super Bowl rings and still, and still there's something greater out there for me?

I mean, maybe a lot of people would say, hey man, this is what is.

I reached my goal, my dream, my life, me.

I I think God, it it's gotta be more than this.

I mean, this can't be what it's all cracked up to be.

I mean, I've done it.

I'm 27.

What else is there for me?

So, what what he's communicating, so I did a bit of research on this, I'm like, this is fascinating.

So, actually, psychologists is a real thing.

There's a real thing, psychologists actually label real things that exist, and it's success depression.

And it's actually a real thing that occurs.

Uh another phrase that comes around this realm in psychology is encore anxiety.

Like you accomplish the thing that you just you are waiting to accomplish it.

And some of you know what I'm talking about.

You did a big accomplishment, or maybe it was a smaller accomplishment in terms of the world's eyes, but for you it was a big deal, and you get it, you did it, and you accomplished it.

It took a lot of work, took a lot of time, or you got the job, or what you whatever, you got it.

And then there's this bit like like the encore anxiety of like what now, what next?

Like now, what do I need to do?

Like it doesn't stop.

And so there's a couple articles that I read this week, businessinsider.com, this article, the fascinating reason many billionaires get depressed.

And you go, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever.

Um they actually do get depressed, and the reason why that they have a pretty strong likelihood of getting depressed is because they have it all.

And now what?

Now what?

So Forbes.com, in their article, why the super successful get depressed, uh, this came around a study done by Penn State, and it reports that CEOs are twice as likely to get depressed than other job positions.

And part of this is the pressure, part of it's the accomplishment.

And some studies are showing, and this is relevant to all of us, whether you're CEO or you have some other positions relevant to all of us, is studies are showing that there's greater depression in wealthier countries and wealthier families than in lower-income countries and lower income families.

See, the external bliss you thought would solve all the problems, it just doesn't.

And if you don't believe me, then just go find somebody where you look at their life and you go, oh, they got the external stuff figured out.

Just go to take them to coffee and you'll find out it's not true.

Todd Esseick, who's a he's a contributor to Forbes and a psychologist in New York City, he says this Uber success can be depressogenic.

Many C-suite executives are prone to depression despite their success, maybe even because of it.

Right?

So as a country, we're we're much more we're much wealthier than we were, uh than our great-grandparents were.

And we're much more depressed.

Like we're on more meds, all the statistics, we have greater anxiety, greater fear, and yet we have more wealth.

The principle is screaming out, situational bliss does not bring inner peace.

The perfect situation.

Now, a good situation, a better situation, that's really helpful, right?

It's really helpful.

We've all had that, and it's been very helpful.

But trying to get it all perfect, that perfect situation, it can't deliver you.

It has no power to deliver you from shame, from guilt, from anxiety, from fear.

See, in this passage, this text, and this is where you go, well, what does it have to do with this text?

What we see in this text is we see people laying down these palms, and what we're going to discover is what they're doing when they lay this down.

They're looking for situational bliss, and they're seeing Jesus come in and they're looking for situational bliss, and he's coming to bring something else.

So, two points to kind of summarize this and kind of organize the thoughts here.

Point number one, I've sort of hammered it home so far, and that's this situational bliss does not bring inner peace.

So, if I can reread the text just to kind of keep my mind in it, John 12, 12 through 15.

The next day, the great crowd that had come for the festival, so this Passover is going on in Jerusalem.

We talked about that last week, heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem.

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

Jesus found a young donkey and he sat on it, as it is written, Do not be afraid, daughter Zion.

See, your king is coming seated on a donkey's colt.

Now, maybe this story is new to you, maybe the Jesus story is new to you, but at this point, Jesus, he is an absolute rock star.

This name is just filtering around like crazy.

People want to catch a glimpse of this guy who is doing some incredible miracles at this point.

And so they're all showing up, and they're showing up, and what we see with these palms, and they're all laying down, they're yelling out, save us, save us, deliver us, deliver us.

They're laying down symbols, nationalistic symbols.

The palm was a nationalistic symbol.

It's on their coin.

Maybe you've heard this before.

It would be like us going to a parade and laying down American flags at somebody's feet.

Like it was a nationalistic symbol.

They were calling out for political freedom from this situation.

Rome is over them, and they're going, Jesus is coming in, and he is going to save us from Rome.

And so this is many of their intents here.

We still do this today, right?

We still do this.

We feel anxious, we feel ashamed, feel like we need saving.

And instead of considering God's character and love and work for us, the sufficiency of Jesus as a sacrifice and his grace toward us, just as we are, I turn and I try to fix everything around me.

And if I can just get it all under control, and if I can just fix the situation, and the situation can just be right, and we can just get the right candidate to be president, and then all of a sudden everything will be solved, right?

All the problems will go away.

Or maybe we make the entire project of our shame and our guilt and our anxiety uh religious, and we sort of like turn God into a vending machine, right?

I mean, maybe this you heard this phrase, like the a theology of glory.

That things are always get better.

God just always makes everything better constantly.

Like He's a vending machine.

You put a coin in, you get something out, and just keep putting the coins in over and over again.

And your life is just, as a Christian, just one season following another season of greater bliss, and another season of greater bliss, and another season of greater bliss, another season of greater bliss.

This is a really good way to raise money on television, by the way, is you just keep promising greater and greater seasons of bliss.

And there's one problem with it.

It's just not true.

It's a mixed bag.

And somewhere along the line, we have to embrace that life and salvation and peace does not work like that.

So Henry Nowne, a priest, a writer, a theologian in his book, The Return of the Prodigal, he wrote this addiction might be the best word to explain the lostness that so deeply permeates contemporary society.

Our addictions make us cling to what the world proclaims as the keys to self-fulfillment.

Accumulation of wealth and power, attainment of status and admiration, lavish consumption of food and drink, and sexual gratification without distinguishing between lust and love.

These addictions create expectations that cannot but fail to satisfy our deepest needs.

As long as we live within the world's delusions, our addictions condemn us to futile quests in the distant country, leaving us to face an endless series of disillusionments while our sense of self remains unfulfilled.

In these days of increasing addictions, we have wandered far away from our father's home.

The addicted life can aptly be designated a life lived in a distant country.

It is from there that our cry for deliverances rises up.

So these palms are being laid down, the crowds are cheering for these deliverances.

Like that's what's literally the deliverances are rising up.

They're cheering, you know, deliver me, give me my freedom for so many a political declaration.

And Jesus is saying, I'm not here to deliver you politically.

I'm not here to make every situation in your life perfect.

I'm here to deal with your inner life primarily.

I'm not here to constantly make every situation perfect, but to deem you perfect.

And to, because of that work, to give you real relief.

See, the palms speak of our misunderstanding of Jesus, to want him to deliver us from different circumstances and constantly going to him for that, for all the external.

But the palm does not consider the real purpose of Jesus, to deal with our position before God, not our position before Rome.

And I hope, I hope, I hope you have great situations.

Don't hear me not say that.

And God's in all the situations.

I hope you have great situations, but situations will be difficult, you will have suffering.

You or a friend or a family member may get sick, you will get sick, all of us will eventually die.

And the great thing here is Jesus comes in and says, I want to make you secure before God in any situation.

So whether you have situational bliss or whether the situation is just filled with poverty, I want you to be able to have the security that you are God's beloved.

So point number two is this salvation and inner peace come by understanding Jesus.

So I grew up in a church that at least my interpretation, I'm not saying they were saying this, I was saying I was interpreting this, that salvation was narrowed down to not going to hell.

It was narrowed down and limited to that.

And it is that.

That is salvation, that God saves us so that we will have eternal rest with him.

Through the work of Jesus, we have that security.

That is salvation, the imputation of our sin put upon him, his righteousness to us.

We are secure.

And so that is salvation.

But what this means is it means today I am his beloved.

So it's not just salvation as a ticket to kind of cash in when we die, but because we're going to be secure in the afterlife, it means something for today.

It has something to say today about deliverance, about deliverance of needing situations to be perfect.

So about 15 years ago, I was in a calculus class at the University of Georgia.

Very first day, I sit on the back row.

I know all about the back row.

I would not be up here if I was not paid to be up here.

I'd be in the back row.

I know about the back row, you got the headrest, nobody else has the headrest.

You sneak out, come in, some of you have already done it.

I know all about I love, love the back row.

Thank you very much.

So I'm in the back row of this calculus class, maybe 35 people in there, and the lady who's teaching, brilliant lady, uh, she's from Russia, so very strong accent.

Nobody can understand her.

And it's brutal.

I think maybe a class or two go by and it's just none of none of us are getting this.

And she's just motoring through the content.

She's just flying through it, and none of us, none of us are getting it.

The misunderstanding is making it impossible to think and feel and react properly to the content.

We just can't do it.

And so finally, I think we're about two classes in, and this guy toward the front, I am I just so distinctly remember him.

He's very kind of fratastic in the in the fraternity world, and he is very southern, he has boots on.

I speak southern, I had a four-wheel drive truck as my first vehicle, so I understood, I could understand his accent.

And so he had his hat on with his curls going, and he was fantastic.

He was great, but he just decided I can't deal with this.

And he would just very politely, just over and over again, he said, ma'am, can you repeat that?

Ma'am, can you repeat that?

Over and over.

And the problem was is we still couldn't quite understand her.

But then there's this one girl who could understand her.

That's the air conditioning.

We're thankful for it, even though it's loud.

And so uh he would, ma'am, I don't understand that.

And and then this one girl would kind of translate for the rest of the class.

And so this process just kind of went over and over and over again, where the the lady would teach, we couldn't understand her, ma'am.

Can you repeat that?

And then the girl would translate the the English to the rest of us who understand English over and over and over again.

This went on class after class the entire semester.

It was the only way we survived.

I don't know how all the other classes she taught survived, but that's how we survived.

And it had to be this way because understanding what is being revealed means everything.

Means everything.

And what you misunderstand or you understand changes everything.

It directs how we think and feel and react and the way our lives are changed.

I mean, that content that teacher was teaching, if we don't understand here, we can't do anything with it.

In fact, we might do the wrong thing with it.

In this text, we see people, some people misunderstanding what Jesus is coming for.

Understanding what is being revealed means everything.

And so you have the palms being laid down, many of which are laying them down for political freedom, save us from Rome, from the external situation, and yet he's on a donkey.

Another great symbol for us because it's a symbol of peace.

Because if he was coming into Jerusalem as a power move, he's not on a donkey, he's on a war horse, and he is ready to go, but instead he's on a donkey.

He's on an animal of peace.

So salvation and peace are really counterintuitive.

I mean, especially for our human nature, because we think it comes by the palm.

We think it comes by the external situation, but it actually comes in the humility of God coming toward us and dying for us.

Inner peace comes that way.

It comes by us relinquishing control of needing every situation to be perfect and embracing your own imperfection and your sin and resting and the revelation of God to you.

And the more you understand that, the more that salvation that is secure for you, the more the salvation is secure for you in the afterlife can mean even more for you today.

That donkey, the Savior on that donkey, riding into town, and he's going to go to the cross on Friday.

That's what we celebrate on Friday, good Friday.

All of our brokenness and frailities and shame, all the crap we carry around, and we don't have to, is put on him, and his righteousness and holiness is put on us.

No greater picture of humility and love and grace.

And it is by those means we are saved.

And we are defined by those means of God's love and sufficiency for us.

So, my brothers and sisters, may you understand the revelation, the great grace of Jesus the Christ, through whom we know the humility, character, and unstoppable love of God for us.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you that you come by means of the donkey.

Even saying it sounds silly.

It shows so much of your humility to come into our poor situation, our needy situation, to come into our poverty and to our shame and to our sin and to take it upon yourself, revealing yourself to be of perfect humility, perfect character and love and grace and justice.

Would you help us to understand the revelation more of Jesus?

That we might rest greater, not in getting every situation perfect, but to exist in any situation and greater rest and peace, resting in the salvation that is secured for us by your word.

We pray for this in Jesus' name alone.

Amen.