Palm Sunday (feat. Dr. Mike Plunket)

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We want to begin a journey to not only to the cross of Calvary and Jesus, his sacrifice for us during Holy week, but also too to get all the way to resurrection.

And this Sunday, a Palm Sunday, the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem is one of those days that that that started with such high expectations but still will end on a cross and Jesus being condemned with criminals.

And I thought it was important and I, I'd like you to track with me as we go through thinking about what Paul taught Timothy in the second letter that he wrote to him in the fourth chapter where he explained that as a, a man of God, as a, as a servant of God, that he would have to endure suffering.

And that the endurance of that suffering wasn't because he had done wrong or because he was in some way to blame for the suffering.

But rather he was to endure even, even suffering for which there seemingly was no cause.

And I, I look at that word, endure to endure suffering.

When you endure something, you're having to endure it because you don't know how or don't have a strategy to end the suffering.

You don't have a way to end the suffering.

You don't know how long it's going to last.

So you're going to have to have the kind of perseverance.

You're going to have to have the kind of endurance until it doesn't.

And, and that is one of the hardest things in the Christian life is to endure something.

And you don't know how to end it and you don't know when it will end.

You notice that Paul didn't say to Timothy, pray that you won't suffer.

He said, no, endure suffering.

He didn't say to Timothy, you know, pray that I will escape from prison, that I'll be released from prison.

Rather he's going to be executed.

And he says to his son in the faith, Timothy, endure suffering because even Timothy is going to go to prison.

And as I was meditating on that this week and thinking about that and about our current scripture has a lot to say about enduring suffering and and how we do it well and how we do it.

Even having a theology of suffering or an understanding of the biblical idea of suffering, cause the biblical idea of suffering is rather complex.

A more or less worldly idea of suffering is if, if you're suffering is because you did something wrong or you didn't do enough of something, or someone is to blame.

They're supposed to protect you or someone is supposed to keep you from suffering, whether it's the government or God or friends or family.

Somebody's supposed to keep you from suffering, and yet that is not the biblical idea of suffering.

The biblical idea of suffering is rather complex, but it's also purposeful.

And so this week, as I was thinking about that enduring suffering as we go through this pandemic, I came across a sermon by Billy Graham on a backpack.

It's really triggered my thinking.

And then I got a free sermon from Tim Keller's organization on Habakkuk, and I was reading Martin Lloyd Jones, his book from fear to faith on Habakkuk, and I realized, okay, Habakkuk is really speaking to me now.

Habakkuk is not a book.

It's not one of the profits that we spend a lot of time in.

A lot of times we don't spend any time in Habakkuk whatsoever.

As a matter of fact, we don't even know how to pronounce his name correctly.

I remember growing up, always called him Habbakuk, putting the emphasis on the last syllable.

And I, as I grew up, I started calling me Habakkuk.

But the truth is, it's an Aramaic name and there's no one knows exactly how to pronounce it.

And so a lot of us overlook Habakkuk, but we do so not realizing that in this little minor prophet book is some really powerful stuff for enduring suffering.

And so I want to start with the first chapter.

We're going to look at different verses and different themes here in the first chapter after Easter, we'll come back to it and look at the chapter on faith, but I want to start with a backpack's interaction with God.

In the first chapter, he actually gives two pretty intense complaints and sandwiched between these two prayers of complaint is God's answer to his, to his profit.

But the initial complaint began something like this.

How long a Lord must I call for help but you do not listen or to cry out to you.

There's violence but you do not save.

And then he, and he really makes a very dramatic statement in his question.

He says, why do you make me look at injustice?

Why do you tolerate wrongdoing?

See what he's saying here is I'm living in a generation.

I'm living in a time where all I see is evil.

When he's saying injustice here, he's not just talking about, um, you know, legal justice or legal injustice.

He's talking about the fact that all he sees in the land is corruption and evil and people getting away with, with all kinds of unrighteousness and living unholy, unclean lives.

And, and, and he's crying out to ward, why do I have to see this day and night?

Why do I have to see such evil?

And then remind you of what a collegiality says in chapter nine, verse 12, it's, it's one of those difficult things about suffering in the scriptures.

It says, the writer he Ecclesiastes, he says no one knows when their hour will come as fish are caught in a cruel net or birds or taken in a snare.

So people are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them.

Three weeks ago, um, I came down with the symptoms of a covert 19 and a.

Though I haven't had the respiratory issues and I haven't had, I didn't get into my lungs, the fever and the body aches and the joint aches were wave upon wave of pain.

And no matter how much I prayed, no matter how much I bound the virus, it just was squeezing me.

Uh, in terms of waves of pain that would last for long periods of time.

I, I've been a week without symptoms, but, uh, the time of, of intense pain made me feel the same way I felt when I had malaria 10 years ago.

I, there are these times, and of course tobacco is really talking about a kind of national moral decay.

He's talking about economic decay.

He's talking about insecurity in the nation and stuff like that.

But, but, but the scriptures is saying that there are times in certain generations where you feel like you're trapped by evil, where unexpected things fall upon us.

I was watching a, uh, a news program in January and the commentators were talking about the stock market and it's how unbelievably prosperous and successful the process the stock market was and the economy was.

And they said, nothing can stop this market.

Not having any idea whatsoever.

What was about to come, how in a moment is it says here unexpectedly evil times trap people.

That's what the scripture teaches.

That's what it talks about.

It doesn't just talk about how all of the times of our life are going to get better and better.

Matter of fact, the historic context of Habakkuk's ministry in life was they had had this very good King called Josiah.

And Josiah had instituted reforms and an end had brought the people back to God.

And during his reign there was prosperity, there was peace, there was security.

And, and the people believed is that because of Josiah and because of the prosperity they had enjoyed and success they had enjoyed under Josiah, they expected it to continue and even to get better.

But his sons were wicked and his son sons were wicked.

And by the days of Habakkuk, these sons had so corrupted the land and had lived in such, such unrighteousness that there was nothing but evil everywhere and injustice everywhere.

And so what a Baca was back was doing was saying, we expected it to get better, but it only got worse.

And it's far worse than we could ever have imagined.

See he's reflecting what many of us, maybe we don't always admit it, but our assumption is that it should get better and better.

It should get better for us, for our children, for our children's children.

And yet the Bible says that history tends to repeat itself, that there are, there are good times, there are times of success and peace.

There are times of prosperity, but there also are evil times and these come just as the good times come.

If you were to look at, uh, the turn of the century of the 20th century, you would see that everybody was expecting it to get better and better.

I believe like from 1870 to about 1910, that that in every way the world was getting to be a better place.

Well, from about 1914 on, you have nothing but war and depression and war and hunger and even an industrialized nation, there was tremendous poverty and hunger and disease.

Everybody thought it would just get better.

Instead evil times come and you can, you can be angry about them.

You can be upset.

But the Bible says and calls us to endure, to have consistency in the good times and the evil times as it goes through a pandemic w looks like a certain recession.

But especially as we go through what seems like some of the most uncertain times, then we need to learn from the scriptures.

What do we do so that we can endure?

What did her backup do?

And what I like about this, this passage is that he, he doesn't, he doesn't hide his feelings.

He doesn't like what's going on.

He's not acquiescing.

He's not just giving in.

He's, he's incredibly bold actually with God.

And he's intellectually and emotionally very honest with God.

Now, it's sometimes a little hard to see in the English translation, but there is a Hebrew construction in his complaint that those who are Hebrew scholars talk about how he is being very bold with God and, and, and we see it.

He says, are you not from everlasting or are you not infinite?

But you see that's, that's not a question asked for information.

That's a rhetorical question.

And, and when you have a Hebrew rhetorical question, you really, you're really making a challenge.

There's a challenge of God, are you not infinite?

He saying, I thought you were infinite, but I'm questioning it.

He says, I thought you could do anything, but I'm questioning it.

He's vigorous in using his skill with, with language to question God to challenge God.

He's not being courteous, he's not requesting information, he's provoking God and it basically what he's saying is why are you letting evil and injustice reign in my nation?

And you know, we're going to look at God's answer a little more fully, but here he is just calling God out.

And God's answer is such an interesting one.

God says, well, I'm raising up the Babylonians.

Well that that wouldn't have in any way, shape or form made Habakkuk feel any better.

He's like, okay, so you're going to take our violent nation, you're going to take our suffering nation, you're going to take our corrupt nation and you're going to bring a nation to bear on us.

It's even more violent, more corrupt.

How is that a solution is basically what Bacak is saying.

And I know it might be hard for you to believe, but he has in a way, he comes very close to saying, God, are you crazy?

God, are you nuts?

He's really getting up.

How angry, how upset, how desperate he is for his people, but here's the thing that you have to see in this, and it really is.

It's in all of the great wrestling with God.

Prayers in the old Testament is the thought never enters his mind to walk away from God and he never stops praying his isn't his blog.

This isn't his.

No, this isn't his.

His treatise about God, this is his conversation with God.

This is this prayer life.

He never thinks about turning away from God.

He never thinks about walking away from God and he never thinks to stop praying.

Even though he is, he is hurting and he is.

He is confused.

Matter of fact, we see this really clearly that even though he uses this Hebrew rhetoric to say, are you really infinite?

Then when he calls him, he calls him my Holy one.

See there's a unique characteristic of many of the people of God who really wrestle with God in prayer.

And it's, it's that there is, uh, a faithfulness in their wrestling that even as they're challenging God, they're not disengaging from God.

They're not going somewhere else to get answers.

They're there unconditionally, faithfully wrestling with God.

You see, in a way, this is a kind of counterintuitive spirituality.

You see, it's not like the, the religious, the religious person kind of operates out of a superstitious distance from God that says, you know, I can't address you like this.

So what happens is hypocrisy enters into the religious and though they're just as angry and just as desperate, they're not as honest because they don't think they're supposed to.

They think that they should have this kind of a distance, as if in a way they can hide the fact that they really are filled with anger or fear, or they're really feel fueled by uncertainty and anxiety and worry as if any of that can be hidden from God.

Religion is not avail that hides anybody from God.

And yet some would approach God and say, no, you have to, you have to have this form, you have to have this ritual, but that's not what Habakkuk had.

And then there are other people who have a sort of a spirituality that, that, that we would say is, is more current today or contemporary in that and that, you know, I just walk away from any sense of God whatsoever because he can't possibly be good if they're suffering like this in the world or if there's pain or anything else than that I can't count on or, or have a relevance of God.

Now, it's interesting that we live in a nation that wants a God to protect us but does not want a God who asked us to obey him.

And so there's a, there's a, a counterintuitive spirituality that's being expressed by Habakkuk here.

He's bold and he's honest, but he's faithfully engaged with wrestling with God.

He's not looking for another place.

And what we see is we see in his understanding of God when he says my, my Holy one, he's really saying, look, I wouldn't be so upset if I didn't know you were Holy.

It wouldn't have sat me so much that the world is so unholy if I didn't know you were Holy.

In other words, what he's really saying is what the disciples said to Jesus.

Where else can I go for cleansing?

Where else can I go for eternal life?

Where else can I go?

What else can I depend on?

What else can I, can I do?

You have the words of life now, I don't know your personality.

I can tell you mine and I can tell you where we stand.

I have often had some conflict in terms of how we, in our personalities related to God.

I always related to God is blaming God.

I yelled at God.

I was angry with God when things didn't go the way that I thought they should.

Always, always was more, uh, you know, Radison to blame God or to be upset with God.

But she was often upset with herself that she hadn't done enough, that she hadn't prayed enough, that she hadn't read her Bible enough, and in both cases, whether it's I'm angry that things didn't turn out the way that I envisioned them or I expected them or it's guilt I didn't do enough, or whatever it was.

All of those reactions to God will not allow you to draw near to him.

If you are full of anger, you will not allow him to comfort you.

If you are full of guilt, you will not expect him to do what he alone can do.

And that is to give you those words of life.

It's important that you realize that drawing to God is not a religious thing.

It's a relationship thing and there's a basis on which we draw near to God that has nothing to do with whether we've done the right things or the wrong things, whether life has gone the way we wanted it to or not gone the way we wanted it to see.

What do you see in a backpack and you see in others in the scriptures is this unconditional faithfulness?

At wrestling with God and never letting him go, never disengaging, even when it looks hopeless.

Even when you feel the most desperate, you don't let them go.

You don't run away from him.

You don't walk away from him.

And some of this aspect of Bacak here is really revelation of an incredibly rare person.

We see these kinds of prayers in the songs.

If you go to Psalm 39 or you go to Psalm 88 you'll see this kind of faithful, unconditional wrestling with God.

You look at job Joe, Brussels with God.

God job demands an answer from God.

He never stops asking for an audience with God.

And even in all these things, the scripture says, job did not sin.

Jeremiah and you go to look at particularly, uh, around chapter 16, through 20 of Jeremiah, and he is lamenting.

He is lamenting how hard his ministry is.

He's lamenting how difficult the people are, how little the words that he speaking are penetrating into the consciousness of the people in the nation.

These all are witness to us.

These are recorded by the Holy spirit.

These are given to us.

These are witnesses to us of how understanding our God is when we go through these evil times, how he knows how we speak, when we're desperate, and, and if you can't get your desperation out, you can't endure suffering.

It'll, it'll fester inside of you.

It will make you anxious.

It will make you angry.

It will make you hopeless.

God knows how we speak when we're desperate and he's asking you and me in the midst of this time to be desperate.

People who are bold in our desperation and honest, but that we don't walk away from him.

We faithfully wrestle with him.

Okay?

Why is it that such people who even challenge God are not only recorded as great people of faith, but also their words are recorded for as well?

Because everything that really has to do with remaining or abiding in God has to do with grace.

It's not cause we do it right.

It's not because we do it perfect, but it's because he is a God of grace.

He has welcomed us with unconditional covenantal love and it's his grace that allows us or gives us the right to be faithful wrestlers with God.

And then whatever struggles we're going through this is, this is really the whole of the teaching of the book of Hebrews when it says we can draw near with confidence.

It's not saying we draw near cause we know how to do that perfectly.

Now it's saying that we know how to, we have been so provided grace that we can come in and do it all wrong and he will still receive us.

We can blurt out like children and he still receives us and he is our ever present help in time of trouble.

We can boldly approach the throne of grace to find the help in that time of trouble.

Well here's what God answered my back, heard back from God and this is so important as you endure suffering, as you go through times that don't make sense, times when you can't fully protect yourself and times where you don't know where the end is going to be.

What God says to vacuum is this.

He says, don't judge me by your timetable.

Don't judge me by your calendars or your agendas or your expectations.

As a matter of fact, he, he says to back in verse five he says, look, I can't really answer you, and now he's not saying that he doesn't have an answer.

He's saying, when I give you the answer, you will not understand it.

He says, look at the nations and watch and be utterly amazed.

I'm going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told, and he, so he tells a little bit of what he's going to do, how he's going to raise up the Babylonians to be his discipline of the nation of Judah and all that Habakkuk can see is how is that going to stop the violence?

How is that going to stop the injustice?

How's that going to stop the corruption?

Yet, if you look back from the vantage point that we have, you start to see even the Babylonian solution, which is just a little bit of what he was telling of all that he was doing.

The Babylonian solution started something that had far reaching repercussions even to this day by the exile of the Jewish people.

They were scattered throughout the ancient world and everywhere they went, they established synagogues.

And these synagogues were in the midst of these, these pagan countries, countries with human sacrifice, countries with unbelievable abuses of women and children, unbelievable slavery, all kinds of things.

And in the midst of these unclean, unrighteous cities and countries, the law of God got established in synagogues and the word of God began to penetrate out into the Gentile society.

These synagogues became places where Gentiles learned about the Lord, learned about Yahweh, and there were many God fearing Gentiles associated with the synagogues.

And the historical record says that the fastest spread of the gospel of Jesus Christ were with these God fearing Gentiles who were connected to the synagogues.

So the exile that looked like it wasn't accomplishing anything was actually accomplishing a, a system of spreading of the good news of Jesus Christ throughout the pagan world and setting up for the gospel to go forth into regions and be effective at reaching people who would not have been reached if they had not had the framework of the law of God.

Look at the nations and watch.

He said, be utterly amazed for, I'm doing something in your days, something you would not believe or understand.

Even if I told you, you think about how when you're a parent and you're trying to explain to your children the things, particularly little children, the things that are good for them and no matter how many times you explain it to them, they still say, why?

You know, why can't I eat ice cream all the time or candy or why do I have to go to bed?

Or any of these things that you know that they have to do in order to grow and be strong and some of the things you're doing for them and keep them from even dying.

And yet if you're taking really explain all the science behind it or all of the methodology behind it, that five-year-old, that four year old which look at you and say, that doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever.

If we have that much distance as parents with our little children, how much more is the distance between our God and his explanations and our ability to understand if, if the God that I have is completely understandable, then he's not God.

He's my imagination.

For the only real God would be a God who has solutions, who has plans and purposes and things that are taking place that are far beyond my ability to understand.

And that's exactly what he was saying to Habakkuk.

I don't often do this, but I, I heard Tim Keller quote this, this him and it.

It's one that I remember from my childhood or from my youth.

It's written by a hymn writer, famous hymn writer Calper and it's God moves in mysterious ways and in a way what God is answering to the backlog.

And what he's answering to you and I as he's asking us to endure suffering is he says, I move in mysterious ways.

I I perform wonders.

I plant my footsteps in the sea and I ride upon the storm deep and unfathomable minds of never failing skill.

I treasure up bright designs and I work my sovereign will you fearful, saints, fresh courage.

Take the clouds you dread so much, are big with mercy and shall break in blessings on your head.

Okay?

You may not know this and you may not be able to understand it, but everything that he's doing is to break the blessings on your head.

See what he's, what he's explaining to tobacco.

What all of this means is something bigger is happening.

Something is bigger happening in his lifetime that he can explain to Baca kids.

Matter of fact, he's, he tries to explain, he says, I'm bringing salvation out of injustice.

I'm creating a whole new category.

It won't just be justice and injustice.

There'll be this category called grace.

It's such an amazing thing when you realize, yeah, Habakkuk wants the world rid of corruption, but he's part of the corruption.

So the world would have to be rid of him as well.

And so what God wants to do is to rid the world of corruption without reading the world.

The view and the only way that it can do that is through grace, not through justice or injustice, but he has to do a whole new category of dealing and relationships with human beings and it has to be the category of grace and he brings out of the injustice of the world out of the the unrighteousness of the world.

Salvation.

Paul

takes the book of Habakkuk and the teaching of Habakkuk and he applies it to the cross of Jesus Christ.

In acts chapter 13 verse 38 he says, my friends, I want you to know that through Jesus, the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you through him.

Acts 13:38

Everyone who believes is set free from see this way he could rid the world of sin without reading the world of you, a justification you were not able to obtain under the law of Moses.

Take care that what the prophets had said does not happen to you.

And then he quotes Habakkuk.

Look, you scoffers wonder and perish for I am going to do something in your days that you would never believe, even if someone told you, you see the real answer to that question, and actually the one who really is everything that Habakkuk thinks he is.

C, a backup thinks he alone is righteous.

He thinks he alone is forsake and he thinks he alone is suffering, but the real answer is the cross of Jesus Christ and Jesus is the real Habakkuk because he really is innocent and yet his suffering, he really is righteous, but he's being treated as if he's guilty.

He has been betrayed by his own disciples.

He's been rejected by his own people, and now he is on the cross forsaken by his father.

As a matter of fact, he himself says those things, my God, my God.

Why have you forsaken me?

He, he is the one really going through what Habakkuk is, is complaining he's going through, but Jesus really is going through it.

Back was never alone and you and I are never alone.

You see, though, a backup was a faithful wrestler of God.

He was only a type.

He was only a foreshadowing of the true faithful wrestler, the unconditional wrestler with God who became sin so that you and I would become the righteousness of God so that we can endure suffering as he now has given us the right to draw near.

So I'm trying to say to you, they don't walk away and you're suffering.

Engage, challenge, ask for the suffering to end curse and say to this virus, wither up and die.

Bless the finances.

Bless the relationships, the marriages, the families, bless the businesses.

Go and wrestle all of those things, but do not walk away and do not forsake wrestling with God.

Don't write about God.

Pray to guy because remember in this brand new category of grace, it's not how right you do it.

It's how close you draw near to him.

Draw near to him and he'll draw near to you.

All of this was done.

All of this was done so that God who is rich in grace, rich in mercy, unlimited in love and in wisdom can orchestrate the things in your life and my life so that blessings break over your head and over your family's head and over your life.

Will you pray with me?

Lord?

Often our, our weakness is not just that we don't like to suffer, but it's more that we're surprised when we suffer.

We expected different and yet we look at this and everybody is in such a similar situation.

The economy is affected, our lives are affected, our relationships, our movement is affected, are our own fears of getting sick or those of us who have been sick or those of us who are sick.

The sickness itself is a daunting thing and yet your word is, is faithful and it's true that you're so big that you have solutions and you have things that you're doing.

Behold, I'm doing a thing in this generation.

You said that even if I were to tell it to you, you wouldn't understand it.

You wouldn't believe it.

So Lord, I call forth in us an honesty to wrestle with our desperation.

I call forth Dennis an honesty to, to not talk about you, but to talk to you.

Even if what we have to say doesn't sound very respectful or religious or or even sound right, but yet to get it up and to get it out because you can handle it.

You've shown it in the life of Habakkuk.

You've shown in the life of Jobe and Jeremiah and the list.

You like it when we are honest with you, when we wrestle with you.

And the result is blessing because it's your presence that perfects us.

It's your presence that heals us.

It's your presence that steals our soul to go through and endure all the way to the end.

So Lord, I just, I asked that we would hear today you are the Holy one.

And the reason we wrestle with you is because you are Holy and this world is not, but you are also the one that we can come to.

And we can say, here's what I'm about.

Here's what I'm struggling with, and you're the one with answers.

You're the one with solutions.

So we look to you by faith that what Habakkuk wanted to understood could understand, could not be understood until the real Habakkuk went to the cross and was truly forsaken so that we will never be forsaken.

We fix our eyes on you, Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith in Jesus name and man.