Palm Sunday: the crowd and the King

[SPEAKER_00]: Alright, good morning, everyone.

[SPEAKER_00]: Good to see you.

[SPEAKER_00]: How we doing?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's Palm Sunday.

[SPEAKER_00]: Here we are, the beginning of Passion Week.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's exciting to be together and welcome to everyone joining us online and in the parents room as well.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's great to see you all and I'm excited about what we're going to uncover today as we open the text.

[SPEAKER_00]: So we're going to be in John chapter 12.

John 12 · chapter mention

[SPEAKER_00]: And so let's get ready for that.

[SPEAKER_00]: What we do live in a world of proximity without participation.

[SPEAKER_00]: We like being near the thing, but not always in the thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, of course, you like going to the football so to way.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to be out there on the ground running around with all those guys getting smashed around.

[SPEAKER_00]: I prefer to be close, but not too close.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right?

[SPEAKER_00]: I prefer to be, you know, maybe you've got a gym membership, you've got a gym membership, and you can go to the gym, you can say I'm a member of the gym, and you can even go to the gym, and you can stand in the gym.

[SPEAKER_00]: You go sit on a machine and scroll on your phone and everyone else is waiting for you to get off, and but you're just sitting there, and you can be at the gym just close enough, but not too close to do a workout or get that heart rate up.

[SPEAKER_00]: How about if you're at family dinner and you're sitting there and then all of a sudden you've pulled out your phone and you're scrolling 10 minutes goes by.

[SPEAKER_00]: The conversation's moved on and everyone's having a great time and you look up and you think, oh, what's just happened?

[SPEAKER_00]: You were close but you were not too close.

[SPEAKER_00]: You were proximate but you weren't present.

[SPEAKER_00]: You weren't really there.

[SPEAKER_00]: And here's the rub on a day like today.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can be in the air, Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can hear his words, you can see what he does, and you can still not really follow him.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's something that palms Sunday reminds us, because the crowds were there, singing his name, shouting out praise, and yet in a few short days time, they would be saying crucify.

[SPEAKER_00]: Palm Sunday's a story about a crowd who were close to Jesus, but were very far from understanding Him.

[SPEAKER_00]: They were proximate without participating.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's read John chapter 12 and see what John's gospel says to us about this triumphal entry.

John 12 · chapter mention

[SPEAKER_00]: The next day, the large crowd that had come to the feast, heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem,

[SPEAKER_00]: So they took branches of palm trees and they went out to meet him, crying out, Hosanna, blessed as he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's a quote from Psalm 118.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just as it is written, fear not, daughter of Zion, behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey's cult.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's from Zechariah 9.

[SPEAKER_00]: His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him.

[SPEAKER_00]: The crowd that had been there with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead, continued to bear witness.

[SPEAKER_00]: The reason why the crowd went out to meet him was that they had heard he'd done this sign.

[SPEAKER_00]: So the Pharisees said to one another, you see that you're gaining nothing, look, the whole world has gone off to him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, what is going on here?

[SPEAKER_00]: John chapter 12 acts in the whole gospel of John like a hinge, like the spine of a book or the hinges of a door.

John 12 · chapter mention

[SPEAKER_00]: Everything before John 12, so John 1, 2, 11, has been leading up to this moment.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then in John's Gospel, he uses John chapter 12 to turn the page and enter into a new scene or a new part of the journey.

John 12 · chapter mention

[SPEAKER_00]: Almost like going from Act 1 to Act 2 in a play, there's been a short intermission and we've all heard the bell, we've walked back in and now it's the start of the second Act.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what's happening here in this story.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a hinge.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because chapters one to eleven are often called the Book of Science, and there are seven major signs for revealing Jesus divinity and revealing Jesus' identity, beginning with the wedding at Canary Acts, a John chapter two, working all the way through and the climax of those seven signs is the raising of Lazarus from the dead, which happens in John chapter 11, right before this moment.

John 11 · chapter mention

[SPEAKER_00]: So this hinge is happening here and people are gathered for a number of reasons.

[SPEAKER_00]: One because it's pentagost, but John draws us our attention to something very specific, which the other synoptic gospels don't draw us our attention in the same way.

[SPEAKER_00]: Matthew Markin Luke, they're focused on something else, but John says, you know the reason why everyone was there?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because they saw Lazarus raised from the dead.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then they've put one plus one, plus one together and they're thinking, oh my gosh, we've just seen Lazarus race from the dead and oh my gosh, now it's pentacost.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now it's Passover.

[SPEAKER_00]: Could it be?

[SPEAKER_00]: Could this be the guy?

[SPEAKER_00]: The crowd is there because Lazarus is there.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're responding to something they've seen.

[SPEAKER_00]: They've seen a miracle.

[SPEAKER_00]: and so the expectation is in the air.

[SPEAKER_00]: So this moment does three things.

[SPEAKER_00]: It reveals Jesus' King.

[SPEAKER_00]: It exposes the misunderstanding of the crowd, which we'll see, and it sets in motion the events of the cross.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this scene is dripping my friends with irony, because they're singing Jesus praise.

[SPEAKER_00]: and they're not understanding that they're welcoming him into the city where he will lay down his life.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so it begins with the kind of king that they were after, the kind of king that they wanted.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because they're quoting scripture here, Psalm 118, Hosanna, which means, save us now.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hosanna to the King of David, Hosanna to the King of kings, blessed is here who comes in the name of the Lord, an entire crowd singing and declaring God's praise.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're not wrong, but they're misreading the moment.

[SPEAKER_00]: They want a political liberator.

[SPEAKER_00]: They want Rome to be overturned, and they want a king who's going to fit their expectation.

[SPEAKER_00]: And what does Jesus arrive into Jerusalem on?

[SPEAKER_00]: Was it a white big stallion war horse?

[SPEAKER_00]: No, was it a chariot with an army following behind him?

[SPEAKER_00]: No.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was a small, tottering, smelly, donkey.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's not the king they expected.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's doing something else.

[SPEAKER_00]: Something much deeper.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a re-definition of power, and here's the thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can say the right words about Jesus and still have the wrong expectation of Him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Our expectation of Jesus, especially if it's slightly off can actually blind us from revelation about who we really is, because we're expecting something else.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, what kind of Jesus have I constructed in my imagination?

[SPEAKER_00]: And where perhaps have I suddenly asked Jesus to serve my agenda?

[SPEAKER_00]: rather than submit to His.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because we can see this in an unstable crowd.

[SPEAKER_00]: Imagine this big group, a big crowd of people all singing and kind of worshiping Jesus as He comes through the city.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it would be very easy to get carried along with that.

[SPEAKER_00]: You've been in a crowd like that before, or some kind of parade, and you kind of wander in, and, oh, everyone else is singing, so I guess, oh, we'll all just join in, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: We'll all just start singing along together.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're cutting down these branches, these palms, and they're waving them in the air.

[SPEAKER_00]: There is such expectation and hope.

[SPEAKER_00]: The crowd is so powerful, except that.

[SPEAKER_00]: These shouts on Sunday disappear by Thursday next week and the shouts change from Hosanna to crucify him.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's this kind of group think at work, almost like the media we've heard this before a mob mentality.

[SPEAKER_00]: where we get sucked in to a crowd.

[SPEAKER_00]: The philosopher, so in Kierkegaard, says this, he said that the responsibility of the individual dissolves when identity is absorbed into a big mess of chaos.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not me anymore, it's us.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so the crowd and their expectation, let's not miss why they were there.

[SPEAKER_00]: They'd seen Lazarus race, so there's a hope of, oh my gosh, this guy's doing miracles.

[SPEAKER_00]: But it's also Passover, which is why, a national celebration of why.

[SPEAKER_00]: A freedom.

[SPEAKER_00]: from what, from slavery, freedom, from what, from oppression.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're remembering back, hey remember when God delivered us from Egypt, he split the sea and we walked through on dry land and we came out the other side and our oppressors ended up in the drink and we ended up on dry land in the new worlds.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they've seen Lazarus raised from the dead and they're there at Passover and they're thinking to ourselves could this be it.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're on here, boys.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's as time.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's time for us to throw off the yoke of Rome and finally we'll be our own people again.

[SPEAKER_00]: Save us now.

[SPEAKER_00]: on their own terms.

[SPEAKER_00]: They want quick salvation, visible power, and immediate change.

[SPEAKER_00]: Quick salvation, immediate power, and visible change, visible power and immediate change.

[SPEAKER_00]: What we've got here,

[SPEAKER_00]: is three things that we would also get drawn into.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I believe in the power of the Holy Spirit, I believe someone can be healed instantly.

[SPEAKER_00]: I believe in the working of the spiritual gifts in the midst of the church.

[SPEAKER_00]: I believe in all of that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I believe someone's life can change from darkness to light in an instant.

[SPEAKER_00]: I experience that myself.

[SPEAKER_00]: When I gave my heart to Jesus fully, I surrendered, everything.

[SPEAKER_00]: I experienced that with the word of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was like it went from black and white to color, just like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And all I wanted to do was drink this in and have this kind of inside of me reading my life in a change me instantly, but it's not a guarantee.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not something that happens every time, quick salvation, visible power, immediate change.

[SPEAKER_00]: That can sometimes quickly turn into the rub of a genie's lap.

[SPEAKER_00]: Save us now.

[SPEAKER_00]: Rescue me from out of this situation.

[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus is offering slow transformation.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hidden kingdom and inner surrender.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, if you're new to faith or a new believer here with us today, we're so grateful that you are here.

[SPEAKER_00]: and please be excited about your faith.

[SPEAKER_00]: Please be energetic.

[SPEAKER_00]: One of the best things about being part of a church where people are coming to faith all the time is that it's exciting because you get that the experience of someone go, oh my God, I didn't realize Jesus was like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh, I didn't realize that he was that good.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh, his grace is incredible.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we love that.

[SPEAKER_00]: We want that, please continue to offer that to us in and far be it from us to ever dampen that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And, and, and, please don't build your faith on feelings alone.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because there is a crowd who feels something in this moment, but the feeling subsides, and then the opinion changes.

[SPEAKER_00]: For those mature seasoned ones amongst us, sometimes it's easy for us to allow disappointment to quietly distance us from Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it doesn't happen instantly.

[SPEAKER_00]: It happens like this slow erosion.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's like a thousand small disappointments.

[SPEAKER_00]: A thousand small griefs start to slowly but surely a road our faith and then all of a sudden we feel like, man, we're in the room, but I'm not with him.

[SPEAKER_00]: We've drifted from a faith that's present,

[SPEAKER_00]: Now, again, a beautiful thing about studying age gospel in its, like, individually, we can look at Matthew with his focus on Jesus' kingship and Messiahship.

[SPEAKER_00]: We can look at Mark with his quick immediate punchy gospel.

[SPEAKER_00]: We can look at Luke, who looks at things with the details of a doctor writing to Gentiles and then we can look at John, who's at the end of his life.

[SPEAKER_00]: Later on, one of the last books in our Bible,

[SPEAKER_00]: chronologically last books of the Bible to be written, sitting back after a life of following Jesus recounting these stories.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he gives us a specific and unique detail.

[SPEAKER_00]: He tells us in verse 16, his disciples did not understand these things at first, or what a relief.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, I want to let you off the hook on something.

[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to get it all.

[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to understand it all.

[SPEAKER_00]: Even his disciples walking with him three years, John just puts him in it and says they didn't understand it at first.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's all right.

[SPEAKER_00]: Relax, it's going to be okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't understand these things at first.

[SPEAKER_00]: But then he says,

[SPEAKER_00]: But then, they remembered these things that had been written about him and had been done to him, what is John saying when Jesus had been glorified?

[SPEAKER_00]: It can be nothing other than the death and resurrection of Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: So John's saying, in the moment, as this is happening, he pushes back from the table and writes like an eraser.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're in the story, like we're seeing Jesus come down the road, we're seeing the donkey, we're seeing all of the crowd, and then John kind of pushes back and says, now, of course, you know, different voice and a rate of voice.

[SPEAKER_00]: His disciples didn't understand this at first.

[SPEAKER_00]: But once Jesus was glorified, then they realized everything that had been said and everything that had been done.

[SPEAKER_00]: What he's doing here is saying that the message of Palm Sunday cannot be understood apart from the death and resurrection of Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: The death and resurrection, so good Friday Easter Sunday is the lens by which we look back to Palm Sunday.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we say, oh, that's what's going on.

[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't understand these things at first, until Jesus was glorified and they look back and go, ah, that's what he was doing all this time.

[SPEAKER_00]: So what does that mean?

[SPEAKER_00]: Does that mean we shouldn't sing Hosanna because they kind of had it wrong?

[SPEAKER_00]: Now I think we should.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think we should, I would seem God save us now.

[SPEAKER_00]: As long as it's not the cry of a genie in a bottle, but a yearning for a new world, a yearning with creation, God do something, be it slow, be it painful, be it full with them, with be it agrind at times God save me now, I'm yearning for you to bring your kingdom.

[SPEAKER_00]: Do a work and let it stop with me.

[SPEAKER_00]: So real disciples don't always understand, but they do stay.

[SPEAKER_00]: They stay even when the crowds go on.

[SPEAKER_00]: When everyone disappears and everyone's dispersed, they don't understand everything.

[SPEAKER_00]: They do have to stay.

[SPEAKER_00]: See crowds can gather around Jesus, but disciples walk with Him.

[SPEAKER_00]: They stay not just proximate, but present, and participate.

[SPEAKER_00]: And guys, we're living in a culture, 2026, and a march.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're living in a culture that really mirrors some of what we see here in the text.

[SPEAKER_00]: People are spiritually open.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Wondering, there's a sense of, in our culture right now, is there something more than me?

[SPEAKER_00]: Is there something bigger than just what I can see and taste and touch and is there something more than just then just shopping or comfort or pleasure?

[SPEAKER_00]: Is there something more than that?

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think with our culture is finally catching up, I think there is, there has to be.

[SPEAKER_00]: People are even curious about Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: wondering about Him, wondering about the person of Jesus, the historical Jesus, and His place in our lives, they're wondering about that.

[SPEAKER_00]: But also, at the very same time, very, very clear, do not tell me how to live my life.

[SPEAKER_00]: You don't get to tell me what to do, because I'm in charge.

[SPEAKER_00]: So am I following Jesus or just using Him?

[SPEAKER_00]: My loyal to Christ, or just what he, to what I hoped he would do for me.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if he doesn't meet my expectations, will I still follow?

[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't mean don't get disappointed.

[SPEAKER_00]: It just means be honest about those disappointments and bring them to the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: Bring them to the Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there is a crowd kind of group think going on in our culture right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: May everyone's freaking out.

[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone's so scared.

[SPEAKER_00]: So worried, what's going to happen?

[SPEAKER_00]: This person said this and this is happening over here and this is happening over here.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just side note, we have more access to worldwide information more than any other person in history and other group of people in history.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't think it always helps us.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I think it doesn't always, I was, but all the same.

[SPEAKER_00]: I want to say to you, there is a crowd shouting right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: Everything's going bad, it's all over.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, what's going to happen with this?

[SPEAKER_00]: I want to encourage us, church, can we listen to the still small voice instead of the crowd?

[SPEAKER_00]: There is a word that will sustain the weary.

[SPEAKER_00]: There is a word that will sustain your heart when you wake up in the morning before you open your phone, open the Scriptures.

[SPEAKER_00]: And just have an allow the still, small voice of Jesus to speak to you, the truth, which will calm your fears.

[SPEAKER_00]: Wearing relationship with the one who knows the beginning from the end.

[SPEAKER_00]: The one in Throne in Heaven is not anxious.

[SPEAKER_00]: He's not worried.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if we listen to the crowd, you'll end up going with the crowd.

[SPEAKER_00]: In the worry and the fear, in the craziness, let's come back and join near to the still small voice of Jesus, amen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, cool, what team you can come?

[SPEAKER_00]: In a minute, the team are going to sing a song over us today.

[SPEAKER_00]: So create a moment of pause just to meditate on these words and meditate on what Jesus is doing and allow him to call our hearts back to himself again.

[SPEAKER_00]: But before we do that, I just want to draw our attention to this one last birth in verse 19.

[SPEAKER_00]: So the Pharisees said to one another, you know, they're worried.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because this journey of Jesus coming into the city does two things.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's expectation of the people, so there's this kind of heightened sense around people in the city, but also at the very same time it also rises up opposition.

[SPEAKER_00]: The Pharisees in John 12, this hinge.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is the time where they start to think, you know, we've got to get rid of this guy.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is time for things to change.

[SPEAKER_00]: But they say this, verse 19.

[SPEAKER_00]: So the Pharisees said to one another, are you see that you're gaining nothing?

[SPEAKER_00]: Look, the world has gone after him.

[SPEAKER_00]: The world, anyone else given to slight exaggeration or hyperbole like myself, you know?

[SPEAKER_00]: You always do, you never do, you know?

[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone's saying, everyone always, these kinds of things.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is what the Pharisees are picking up here.

[SPEAKER_00]: Really?

[SPEAKER_00]: If the world is, you know, that specific town, that specific time, and that specific place, then maybe, yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: But what they say, which is also very ironic.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because what they say is prophetic.

[SPEAKER_00]: What the Pharisees utter in anger and infrostration.

[SPEAKER_00]: becomes a prophetic statement of exactly what happens.

[SPEAKER_00]: And here we are, end of March, 2026, and the whole world has gone off to you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Billions and billions of people who would say together in one voice Jesus is Lord.

[SPEAKER_00]: The words that were uttered in frustration become the mission statement of the church.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they become a mission statement of your life and mind when you wake up tomorrow, you become a messenger.

[SPEAKER_00]: You become an emissary and ambassador that goes out and says, hey, I'm not just around hanging around with people who hang around Jesus, I'm with Jesus.

[SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus is with me.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so when you get up and go out to your workplace tomorrow, you begin to tell this story.

[SPEAKER_00]: The story of a God who completely changes our expectations of what God is like who comes and meets with the lowly and those who are cast out and those who are outside the city and those who are low and lifts them up, he doesn't come writing over you on a horse, he comes writing with you on a donkey.

[SPEAKER_00]: to reveal the grace, the mercy, and the kingdom of God.

[SPEAKER_00]: See, the king on this donkey is already moving toward the cross.

[SPEAKER_00]: He will not prove his authority by overthrowing Rome, the people will be solely disappointed about that, but he's come to do something so much more significant.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's, that's small time for Jesus, Rome's small time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because the big ticket item is sin and death and shame and guilt and that's what he's come to address.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he comes to address it in us, not around us.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's a deeper victory, not over nations.

[SPEAKER_00]: but over sin death and the grave.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is the Lordship of Christ.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not domination but self giving love.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so church, let's just not be near him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's be with him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Salvation won't be found standing near the crowd.

[SPEAKER_00]: It'll be found in surrender to the King who gave himself for us.

[SPEAKER_00]: So Father, we thank you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for all that you've done.

[SPEAKER_00]: And as we look forward, we look back.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we see a lot of God that the work that you activated or inaugurated at Palm Sunday would find its home.

[SPEAKER_00]: on good Friday and Easter Sunday, Easter weekend.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so, Lord, today, we draw near again to you, in earnest, and we come and say, would you draw near to us?

[SPEAKER_00]: Save us, Lord, today, and forever in Jesus' name.

[UNKNOWN]: Amen.

[UNKNOWN]: Thank you for watching.