Luke 19:28-48
Please turn in your copy of the
scriptures to Luke’s gospel. We are skipping ahead to chapter
19. We’re in our weekly study of Luke’s gospel in chapter 8,
but as today is Palm Sunday, we want to jump ahead to chapter
19 to the Palm Sunday passages where we see the Messiah entering
the city, weeping over the city, and Messiah also cleansing his
temple. And so make your way to Luke
chapter 19. And our reading today is from
verses 28 to 48. Let us hear God’s word together.
This is speaking of Jesus. It says, and when he had said
these things, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. And when
he drew near to Bethpage and to Bethany at the mount that
is called Olivet, he sent two of the disciples, saying, Go
into the village in front of you, where on entering you will
find a colt tied on which no one has ever yet sat. Untie it and bring it here. If
anyone asks you, why are you untying it? You shall say this,
the Lord has need of it. So those who were sent away found
it just as he had told them. And as they were untying the
coat, its owners said to them, why are you untying the coat?
And they said, excuse me, The Lord has need of it. And they
brought it to Jesus. And throwing their cloaks on
the colt, they set Jesus on it. And as he rode along, they spread
their cloaks on the road. And as he was drawing near, already
on the way down the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of
his disciples began to rejoice and to praise God with a loud
voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, Blessed
is the King who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven
and glory in the highest. And some of the Pharisees in
the crowd said to him, Teacher, rebuke your disciples. Jesus
answered, I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones
would cry out. And when he drew near and he
saw the city, he wept over it, saying, Would that you, even
you, had known on this day the things that make for peace. but
now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come
upon you when your enemies will set up a barricade around you.
They will surround you and hem you in on every side and tear
you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And
they will not leave one stone upon another in you because you
did not know the time of your visitation. Let us pray together. Lord, your word is a lamp to
our feet, a light to our path and we We need your spirit to
show us the way. Our eyes are dim, our ears are
cluttered with many voices. Lord, we need your help, your
grace, your blessing to see and to hear and to believe and to
understand. And most of all, we need your
spirit to help us to do what your word asks of us. So we pray
that you would give us your blessing even now, and we pray it in the
name of Christ, amen. I don’t know if you can believe
it, but we are already in the 2020 presidential election. I
think last night on the news, I heard that there are some 20
Democrats in the running for the 2020 presidential campaign. I think several years ago, it
was just the opposite. When we had a sitting Democrat
as a president, we had 20 Republicans. And so it’s the same old, same
old, right? But what we hear from these candidates
is, this is who I am, and this is what I’m going to do when
I get in office. And then when they get in office, what do we
get? This is who they really are, and this is what they’re
not going to do. What they are going to do, it goes both ways,
but that’s what’s taking place. Now, we have a president now
who every time he gives a speech, and he seems to love to give
them, and whatever your opinion of them, he seems to be able
to rally the crowds. And he’s always saying something
like this. This is what I told you I would
do. And this is what I am now doing. And it’s really no different
than what Jesus has been doing all along in the gospels. Yes,
we have fast forwarded from chapter 8 to chapter 19, but Jesus throughout
his ministry, when the Pharisees are spying on them and give their
little critiques, When the teachers of the law, the scribes and his
other critics are looking in on his ministry and saying, why
are you doing this? Why are you doing that? Why are
you acting this way? Why do you consort and eat with
these sorts of folks? Jesus simply says to them, the
Bible, the scriptures of the Old Testament, they tell you
who I am and what I will be doing. And it’s clear. And now I’m here
doing what the Bible says I would be doing. And yet you fuss, you
whine, you complain, you critique, you criticize. And pretty soon,
yes, they will put him to death. Isn’t it like that when we serve
the public? One day they love us. One day
they hate us. One day they love what we’re doing. The next day
they’re critical of it. But Jesus, dear friends, couldn’t
have been more clear about who he is and what he is doing. than he has been in the scriptures
of the old covenant. And so now as we see Jesus really
approaching the climax of his ministry, he’s approaching the
climax of his work of redemption. He’s approaching Jerusalem. There’s
a little phrase in our passage today. It says Jesus was going
up to Jerusalem. That’s very significant for why
was he going up to Jerusalem? It wasn’t for the yearly feast.
It wasn’t for the annual festivals. It wasn’t to do this or that. It was to go to the cross. It
was to do the work of redemption that would save his children
from eternal damnation. And so Jesus comes in our passage
and he comes and gives. Three aspects. I know the title
in the sermon says the mind and heart in the hands of Jesus.
We’re we’re getting rid of that. That was Tuesday’s title. All
right. This is this is Sunday’s title. We often speak in theology
of Jesus as a king, a priest. and a prophet. Maybe some of
you hear it in this order from the catechism. He’s our prophet,
he’s our priest, and he’s our king. Well, our passage shows
us Jesus in a different order. He shows us Jesus as a king,
as a priest, and as a prophet. So we want to take a peek at
the work and ministry of Jesus in that way. First, Jesus as
king. We find Jesus as king in verses
28 through 40 when we read the account of his triumphal entry. Now, This is a passage you’ve
probably heard every year and some of you have heard it for
decades. Some of you have heard it for lots and lots of years. Preachers have it worse than
you. You think it’s bad having to hear it over and over every
Palm Sunday. It’s hard for us to have to preach
and to find something new in it. I was looking back through
Easter sermons from all the years past. And I don’t think, believe
it or not, I’ve actually preached through Luke’s account of the
triumphal entry. But here we have Jesus as King
in verses 28 through 40. Jesus is headed to Jerusalem.
He’s headed to Jerusalem for his coronation, his inauguration,
and he’s really unceremoniously welcomed, isn’t he? There’s no
national holiday. There’s no fanfare. There’s no
music. There’s no, Let’s clean up the
city and get ready for our king. There’s no planning, preparation. There’s no fanfare. Jesus comes
with his little band of disciples who’ve been with him for a little
time now. And he tells his disciples to get him a colt. We see Jesus
as king preparing to enter the city and he’s not going to come
on a war horse. He’s not gonna come with a vast
army with their spears and their chariots, their horses and their
armaments and a display of might. No, he’s gentle Jesus, we call
him. He’s coming to serve his people. And he tells his disciples, go
to this and such a place and you will find a cult. Take that
cult and if asked, why are you taking it? The Lord has need
of it. Several years ago, maybe 30 years
ago now, I had the opportunity to go to Israel and Jordan and
Egypt. And just out on the street the other night, one of the neighbors
went with her church and we were chitchatting about experiences
going to the Holy Land. And one of the things that we
did when we went, we walked this route that Jesus took into the
city from Mount Olivet down through the valley and into the city.
Interestingly enough, as we were making our little walk, guess
what we saw? We saw a cult and it was tied to a fire hydrant,
kind of a little nugget of the Lord saying, see, I do wonderful
and mighty things. But he tells his disciples about
this cult. They bring it back to him. And
he prepares to ride it into the city. Now, it’s very interesting.
Some of you are reading in your yearly read through the Bible
program. You’re reading, I think now in first and second Samuel
or somewhere in that neighborhood. Well, there’s a passage in Samuel
where he talks. about King David not going into
Jerusalem on this very same road, but going out. And you remember
David, after he had risen to power, he had been promised by
God to be the Messiah. He had been promised to be the
king of Israel, to to expand its borders, which he did north,
south, east and west, to conquer all the enemies of God’s people
and to bring peace upon the land that did take place. But David
had a lot of hardship in his home. He had boys who were wicked.
Absalom was one. And Absalom went out to the people
and he judged them a little bit easier than his father had. He
won their favor. And Absalom entered the city
and began to rule. And the people came to him. And
so on this very same pathway, some centuries before, David,
the Messiah, left the city. He left the city in the middle
of the night. He fled for his life. But here is Jesus, the
Messiah, the King, the one who will always sit upon the throne,
the one whose throne will last forever. We see him coming into
the city and yes, it’s quiet. Yes, it’s without fanfare, but
he comes and he sits upon the donkey, the foal of a donkey
alongside the other gospels tell us. And he enters. the city of Jerusalem with this
small group. And they’re aware of who Jesus
is. They have seen his work. They have been with him as he
has healed. They have been with him as he’s exercised demons.
They have been with him as he has read the prophecies and explained
them and said, I am he who is the one who is to come. They
speak of They are able to worship and adored Jesus as king because
they have seen who he is and what he has done. And so they
lay their cloaks on this donkey. They put the king on, he rides. And as he makes his way through
the city, they sing his praises. They lay down their cloaks and
he enters the city in that way. Jesus is the king. He’s the Messiah.
He is the savior. But wouldn’t you know it? I mean,
what would this event be like if it weren’t for those hardhearted
Pharisees to be standing there, tapping their foot and saying,
no, Jesus, you tell your disciples to quit singing Psalm 118. No,
Jesus, you tell your disciples to hush because you’re not the
king. You’re not the one. You’re not
the royal one who is to come. And what does Jesus say? I can’t
tell them to hush. For if I tell them to hush and
they are silent, even the stones will cry out. And so let me ask you, brothers
and sisters, what say you? As you see Jesus entering the
city as king, do you think like we sing at Christmas? What is
that wonderful line we sing in joy to the world? Prepare room
in your hearts. Open wide your doors. Let the
king of glory come in. Or you like the Pharisees, you
kind of tap on your foot saying, no, there’s got to be something
better. And hear me out on this. You may not be saying, no, Jesus
isn’t the answer. There’s another Messiah to come.
I don’t I don’t think that’s what we say. But we replace Jesus
with Well, I’ve been pretty good. We replaced Jesus with whatever
pop psychology is seeked into the church. We replaced Jesus
with some thinking that It’s sort of seeped in our minds and
hearts because we’ve seen it. We’ve heard it. We’ve read it.
Our friends are soaking it up and drinking it. Let me encourage
you in this way, friends. You need to see Jesus afresh
this day. He is the only king of glory.
He is the only king of kings. He is the only one who has the
right to rule and to reign in your hearts. And we need to take
great warning as we remember our forefathers. As we remember
Adam, as we remember his wife Eve, Jesus was their king and
he gave them everything they wanted. He gave them paradise. He gave them daily fellowship.
He gave them daily instruction. He gave them the delights of
the Garden of Eden and says, this will be yours forever if
you’ll obey me. And they said, no, thanks. No
thanks to the king of glory. No thanks to the king of provision. And friends, that’s what the
Pharisees are saying. And we see in our passage today,
Jesus is king, but we also see him as priest. And we see Jesus
as priest and we really see his heart in that. We read of it
in verses 41 through 44, Jesus weeping over Jerusalem. Some
of you probably heard this passage over the years. You’ve read it.
You’ve maybe not really heard it explained. You don’t really
understand what’s going on. There’s a German word. In the
German language, I’m probably gonna say this wrong, but they
take a lot of words and jam them together, sort of like the Greek
New Testament does. But there’s this German word,
it’s the word Schadenfraude, and it simply means this, someone
taking pleasure in another’s suffering. Now, we know exactly
what this is. I mean, we’ve just gone through
what, March Madness? And a couple Friday nights ago,
some of us who love dark blue loved it when the light blue
team fell, right? They lost, kicked out of the
tournament. And then two nights later, those
of you in blue were comforted when the dark blue team fell.
We know how it is. We take joy in other’s suffering.
And that’s a light way to put it, isn’t it? I mean, basketball,
that’s pretty simple. But we have this in our human
nature for some reason. We take joy when others are in
pain. Well, they deserve what they
got. They had it coming to them. They always get the best. And
so maybe it’s time they get the worst. That’s sometimes the way
our human nature is. It’s sinful. It’s wrong. We don’t
believe this to be a good thing. Right. Well, I want to show you
that Jesus does not take joy in the pain of those who will
not come to him. That’s exactly why Jesus is weeping
over Jerusalem. It says, when he drew near, as
he’s making his way into the city, from the valley, up into
the city, they’ve spread their coats, they’re crying out, blessed
is he who comes in the name of the Lord, peace in heaven and
glory on the highest. They’re worshiping him, just
a few, as the coming king. He begins to weep, the passage
tells us. And he says, would that you even
you had known this day the things that make for peace, but now
they are hidden from your eyes. He sees the unbelief of the city. He sees the unbelief of even
his church in 2019. And Jesus, who does not take
joy in the pain of others, weeps for their lost estate. He weeps
for they do not have eyes to see. He weeps for they will not
hear and will not perceive and will not understand and be saved
eternally. And so he is the great high priest. He weeps over the unbelief of
Jerusalem, for he, Christ, the Messiah, the king, the prophet,
the priest has come to bring salvation to the world. He has come to bring things that
will make for peace. He has come as the great priest,
both the offerer and himself the offering. He comes to show the very heart
of Almighty God. Yet he understands they will
reject. They will not believe. And so he weeps. You know, this
is a high gospel season. Easter, right? Christmas and
Easter. That’s when people come out of the woodwork, they come
back to church. It’s when, you know, a lot of you good Southern
women can get your children and grandchildren into church with
you. You invite them, you promise good vittles afterwards. And,
you know, there’s shopping down at Belks. We get new dresses,
you know, we might get a new tie or some sort of thing. Easter
is a big deal. Easter is a really big deal.
It’s a high religious season. You see the signs start popping
out in front of churches. These are our Easter services.
You see the ads in the paper come to our 8.30, our 10, our
11.30 services. It’s Easter. There’s the Easter
egg hunts. It’s a high gospel season. That’s exactly what it
was for Jesus as he entered the city. And guess what? During
what he perceived to be a high gospel season, people’s need
for salvation, guess what? Jerusalem did not care. And so he weeps for he knows
that night is coming when it will be too late. Friends, do
we think that way? Do we think that way? Do we think
in our minds and hearts night is coming when no one can work?
There will be a day when God, who has promised a flood like
he did in the days of Noah, where he shuts the door of the ark. There is no possible salvation
after a point. Do we think that way? That’s
the heart of Jesus. Does it make us want to leave
here today and say, I must speak to so-and-so, friend, neighbor,
loved one, son, whoever. Does it make us want to run to
them and say, before it is night, you need to hear the voice of
the Lord Jesus Christ. And we weep. We come to tears
because we know what is at stake. Well, Jesus comes as a king.
He comes as a priest, but he also comes as a prophet. We see it in verses 45 to 48. The Bible tells us that man shall
not live by bread alone. Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes from the mouth of almighty God.
And if Jesus is our prophet, we should listen to him and we
should listen to him even when his messages are difficult. We should listen to his message
even when his message comes into our lives that are full of disorder,
sin. Our priorities are mixed up.
We’ve not listened to the word, but the world. We’ve not followed
the spirit, but we followed our own flesh. And we’ve not followed
the voice of Christ, but we’ve heard the voice of Satan. And
what he has offered has been a delight to us. And Jesus comes
like he does into the temple. He comes into the mess of our
lives and he speaks. And we’ve got, Two choices. We can say, yes, it’s a mess.
Fix it. It’s out of order. Put it in
order. Or we can. We can carry on, we can keep
on going as we are. Well, as Jesus comes to the temple,
as he comes into the temple and he sees that the money changers
are there and you understand what’s taking place, you’ve got
to come to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices. You’ve got to come
to Jerusalem and make Levitical offerings, you’ve got to do what
the Old Testament said you must do. And it’s. It’s just ease
that’s taking place, you know, it’s a little hard to lead a
cow from your little town outside of Jerusalem. And so isn’t it
easier just to bring a few coins in the pocket and buy the cow
or whatever it is you’ll offer in the temple? Well, of course
it is. It’s convenient, right? It’s like PayPal to make your
offering at church is just easier. Well, you No harm, right? Well, what have they done? They
have turned the house of God, instead of it being a house of
prayer, it has become a den of thieves. And what happens in
church? Well, it’s what happens in the
history of Israel. God takes a people and he calls them from
darkness to light. And he he begins to form this
people into a nation, into a church. And he says, you will be my people. I will be your God. This is my
holy law. And this is how you will live
and worship and act. And so God forms. There’s the
formation of Israel is the formation of the church. But over time,
what happens? Well, there’s deformation. We’d
like to do it our way. We get a little lazy or in the
name of efficiency or pragmatism, we begin to do things and church
gets watered down. Temple gets watered down. Well, people don’t want to bring
little turtle doves from the farm out in Bethel or wherever. So we’ll just sell them here.
And then before you know it, what was something for the convenience
of the people becomes a money making profit where the people
of God are being robbed for the sake of religion. We know about
this, don’t we? We see it happen over and over
again. Well, just like the Protestant
Reformation, sometimes you got to go in and clean house. And
that’s what Jesus is doing here. He’s getting the temple fit for
ministry. He wants his house to be a house
of prayer and not a den of of robbers. On Sunday evenings,
we’ve been studying the book of Revelation and we’re stuck
right now in the seven letters to the seven churches. And in
the seven letters to the seven churches, the book of Revelation
tells us that Jesus, who walks Among the lampstands, he walks
among the churches, he walks among the churches, inspecting
them, their belief, their worship, their teaching, their faithfulness,
their endurance under hardship. He walks among the churches and
he judges. He encourages, he warns and he
promises. Friends, that’s what Jesus does
as our prophet. He comes into our lives, he comes
into our church, he comes into our ministry, he comes into our
worship, and he says, you’ve got a few things right, you need
to fix these, get it straight, and I will bless you. And so
here we see Jesus as king, Jesus as priest, Jesus as prophet. The real question is this, what
are we gonna do with him? As our king, does he rule our hearts?
As our king, is he our absolute monarch? As our king, does he
rule over every aspect of our lives? Is he really Lord? Is he really monarch? Is he really
king? Is he really master? Have we submitted to him wholly? As our priest, do we trust him?
Do we trust in him as the ultimate sacrifice, the eternal lamb of
God, the spotless one who laid down his life for us? The one who weeps when he sees
souls who will not respond to his gospel call. Is Jesus our
prophet? Is he the chief voice speaking
into our ears? Is he the one who has the loudest
voice coming into our ears? Are we listening to other things
and bits and pieces and mixing it with Jesus? Or is he the crystal
clear voice speaking? Dear friends, it really matters
how we answer these questions. And we see the sadness when he
comes and people are indifferent. We see the sadness when he comes
and people aren’t ready to worship him. We see the sadness when
he comes and people don’t hear him. But not so us. We’re ready, aren’t we? For we
love Jesus. We love his appearing and we
can’t wait for his second coming where he comes to make all things
new and all the promises of God are yes. And amen. Let us look to God in prayer.
Our Lord, we thank you for this picture of the coming Messiah,
the the king, the priest and the prophet. Let us love him
and trust him and hold fast to him. We ask and pray for your
great blessings as we seek to do this. And it’s in the name
of the Messiah, Jesus, we pray. Amen.