Luke 19:28-48
Please remain standing and turn
in your copy of God’s word to Luke chapter 19. Our reading
today is verses 28 through 48. We’ll be looking at three actions
of the Lord Jesus. And probably most typically you
hear sermons or messages and specifically on Palm Sunday,
which today is not, you may think it is. It’s not, it just happens
to be the passage we land on in Luke. But we usually hear
messages about what Jesus came, what Jesus did. But today we’ll
consider the three responses the people of God give to the
coming of Jesus. Before we read, let’s look to
God for help as we prepare to seek wisdom from his word. Pray
with me. Lord, we ask that your word today
would do the work which you have promised for it to do, that it
would enlighten the eyes, the lives, the hearts of sinners,
of their need of a savior, and show them who exactly the savior
is, our Lord Jesus. We also pray that your word would
do its work in those already saved. May it build them up in
their most holy faith so that they might live more and more
for your glory and be conformed into the image of the Lord Jesus
Christ. This we pray in his name and
ask it, amen. Hear the word of the living God
now from Luke chapter 19, beginning at verse 28. And when Jesus had said these
things, he went on ahead going up to Jerusalem. When he drew
near to Bethpage and 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, 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 went away
and found it just as he had told them. And as they were untying
the colt, its owner said to them, why are you untying the colt?
And they said, the Lord has need of it. 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. 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 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. And he
answered, I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones
would cry out. And when Jesus drew near and
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. And Jesus entered
the temple and began to drive out those who sold, saying to
them, it is written, my house shall be a house of prayer, but
you have made it a den of robbers. And he was teaching daily in
the temple. The chief priest and the scribes
and the principal men of the people were seeking to destroy
him, but they did not find anything they could do for all the people
were hanging on his words. Amen. The word of God, you may
be seated. I would imagine that if Jesus
and his disciples were traveling to Jerusalem, not by foot, but
in a vehicle and you could. In your imagination, imaginations
begin to wonder what kind of vehicle it would be. I think
most would say like a Volkswagen van or something like that. But
you can imagine that written on the back window in soap or
some sort of substance, it would say Jerusalem or bust. Right? That’s where Jesus and
his disciples are headed. If you know anything about the
structure and the flow of the gospels, particularly the gospel
of Luke, we’ve had verses along the way that Jesus himself has
said these words, I am going to Jerusalem. And when I get
to Jerusalem, I am going to suffer. and to die at the hands of my
enemies. And so as we make our way closer
and closer to those main events, we begin to see, particularly
as our verse began with Jesus and his disciples looking up
the hill and walking to Jerusalem, and then our verses end, he’s
in holy week. He’s preaching and teaching and
people are hanging on to every word. You can begin to see the
climax, the grand event of Luke’s gospel. of the history and life
of our Lord Jesus are soon at hand. Last evening, after watching
what I thought was a very good Duke basketball game, they’re
finally back, we turned the TV off because there was a fight
coming on. It was one of those UFC, you
know, they Duke it out fights. I’m not into all that, so I can’t
tell you the details, but it was somebody who had won 20 some
knockouts, and it was another guy who I think had won 30. And
you know, the hype around a fight, in this corner, so-and-so, and
in that corner, it’s the other so-and-so. Well, we could say
that in our passage today. In this corner, it’s Jesus, the
seed of the woman. And in this corner, it’s Satan,
that ancient serpent. And we know the stats already,
don’t we? We know the stats already. There will be a death blow at
the cross. And Satan will live mortally
wounded until the great day when Jesus returns and he crushes
the serpent’s head fully and finally and cast him in to the
abyss. But we might see in our passage
today that yes, Jesus and his disciples are Jerusalem bound.
And yes, it’s Jerusalem. and there is no bust, they’re
there. And Jesus will do the work he
has set about to accomplish from eternity past. And yes, there
will be in this corner, Satan, the ancient serpent, but in this
corner, Jesus, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. And as
Jesus has been marching to Jerusalem, studied his birth narratives.
We’ve seen the young boy in the temple. We’ve seen the life and
the temptation of Jesus, his ministry, all fulfilling the
Old Testament. Now we see the climax of his
life as he climbs the hill to Jerusalem, as he makes his way
to Zion, the city of God, and to the temple where God is worshiped
and all of the sacrifices are made. There are three major activities
we see in our passage. Jesus will ride into the city.
Jesus will weep over the people. And then he will cleanse the
temple. But I want us today to look at
a different perspective from this passage. I want us to see
the response, the responses of the people. And so first, I think
we should look at the people’s failure to worship. The people’s
failure to worship. We see this in verses 28 through
40. We read of Jesus, the king of
kings coming into the city. He’s riding in as a king of peace. He rides on a donkey. As Zechariah
promised and prophesied, he rides in on a donkey, a colt, a foal,
one that had never been ridden before. And he comes into the
city as the king of peace. The people have laid down their
cloaks as a saddle. They have spread their cloaks
on the pavement and he rides on in majesty into the city. You’ve maybe grown up in the
church, Palm Sunday, the waving of the palm branches, the singing
of the little children. But can’t you imagine also the
disciples who are ripe with the songs of ascent. They are full
of the Hallel Psalms of 113 to 118. They’re ascending Zion for
Passover. They’re coming to the great city
to worship, and they can’t help but sing. And they can’t help
but spontaneously sing and worship this king of kings who is now
entering his holy city. But leave it up to the Pharisees.
The Pharisees who had walked along the way and had nipped
and nipped and nipped at Jesus. Look, he’s eating with sinners.
Look, he’s going to the home of a tax collector. Look at what
he’s doing. It’s wrong. It’s bad. He’s not
doing what we think ought to be done. And Jesus speaks back
to them, if these will not worship me, even the rocks will cry out,
the very stones of that great and glorious city. This is a
good reminder, I think, to us as Christian people living in
a culture that fails to worship Jesus. One of the things we read
in the book of Romans when the apostle Paul is describing to
early Christians Christians throughout the ages and to us in 2021, as
we read the book of Romans, is one of the chief sins of unbelief
is failing to worship God. It’s failing to give glory to
him alone to whom it is due. It is failing to worship the
creator, but instead worshiping the creation. And in the case
of the Pharisees here, they worship the law, they worship the rules,
they worship the outward behavior of the old covenant ways. And I think this is a good reminder
for us that maybe we ought to consider maybe de-churching church. We have so much attached to the
church in America, so many trappings, so many, ceremony, so many activities
and the life of the church becomes everything it’s not supposed
to be. You take away the ability to speak of the blood atonement
of Jesus. You take away the God-centered
hymnody of the church, the songs of the faith, and you make it
a man-centered activity that happens to be on a Sunday morning.
You obscure the gospel because you feel like 21st century Americans
just can’t handle being told that they’re sinners. They just
can’t handle being told they’ve committed cosmic treason against
the Holy One of Israel. But who was with Jesus? who was
in his little band as he made his way into Jerusalem. It was
the blind who now see. It was the lame who now walk.
It was the outcasts who were now brought in. It was the possessed
who are no longer under Satan’s dominion. It was extortioners
such as Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector. And what’s our
little saying around here? Saved people sing. Unsaved people do not sing. In fact, unsaved people, they
cross their arms and they say humph. And they say, even to
Jesus, you’re not doing church right. And so there’s a failure
in our passage today that we ought to take great warning,
great heed of. It’s a failure to worship. And
as the people of God in this little band were ascending Zion,
as they were making their way up the hill at Jerusalem for
the greatest Passover event ever, the greatest Exodus event to
ever take place, they burst forth in songs of worship. And so the
question for us is this, if God were to show up today, and he
has, If God were to show up today, would he find worshipers? Would
he find those who knew that they were blind and went to him to
receive sight? Would he find those who were
lame and came to him for legs that were seaworthy? Would he
find those who were cast out and have now been brought near
through the blood of Jesus? Would he find those who were
possessed by all kinds of evil and wickedness, but now have
been made clean by the words of Christ? Would he find those
who are sinners in their professions in this world who have repented
and even sought to make amends? Today, will God find worshipers? Let us not be those who fail
to worship the king as he enters his holy church. Well, there’s
a second failure that we’ll see in this passage, not just a failure
to worship, but there’s also a failure to receive Jesus. There’s a failure to worship
Jesus, of course, but you see in the second section of our
passage, beginning at verse 41, when Jesus draws near to the
city and he weeps over the spiritual condition of the city, he weeps
over their failure to receive him as king. As you leave church
today, Some of you may drive to the north of town or maybe
to the west it is and you’ll see the shopping mall. And I
would bet that shopping mall is at capacity today. Some of
you will drive by athletic parks and you’ll see the parking lot
at capacity. Little children. running around
and between the shopping mall and the athletic parks. And we
could probably list other examples. You begin to see very quickly
an unbelieving people who do not acknowledge their creator,
but they worship created things. They worship consumerism. They
worship the food that’s available. They worship sports in hopes
maybe their child might become the next LeBron James or the
next Deion Sanders or whoever their sports heroes are. And
so we see on Sundays the priorities of people’s worship. Everyone
will worship somebody. Everybody will worship something.
But here is something even deeper than a failure to worship. It’s
failure in the first place to receive Jesus is king. People are so busy, busy, busy.
And you remember that it’s Passover time in Jerusalem, which is ordinarily
a very small place. It’s filled with over a million
people. The stones are stretched to their
limits as people are sleeping on cots. They’re sleeping on
the pullout sofa. They’re in the spare bedroom
of loved ones in Jerusalem. The ends are full. The surrounding
cities look like a Bedouin camp. as people come to observe Passover. And Jesus, the closer and closer
he gets to Jerusalem, he recognizes the hardness of hearts. He recognizes
that mankind has been left in their sin and their misery. They’ve
been left in their lost estate. And not only do they fail to
worship their creator, here is their king entering the city.
And the cries and the shouts and the singing of the children
and his band of disciples do not even remove the stupor from
their eyes of their busy schedules, their afternoons at the shopping
mall, their weekends at the athletic fields. And friends, this is
a good reminder, isn’t it, to us that just because we know
Jesus, just because we have received his forgiveness, it doesn’t mean
that we don’t continually in this life, not only fail to worship
him, but also fail to receive him as King. We very quickly,
maybe even within minutes of the benediction and our exit
out the doors of Sunday church, we can take Jesus off his throne
and we can re-enthrone our work, our income, our finances, our
life’s goals, And we quickly become like Adam and Eve, who
in the garden, when God said to them, you may eat of all the
fruit of the garden, except of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil, you shall not eat of it. In the day you eat
of it, you will surely die. And they had a choice to make
just as we do. Will God as king rule over me? Will he by his word and spirit
through his church, through the ministry of the elders, through
the ministry of godly parents, will he through the ministry
of kings and governors, will he rule over me? And will I live
in obedience? Or like Adam and Eve, will we
say, okay, God, and like a two year old, you’re not the boss
of me. What will it be? And so daily,
We struggle with self-rule. We struggle with the sin of the
garden. And that is why Jesus weeps. That is why Jesus weeps
over Jerusalem. He sees their spiritual condition
and their failure to receive him. I wonder sometimes if we
rented one of those car dealer gadgets. They don’t use them
much anymore because of maybe the FAA air traffic control.
But I can remember as a kid, I think it was Bill Price Buick
over here on Huffman Mill Road. They rented one of those strobe
lights. And you could see it all over town, the lights. Come
by a Buick. You need a new station wagon.
And the lights just flashed all over the sky. I would guess that’s
illegal now with air traffic and other things, ordinances.
But if we rented one of those lights and did that and put up
some banners out front that says this Sunday, 11 o’clock a.m. King Jesus will be present and
he will not only be worshiped, but he will be seated on his
throne and you can behold his glory and spirit and truth. I think a lot of people might
actually show up with me. I want to see this King Jesus.
I want to gaze upon him. I want to look on him. But they
would come in here and they would say, where is this King Jesus?
All I see is a middle-aged bald-headed guy in a black robe. All I hear
is human voices. All I see is earthly circumstances. But isn’t that the spiritual
reality week by week? Lord’s day by Lord’s day for
us, 11 a.m. and 6 p.m., we gather as God’s
people to worship the King. We gather in his throne room,
at his footstool. And we say to him, you are our
king, you are our Lord, you are our master. And maybe you heard
the words in the opening prayer of the service. Lord, you come
and be in our midst and receive our worship, our adoration, our
praise, but give us our marching orders. You’re king, you’re master. You’ve bought us at a great price.
We are not our own. Friends, that’s why we come to
worship. And so don’t fail to worship. But don’t fail to receive your
King as the people of old did. Well, there’s a third failure
in this passage that we want to consider today, not just a
failure to worship, not just a failure to receive Jesus as
King, but there’s a failure of stewardship in our passage. And we see it in the last section.
We see it in the beginnings of verse 45, when Jesus entered
the temple. And he entered the temple, which
was his house. It was the house of his father.
It was to be a house of prayer. It was to be a place where God’s
people could gather and they could bring their sacrifices.
They could bring their offerings and they could come clean before
God and say, oh God, I have failed in this way and this way and
this way and that way. But I bring to you my offering.
I bring to you my tithes. I bring to you my very life and
I need your grace. I need your mercy. I need your
saving work. Do you remember some years ago,
the bracelets, WW, JD? What would Jesus do? Well, this
is a really good what would Jesus to moment. What would Jesus do
with your church? What would Jesus do with the
church down the road or the church up the road or the churches this
way and that way? What would Jesus do with his
churches? Well, when I was in seminary, we had a teacher who
was very practical, very crass at times. And he says, men, when
you go to a church, you need to grab that church by the ankles
and you need to hold it up by the ankles over a dumpster and
you need to shake into it most of what you see. And that’s exactly
what Jesus is doing. It’s a den of thieves. It’s a
den of robbers. They have changed the house of
the sacrifice of praise. They have changed the house of
atonement. They have changed the house of worship into a marketplace. And I don’t think I have to tell
you what goes on in the American church. We’re a little insulated
here. We’re very blessed here. And
some might even say maybe we’re a little snobby about it here. But I think we would take great
delight in the simplicity of our church. We do what’s commanded. and nothing else. God calls us
to worship. He calls us to a ministry of
discipleship. And he calls us to be evangelist
into the rest of the world. He doesn’t call us to build gymnasiums
and climbing walls and coffee bars. And he doesn’t call us
to all these ministries that the American church has adorned
herself with. Because why? What happens? God knows our hearts. We create
idols for ourselves. In fact, our hearts, one great
theologian said, without the help and grace of God are idol
factories. And this is a phrase I have learned
to beware of in pastoral ministry. Anytime somebody comes up to
you and says, hey, pastor, I’ve got a really good idea. And then if they attach to it,
it’ll help us grow. I remind them that we are, as
our statement of mission and vision and value says, we are
a family of reformed believers committed to the historic Christian
faith. We are not committed to the gimmicks
of the 1980s. We are not committed to the ways of the nineties and
the ways of the two thousands. We are committed to the reading
and the preaching and the singing and the praying and the ministration
of God’s holy word and his sacraments and nothing else. It’s simple
church. And so God, I think in his great
grace to us and his mercy, he would grab us by the ankles and
shake us upside down and not a whole lot of junk would fall
out. And that’s thanks to our heritage in the Reformed Church.
That’s thanks to the fidelity of our elders and their desire
to see a faithful biblical church. And that’s also, I think, thanks
to God for giving us a clear vision from the commands of scripture.
We are to worship, we are to make disciples, and we are to
tell the world about Jesus. All the trappings of American
Christianity do not have to be ours. Would Jesus come in here
and find his means of grace? Would he find the word read and
prayed and preached and sung? Would he find the word of Christ
dwelling richly among us? Would he witness us speaking
psalms and hymns and spiritual psalms to one another? Very often
we think of the Reformation of the church as that fateful day
in October of 1517, when Martin Luther, the German monk and professor
there at the University of Wittenberg, took his hammer and nail and
paper and nailed it to the wall. And we think, we think that’s
when the Reformation took place. But go back to a cross outside
Jerusalem on a hill called Calvary, and there was a different sound
of a hammer. And the sound of that hammer
was the sound of a man. even Jesus and his hands and
his feet being nailed to the cross. And it was God himself
saying, I will reform my church. I will make her pure. I will
make her holy. My son here will pay for all
her sins, past, present, and future. And when my son who will
be killed this day is raised on the third day in his resurrection
will come the resurrection of many. And at his resurrection,
we read in Ephesians chapter four, that when Jesus was ascending
to heaven, he gifted his church. He gifted his church with every
tool necessary to build her up in her most holy faith. So in
our passage today, we see Jesus, Jerusalem, or bust. We see in
this corner, the ancient serpent. We see in this corner, Jesus,
the great king of kings. but we see a failure of the people
to worship and to receive, but we see a failure to steward the
church. And may it be said of us that
we are a people who worship the king within the parameters of
a local congregation as good stewards, maintaining the fellowship,
the purity, the peace, and even her ordinances, so that when
Jesus comes a second time, he will find faith among us on the
face of the earth. Pray with me. Our Lord, we give you thanks
for your everlasting love and kindness that you from of old
have set your affection upon a people you’ve desired to be
their king. You’ve desired to be their priest
and you’ve desired to be their prophet. So let us hear the voice
of Jesus. Let us receive our king in our
hearts and let us Glory in the work of our great priest who
laid down his life for us. We ask and pray that you would
bless us with the knowledge of the Savior, a love for the church,
and a reverence and awe and even adoration for our King. We pray
that you would hear us, help us, make this so in our lives.
And we pray it in Jesus’ name, amen.