SPEAKER_00: This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_01: Good morning.
SPEAKER_01: Welcome.
SPEAKER_01: Glad to be back with you this morning to open the Word of God with you after being gone for a couple of weeks helping my mother-in-law get moved here to East Grand Forks.
SPEAKER_01: We have been sick and tired.
SPEAKER_01: They're two separate things, sick and tired.
SPEAKER_01: Lord willing, on the road to settling and getting recovered all the way around.
SPEAKER_01: So I want to invite you this morning to take your Bible or your device with me as we return again to Matthew chapter 11.
SPEAKER_01: A few weeks ago we looked at the end of Matthew 11, sort of in a flyover of the text.
SPEAKER_01: And today I want us to take another look, a different kind of look at verse 27.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to unpack every detail in this verse, but instead to help us see how it fits into the overall message of Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: So if you are visiting with us, or this is your first time, and we want to welcome you, what I am about to walk us through is not necessarily a normal method of preaching for me on a Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_01: A little bit different.
SPEAKER_01: But the goal here is to lead us into preparation for this week.
SPEAKER_01: It's not just to deal with the next passage in our walk through Matthew, but it's to prepare us for Friday night.
SPEAKER_01: It's to prepare us for next Sunday morning, the resurrection Sunday, finishing this passage with finding rest in the resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: So as we begin then, I'd like to direct your attention to the end of Matthew 11, beginning in verse 25.
SPEAKER_01: To refresh our memories a little bit, we'll read all of this section if you would like to follow along in your own Bible, your own device.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew chapter 11, verse 25.
SPEAKER_01: At that time, Jesus declared, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, Father, for such was well pleasing before you.
SPEAKER_01: All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
SPEAKER_01: Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
SPEAKER_01: Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
SPEAKER_01: For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Before we really begin jumping into our study this morning, I want you to know of a resource that we are making available today, and that is a book by the title Gentle and Lowly by author Dane Ortland.
SPEAKER_01: We have several of these available today.
SPEAKER_01: I'd like to read an encouragement from one of our members, Jay Anderson, about this book.
SPEAKER_01: Jay and Eileen will be back this week from the South, and you can pester him about it on next Sunday, and he will tell you more than I'm going to read to you.
SPEAKER_01: I asked him to give me just a short blurb of what he has learned, what he's thought about this book, so I could share it with you.
SPEAKER_01: Because last fall, I loaned my copy of this book to Jay, and he brought it back to me very quickly.
SPEAKER_01: I was a little confused by it, and he said, if I remember correctly, that he just couldn't bear to mark up my copy.
SPEAKER_01: He had to get his own to mark up.
SPEAKER_01: And since that point last fall, Jay has read this book three times.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what he says.
SPEAKER_01: I consider this book life-changing for me and my wife, Eileen.
SPEAKER_01: How would we describe the very heart of God the Father?
SPEAKER_01: How does his son have that same heart?
SPEAKER_01: What kind of heart does the Holy Spirit flow out of?
SPEAKER_01: I never thought deeply about those questions until this past year.
SPEAKER_01: The two biblical descriptors of Jesus in this book from Matthew 11 answer the questions gentle and lowly.
SPEAKER_01: How many times have I read that small descriptive phrase without much impact or depth of their meaning?
SPEAKER_01: Dane Ortland's book offers a clarion call to learn of Jesus' real heart, and the Father's real heart and the Spirit's heart.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus' heart is drawn towards those who are messy, sinners, broken, anxious, needy, lost, wayward.
SPEAKER_01: He is always the compassionate, tender Savior who invites us to see who we are in his eyes and heart.
SPEAKER_01: His heart does not condemn but draws me into the safest refuge.
SPEAKER_01: That's from Jay Anderson.
SPEAKER_01: We have about fourteen copies available at the conclusion of this service at a kiosk, right outside this door, you'll find Sarah there.
SPEAKER_01: We only have 14 copies left because we gave a few away at first service, and the vast majority in fellowship groups.
SPEAKER_01: And so the remaining copies are for those sluggards among us who are not part of fellowship groups.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, if you want a copy and you don't get one, you need to get into a fellowship group.
SPEAKER_01: That's where we'll start giving out those kinds of resources.
SPEAKER_01: We want to give good resources and get those into your hands.
SPEAKER_01: So we have about 14 copies.
SPEAKER_01: If you end up not getting a copy and you would like to have one, let me know.
SPEAKER_01: I've already had an offer from somebody in first service to make sure that we get more, to supply more, so we will get those for you.
SPEAKER_01: One last thing.
SPEAKER_01: Gentle and lowly is a very specific kind of book, focusing just on, in essence, two words.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what somebody else wrote about this book.
SPEAKER_01: Some people like a raging and wrathful Jesus who turns over tables in the temple.
SPEAKER_01: Others like a gentle and lowly Jesus whose tender heart provides rest for their weary souls.
SPEAKER_01: It actually doesn't matter what you like.
SPEAKER_01: To those who have wickedly ripped off worshippers, Jesus is a raging bull.
SPEAKER_01: To those who are already beaten up, Jesus is a tender and loving helper.
SPEAKER_01: He is both, my friend, so don't try to make him one or the other.
SPEAKER_01: Just come to him.
SPEAKER_01: I second that.
SPEAKER_01: Let's come to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: In our scriptures this morning, we're going to end up in Matthew chapter 11, verse 27, where Jesus says, All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
SPEAKER_01: That's where we're going to end up.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to begin back in Genesis.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to go on a walk with me.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to look at Genesis.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to look a little bit at 1 Kings.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to look at Zechariah.
SPEAKER_01: If you don't want to move all over in your Bible, that's okay.
SPEAKER_01: We'll have the primary passages on the screen, but I want you to see the text, if you can, that we're going to be looking at.
SPEAKER_01: And we're going to be approaching our walk this morning by looking at three individuals primarily.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to end with Jesus, the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He's the one who's speaking in Matthew 11.
SPEAKER_01: Before the Lord Jesus, we're going to look at David for a little bit, and we're going to begin in the book of Genesis in chapter 1 with a man by the name of Adam.
SPEAKER_01: Adam in the Gospel of Luke is identified as the Son of God.
SPEAKER_01: In the genealogy of the Lord Jesus Christ, it ends by saying, Adam, the Son of God.
SPEAKER_01: In a sense, then, Adam is the first son of God, a created being, of course, not God the Son, but the Son of God.
SPEAKER_01: He is the one whom God established as the first ruler of the earth.
SPEAKER_01: Now his job description was garden tender.
SPEAKER_01: He was a keeper of God's garden.
SPEAKER_01: He was a created being set in place exactly as God intended to rule the earth.
SPEAKER_01: But his duties entailed working and keeping the first garden.
SPEAKER_01: A garden whose designer and maker was God Himself.
SPEAKER_01: But his position was one of dominion.
SPEAKER_01: It was one of rule.
SPEAKER_01: It was one of authority.
SPEAKER_01: God said in Genesis chapter 1, verse 26, let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 28, God blessed them, and God said, Be fruitful and multiply it and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion.
SPEAKER_01: God's first son was a ruler, someone exercising dominion, exercising authority, but having the humble duties of working and keeping his father's garden.
SPEAKER_01: Now that rulership, that authority, that dominion, was intended to grow, just like the garden.
SPEAKER_01: It was intended to grow beyond the garden to encompass the entire world.
SPEAKER_01: And Adam demonstrated that rule immediately by naming animals.
SPEAKER_01: God caused all of the animals to come to Adam and he named them.
SPEAKER_01: Chapter 2, verse 20.
SPEAKER_01: The man gave names to all the livestock and the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine that.
SPEAKER_01: God brought all the animals to Adam and he gave each one of them a unique, identifying name.
SPEAKER_01: The one who exercises the rights of naming something is the one who has the authority to give a new name.
SPEAKER_01: The one naming is the one exercising dominion.
SPEAKER_01: So Adam's first act of obedience is his first act.
SPEAKER_01: The first thing he does, Eve's not on the scene yet.
SPEAKER_01: The very first thing we see Adam doing is an act of obedience of ruling over creation, of having dominion.
SPEAKER_01: He carried out his responsibilities of humble rulership under the greater rule of the one who made him.
SPEAKER_01: But I want you to notice that at the very beginning of the history of the human race is a gentleman.
SPEAKER_01: A gentleman.
SPEAKER_01: He cares for plants in a garden.
SPEAKER_01: Now, ladies, I have a feeling that you're much better at this than men because we tend to be more clumsy.
SPEAKER_01: I like to start plants from seeds and grow my garden that way.
SPEAKER_01: But I can't tell you how many times I've had a little seedling that I've tried to transplant and I've ended up just tearing it to pieces.
SPEAKER_01: You have to be really gentle and caring to work with green plants.
SPEAKER_01: Adam is humble, such that the animals come to him.
SPEAKER_01: But he bears an authority and a dominion over the garden and over the animals.
SPEAKER_01: And he's commanded to extend that gentle and humble rule further and further and further until it encompasses all of creation.
SPEAKER_01: But as we know in the next chapter, in chapter three, there's then a tragedy.
SPEAKER_01: Instead of extending their gentle and humble dominion over all of creation, Adam and Eve instead extend their hands to take the one thing over which they were not given authority.
SPEAKER_01: God had reserved the glory of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for himself.
SPEAKER_01: So all of the glory and all of the honor of a perfect creation and all of the honor of ruling and living and serving in the master's garden was not enough for this created Son of God.
SPEAKER_01: He set aside the gentleness of caring for plants and the humility of bending over and digging in dirt and reaching out his hand, he stole the glory that belonged to the true king of the earth.
SPEAKER_01: He took for himself a right and a glory and a dominion that he ultimately could not bear.
SPEAKER_01: And Adam's children have been suffering under the burden of that choice ever since.
SPEAKER_01: God's created son fell in line with Lucifer.
SPEAKER_01: The most glorious of all of God's creations.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm sure you remember Lucifer convinced himself that God's power, that God's glory, that God's might and authority and rule belonged rightly to him, the created one, rather than the creator.
SPEAKER_01: And then he turns around and convinces God's created Son to partake of the same rebellion, saying, take greater rule and greater authority and greater dominion than what has been given to you.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, stop being gentle and lowly as a gardener and take what is rightfully yours.
SPEAKER_01: Promising more than what Adam had.
SPEAKER_01: Ironically, Adam lost dominion in that act.
SPEAKER_01: His rebellion against God got him kicked out of the garden of glory forever.
SPEAKER_01: No more could Adam and Eve access that pinnacle of creation.
SPEAKER_01: No more would he be privileged to be a lowly gardener ruling over God's creation.
SPEAKER_01: Now his dominion would come at the cost of his sweat and his labor and his backbreaking and deadly effort to merely survive.
SPEAKER_01: From that point on, to varying extents, humanity's drive for dominion came at a cost.
SPEAKER_01: Genesis chapter four.
SPEAKER_01: One of Adam and Eve's sons murdered another son.
SPEAKER_01: A few chapters, another chapter later in chapter four, Lamech seemingly boasts about murdering another human being.
SPEAKER_01: Rulership in God's world was exercised not in a gentle and lowly expression of obedience, but as cruel, unjust, murderous, despotism.
SPEAKER_01: So peoples oppressed other peoples, nations raged against nations, all because that first created Son of God desired a certain glory that God had reserved for himself.
SPEAKER_01: And then when he obtained that stolen glory, he ceased to be a gentle and humble gardener of a perfect world.
SPEAKER_01: And in that way, it became every man for himself, every woman for herself.
SPEAKER_01: And if you think about that, if you think about it being every individual for him or herself, the end result of that, of all of us, as individuals all across the globe, seeking our own survival first, seeking our safety in a cursed world where everything is going wrong, and ultimately seeking our salvation.
SPEAKER_01: If we do all of that ourselves, it's everyone doing what's right in their own eyes, is it not?
SPEAKER_01: But that's not the way it was in the beginning.
SPEAKER_01: God established a garden and he set parameters, he set boundaries.
SPEAKER_01: He set Adam in there, working and keeping the garden, and so exercising dominion over the earth comes with an inherent set of patterns and structures and rules and duties to maintain.
SPEAKER_01: But all of those get tossed out the window when everyone does what's right in his own eyes.
SPEAKER_01: When we go on day after day, moment after moment, week after week, year after year, decade after decade, century after century, stealing the glory that God has reserved for himself.
SPEAKER_01: You see, when humanity forgets that we are merely gardeners who tend and keep someone else's garden, then our exercise of dominion loses all sense of balance.
SPEAKER_01: You know, one of the sad things that I see in playgrounds today is that they don't have teeter-totters.
SPEAKER_01: How many of you been on a teeter-totter?
SPEAKER_01: Good.
SPEAKER_01: Now what happens if you're on one end of the teeter-totter that's on the ground and you suddenly get off?
SPEAKER_01: All sense of balance is gone, right?
SPEAKER_01: And the person on the other end ends up getting their rear end really hurt and falling off the teeter-totter.
SPEAKER_01: Been there?
SPEAKER_01: Done that.
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
SPEAKER_01: Good.
SPEAKER_01: You know what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_01: God gave his image bearer, Adam, the position of ruling over the earth, of exercising dominion.
SPEAKER_01: And that position was given with the balance of working and tending God's garden, where God Himself is the rightful king.
SPEAKER_01: But if you remove the gentleness of dealing with plants and the lowliness of digging in dirt, all you have is dominion and rule and authority crowned with stolen glory.
SPEAKER_01: And the book of Judges is a dreadful account of when people, God's people, have abandoned all sense of submission to the rightful king and merely do what's right in their own eyes.
SPEAKER_01: Anton's preached on Judges for us a couple of times here recently.
SPEAKER_01: There's this drastic and disastrous and deadly cycle in the book of Judges where people just do what's right in their own eyes, and it gets so bad that, oh, we need to return to God, and God rescues them, and there's there's a few years of peace and safety and and security, and then it all goes south, and we start it all over again.
SPEAKER_01: There's four centuries of that.
SPEAKER_01: And after four centuries of that, it seems as though they they had a sense of light being at the end of the tunnel.
SPEAKER_01: They knew that they needed a return to the humility of the garden, to the gentleness of being gardeners, of submitting to the king of the earth.
SPEAKER_01: But when they rejected Yahweh as their true king and they chose Saul instead, that light in the tunnel became a raging locomotive bearing down on them.
SPEAKER_01: Do you know why?
SPEAKER_01: Because Saul was a man after the people's heart.
SPEAKER_01: They chose what they wanted.
SPEAKER_01: And they humbled themselves before Saul, even as he followed in the footsteps of his fathers and stole God's glory for himself.
SPEAKER_01: The garden of God at that time would have been the people of Israel, God's chosen people.
SPEAKER_01: And so Saul, rather than work and tend the garden of God, the people of Israel chose to do his own thing.
SPEAKER_01: In his pride, he he rebelled against his creator and he stole God's glory for himself.
SPEAKER_01: And God was incredibly gracious.
SPEAKER_01: He gave the people a new ruler.
SPEAKER_01: Not a gardener, but a shepherd.
SPEAKER_01: And the images are quite parallel, I think.
SPEAKER_01: A gentle gardener cares for the tender plants as a gentle shepherd cares for the wearied or the injured or the defenseless sheep.
SPEAKER_01: Bending over to work with tender plants is humble work, much like herding sheep.
SPEAKER_01: And as God's created Son was to rule over his creation, so too God's shepherd to Israel was to rule over Israel.
SPEAKER_01: So there's a renewed hope almost to look to God to restore his world to himself when he gave to Israel that boy named David, who was a man after God's own heart.
SPEAKER_01: David was anything but perfect.
SPEAKER_01: We know that, right?
SPEAKER_01: We could write down the list of sins that are recorded in them in David.
SPEAKER_01: He had a murderous and a lustful heart.
SPEAKER_01: And in his own ways, he reached out and he took of the fruit and ate what God had reserved for his own glory.
SPEAKER_01: But there was a certain hope in that shepherd king.
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't anything about David, really, but about David's God.
SPEAKER_01: And as you read Israel's history, you get this sense of that David is kind of what Adam should have been.
SPEAKER_01: As we think about David being a ruler, we see him as a keeper of God's garden.
SPEAKER_01: Having, for the most part, a humble and gentle heart, like God's.
SPEAKER_01: But things weren't perfect, were they?
SPEAKER_01: In fact, at some points, things were incredibly bad.
SPEAKER_01: But all throughout the life of David, it seems as though God was hinting at something.
SPEAKER_01: At someone, someone or something greater than David.
SPEAKER_01: Almost as if David was a picture of someone or something else.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it was his son, Solomon, the wise one.
SPEAKER_01: Solomon was handed by God the opportunity to have all of the glory, all of the honor, and all of the praise of all of the kings of earth combined, given to him, handed to him by God.
SPEAKER_01: But all he asked for was wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: Wisdom to work and to tend God's garden well.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe this is where things have been headed.
SPEAKER_01: But what that wise king failed to really grasp was that sin and rebellion had so tainted all of humanity that even wisdom, even wisdom was subject to sin.
SPEAKER_01: What Solomon's life of wealth, of privilege, of power, all guided by wisdom, ended with is recorded in 1 Kings chapter 11, verse 9.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what God said.
SPEAKER_01: And Yahweh was angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from Yahweh, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice, and had commanded him concerning this very thing that he should not go after other gods, but he did not keep what Yahweh commanded.
SPEAKER_01: God took away the Garden of Eden from Adam, sending him off to tend a world of weeds.
SPEAKER_01: When Solomon stole God's glory, God took away his kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: He divided his people into two realms, who would be led by rulers with no evidence of humility, no expression of gentleness, but only authority and dominion.
SPEAKER_01: Take out gentleness of dealing with plants and the lowliness of working in dirt, and what remains is dominion and rule and authority combined with stolen glory.
SPEAKER_01: And what history shows is God's image-bearing people abandoning all sense of submission to the rightful king to instead do what's right in their own eyes.
SPEAKER_01: And 1 Kings chapter 12 shows us the stark reality of that picture.
SPEAKER_01: The kind of kind of dominion that God gave Adam in Genesis chapter 1 and Genesis chapter 2 is shattered into a million tiny pieces.
SPEAKER_01: And 1 Kings chapter 12, if you have your Bible, encourage you to look there.
SPEAKER_01: Solomon is dead.
SPEAKER_01: Solomon is gone.
SPEAKER_01: His son Rehoboam is taking his place as king over all Israel.
SPEAKER_01: And Rehoboam decides to seek out counsel.
SPEAKER_01: Wise thing for a young man to do who's newly installed as the king.
SPEAKER_01: He seeks out counsel from the elders of the people, and the elders of the people tell him to exercise his dominion with a gentle spirit and a humble heart, to be the servant of the people.
SPEAKER_01: But Rehabam then rejected the wisdom of the elders and instead listened to his contemporaries, who encouraged him to speak to the people differently.
SPEAKER_01: They encouraged him to speak to the people harshly, saying, My little finger is thicker than my father's thighs.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, I have more power and more authority and more dominion than my dad did.
SPEAKER_01: Watch out.
SPEAKER_01: My father laid on you a heavy yoke, and I will add to your yoke.
SPEAKER_01: My father disciplined you with whips, I'm going to do it with scorpions.
SPEAKER_01: God had already warned his people about this.
SPEAKER_01: When he delivered his people out of slavery to the Egyptians, he warned them to obey what he said.
SPEAKER_01: If they rebelled, stealing his glory yet again, then he would curse them.
SPEAKER_01: If they did not serve him with joyful and glad and humble and gentle hearts, then they would serve their enemies.
SPEAKER_01: He said to them in Deuteronomy chapter 28, verse 48, therefore you shall serve your enemies whom Yahweh will send against you.
SPEAKER_01: How?
SPEAKER_01: In hunger and in thirst, in nakedness, lacking everything.
SPEAKER_01: And he will put a yoke of iron on your neck until he has destroyed you.
SPEAKER_01: So before wearing the iron yoke of a foreign enemy, God would graciously discipline his people by giving them the yoke of one of their own rulers.
SPEAKER_01: Rehabom.
SPEAKER_01: But look for a minute.
SPEAKER_01: Pause and look at the whole picture for a moment.
SPEAKER_01: Reflect with sadness and grief on what our human history displays.
SPEAKER_01: We who were made in the likeness of God as his images in this world.
SPEAKER_01: Continually reject the call to humbly serve him with gladness and joy.
SPEAKER_01: Who knows why?
SPEAKER_01: Maybe we interpret his call to serve him and his garden as his gardeners as a call to weakness rather than strength.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe we interpret it as a call to servitude rather than glory and honor.
SPEAKER_01: And so we we throw off God's grace to live with humble dominion because we think we know better.
SPEAKER_01: Because we think we're smart enough.
SPEAKER_01: We're wise enough.
SPEAKER_01: We're strong enough.
SPEAKER_01: Or maybe if we're especially foolish, because we want God's place.
SPEAKER_01: Not the one He's given us.
SPEAKER_01: And what do we get in return?
SPEAKER_01: Yolks.
SPEAKER_01: Not with an L and an egg yoke.
SPEAKER_01: A yoke.
SPEAKER_01: You know what a yoke is?
SPEAKER_01: I had the opportunity to have one up here to display today, and I was just too behind to really make it happen.
SPEAKER_01: A yoke is ordinarily an implement that has a firm frame, usually made out of wood, that attaches over the neck of oxen or cows.
SPEAKER_01: And that frame is firmly held in place over the animal and then connected to something that is pulled.
SPEAKER_01: It could be a wagon or a plow or some other kind of implement.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, a yoke is something that controls another creature.
SPEAKER_01: It brings a cow or an ox into submission to its owner's authority.
SPEAKER_01: It's a means of taking control of a creature's strength and power in order to harness that power for your benefit.
SPEAKER_01: Usually a yoga assumes that someone is superior and someone else is in submission.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe that on occasion can be willing and agreeable, but most often it's because of sin.
SPEAKER_01: Perhaps my own sin or another's sin.
SPEAKER_01: Or maybe someone in the realm of humanity that had been given authority took control of that authority in such a way that they're now a despot, and so the people are under a yoke of bondage.
SPEAKER_01: But look look at the spiraling of Adam's dominion over creation and see how far down the road of sin Adam's dominion over creation spiraled.
SPEAKER_01: Basically, world history hasn't changed much.
SPEAKER_01: It's been the same ever since Adam left the garden.
SPEAKER_01: Sure, it's a constantly shifting landscape, to be sure, but but carrying out God's delegated authority has been a version of everyone doing what's right in their own eyes.
SPEAKER_01: What's best for me?
SPEAKER_01: What's in it for me?
SPEAKER_01: How do I get a leg up in this world?
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's by putting others down.
SPEAKER_01: Do you see why it's useless to hope in political leaders?
SPEAKER_01: Why it's useless to hope in successful people, in governments of any kind?
SPEAKER_01: It's written of in Psalms and Proverbs and Romans chapter 3.
SPEAKER_01: None is righteous.
SPEAKER_01: No, not one.
SPEAKER_01: No one understands.
SPEAKER_01: No one seeks after God.
SPEAKER_01: All of them have turned aside together, they've become worthless.
SPEAKER_01: No one does good, not even one, because there is no fear of God before their eyes.
SPEAKER_01: And that's where Israel was languishing.
SPEAKER_01: There's no fear of God, and everyone's doing what's right in their own eyes.
SPEAKER_01: First, they bore the yoke of their own evil kings.
SPEAKER_01: And then they bore the iron yoke of their national enemies.
SPEAKER_01: And as the weight of sin grew heavier, their necks bowed even lower under the weight of that burden and the dominion that God established with his first created son in Genesis had been flipped over into domination by the people with the most power.
SPEAKER_01: All of that led, of course, by the by the pride that came from rebelling against God and taking the glory that He'd reserved for Himself.
SPEAKER_01: Even those who ought to know better and so do better were no better.
SPEAKER_01: That's why God said to the prophet Zechariah that the people wander like sheep because they're afflicted for lack of a shepherd.
SPEAKER_01: Not since the time of David had God's people had a king with a humble heart, a shepherd with a heart that sought to be like God's.
SPEAKER_01: Rejoice greatly.
SPEAKER_01: What?
SPEAKER_01: How in this spiraling pit of despotism and everybody doing what's right in his own eyes, do we rejoice?
SPEAKER_01: Here's why.
SPEAKER_01: Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: For behold, your king is coming.
SPEAKER_01: How is he coming?
SPEAKER_01: With righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: Having salvation.
SPEAKER_01: Humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the full of a donkey.
SPEAKER_01: It's almost like a second Adam.
SPEAKER_01: God promised a coming one who would come with dominion, with rule.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, he's a king.
SPEAKER_01: But this king is no despot who rules with an iron fist.
SPEAKER_01: He's not one promising a yoke of iron and discipline with scorpions.
SPEAKER_01: No, he brings peace.
SPEAKER_01: He will rule over everything, and he will free those enslaved to the yoke of sin because in verse 11 of the blood of his covenants with them.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, if you go down a bit further into verse 16 of that same chapter, God himself would come to save.
SPEAKER_01: This is the language of Adam as Adam should have been.
SPEAKER_01: Only there's a difference.
SPEAKER_01: Adam was not God.
SPEAKER_01: Adam was created, created in God's likeness, created in his image.
SPEAKER_01: Adam was created with a delegated responsibility and with a delegated dominion that was to be expressed in the character of God, with humility and with gentleness.
SPEAKER_01: But once Adam and Eve reached out to take what was not theirs to take, that all became impossible.
SPEAKER_01: No longer could humanity exercise dominion with humility and gentleness in heart.
SPEAKER_01: So God would need to send another David, another shepherd, another king.
SPEAKER_01: But this king wouldn't be like other kings.
SPEAKER_01: He would be like God's first created son was intended to be.
SPEAKER_01: Humble and gentle.
SPEAKER_01: And he would come not with pomp and circumstance, not with power and great glory, but in a symbolic way.
SPEAKER_01: You see, just as Adam exercised his authority with gentle and dirty hands, and just as David exercised his authority, smelling like a shepherd, dealing with dirty sheep, so too God's rightful king would come riding on a lowly donkey, a beast of burden.
SPEAKER_01: And you know the rest of the story, right?
SPEAKER_01: Matthew.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew lays it out quite clearly in Matthew 21, verse 4, he says, All of this that is the triumphal entry of Jesus riding that donkey down into the city of Jerusalem, all of that took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet.
SPEAKER_01: Speak to the daughter of Zion.
SPEAKER_01: Behold, your king is coming to you.
SPEAKER_01: Humble, mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the beast of burden.
SPEAKER_01: Would you go along with me a little bit on a little bit of sanctified imagination?
SPEAKER_01: We've kind of been doing some of that, but I want you to think about Adam and if Adam were alive today.
SPEAKER_01: If Adam were living among us today, I think we might we might see him as quite strange.
SPEAKER_01: There would be something, maybe we just couldn't put words to it, but something oddly regal about him.
SPEAKER_01: But not in an arrogant kind of way.
SPEAKER_01: Almost a royal gentleness, tainted by dirt-stained hands and the odor of greenery and vegetables and herbs of all kinds.
SPEAKER_01: But he would be so different that it wouldn't take long for us to dismiss him as merely strange.
SPEAKER_01: Kind of like John the Baptist.
SPEAKER_01: Instead of as the Son of God.
SPEAKER_01: In a similar way, while Jesus lived among his own people, there was a perception about him that there was something oddly regal about him.
SPEAKER_01: Powerful.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe even at times there was a sense of fear involved in that.
SPEAKER_01: But there was not a sense of arrogance or pride, but a royal gentleness, this time marked by association with the lowly, with the brokenhearted, with those crushed under the burden of sin.
SPEAKER_01: You see, Adam was created in the image of God.
SPEAKER_01: And as his image, Adam was to be a revealer of sorts.
SPEAKER_01: A created being who spoke of his creator, who mirrored his creator in all of his work, in all of his speech.
SPEAKER_01: A being whose every moment shouted, Let me show you the true King, the Father who made me.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is the express image, it says, of the Father.
SPEAKER_01: Not a created being.
SPEAKER_01: He is God in the flesh.
SPEAKER_01: He is the promised King.
SPEAKER_01: And unlike the created Son of God, this uniquely begotten Son did not give in to the temptations of power and glory and rebellion against his Father's will, but instead submitted himself to the Father's will.
SPEAKER_01: This is the one.
SPEAKER_01: This Jesus who said in Matthew 11, 27, All things have been handed over to me by my Father.
SPEAKER_01: No one knows the Father but me.
SPEAKER_01: No one knows the Son but the Father.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, but anybody to whom I reveal the Father can also know him.
SPEAKER_01: Here is the second Adam who came declaring, I will reveal the Father to you, as Adam failed to do.
SPEAKER_01: Here is the one who came, having been given by the Father all rule, all authority, all dominion, but rather than acting in a prideful power grab, he came with dirt on his hands.
SPEAKER_01: He came smelling like sheep.
SPEAKER_01: He came humble and riding on a donkey.
SPEAKER_01: He came to relieve the burden of sin and give rest to your soul.
SPEAKER_01: He came being what Adam could not be to undo what Adam did so that you could be restored to what God intended his son and his daughter to be.
SPEAKER_01: All the while, he's the one to whom all dominion belongs.
SPEAKER_01: He is the true king of the earth, while exercising humility as the Lamb who on Friday will be led to the slaughter.
SPEAKER_01: So as you hear this promised one reveal the Father to you, will you celebrate with great faith and trust?
SPEAKER_01: Or will you tell him to be quiet so you can go do your own thing?
SPEAKER_01: Will you follow in Adam's footsteps, reaching out to take what does not belong to you, or will you submit to your rightful king?
SPEAKER_01: Now, to those of you who have come to faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, I would remind you of what Ephesians chapter 1 and Galatians chapter 4, verse 4 remind us.
SPEAKER_01: That Christ came to redeem you so that you might be adopted as his son or his daughter.
SPEAKER_01: And as his son or his daughter, you are placed in the position of Adam, where God says, I have placed you here in my garden.
SPEAKER_01: I placed you here to exercise dominion under my authority and to do so with a gentle and a lowly heart.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot do that unless you have the heart of my son who is gentle and lowly.
SPEAKER_01: Come, be like him, follow him, walk with him, right to the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_01: Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: We confess to you that so often we take what you have reserved for your own glory and we assume it to be ours.
SPEAKER_01: Forgive us of this.
SPEAKER_01: Enable us to see that you are the rightful ruler.
SPEAKER_01: And you've given us the honor of displaying you, of living for you, of speaking for you.
SPEAKER_01: May we do that with hearts that are like yours.
SPEAKER_01: Not assuming something that we're not, but because you have made us into the image of God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: We ask this for your praise and your glory and your honor alone.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_00: Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.