Faith Presbyterian Church - Birmingham
At Faith Presbyterian Church we are seeking to exalt Jesus Christ the King and to exhibit and extend his Kingdom through worship, community, and mission.
Faith Presbyterian Church - Birmingham
Luke 19:28-48; The Triumphal Entry
Jason Sterling March 9, 2025 Faith Presbyterian Church Birmingham, AL Bulletin
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If you have a copy of God's Word, turn with me to Luke 19 this morning. So go to the New Testament Matthew, mark, luke 19. This year, we have been studying the Gospel of Luke, and every gospel has a perspective, an emphasis, a theme, and one of the things we've learned this year is one of the themes and emphasis in the Gospel of Luke is the table, and so the way we have been working, at least up until today, we've been working our way through Luke by looking at different meals in which we find Jesus showing up. Jesus is either going to a meal, at a meal, or coming from a meal in the gospel of Luke, and so we've been looking at that in those different meals throughout this year. This morning, though, in an effort to prepare our hearts as we approach Easter, we're going to shift gears this morning in our study in Luke, and, instead of eating with Jesus this morning, we're going to start walking with Jesus to the cross. Over the next several weeks, we're going to walk with Jesus and journey with Jesus during the last week of his life, and this morning we come to a passage that is known as the triumphal entry, where Jesus rides into Jerusalem. So follow along with me as I read. This is Luke 19. We're going to look at 28 through 44. I've put through 48 in your bulletin for some context, which I'll refer to in a moment. We'll be reading through verse 44 this morning in our passage. So this is God's Word.
Speaker 1:And when he had said these things, he went ahead going up to Jerusalem. When he drew near to Bethany, 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 on which no one has ever yet sat. Untie and bring it here. And 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 went and and as they it's a time change, sorry 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. 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 he was drawing near already, on the way down to the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and 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.
Speaker 1:And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him Teacher, rebuke your disciples. He answered. I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out. And when he 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 and 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.
Speaker 1:This is God's Word. Let's pray, let's ask the Spirit to help us, let's pray together. Father, it's a gloomy Sunday morning this Lord's Day, and some of us are tired, some of us are anxious, some of us are stressed and struggling. Some of us are full of joy. We come from all over the place, but you've brought us here. It's no accident that we're here. You have brought us here on this day to hear this word, and so would you give it through your spirit, and would you give us hearts that would receive it in faith. Jesus, do your thing with this word Convict and challenge, rebuke, correct, train, but more than anything, I pray that you would show us the King, show us the true King, king Jesus, and may he be more beautiful and glorious as a result of our time together. This morning. We ask these things in His name, amen.
Speaker 1:It's been said, and I love this way of saying it, that the Gospels are passion narratives with long introductions. The Gospels are passion narratives with long introductions, and that's really what we see in the Gospels. The Gospels tend to we see this in Luke tend to race through Jesus' early life and ministry and then they seem to come to a screeching halt. They seem to come to a crawl. When we enter the last week of Jesus' life, everything that Jesus has said and done up until this time, the last week of his life, is viewed in the light of what is about to happen here in what is known as Holy Week, the last week of the life of Jesus, and if you're looking for what Jesus is about to do, I think our passage this morning provides a really good summary Because, in short, jesus is here to be crowned king.
Speaker 1:One of the most compelling things about the life of Jesus is that Jesus himself, but also his followers, repeatedly called him the king. And it might sound foreign to us, it might sound strange to us because we no longer live in a monarchy, but I want you to realize this morning that, regardless of your preferred form of government, I want you to know that everyone has a king. Everyone is bowing down to and serving a king. You are bowing the knee to someone or something in your life. It's how you were made as a human being. As a human being, you were made to worship, you were made to give honor. You were made to bow down to something. It's either Jesus or it is something else, and that king or something else could be money, it could be power, it could be success, it could be sex, it could be approval, it could be image, it can be reputation, and the list goes on. And so the question this morning is not do you have a king? The question is, what king are you serving? What king will you crown? What kind of king rules your heart and your life?
Speaker 1:And this morning, through the triumphal entry, jesus shows us that he is the king. As he enters into Jerusalem and moves towards the cross, and in doing so he shows us what kind of king that he is. And we see three things in this passage that Jesus is a saving king. He's an unexpected king. Secondly, and he's a weeping king. A saving king, an unexpected king and a weeping king. Let's look at those in turn this morning. Number one a saving king. Jesus, really, since chapter 9, in chapter 9 we are told that Jesus has resolutely set his face on Jerusalem. So for a better part of the Gospels, of the Gospel of Luke, jesus has been marching towards Jerusalem and now he's there. He is entering into Jerusalem. That time has come.
Speaker 1:Look at verse 28. He went ahead and going up to Jerusalem. Why Jerusalem? What's so special? Let's just ask obvious questions about Jerusalem. Well, because Jerusalem is where the temple is located. And if you look at verses 45 and following, that's where Jesus is headed. He's headed towards the temple. Why is the temple so important? Well, because that's where the Garden of Eden is. What do I mean by that? Well, I know it's gloomy, I know it's a time change, but we have to engage here. Gloomy, I know, it's a time change, but we have to engage here. And I want us to engage because what I'm about to say is vital to understanding the entire Bible. So you ready for the whole Bible in two minutes. Let's go.
Speaker 1:Genesis, chapters 1 through 3. Human beings, adam and Eve, our first parents, are placed in the Garden of Eden, where man and woman are at peace with God, without shame and without fear. Genesis, chapter 3, that relationship with God is broken. And really, from Genesis 3, through the rest of the Bible, through all in the world, what Jesus is doing in the Bible and in the world is bringing his people back to the Garden of Eden. After Adam and Eve rebelled against God, he kicked them out of the garden and he put angels with a flaming sword outside of the garden to guard the tree of life, so that now, in order to get into God's presence, there must be the shedding of blood. That's why sacrifices had to be made at the temple in order to go into the Holy of Holies, because without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins, because without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. And so here is King Jesus riding into Jerusalem in order to bring us back to the Garden of Eden.
Speaker 1:To say it another way, jesus is going into Jerusalem, he's going to the temple to reestablish peace with God, to reestablish our relationship with God. How will he do it? Good Friday, which we'll get to in a few weeks? He does it by going to a cross, and on that cross he will take the swords that guard the tree of life into himself. Jesus goes right to the heart of the problem. He goes right to the heart of what's wrong with us and what's wrong with the world and the reason why we got kicked out of the garden. And Jesus is riding in to Jerusalem to do something about our greatest problem and the world's greatest problem once and for all.
Speaker 1:But it gets even more amazing Because when Jesus returns for his second coming in all of his glory, you know what the Bible says in the book of Revelation that Jesus is going to bring he's going to bring a city. You know the name of that city the new Jerusalem. The new heavens and the new earth, and the glory of God will radiate to the entire planet from that one spot, the new Jerusalem, and if you are a Christian, that's where you're headed for all eternity. And in that place, guess what else we'll find? Revelation, chapter 22. The tree of life will be there, but guess what? This time, because of what Jesus has done, that tree is now unguarded. You have a renewed relationship with Jesus and you have been reconciled with God because of His work on your behalf. Isn't the Bible amazing? The whole Bible is a story about God taking us back to the Garden of Eden.
Speaker 1:That, friends, is what the triumphal entry is all about, and it is huge. Now, do you see why Christians celebrate Holy Week, why we get so excited about things called Palm Sunday? You see, if you're a Christian this morning, my question for you is is this your Jesus? Is your Jesus this big? Is this the Jesus that you're celebrating and worshiping as you prepare your hearts for Easter? Is Jesus the one who has done everything in order to bring you peace with God? That's the first point. Jesus is a saving king. Secondly, he's an unexpected king. Look at verses 30 through 38 with me. It's interesting.
Speaker 1:The triumphal entry in some ways was expected, because in Zechariah 9, verse 9, 500 years before it actually happens, it's prophesied Zechariah says Shout aloud, o Jerusalem, your king is coming, and he's coming on a donkey. And that's exactly what we see happening. Jesus, the king, is coming. He sends his disciples to get the colt. They mount Jesus on the, the cult. He rides into Jerusalem. They're laying down their cloaks and in Matthew's account it says that they're waving palm branches. That was the national sign that the king had come, because when the kings would return, after they would win a war, they would parade into the city and all the people would line up and they would win a war. They would parade into the city and all the people would line up and they would start waving their palm branches. That's what's happening here in this parade.
Speaker 1:Verse 38, the crowd begins to praise God in loud voices, saying Blessed is the King who's come in the name of the Lord. And one of the things Jesus is doing as he enters into Jerusalem is he is forcing the issue of his identity, because, you see, if Jesus is the king, as he's claimed to be, then there is no middle ground in your response to him and in many ways, all of the Gospels, and all the Gospel of Luke, has been leading up to this moment where Jesus says, essentially crown me or kill me. That's what's happening. Jesus will not come into a heart, he will not come into a life, he will not come into a city as anything other than a king. He is saying here that, yes, I can be your helper, I can be your healer and your counselor and your shepherd, but none of those things will be realized in your life unless Jesus is first crowned king of your life.
Speaker 1:Jesus is coming as the king, and one thing you quickly see here is it's not the kind of king that the people expected. They expected Jesus to bring war. Jesus goes to a cross. They expect Jesus to pull out his sword and fight and Jesus instead turns the other cheek. They expected Jesus to overthrow the Romans, but instead this king, jesus, is the one who gets overthrown. And we know it's not the king that they expected, because here they're praising him Five days later. You know what they would be saying Crucify him.
Speaker 1:He rides into Jerusalem, not on a war horse, with a chariot, like Roman soldiers, but he rides in on a colt, a borrowed donkey. This king doesn't have a horse, doesn't have or own a donkey, and so he has to borrow one. He doesn't have a saddle, and so he has to use a cloak as a saddle, and it's not even his cloak, it's a borrowed cloak. Jesus is signaling here that he is a different kind of king, and it tells us something so good and wonderful about Jesus and his humility and why that is so important to us this morning. You see, this is important that Jesus comes not on a war horse but on a donkey, because it is Jesus' way of saying that I am the king for everyone. I am the king for everyone. I am the king for the Jews and the Gentiles, I'm the king for lepers and tax collectors and prostitutes and addicts and old people and young people and rich people and lowly people and poor people. Whoever you are, whatever you've done, you see, the triumphal entry is saying Jesus is the king for you Because, unlike all the other kings in the world, you can reach Jesus, because Jesus came to reach you. And so I don't know where you are this morning. I know some of you because it's always the case someone's in the worst week of their life, always in a room this size. Some of you feel very low, some of you feel broken. Friends, the good news of the gospel is you can't be too low, you can't be too broken for this king, king Jesus, because he comes on a donkey, not a war horse. He comes for you, you can reach him and he came for you. Lastly, we see that Jesus is a saving king. He's an unexpected king. Lastly, he's a weeping king.
Speaker 1:Look at verses 39 through 40. We'll slow down and walk through this. So the religious leaders, the Pharisees, tell Jesus hey, rebuke all of these people, rebuke your disciples and I love this. Jesus says if they're silent, creation itself is going to cry out. He's saying I can't silence the disciples. If I do that, then the rocks will start singing. Their blindness, the blindness of the religious people, runs so deep that even the rocks understand the significance of this event better than they do. Verse 41 and 42.
Speaker 1:As Jesus makes his way closer to Jerusalem, instead of displaying a confident gaze of a majestic king, this Jesus, this king, has tears in his eyes. He is sobbing, weeping. The word can also be translated wailing. Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that bring you peace, but now they are hidden from you, jesus burst into tears because he is lamenting the lost opportunity and the rejection of his own people and their refusal to crown him as the king and to see who he really was. 43 and 44, look at those verses Strong. Your enemies are going to basically barricade and build a barricade around you and tear you to the ground, leaving no stone unturned.
Speaker 1:Jesus is referring here to AD 70, when the Romans would utterly destroy Jerusalem, and Jesus is weeping here because he knows that, he knows what is coming and he knows the consequences of their sin and rebellion that is going to come and hit them in a way that they don't currently understand in this moment, and it brings Him to utter tears. Jerusalem was the center think about it in the hopes of the Old Testament. It's where God established the kingship of David, it's where Solomon built the temple, it's where the Holy of Holies was, it's the presence of God. And so you would think that, out of all the places, that this would be the place Jerusalem, the temple that would fling open the doors and welcome Jesus, god's long-awaited Son, the long-awaited Messiah. But they don't. They shut him out, and it breaks God's heart.
Speaker 1:And so then, the question is what do we take away from this? What are the applications for us? What does this mean, as we like to say for Tuesday at 2 pm? Well, I think it means a couple of things. The first thing is this is a warning to us. It's a warning, first, that we need to be careful when we try to make Jesus fit into our agenda, because if we try to make Jesus into our image, into who we want him to be, rather than let him be who he truly is, we can miss Jesus entirely.
Speaker 1:And so what are the ways this morning that you have dismissed Jesus from your life? Because he's not who you think he should be, or he's not doing what you think he should do, or the things that you want him to do, or the things that you want him to do. And there's another warning, and the warning is also for people like us who are religiously close to Jesus, in proximity, but you can, at the same time, have a heart that is very far from Jesus, and you can be in great danger. And this should wake us up on this gloomy Sunday morning. It should, in a sense, shake us out of our complacency and our spiritual slumber, because this passage is saying that you can be it's very possible to sit in a room like this and be very close to religious things and good things, but actually be blind and be far from Jesus in your heart. And so I ask the question where are you with Jesus this morning? Do you find that you are someone moving towards Jesus or have you found yourself moving away from Jesus? This passage also, so it's a warning, but I also think one of the things we see in this passage is it should also not just warn us, it should melt us.
Speaker 1:Do you weep over the people you see around you, the culture you see around you that has rejected and completely missed Jesus, or do they just make you mad? Does the culture just make you angry when you see it? Do you find yourself looking down in judgment and contempt rather than weeping and having a heart of compassion? It broke Jesus. It broke His heart and filled Him with tears and compassion, and it should do the exact same thing in us.
Speaker 1:Jesus weeps as he moves towards Jerusalem because he knows the peace that the world needs and that the people need. He knows they need peace with God and the people completely miss it because they think the thing they most need is political and social and economic peace. They don't see their ultimate need as being peace with God because of their sin and rebellion. And we do the exact same thing, don't we? At least I do. How often do we look at the world and think what we need is a harsher justice system, we need better police response and better economy and a new and better political system, and the list goes on. Okay, you know what the Bible says. No, the biggest problem in the world is that we are not people are not right with God, and we need peace with God. And we, in and of ourselves, cannot dig our way out and fix it. Only God can come and save us, and so what the world most needs is Jesus.
Speaker 1:You see, the triumphal entry is a huge deal, because Jesus is riding into Jerusalem to do something about the world's greatest and biggest problem. And Jesus is riding in and he's going to face an enemy far more ruthless than Rome. He's going to face the enemy of God's wrath and justice on a cross. He will be beaten and mocked and spit upon and crucified, so that you and I could be made right with God. Romans, chapter 5, verse 1,. Since you have been justified by faith. You now have peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. The one who weeps is the one who will one day dry up all of our tears, because this king cried the greatest tears of agony on a cross when he cried out my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Jesus is the true temple. Jesus has done everything that the temple sought to provide is now provided in the Lord Jesus is now provided in the Lord Jesus, who is the Savior of us and the one who has died for our sins through the shedding of His blood. I'll close with this story.
Speaker 1:Queen Elizabeth. After she passed away, several stories started to emerge about her and some of those funny and some things about her personality and different stories. And one of the stories was from a former royal protection officer by the name of Richard Griffin. And Richard Griffin tells a story about the time they were in Scotland at her holiday home. About the time they were in Scotland at her holiday home and they were walking just outside the property and up walked two American hikers and he said normally the king would engage or the queen would engage and have fun with them and meet them and stop and say hello. And Griffin said. The officer said he knew right from the very beginning that they had no idea who she was and did not recognize her at all. And so she decides to play along.
Speaker 1:And they begin by telling the queen all of the sights and you know all the sights they'd seen around Great Britain and then they ask her where do you live? And she says where do you live? And she says, well, I live in London, but I've got a holiday home just on the other side of the hill. And the officer said they looked and says well, how often do you come up here? And the queen looked at these Americans and says I've been coming to this castle for over 80 years. And then the hiker said well, have you ever met the queen? Have you ever met Queen Elizabeth? And Queen Elizabeth says well, I haven't, but Officer Richard here meets with her regularly. And then no true story the American hikers put their arm around this officer and give Queen Elizabeth the camera and say would you take a picture of us so that we can show our friends they have been with the queen, that he had been with the queen. And so the point is this they were in the presence of the queen, in the presence of the Queen and they completely missed it.
Speaker 1:Friends, this morning we are in the presence of the King, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, jesus Christ Himself, through His Spirit. Don't miss His beauty, don't miss his beauty, don't miss his glory that it's before you this morning. He is a saving king. He is an unexpected king and he is a weeping king. He is the king that you need. He is the king that brings the hope that you need and the peace that you need, and so the question this morning is will you get out your palm branch and will you worship this king? King Jesus, let's pray. Father, thank you for coming in humility, thank you for doing everything necessary in order to bring us peace with God. Would you forgive us for the ways that we miss you, the ways that we try to make you into our image or the ways that we make you too small? And if there's someone here this morning that is skeptical or maybe doubtful, I pray that you would fill them with faith so that they see you clearly. We ask these things in Christ's name, amen.