Father, we thank you for your word. And we thank you that you speak to us, you admonish us, you train us up. And in these very pages, not only do we hear of Christ, do we hear of his work, we encounter him. And we have the living Christ speaking to us. I pray you would soften our hearts, give us ears to hear, eyes to see, minds to understand what it is that you have for us here today. In the name of Jesus, I pray, amen. A couple months ago, I started teaching for Paideia. I'm teaching an apologetics class. And right after the school year started, it was September 11th, and I began to discuss September 11th to my seniors, and using it as an opportunity to think apologetically about different things, morality, et cetera. And I realized, as I'm talking to them, They were not alive when 9-11 happened. They've heard stories. They've seen clips. They obviously understand the significance. They didn't even know. They didn't know what it was like to remember where you were when those buildings came. They didn't have any idea what it meant to have that significant of a moment permeate the rest of your life, and yet they live in the shadow. All of us live in the shadow of 9-11, and even these kids who weren't alive and experience it, they live in the shadow of this horrific event. It's similar, you talk to people who were born before, cognizant before the time of JFK's assassination, they speak very similarly. This world-rocking event. that completely redefined what it meant going forward. Most of our lives actually are controlled by events that we have no knowledge of. We have no experience of, at least existentially. We weren't there, and they exercise a great deal of significance over what our lives are like right now. None of us saw or experienced or lived through the American War for Independence. And yet, as American citizens, we continue to enjoy the benefits that that war gave us. We, as Protestants, weren't around to experience Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the door. And yet, again, we reap the benefits. We live in a world that has been completely changed by that little event none of us lived through. Interestingly, I think, when we read the Bible, a lot of us are tempted to immediately jump to what's the practical payoff? How does this teach us to live? What does this mean for me? Now, obviously, we believe that in these pages, God has given us everything we need for life and godliness, and that these scriptures are profitable for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, and for training up in righteousness. Certainly they teach us how to live. But one of the most amazing things about scripture and about what God has done is that most of the most important things actually have nothing to do with us. Most of the most important things about Christianity is not what you've done, but the things that God has accomplished and achieved primarily through his son. And the things that you live in light of, real realities that you weren't there to experience but even now are shaping your life and ultimately provide the center of what your life means, of what your goals are, about what you prioritize. And that's one of the things that this passage right here, that's the main thing that this passage teaches us. There's lessons we can learn, absolutely. There's things to apply to our lives. There's questions that we can derive from here and probe our hearts with. But the most important thing that this passage, this story teaches us is that God has come as the King He's come and He currently reigns, and because of that fact, because He really does reign, He really is in His temple. Your entire lives have been reorganized. Even before you were born, the very center of your life, the foundation on which it is built, was established, and it will be for the rest of eternity. What we're looking at right now is called the triumphal entry. And if you've been listening the past several months as we've gone through Luke, you know that we're actually coming to one of the most important events in Gospel of Luke. Certainly within the Gospels as a whole, this is one of the few events in the Gospels that all four Gospel authors report. should tell you something. But I want you to remember back to Luke 9. Remember? Luke 9, right after the transfiguration, Luke tells us that Jesus set his face to Jerusalem. We have been anticipating this moment for the last however many weeks. Last 10 chapters in Luke, but for however many weeks, we have been anticipating and waiting. When Jesus looked toward Jerusalem, when is he going to get there? And we're finally here. This is, for Luke, one of the initial climaxes that's going to set his gospel up. Now, think back again with me. We've talked about this a few different times, but I want to remind you kind of big questions that we saw in these different sections. The first nine chapters or so of Luke are really concerned with the question of Jesus' identity. Who is he? Who is this guy? And that question is ultimately answered at the Mount of Transfiguration when God himself comes and says, this is my beloved son. Listen to him and he displays the glory that he has from all eternity. And his disciples, though confused and perplexed, nevertheless catch a glimpse of who Jesus actually is. After that, when Jesus turns toward Jerusalem, so from 951 to about where we are right now, One of the main questions has been this, okay, if that's who Jesus is, if he's the king, if he's the son of God also, what does it mean to follow him? How do we live our lives in light of him? How do we be his disciples? Now that Jesus gets to Israel, What we're gonna find in this last section, certainly in this chapter, as we look at how the various people respond, one of the main things this is gonna ask us is this. Okay, we know who he is. We know what it means to follow him. The question is this, are you actually going to do it? Do you actually understand? Do you actually know? Because even though he's come to bring peace, that peace is not the peace that you think. Even though he's the king, that kingship that he has is not necessarily going to be the kingship that you have in mind. Because the peace that he brings does bring division. And it demands that you make a choice. Are you going to serve him as king? Or are you going to refuse him? You know who he is. You know what it means to follow Him. Now, are you going to do it? Are you going to follow Him all the way to wherever He takes you? Because you know He's King. You know He's on His throne. That's how I want us to think about this passage today. Now, the passage... It breaks up pretty nicely into three sections, and so we're just going to work through these. And the three scenes really are, first of all, the king's entry. The king's entry. Jesus as the king coming into the holy city. The second part we see is the rejection of the king. The king's condemnation upon those who have rejected him. And then finally we see that when the king finally takes his place in his home. The king coming into his city, the king being rejected by them, and then the king finally coming into his home. On the parable of the 10 minas, remember we looked at that last week, Pastor Bo talked about the significance of that. It's on the heels of this parable that Jesus now, Luke tells us, goes on ahead into Jerusalem. Like I said, this is the moment we've been waiting for. Finally, he's here in Jerusalem. He stops at these two small towns, Bethphage and Bethany. We don't really know where Bethphage is. We know Bethany well. If you know the Gospel of John, that's where Jesus will heal Lazarus. That's where Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus live. This is a little town about two miles out, okay? So just a little in a podunk area on the Mount of Olives, Jesus stops. And it's an interesting stopping point. People have suggested why they stop there. It's not totally clear. But at the very least, Jesus, there's an errand that he has his disciples to do, and he wants them to go find a colt. He describes with supernatural knowledge, foresight, the events that are going to lead up to them getting this cold. He tells them what to say, what to do. They go and they find it exactly as Jesus said, exactly as Jesus described it. It happens, and they bring the cold back, and then they begin to rip off their clothes. create this sort of makeshift saddle for Jesus on the colt, and then they begin to lay out their clothes on the road, and they start saying, blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord, peace in heaven, and glory in the highest. There's a number of things here, and you know, nerds like me could spend a lot of time talking about all the various things that are happening here. We could talk about that another time, but there really is a very important thing that Jesus is doing by riding a colt, a donkey. Now for us, that's hardly the picture of royal and regal entry. We maybe have in mind the great Clydesdales ahead of the queen. This pomp and majesty of the spectacle. Now certainly compared to the Roman Empire, this would have been a laughable scene. Okay? Hardly significant at all. In a town probably of around 2,000 people, maybe less, total combined population of these two towns, you've got a small parade, probably no bigger than the parade that happens in Gladstone, and a guy riding a donkey. To the Romans, this would have been absolutely insignificant. This is nothing. And when Jesus, when he takes that colt, when he sits down on this donkey, he's actually, what he's doing is he's identifying himself with a very important prophecy. The prophecy that we read there in Zechariah 9, when it says this, Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your king is coming to you. righteous and having salvation as he humble and mounted on a donkey on a colt, the foal of a donkey. That's exactly what Jesus is doing. He's identifying himself with, hey, that moment that you've been looking for, that moment you've been waiting for, that moment that Zechariah prophesied about the king coming in salvation, that's me, right now, in this backwoods town, surrounded by a bunch of nobodies, in an event that won't be remembered by anyone except for these gospel authors. The king has finally come. We would expect fanfare, crowds upon crowds, pressing in to see, and that's not what we get. We actually, like I said, this very humble, very small event, but for the people who were there, they knew exactly what was happening. They knew exactly what was being said, and that's why they say, blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord, the king, the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Interestingly, Luke is the only one that adds the king. When you go back and read Psalm 18, that word isn't there. The other gospel authors don't include that. But Luke wants us to be very clear on this. Blessed is the king, the one who's coming on the mountain, down from the Mount of Olives on the colt. He's the king. He's come to bring salvation. He's come to make things right. He's come to break the bow from Ephraim and to set free Jerusalem. That's what he's come to do. The high point of redemptive history at this point, and hardly anyone is there to notice it. And yet for you, one of the most significant events in all of history, because the King has finally come. And he's going to completely redefine, completely re-describe the center of what life is meant to be like. That's what's happening right here. But as you catch that other thing that they said, the people said, not just blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord, the king, referring back to Psalm 18, and if you recall, actually, I preached on Psalm 118, my candidating sermon, and I talked about how this psalm becomes one of the most popular ways of describing Jesus. Psalm 118 constantly appears throughout the New Testament as a means of describing who Jesus is and what he's come to do. But the crowds add something. And again, Luke is unique to this. The crowds add this, peace in heaven and glory in the highest. Now, if you know your Bibles, especially if you know Luke, it's going to sound familiar to you. It's going to sound very similar to the angelic announcement when the angels pronounce that Jesus has come. We sing it every year, we're about to start singing it, it's about to be on the lips of so many people in just a couple weeks, probably some of you godless heathens who start Christmas music early, it already is. Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace to people with whom he is well pleased. That's what the angels, when the Christ came, they said this, hey, peace has come to earth. Peace has come to earth. And now in this amazing scene, it's almost as if these human choirs, these crowds have become an echoing response to these angels, not just peace on earth, but peace in heaven. Not just peace on earth, not just peace here, but actually peace in heaven. This great surpassing peace that now is infecting the very upper regions of existence. Now interestingly, this is going to be more true than probably they even realize. Because what's Jesus going to do? We read in Luke 9, he said, he looked toward when the days of his ascension drew near. Remember where he's going, he's going up into the heavenlies. When they proclaim peace in heaven, they're making a much bigger claim than they realize. And actually now, not just on Earth, but now the entirety of human existence, the entire realm of creation has been subjected to King Jesus. And that peace is going to be made even more perfect, even more real when he ascends from death up into the heavenlies. When there will be no more strife, when peace will be the theme, not just of earth, but of heaven itself, this surpassing, magnanimous, unbelievable peace. As the Pharisees see this, we've seen the Pharisees come up as enemies of Jesus so often, and as usual, they're a little perturbed by what they're seeing. And they probably have all sorts of reasons why Jesus isn't the one that Zachariah prophesied. They've probably got all sorts of exegetical nuances and all sorts of unexplainable anomalies that they're like, you know what? He looks a lot like him, but it's not him. And Jesus, you really need to tell your disciples to stop. Again, even faced with the reality right in front of them, they refuse to see it. It could hardly be more clear, and the Pharisees say, you gotta calm down. I know this peace thing's great, but you've gotta be calm. He might be Him, but we're not sure, so we gotta keep it down. Of course, they're failing to realize what Jesus himself says the rocks realize. Because Jesus says, hey, if these people were quiet, the rocks themselves would cry out. All creation, remember, this peace is no longer just on earth, it's now in heaven because of a small country preacher rode in on a donkey. All creation is going to recognize the fact that Jesus is king. All creation does recognize it. and the hard-heartedness of the Pharisees makes them dumber than rocks. Literally. These rocks, Jesus says, know more than you do, Pharisees. They know that I'm king, and you don't. The king has come. He's here. He's come to take his place. We now move to our next scene when Jesus actually comes to those who have rejected him. It says this, when he drew near and saw the city, he grew extremely angry. No, it doesn't say that. When Jesus drew near and saw the city, he said, you get what's coming to you people who rejected me. No, it says this, when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it. He wept over it. We're gonna talk a little bit about what comes next, but I just want us to pause over that for a second. Jesus has experienced nothing but resistance from the Jewish leaders. He's going to experience just further rejection, further humiliation, further grief from these people he's going down into. And the thing he does when he sees them is he weeps. And actually, the Greek is filled with emotion. Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for your peace. You can almost hear the tears falling from his face. I mean, this is the city, this is the city that the psalmist declared, hey, if I ever forget Jerusalem, let my tongue cling to my mouth, let my right hand forget what it's supposed to do. If I ever count anything above my joy that I have in Jerusalem, this is the city that God placed his name upon. This is the city that some Jews of the day actually thought was the center of the world, literally, the center of the world. This is the city that Jesus, as the king, was supposed to rule and reign over and free from their oppressors. But it's the city that ultimately is going to be rejecting him. It's the city that's going to crucify him. It's the city that's going to say, we have nothing to do with this supposed kingship that you say you have. And Jesus' response is to weep. To weep because he wants so badly for these people to declare what they know to be true. Remember, Jesus, when he looks at the rich young man, When he tells him, hey, go and sell everything, it says that that man rejected Jesus. Now, some have suggested that it's Mark, but we don't know. That man rejects Jesus, and Luke tells us that he looked at him and he loved him. And that's why he says, go and sell everything that you have. This is Jesus who looks out over the crowds, crowds that will reject him. It says that he had compassion on them like sheep without a shepherd. This is the Jesus that Peter tells us wishes that no one would perish, but that all would come to know Him. He is a sympathizing and compassionate Savior, even for those who are His enemies. He longs for these people to come to Him to recognize His kingship because, again, He's bringing peace. If only you knew the things that make for your peace today. Of course, he's referring right now, if you understood Jerusalem, what it was that made your peace, it means recognizing that I have come, the king has come, and he is finally here to establish that thing that you've longed for. Of course, one of the reasons that they're going to reject him is because the peace that he comes to bring is not the peace that they thought. They thought a whole number of things, but a dying Messiah being called accursed upon a tree was not one of them. For that, they wanted nothing. Paul tells us that this cross is a rock of stumbling to the Jews because of that. They were more interested in their aspirations and what they had in mind than what Jesus had actually come to give. And actually, a lot of the people around him right now who are proclaiming him king, who are saying, blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord, they're going to leave him too. Because they are going to realize this guy actually asked us to do more than we thought. He's dead. That can't be good. completely oblivious to what it is that Jesus has continually said about himself. If they were paying attention, they should know this well, that Jesus has come to die, but for these people, they wanted nothing to do with him. So, I want us to stop here for just a minute and ask a couple questions as we think about this. Obviously, what Jesus says here, they're going to tear down your walls, they're gonna kill your children, kill your wives. He's referring to the destruction of Jerusalem. It's gonna happen in about 40 years time. Because they did not know the time of their visitation, which is now for them. That is their visitation. That's when God has come to visit them. Jesus on a donkey. and they did not know it, because of that, they're going to be destroyed. The question we can ask ourselves is, first of all, they didn't know the things that make for their peace. Do we know the things that make for our peace? Do we know it, and are we willing to go wherever it may take us? Are we willing to follow him as our king, regardless of what he calls us to do? because we know that this is God himself who's come to establish his peace. That's really the question. This is not just an event in history that we stand apart from. Paul says, hey, if God could cut off a natural branch, he may very well cut off an unnatural branch that's been grafted in. If the Jews themselves were subject to this sort of judgment, we cannot allow ourselves to think that we are somehow avoiding it simply by being Gentiles. Do we know the day of our visitation? Do we know the things that make for our peace? Or do we have in mind a different Savior, a different Messiah, who may look sometimes like Jesus, but really isn't? I want us now to turn to our last scene. This is when the king finally comes home. Jesus has looked out over the city. He's wept over their recalcitrance, over their hard-heartedness. And now what he really does here, this next scene, it's really, first of all, his ascent into his throne, and it's his really first act as the king of Israel. So I want to look at that really quickly. First of all, he entered the temple. Now for us, you're reading that, we can skim over that really quickly, and we shouldn't. Because this again is a moment that Israel has been waiting for, for a long time. Malachi, that last prophet of the Old Testament. Malachi prophesied this very moment when he says this in Malachi 3, Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me, referring to John the Baptist. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple, and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. The Lord is coming into his temple. Since 586 BC, the Lord has not been in his temple. The destruction of Jerusalem, the Spirit of God left the temple and allowed the Babylonians come in and crush the city. For the first time in 600 years, God is in his temple. For Malachi, for the Jews who actually saw what was happening, they would have realized that this is the moment when their exile finally ends. when their separation from God finally comes to an end, when God finally comes and dwells in his temple again, and that's right here. In just a few words, we could miss it in a flash, and yeah, this is God himself coming into a temple, coming to rest, coming into the place that has his name, and he's here to make it new, to renovate it. And that's his first act as king, is renovating this temple. was a popular hope in the Judaism of the day that the king, the Messianic king was going to remake or possibly renovate the temple. That's what Jesus begins to do. He says, we 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. Now, The destruction of Jerusalem that Jesus just prophesied, this is what he's beginning right now. The destruction that's going to finalize and complete in 40 years, Jesus is actually beginning at this moment. When he begins to upset the money changers and to turn over tables and to lay people out with a whip of cords, he's just beginning the beginning of the demolition work. And he's not, we need to be careful, we can't over read what's being said. He's not angry that there were things being sold in the temple. Selling was common, it was often the only way that someone could get a sacrificial animal so that they could do the necessary sacrifices. And selling is not necessarily robbery. What Jesus is actually doing when He does this, when He gets rid of the sellers, those who are selling these sacrificial animals, He's actually saying, we got to bring an end to this whole thing. This whole system has to go because just like the Jews 600 years ago, you've turned this into a mockery of what it's supposed to be. You've turned it into a place of oppression and injustice and everything except what it was meant to be, a house of prayer. And Luke doesn't include this, but as good readers of the Bible, we ought to know how this actually ends. It's a house of prayer for all nations. for all nations. That's what Jesus come to do. This temple that was closed off that had become really just a religious totem for the Jews of the day has to be remade, wiped out, torn down so that a new house can be built up, the house of prayer for all nations. And of course, we know how that happens. Jesus makes it himself in his resurrection of his body. And ever since then, he's building a temple made without hands out of us. A temple not just as a house of prayer for all nations, but a temple actually made from all nations that God himself lives in, that God himself resides in. And that doesn't make him any less the king of Israel. What it means is that this Jerusalem, this corrupt city, was actually all those mentions of Jerusalem in the Old Testament, they were pointing towards something bigger, pointing towards something larger, pointing towards something much more cosmic, where Christ's kingship was no longer just over Jerusalem, but actually now the entire world is turned into His dwelling. I know this was a lot of teaching. There were lots of Bible back and forth, The question really is, first of all, is Jesus your king? It's a simple question. We talk about it a lot here at RCC and we say it a lot, but is he really your king? Do you really know what it means for him to have come and given you peace? Does your life reflect that? Do your thoughts reflect that? Do the affections of your heart reflect that Jesus is king, he's on his throne, the victory's already won? He's in his temple. There will be suffering, there will be pain, there will be misery, but that doesn't mean he's not winning. Because he is, he's the king. We gotta see this. Some of you, most of you, were at Justice Jackson's funeral yesterday. I got a beautiful picture of this in the context of so much grief, so much mourning, so much sorrow. I went up to Jamie just to say something, to hug her. And I could barely talk because of the emotion, lest I become a blubbering fool. And Jamie just looked at me and she said, praise God. That's what she said. Praise God. Because she knew Jesus is king. She knew that the Lord is on his throne. She knew that he brought peace. Peace that surpasses understanding. Again, the question I ask you is, do you? When death hits, what are you going to say? When finances get tight, what does your mind go to? Are you trusting your father? Are you trusting maybe anything but? Jesus came, and he's on his throne. That has nothing to do with you. He did it everything by himself, and you now get to live completely and the assurance and the confidence that God has changed the world forever, and he lives and he reigns for all eternity. Let's pray. Father, we are a people who are hard-hearted, who have a hard time seeing, hard time hearing what it is you have prepared for us. Lord, sometimes you make it really clear, really plain, and we're thankful for texts such as these. where the power and the majesty and the glory of Jesus are so evident. I pray, Father, that you would give us the ability, the hearts to trust our King. Even as he sits on his throne, we can entrust ourselves to completely and fully as we have victory over sin, over the world, over our own flesh, Give us help, I pray, by the power of the Spirit. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. On that day, the Lord their God will save them as the flock of his people. For like the jewels of a crown, they shall shine on his land. For how great is his goodness and how great His beauty. Grain shall make the young men flourish, and new wine the young women. Amen. I've only been at RCC for a couple of years, so I can't speak with absolute authority on this, but I've had the privilege to get to know so many of you who have been here for a long time. And if you're just coming, joining with us, been with us for a few months, one thing you'll hear a lot is Jesus is King. You'll hear that all the time. It's basically our version of the Sunday school answer. Jesus is king. Okay, now what's the question? That's how we think here. Jesus is king. And we do it not just because we believe it's true. We keep bringing this up because we believe that this truth is so fundamental. to our lives, that it governs every thought, it governs every action. He's king over our finances, he's king over our politics, he's king over everything. And so we keep bringing it up. In fact, many of you, as you were listening to that sermon, probably, I've heard Britain preach this sermon before. Again, the reason we do it is because it's so central. And we're all so prone, just like we see in the Pharisees, just like the Jews themselves. The Jews had everything they needed. They knew the Old Testament better than any of us. And their hearts were so far astray, so hard-hearted. Again, they were dumber than rocks. And we are very prone to that same way of thinking. We're very prone to let, as the hymn writer said, let our hearts wander to any other king, any other thing that might rule over us, the kind of king that we want. the kind of king that's going to make our lives good as we see fit, the kind of king that's going to give us whatever it is that we think we need. And the thing we need reminding of again and again and again is that this king, whether we realize it or not, is the only one who brings peace, he's the only one who brings salvation, he's the only one who brings what it is exactly that each and every one of us need. And Jesus as King does not just want people to grit their teeth and accept His kingship. He doesn't just want people who honor Him with their lips and whose hearts are far from Him. He wants people who, as Zechariah says, are able to say, how great is His goodness, how great is His beauty, how wonderful is our King, how marvelous is His majesty, how glorious is His power. And the way we learn to do that is not just by hearing the word preached. It's not just by fellowshipping with each other. It's not just singing. It's not just by praying. But one of the main ways we do that is we actually get to taste and we get to see that our Lord is good. You get to be reminded even in this week where you may have denied and rejected his kingship in as many ways as Sunday. You can come and you can know that your king is beautiful Your king is good and he offers himself to be known and to be fellowshiped with right now. One thing we didn't mention at the baptism, this is Dominic's first communion. He's coming to the table for the first time. He's coming to eat with the king for the first time. He's about to taste the peace that each of us know in a way that he's never known it before. And you get to be witnesses to him today about what it is that he gets to know. You get to prove to him that the Lord is good, that he's beautiful. So come, prove it to him that your King is good. Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us keep the feast. For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread. Let us give thanks for the bread. All praise and glory is yours, O God, our Heavenly Father. For in your tender mercy you gave your only Son, Jesus Christ, to suffer death upon the cross for our redemption. He made there a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the world. So now, O merciful Father, in your great goodness, we ask you to bless and sanctify with your word and spirit these gifts of bread and wine that we, in remembrance of his death and resurrection, may be partakers of his most blessed life, both now and forever. Amen. And when he had given thanks, he broke and said, take, eat, this is my body, which is for you, do this in remembrance of me. These are the gifts of God for the people of God.