1 Timothy 3:16 • A Great Mystery
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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
The Palm Sunday account that we celebrate this Sunday could be found in each of the Gospels. The one I chose for this morning is Matthew 21. Matthew chapter 21, let me ask that you would look there. Matthew 21 will read verses 1 through 17. Let me ask that you would stand as we honor God's Word and remember how the people and the children praise Jesus on this day. Matthew 21 verse 1.
"Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphagi to the Mount of Olives,
then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, "Go into the village in front of you and immediately you will find a donkey tied and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, "The Lord needs them and He will send them at once."
This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying, "Say to the daughter of Zion, "Behold, your King is coming to you, humble and mounted on a donkey on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden."
The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks and He sat on them.
Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. And the crowds that went before Him and that followed Him were shouting, "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest!"
And when He entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, "Who is this?"
And the crowd said, "This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee."
And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple. And He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons.
And He said to them, "It is written, "My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you make it a den of robbers."
And the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple and He healed them.
But when the chief priest and the scribes saw the wonderful things that He did and the children crying out in the temple, "Hosanna to the Son of David!" They were indignant. And they said to Him, "Do you hear what these are saying?"
And Jesus said to them, "Yes.
Have you never read, "Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise."
And leaving them, He went out of the city to Bethany and lodged there." Let's pray together.
Heavenly Father, would You make Your Word a lamp unto our feet, a light unto Your path,
that we may see where Jesus was going and welcome Him into our hearts.
This we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Please be seated.
"Palm Sunday in the church in which I grew up, for a period of time always have the choir sing the same anthem, a palm Sunday anthem reflecting a much older psalm. These words, "Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up ye everlasting doors." The refrain of that was sung by the sopranos and the bases responding to one another. The sopranos would sing, "Who is this King of Glory?"
And the bases would respond with the baso profundo, "It is the King! It is the King of Glory, mighty in battle!" And when you are a kid, you can't help but wonder what's going on when that song is being sung.
But here was the problem. In that church expressing the values of those people, the choir was not up front where you could observe them. The choir was in the balcony in the back.
The goal, I take it, so that you would not be distracted by the choir, particularly if they fell asleep during the sermon.
Instead it was considered impolite, even perhaps unholy, to turn around and see who was singing.
But when the sopranos were warbling and the bases were responding with such power, if you're a kid, you can't help but want to sneak a peek, which always resulted in my mom's correction by the subtle but holy pinch to my leg.
Ow! A turnaround.
Don't look there.
It's been a long time ago, but I got the message. The church on those Sundays was going to make a lot of noise from someone you can't see,
but was going to make you uncomfortable about not being good enough.
I wonder if that's what a lot of people will feel in the church in this Easter season.
What happens in the church in these days? Well, we make a lot of noise about someone you can't see, but may make you feel uncomfortable
about not being good enough.
It was not Jesus' purpose if you consider what He is teaching us by this ride into Jerusalem.
After all, one of the main intentions was simply to teach us who He is. We know that from the very words of the account. At the end of verse 10, after all of the noise, the whole city is stirred up, saying, "Who is this?"
And the people respond in verse 11 with a clear answer. The crowd said, "This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee." Who is this? This is a prophet.
And we know He is a prophet because He gives prophecy, and He also fulfills it. The early prophecies of the account that Jesus gives are right in the opening verses. In verse 2, Jesus instructs His disciples, saying to them, "Go into the village in front of you," and immediately you will find a donkey tied and a colt with her. And not only does He predict what they will find, He predicts what the reaction will be. Verse 3, "If anyone says anything to you, you shall say to them, the Lord needs them,
and He will send them at once."
You say the right words, and this is what's going to happen. The owner will let you have the donkey and the colt. Jesus is fulfilling prophecy in addition. You know that. The account is making it so plain in verse 5, "This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying, "Say to the daughter of Zion, behold, your king is coming to you." Humble, mounted on a donkey and on a colt, the fall of a beast, a burden. Here five centuries previous, the prophet Zechariah had said what is happening this day would happen, that a king would come riding on the colt, an immature fall of a donkey into Jerusalem, a humble stance of a king coming. And in doing so, fulfilling that prophecy, Jesus is making clear what the Word of God had said so long before. That's actually the job of a prophet.
The time of the Reformation, the Westminster divines trying to capture who Jesus was answered the question, "How does Jesus fulfill the office of a prophet?" And the answer was, "By making plain to us by His Word and Spirit the will of God for our salvation." Here is Jesus not only giving prophecy, but making plain what God is going to be doing. He is sending His Son to be the king, and He is declaring His kingship before His people so that they will turn to Him, which we must do for our salvation, turn to Him.
What is being made plain, of course, is that God is working overtime and in detail.
We've lost the significance because we get familiar to the children coming in with their palm fronds and thinking about the glory of Palm Sunday. To think five centuries before this event, in another nation in slavery, Zachari is writing that the king of Israel would come to Jerusalem riding on a donkey, no, not just a donkey, but on the unwritten foal of the donkey, and that would be God's way of declaring the king of glory.
I mean, just to place it in time and maybe odd circumstance for what the people would have perceived, this is like Columbus predicting the Cubs winning the World Series.
Amen, Bill.
Now, we can think it's kind of silly and cute, but the reality is it would have been that odd for Israel in slavery to hear Zacharias' prophecy while they themselves think, "Will we ever get back to Jerusalem?" And if we do, why would our king ever come in humility like that? Here is God saying, "I am working overtime in detail. I'm not surprised. I know what's coming." And we recognize in our Jesus is this prophet in whom we still trust. I know we can just kind of with Sunday school bulletins and kids carrying palm fronds get lost in the significance of what it means for our Jesus to be a prophet who is not unconcerned or distracted by time and detail.
I think about my own daughter Katie right now. Katie graduated from college in December and is still wondering about all kinds of things like job and career and marriage.
Will it be grad school? Will it be another place that she's living next year? And to be able to say to my daughter, as God is saying to all His children, "I know in detail beyond time the plans that I have for you. I won't be surprised.
I'm not unconcerned.
I know the details. I know because I am the God who provided Jesus as a prophet to fulfill and make my word plain."
But is it enough to know that He knows? I want to know not only that He knows, but that He cares. And that's being made plain here too as we not only recognize Jesus coming as a great prophet, but coming as a priest as well. Again, those same Reformation leaders trying to discern what did it mean for Jesus to fulfill the office of a priest said this. He fulfills the office of a priest by His once offering up of Himself to satisfy divine justice, to reconcile us to God, and to make continual intercession for us. When Jesus came, He didn't just come with knowledge. He came with sacrifice in mind, knowing that our sin, the sin of a world, would have to experience the justice of God in order for God Himself to be just, that sin could not be done without any care or concern, that any of us would know that if we have been hurt by evil, by crime, by sin, it is not just for the judges to say, "Oh, that doesn't matter. Don't worry about that." No, justice has to be satisfied. For God to be holy, to be the ruler who knows things are coming, He must take care of the evil by making sure that justice is served. And when Jesus came, He in being a priest to us takes Himself as the sacrifice and offers Himself to God to satisfy the justice that could have been poured out upon any sinner like me or like you.
Jesus took it on Himself. How is He showing us that He is the priest who can do these things? Any priest protects worship, and that's one of the things that Jesus is doing here. Verse 12, "Jesus entered the temple, and He drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. He said to them, "It's written, "My house should be called a house of prayer, but you make it a den of robbers." His first task as a priest is to cleanse the temple from corruption.
A lot of us have heard the stories from long ago, but we need to remember why? Why is it so important that Jesus would cleanse the temple? Because there are hundreds of thousands of people coming to Jerusalem at this time to celebrate the Passover. They come from different places. They come from different nations, all Jews, some with different language, many with different currencies from the places that they come. And now they come to offer sacrifice, which they can't bring on the journey. And here we are being told that there are those who are money changers. They are extortionists.
They are taking the money of different currency, and they are making money on people who are at a disadvantage by coming from different places. And they are selling pigeons. That's what's mentioned. That's not the only sacrifice that could be made. The pigeons were the sacrifices available to poor people who could not afford the purchase of a lamb.
And so here we have the understanding that there are those who are taking advantage of the poor, both in the sale of the sacrifice and also in the extortion of the money changing. And Jesus is saying, "You have made this a den of robbers, this place that God meant to show His grace and wondrous care to God's people.
We've lost it, but not only is God showing that He is a priest by having...is Jesus showing that He is a priest by cleansing the temple. He is also extending grace to the nations. Some of you may remember the full quote from Isaiah, "My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers." The full quotation, "My house shall be a house of prayer for all nations." Where are the money changers? They are in the court of the Gentiles, the outer court, not where the sacrifices were being made, but where people who were not Jews were supposed to be able to gather and offer their prayers to God to have the induction into the covenant people so they could be part of God's plan of salvation for the nations. But now the people of God are not only being excluded from the freedom of God's grace, but the nations who are supposed to be brought into this place of prayer are excluded because the money changers have taken over, the people who are selling the sacrifices, even the nations cannot gather. And so this house of prayer for all nations, as God is extending to...intending to extend His covenant to so many, is being denied.
And Jesus as our great high priest is saying, "I not only will give myself to make intercession for my people, but I am protecting the prayer of my people and of all nations that they may come to God as He intended." What God is showing by the provision of His Son on this particular day who would cleanse the temple, who would make worship available for God's people and for the nations is how wide is His own heart. So He's not nearly saying, "I know over time and in detail what you are facing.
I am showing how great is my care for you and all peoples of all nations by what I am providing in this particular place."
I love knowing that He knows.
I love believing that He cares.
But I need to know something else.
I need to know that He can do something about it.
And the last aspect of Christ that is revealed in this passage is not only that He is a prophet and that He is a priest, but He is the King who has come. It is in the very prophecy itself, verse 5, "Say to the daughter of Zion," that is to the city of Jerusalem, "Say to the daughter of Zion, behold your King is coming to you." It is the declaration of who is here. It's in Jesus' own words. Remember when He says in verse 2, "You are to go into the village in front of you and you are to find that donkey in the coat." Verse 3, "If anyone says anything to you, say, the Lord has need of Him." That could just be an honorific title, just a term of respect. The Lord needs Him.
But we begin to understand more and more as we go through the account and understand that if this is the fulfillment of the one that Zechariah told us about, the King is coming to you, then there will be evidence of that made plain as we go through the passage, like
He has the ride of a king. It is the predicted donkey. It is the foal of a donkey, meaning one that's never been ridden. No secondhand vehicles here.
The drive is made available for one who comes untarnished and untouched into the city of Jerusalem. He not only comes with the ride of a king, He comes with a victory carpet spread in front of Him. We don't recognize it anymore, but when the children come with the palm branches and the people put their cloaks in the road, what they are mimicking is the inaugural ride of Jehu into Jerusalem years before. There was a wicked king named Ahab, do you remember, with his wife Jezebel, who ruled in wickedness until God cut them short and sent by surprise Jehu to be ordained as the new king. And it was so sudden with such unprepared impact that the people begin to spread the palm branches and their cloaks in the road as Jehu, the king coming to redeem the nation from evil, is now being made the king. And when Jesus comes, He is commemorating, recapitulating the ride of Jehu, the one who comes to deliver from evil back into Jerusalem again. And not only is it the carpet, there is the victory chant of the people. Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest. The words from Psalm 118, the psalm that was chanted by the people not just in this moment, but every year at the Feast of Tabernacles, the highest of the holy days, where on that last day, the feast that is supposed to celebrate God tabernacling, making His home with His people, the kingdom of God come to earth, on that last and highest feast day, the people would say, "Hosanna, God saves in the highest." And now here is this Jesus on the same path of Jehu with the same victory ride, victory carpet, and now the victory song. Here is the king, the kingdom of God has come to earth. He has come to tabernacle with us as He promised He would. And just to make it plain, there is the victory lap that is taken as well for this king who comes to His people. The very opening words of Matthew 21, "Now when they drew near to Jerusalem are the marks of a journey that is reaching its conclusion." Where did the journey begin?
Weeks, weeks before did Jesus begin this final ride of His victory lap. He goes from the southern parts of Israel up, up to the far northern border named Dan, where a king named Jeroboam had centuries early reintroduced the golden calf that the people had once worshipped in Egypt. And in the name of Jehovah, Jeroboam establishes a separate temple up in the north and Jesus goes back up to Dan as if to claim the territory from the evil of idolatry that God's own people have set up. And then He goes over to Caesarea Philippi where the Romans had established temples to pagan gods, the very place that Jesus asked Peter, "Who do people say I am?" Well some say you're a prophet, some say you're the return of Elijah, but Peter who do you say that I am? You are the Christ, the son of the living God, and you and I don't recognize Peter says that right in the temples of the pagan gods all around him. As though Jesus is saying, "I claim this territory too, not just the evil of my people, but the evil of the nations. I have claimed this territory again as the Christ." And then He comes down the eastern border of Israel and begins to go up toward Jerusalem, but first He goes through another town, you will recognize the name, it is called Jericho.
As though He comes again on the path of Joshua to claim the Promised Land as Joshua and all the peoples never did. And this new Joshua, which by the way is just the New Testament rendering of Jesus,
this new Joshua comes through Jericho again and he now claims the Promised Land as Joshua was meant to do long ago. Here is Jesus saying, "I am the king. I claim my territory again from the evil of my people, from the evil of the world, doing all that God intended. I conquer the land for my Father as God always intended and ultimately what He will do in offering of Himself is laying His own red carpet, even though it will be the carpet of His own blood."
We've sensed the significance of some of us when we have perhaps been in the Holy Land, and you can still go down the same path that Jesus went down, walking down the Mount of Olives.
As you go down the Mount of Olives right across from you is the Temple Mount, which has planted in front of it now a Muslim cemetery.
Do you know why?
Because the Muslims know the prophecies of the Bible perhaps even better than we do, and we know not only did Jesus in this victory lap that He is running go down the Mount of Olives to establish His rule, but He will return to the Mount of Olives. And He will take the same path to enter the Golden Gate that is before Him into the city of Jerusalem, but now it has a Muslim cemetery planted in front of it because they know that no Jewish holy man is meant to go across the place of the dead. What they have forgotten is He's not a Levite.
He is of the tribe of Judah. He is the King. He is the King over all nations. He is the one who goes to establish His people, to establish His land, and He will come again in power and glory. If He was not just the King then, but is the King now and the King to come, what He is saying to all of us is it is not enough just to have pleasant thoughts about Jesus. It is not enough just to say, "Isn't it wonderful that we can have a time of celebration with children?" He is the King. Then He is due the honor of His people. He is due the praise of His people. He is due the obedience of our hearts because He is the King. He is the King who knows what will happen, the details of our lives, the wrong from them, but provided Himself as a priest at the same moment to make us able to worship, to have our sins forgiven because He paid the price. And as we put our trust in Him, He is not only the one who cares, but makes a way to heaven itself because He is the King over our souls, our spirits. Time and eternity do not hold Him. He is the King. He is the King. And He has established it by this very account where He is telling us all of who He really is.
But to elevate Him is to distance Him from us unless we understand how He presents Himself to us as prophet, priest, and king. For that we must understand not only who He is, but what He did.
After all, as prophet, what did He do? He rode into the jaws of His own prophecy.
Jesus Himself has told us weeks before what would happen on this ride to Jerusalem. Do you remember He told His own disciples in such a way that they didn't want to hear it? But He's already said to them as a prophet, "See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn Him to death and deliver Him over to the Gentiles. They will mock Him, spit on Him, flog Him, and kill Him.
Three days later He will rise."
It was His prophecy as He knew He was riding to pain and suffering, and still He rode on. Because of a grace of heart and a care for us that would not be denied, He rode on even into the jaws of His own prophecy. And it wasn't merely that He did. He was a priest who offered Himself in sacrifice. Do you recognize what it would mean? Yes, the poor people are buying pigeons.
It's all they can afford.
But here is the King of glory who is offering Himself the cattle on a thousand hills, the stars of the heavens, the riches of the universe are all His, and He gives Himself. Did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing.
And taking the form of a servant, He came in human likeness and became obedient to death, even death on a cross, to reconcile us to God at the same moment that He was satisfying divine justice. He who was the Lamb slayed from the foundations of the world knew what it meant to be a priest, knew the Lamb that had to be offered, and still He rode on.
Not merely His prophet, not merely His priest, ultimately He was the King of glory who would lay it aside to lie in a tomb, having suffered crucifixion to pay for the sins of the world.
What does it mean that He would put aside His glory? Oh, it's just all over the account.
It was a donkey.
I know that there are people who will say, "Well, you know, sometimes donkeys in the ancient world were for glory."
Do you recognize the very account itself tells us, "Your King is coming to you humble and mounted on a donkey a beast of burden," the prophet says. Here is the one that should be coming on the chariots of the angels. He should be coming with Air Force One. He should be coming with the greatest pomp and circumstance we can offer. And He's coming in a Ford Fiesta. I mean, you just…
It doesn't fit. It doesn't work. And it's not just that it was a donkey. You know, recognize, who's giving Him praise?
It's the rabble and the runts.
It's the poor poppers and the children, who even the priests don't want to hear praise from. They're the ones giving praise. Now, I'll grant you, as the Lord Jesus is coming down the Mount of Olives, if you look across that valley, not only is the Temple Mount, there was the garrison of the Roman soldiers. And you can just imagine the general who is there kind of hearing the commotion across the valley says to some soldier, "Hey, go find out what that's about." Can you imagine the report when it comes back?
It's nothing.
Just a bunch of kids and poor people gathered around a pauper prince in his Ford Fiesta.
Nothing.
Nothing to be concerned about.
Oh, I know, they put the prom branches and the cloaks in front of him.
Did you recognize the reason they did that for Jehu, the previous king, was they weren't prepared?
They didn't have time to get ready. It should have been silk carpet. It should have been bricks of gold. I mean, if it had been any other king, even in Israel, they would have done more than that. But here is Jesus accepting the praise that is totally inadequate for the king who is actually coming. And the victory lap that he's actually taking as he comes through the northern kingdom and then back through Jericho, I mean, don't just start the victory lap there. Where did this victory lap begin?
In an animal stall in Bethlehem where he was laid in a manger despite being the king of the universe.
And then he became a refugee taken down into Egypt to escape the wrath of an earthly king.
And then he came back to live in the humility of a carpenter's house in Nazareth. And in all of his adult life, he would only know impoverishment in an itinerant existence, live with disrespect and humiliation and rejection by his own people. That was his victory lap before he comes to be praised by the rabble and the runs.
Why did he do that?
Why did the one who deserved the glory of heaven live that existence? Because what he was ultimately doing was claiming the territory of our pain and our shame and our sin, which he did not finish claiming until he took the hill that was named Calvary.
And on that cross as he took the burden and the weight of our sin upon himself, what he was ultimately doing was saying, "I rode on knowing what was coming to this very place because I am relentless in my pursuit of you." Sandra said it so well earlier today, "I wasn't searching for him, he was searching for me."
He was coming after me. It is what Jesus was doing from the first moments of his birth. Don't stop there. What he was doing from the foundations of the world, he was establishing his search, his journey toward us. Glory be. It is beyond our fathoming how vast and wondrous was the reality of his relentless pursuit of us so that we would have no hesitation in seeking after him.
Lord I haven't lived the life I wish I had.
Even after I've claimed you, there has been weakness and sin and fault and frailty in my life.
How could I possibly come to you now when you realize that what Jesus was doing at the end of that journey when he ascended to heaven was he is not escaping our pain, he is rescuing us from it. That's what he was doing. When he ascended, he took captivity captive. All the territory that he had claimed, the pain, the shame, the struggle, the wickedness, the hurt, he was gathering it all into the captivity that he would take to heaven so that when you and I have put our trust in him, our faith in him, we know that he is saying I rescue you from that. Even if the pain and the shame are of your own making, how do I know he's willing to do that because he was relentless as my prophet, my priest, and my king to come after me. He knew it. He knew what it would cost and still he kept coming.
And so I trust him and confess my unworthiness and acknowledge my sin as you must knowing if he came after you so hard, you can go to him with confidence that he wants you.
I can sometimes be humbled to think of what it actually means to believe that my God would want my soul and the soul of others so much that he would come riding on relentlessly.
For the sake of our souls, I felt the impact again this week at a conference I was attending with some of you.
And I watched the worship leader who I've known since she was a little child lead us in singing. And what I'm about to tell you, I would not tell you except that it's on her webpage.
As I watched her lead us in singing, I could not help but think of her story raised in a home with an unbelieving father, a home sometimes pretty rocky, raised in a church with lots of nobility to it, but storm after storm of conflict tore that church time and again.
To escape so much of that, this young woman got married too early.
Despite the fact that her marriage was to a Christian celebrity, after not too many years he betrayed her.
And as I now watched her sing in the wake of a hurt life, a broken marriage, much pain.
I went after one of the song sets and just said, "Hi, good to see you," and hugged her and couldn't help but recognize her frame was so small and shrunken from the young woman that had been in our home as she was growing up. As I watched her sing, I could not help but see the strain beneath the public smile knowing her story.
But then I listened to what she was singing, what she so profoundly believed despite all the past that Christ Himself knows about.
Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, let this blessed assurance control that Christ has regarded my helpless estate and has shed His own blood for my soul. It is well, not life, not the difficulties, not the hurts, but it is well with my soul.
It is well hurt, danger, brokenness, all the things of my own poor choices. Lord, You know it. You're the prophet.
And You gave Yourself for it. You're my priest, and You're the king who, knowing the worst about me, still came hard after me. O God, though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, let this blessed assurance control my heart. It is well.
It is well with my soul. My prophet, my priest, my king has made me His own. Now and eternally, it is well with my soul.
Amen. Father, so work Your word into our hearts again.
We who sometimes ride away from You, teach us of the one who rode toward us relentlessly,
that we might not hesitate to come to You again.
Confess our sin and come to the provider of grace.
Work this work in us, we pray, for our prophet, priest, and king, in whose name we pray. Amen.