Palm Sunday Lessons

Palm Sunday Lessons

Scripture: Luke 19:28-40

Introduction: Today is Palm Sunday. Do you ever wonder why we celebrate Palm Sunday. What is Palm Sunday? Well as you know Easter is next week. Easter is a time we Christians focus on the resurrection of Jesus. But the week before the Resurrection, we celebrate what we call 'The Triumphal Entry'. Palm Sunday marks the start of what is often called "Passion Weeek" which is the final seven days of Jesus’ earthly ministry. Palm Sunday was the “beginning of the end” of Jesus’ work on earth. As Jesus ascended to Jerusalem, a large multitude gathered around Him. This crowd understood that Jesus was the Messiah; what they did not understand was that it wasn't time to set up His kingdom yet - even though Jesus tried to tell them that.

But as we are awaiting Jesus' return in the age of grace, we are not to be idle we are sent to help build his kingdom to come.

"As he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, "Go to the village ahead of you , and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, 'Why are you untying it? tell him, 'The Lord needs it.'" v. 29-31

"The Lord needs it." The Lord wants you and me to fulfil his needs. Our purpose in life is simply to glorify God. Here we see as Jesus is preparing to present himself as the Messiah, to his people in Jerusalem, he sent two disciples to get a colt for him to ride in on. The disiciples had their part in helping Jesus present himself as the Messiah, by putting away any doubt and trusting that Jesus knew what he needed and there was no way that Zechariah 9:9,10 was not going to be fulfilled that day. "Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey."

Transition: In Luke 19:32-40 we learn four lessons about the fulfilment of this prophecy, first we learn . . .

A lesson in the disciples' Obedience

"Those who were sent ahead went . . ." v. 32

All those who were told to go ahead of the rest to get the colt, did as they were told and went ahead to get the colt. They obeyed the command that Jesus gave them. It is such a simple thing, but there is no more important thing in all the Bible than to obey the Lord. He tells us to repent, we must repent. He tells us to believe, we must believe. He tells us to forgive, we must forgive. He tells us to go, we must go.

Ill. Missionary Rowland Bingham wrote "It is the impassioned pleading of a quiet little Scottish lady that linked my life with the Sudan, . . . in the quietness of her parlor she told me how God had called a daughter to China, and her eldest son, Walter Gowans to the Sudan.

She spread out before me the vast extent of those thousands of miles and filled in the teeming masses of people. I closed the interview she had place upon me the burden of the Sudan."

A year and a half later Bingham returned to Canada, alone. Her son Walter was buried in Nigeria. He wrote: "I visited Mrs. Gowans to take her the few personal belongings of her son, . . . She met me with extended hand. We stood there in silence."

Then she said these words: 'Well, Mr. Bingham, I would rather have had Walter go out to the Sudan and die there, all alone, than to have him home today, disobeying his Lord." (Sermon illustrations; Rowland Bingham founder of S.I.M)

Obedience seems like a hard thing at times, but it doesn't appear that it was difficult at all for those here in Luke 19 who were called disciples. They were told to go and they went. They were told what to do and they did it. They were told what to say and they said it. When the Lord presents himself again as the Messiah to the world in these last days, The last thing we want to be found doing is disobeying the Lord.

Thomas a Kampis said "Instant obedience is the only kind of obedience there is; delayed obedience is disobedience. Whoever strives to withdraw from obedience, withdraws from Grace." We must crucify the flesh, and all its lusts - because the Lord says so. We must pick up our cross, without reservation - because the Lord says so. We must follow Christ wherever he goes - because he says that is what his disciples are to do. You can not be a disciple if you do not obey. Obedience not only defines what a disciple is, but who he follows.