Who’s The Fool Now?
Palm Sunday
April 1, 2007
Me- Have you ever been a fool because you were blinded by pride? Ski story- pride comes before the fall. Tried to be something I wasn’t.
We- We do things all the time that always seem to make us end up looking foolish. We want to impress people so badly or we don’t take a moment to step back and look at the big picture before we go head first into something.
Palm Sunday is a great day as it is God’s reminder to us to step back and look at the big picture. How God works and how life works is never what we expect and to expect things to be or go a certain way is foolish.
Not being able to look at the big picture, being prideful is exactly what happened to the Jewish people of Christ day.
They lived by the laws of the Pharisees which prided themselves on being holy by following all the 600 laws.
Pre conceived ideas of what Christ would look like. Warrior, establish earthly kingdom, overthrow Roman oppression.
God instead chose to come in humility.
He lowered himself to show his unconditional love for us and these people were fools because they couldn’t see it. And they refused to accept Him.
Before His triumphal entry Jesus tells a parable that talks about a king that goes to receive his kingdom but the people don’t want him to be their king. Right after that Jesus approaches Jerusalem on the exact day when Daniel the prophet said the Messiah should come to the city-and though it seems at first as if the people accept Him they will soon totally reject Him and put Him to death. Why? because their blinding pride causes them to be foolish.
Jesus teaches us today that victory does not come through being prideful…
Take This Home: Victory through humility
God- Luke 19:28-44
Donkey- Coming on a donkey was a sign of peace. If Jesus had ridden in on a horse, it would have signified a conquering king coming to take over. Jesus was coming in not to take but to give his life in order to make peace between men and God.
Zech 9:9- fulfilling prophecies.
Disciples didn’t even understand what was happening.- John 12:16
Vss. 36-38- worshipping the miracles, not Christ. They didn’t understand the concept of a suffering messiah. They expected only a ruling King messiah. “Is this is? Will He now declare himself King and overthrow Roman rule?”
Half the crowd didn’t understand why he was coming and the other half, the religious leaders, who should have recognized Him as the Messiah, were coming after him. They wanted Him dead.
Vss. 41-44 People thought they knew what would bring peace and that was to throw Rome out, but Rome wasn’t their problem sin was. And Christ knew the only way to bring peace to Jerusalem was to die for us.
The people refuse their opportunity for salvation and in A.D. 70 Christ prophecy will come true as Rome is overthrown and the people are slaughtered.
The people were blind fools because they worshipped Jesus one day and wanted him dead the next, didn’t want salvation, didn’t look at the big picture that their idea of a Messaiah wasn’t God’s idea. Thought they were untouchable.
You- Take This Home- Victory through Humility. We could read this story and think, “man these people were dumb.” But we are no different. We can be blind fools just like them, in fact even more so because we have the Truth in our hands and we don’t follow it, we don’t believe it. We can live our lives thinking we are untouchable. That we will live a long life and that there is always tomorrow.
Come before God each morning and humble yourself.
We- What would happen if we took off our blinders and stepped back to look at the big picture? We would laugh and say, “God I was so wrong.”
Scriptures on foolishness- Psalm 74:22, Psalm 92:5-7, Prov. 1:7, Prov. 1:32, Prov. 14:9, Rom. 1:20-22
Jesus was riding into Jeruselam to die and the people didn’t understand. They will want him dead, but you know what? Sunday’s coming and Christ will be saying, “who’s the fool now?”
