How Would Jesus Be Received Today?
Matthew 21:6-11, Luke 19:39-44
Palm Sunday – March 28, 2010
Me/We:
I’m one of those guys who thinks that Jesus could return at any moment.
I don’t look at everything that goes on in life and go, “Oh no! It’s got to be today! The anti-Christ was just elected!”
By the way, people have thought about that since every president since at least Nixon – so don’t think I’m picking on anybody in particular okay?
I don’t have charts on my wall that tell me all the prophecies and tell me how long it’s been and all that.
I don’t watch the news waiting to fill in another blank in the timeline for Jesus’ return or anything like that.
I just happen to believe that the Father in heaven knows when Jesus is supposed to return, no one on earth does, and it might be today.
For some folks, that idea is pretty scary. For others, it’s a pretty cool thought.
But if it were to happen today, how would you receive Him? Would it be with joy? Would it be with anger or fear?
In your own heart, what happens when you think on the idea of Jesus coming?
Today is Palm Sunday, the day we traditionally remember Jesus’ Triumphal entry into Jerusalem a few days before He was crucified for our sins.
But during that joyful occasion, there were people in the crowd that I think many of us will relate to, and my real hope for today is that you will choose, if you’re not already part of it, to be part of the crowd that loved the idea that Jesus was coming.
God: There are four different types of people who were present at the Triumphal Entry of Jesus as He came to and entered Jerusalem.
These same types of people are still around today, and some of them are in our churches around the world.
We’re going to be in Matthew 21:6-11 and in Luke 19:44 (page numbers), so you’ll want to find both of those places because we’re going to be flipping between them once or twice as we go through the message.
The background is that Jesus is on His way to Jerusalem. And on His way, Jesus tells a couple of His disciples to get a couple animals ready for Him.
We pick up the story in Matthew 21:6-9, where we find the first bunch of people –
6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. 7 They brought the donkey and the colt, placed their cloaks on them, and Jesus sat on them. 8 A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,
"Hosanna to the Son of David!"
"Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!"
"Hosanna in the highest!"
This first bunch of people are…
1. The joyfully expectant.
Jesus had a purpose for riding a donkey into the city, and it had nothing to do with saving shoe leather.
He chose to ride a donkey because that’s how kings traveled in times of peace. He was declaring Himself to be a King.
And the joyfully expectant recognized that.
They were excited about Jesus coming. Chances are that they didn’t fully understand all that was happening, and that Jesus wasn’t the kind of warrior-king that so many were waiting for to drive out the Romans.
But they knew He was special. They proclaimed Him to be the Messiah by their cheers.
They loved Him and wanted Him to be there.
If it was an election year, there would have been people trying to have Him run for king, running around with political signs and trying to get pictures of Him kissing babies and trying to set up political debates, and all sorts of things.
Today these would be the Christians who love Jesus as King.
These are the Christians, and I hope all of you are in that camp, and if not, I hope that all of you will one day be in that camp – the camp of those who look to future and say, “Come, Lord Jesus!”
They’re not afraid of His coming, which He describes as terrible for those who are outside of Christ and awesome for those who love Jesus.
Those who love Jesus as Savior and King welcome the idea of Jesus returning because He already reigns in their hearts.
To see the second group of people in the story, we go to some details that Luke brings out that happen at this point:
39 Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, "Teacher, rebuke your disciples!"
40 "I tell you," he replied, "if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out."
Later on in this chapter of Matthew, Jesus clears out the temple, and a bunch of kids are shouting out to Him like they did earlier, and the religious leaders got bent all out of shape again.
This illustrates the second bunch of folks and that bunch is…
2. The religiously angry.
The religious leaders are angry.
They see the love the people have of Jesus and they feel it’s dangerous to them and their grip on the people.
They think the people are being sacrilegious and blasphemous shouting that Jesus is the Messiah.
They’re also upset because they’re afraid that the Romans will step in and break up the crowds, making them look bad at not being able to control the crowds themselves.
I think that today, there are lots of religious people who would be upset with Jesus.
I think that Jesus would look into a lot of hearts and say, “You know what? You’re ‘religion’ is getting in the way of knowing and loving and following Me. You’re more concerned with your religious traditions than you are about the truth about Me.”
He might also look at what I call the “comfortable Christian” and say, “You’re more concerned with your convenience than you are about following Me. You need to start thinking of Me instead of yourself, and you’ll start to really understand what life is all about and begin to enjoy it like I’ve always wanted you to. I need to be more important than ESPN. I need to be more important than your gossip circle.”
And guess what the reaction would be. Anger.
“You don’t have the right to tell me what to believe or do. Leave me alone, Jesus. I don’t have time for You to tell me that I’m wrong or that my church is wrong. And I’m not going to listen to those who actually believe You and the Bible are true. It’s only true if I decide it’s true, so just beat it.”
They may not actually think those words with their minds or speak them with their mouths, but that’s how they feel, make no mistake.
There are lots of “religious” people who have no time for Jesus – at least not the Jesus of the Bible. A Jesus of their own making, maybe, but not the Jesus of the Bible.
And like the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, they get angry when confronted with the real Jesus.
There might be some of those people here today. You’ve got religion, but you don’t have Jesus, and you feel threatened when confronted with what the Bible says about Him because these eyewitness accounts don’t square with what your idea of Jesus is.
The bad news is, you lose. Jesus is real, Jesus is true, and the Scriptures bear that out.
My hope is that no one in here would be counted among the religiously angry.
For the third group of people, we stay in look, starting in verse 41 –
41 As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it 42 and said, "If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace--but now it is hidden from your eyes. 43 The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. 44 They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you."
This is a prophecy regarding the destruction of the temple that would happen in about 40 years from this time.
And in these words we find Jesus addressing the third group of people present that day:
3. The willfully ignorant.
Now remember, ignorant doesn’t mean stupid – it means that you don’t know. And when someone is willfully ignorant about anything, it’s usually not a smart thing.
And when it comes to the things of Jesus, it’s flat-out dangerous.
The people in Jerusalem for this celebration were familiar with the Scriptures – that’s why they were there celebrating the Passover.
They probably all had copies of the Old Testament in their homes and had grown up hearing and studying the Scriptures.
They had access to the Scriptures and with the Spirit’s help and good teachers, could have understood that the Messiah the Scriptures declared would come was right there right now.
But Jesus says “…you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you."
Today I would consider this to be almost every person in the United States.
Almost everyone in the US has access to the Scriptures – and not just the Old Testament that pointed to Jesus, but also the New Testament that tells us in detail about the Messiah Jesus and how He came to give us forgiveness and a home in heaven.
The gospel message is everywhere here. It’s in churches, it’s on TV, it’s on the radio, it’s in books, anybody can have a Bible or even borrow one from the library.
If you don’t have a Bible in easy-to-understand English, then we want you to have one. You come to me after the service and I’ll give you a brand new Bible absolutely free.
Many people have multiple copies of the Bible in their homes.
But the fact of the matter is that most people, in spite of the fact that they have access to all the information they need about Jesus – who He was, what He said, what He did, that He made it possible for anybody who wants it to get to heaven through Him – they don’t want to take the trouble to find out about Him.
And the reason they don’t want to know about Him is because they’re afraid they’ll find something they don’t like.
They’re afraid to find that what they think about Jesus is wrong, or that what they think Jesus will tolerate is wrong.
Folks, this is probably the group of folks I run into most.
There are lots of “religious” or “spiritual” people around. They can quote some Scriptures (usually out of context and incorrectly), and maybe the words of somebody who claims to be a Christian.
But they don’t want to love or follow Jesus. They refuse to commit their lives to Him because He cramps their style and insists on running the show.
They are choosing to be ignorant about Jesus, and they’re hoping that if the Bible’s true, then they’ll be able to say, “Wow, God. I just didn’t know. My church didn’t tell me that. Of course, I never went to church… And they’ll come up with all sorts of excuses for not “knowing” they needed to give their lives to Jesus.
It won’t wash. And Jesus is going to judge that.
He’s going to say, “Look, man, that’s not cutting it. You had countless opportunities to find out about Me. You had a Bible they gave you at your confirmation (or from a wedding gift or whatever). You could have gone to any number of churches right around you who teach from the Bible and you could have found out about Me. You could have even slept in and stayed home and watched Pastor Salem on TV (because at least he preaches truth – and don’t even get me started on some of those wackos who claim to speak for me on religious TV…) or you could have gone to countless websites from churches and ministries who preach and teach the truth about Me. But no – you chose to ignore all this and push Me aside. And because you had no place for me in your life on earth, you will have no place with me here in heaven.
“You might be ignorant, but you chose that. And now that choice will follow you into eternity.”
The camp of the willfully ignorant is a very dangerous place to be.
To discuss the fourth group of people that was at Jerusalem and is here today, we go back to Matthew 21 –
10 When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, "Who is this?" 11 The crowds answered, "This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee."
The fourth group of people is…
4. The uninformed ignorant.
Verse 10 –
“Who is this?”
Apparently there were people there for the Passover who hadn’t heard of Jesus or were unaware what He had been up to.
Believe it or not, they didn’t have TV back then – not even in black and white. Some of you don’t even know what I mean when I say, “black and white,” do you? Punk kids…
So they couldn’t watch the news and find out that this dude named Jesus was teaching and healing people and raising people from the dead.
They didn’t have the internet so they couldn’t go to news websites and find out about Him.
So they were asking, “Who is this?”
Today these would be those who may be from another culture or background where they simply didn’t hear or know about Jesus.
That is still possible here in the US. Not very likely, but it’s possible, especially for children brought up in homes where the Bible was not believed in or was forbidden.
This is the reason we send out missionaries. People need to hear about Jesus.
These aren’t the willfully ignorant – these are those who have access to the information but don’t want it.
These are people who haven’t heard about Jesus and don’t know how to find out about Him.
They need to hear the good news of Jesus so they can respond to Him and put their faith in Him.
Romans 10:14-15 –
How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15 And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"
We – the Church of Jesus – are commanded by Jesus to help as many people as possible get out of this category.
And far too many people refuse to get involved. As long as they’re “safe in the arms of Jesus,” then that’s good enough.
Jesus isn’t too thrilled with that attitude, by the way, as you’ve heard me say many times before and you’ll hear me say many times more.
The uninformed ignorant need us to either go or send, but we need to get involved one way or another.
You: Which one of these are you?
As I mentioned before, I hope that all of you are part of the first category – the joyfully expectant.
But maybe you’re part of the second crowd – the religiously angry. You’re angry because what you’re hearing today or finding in the Scriptures about Jesus threatens your previous ideas about God and religion.
My hope is that you’ll check it out for yourselves to see if I’m right about this stuff.
Unlike the religious leaders in Jesus’ day, and unlike dictatorial and authoritarian religious leaders of our day, and unlike cult leaders even here in the Aberdeen area, I invite you to check this stuff out.
I don’t have anything to fear, because if you check it out and I’m wrong, then you are free to follow the Scriptures instead of following what I’m telling you.
I want you to do that. You’re not threatening me with that kind of thing.
Are you the willfully ignorant? You won’t bother checking stuff out because you don’t want to be accountable for what you don’t know.
As I mentioned earlier, that won’t cut it when you come face to face with Jesus.
You need to choose today that you’ll at least take a step to finding Jesus.
Read the Scriptures. Go to church. If not this one, there are lots I could recommend in this area.
Read books by people who actually take a high view of the Bible, especially those who used to be atheists but are now followers of Christ.
But make the effort to find out about Jesus so you can respond to His offer of forgiveness and heaven.
Get out of the camp of the willfully ignorant and move to a camp that we haven’t discussed, and that is the camp of the seeker who is actually willing to find out the truth of Jesus.
Again, don’t take my word for this stuff. Check it out. Your eternity depends on it.
Everyone in this room has access to the truth of Christ. Take advantage of it.
Please. For your sake, take advantage of it.
We: You know what I want to see in this church?
I want to see that the vast majority of people who attend this church are made up of the first category – the joyfully expectant.
People who come to worship on Sunday and who have been worshiping throughout the week in their daily living.
And I also hope that those who fit into those other categories would find an atmosphere that would make it possible for them to make steps out of those categories to join the rest of us as we joyfully anticipate Jesus coming back.
The thing is that everyone in this room can be part of that first category. It’s up to you.
And my prayer is that you’ll do whatever it takes with the help of God. Let’s pray.
