Allen Jackson - When Jesus Came to Town
You know, people often ask me, do I believe in medicine and doctors or healing? Yes. Yes. I believe God brings healing to our lives in many ways. He has brought healing to me supernaturally. He’s brought healing to me through medical practitioners in the healthcare community. I’m most interested in being well and that’s my prayer for you tonight, amen. How about if we just turn our hands to the Lord to receive from him? Can you do that? It’s an expression of belief. You have to receive what God has from you. We’ll receive a diagnosis. We also wanna receive the Lord’s health and his life into our bodies.
Father, I thank you for your Word. For the reminder that our Lord is a healer, that he cared for the sick, that he was concerned about our physical well-being. And I thank you that on the cross, he not only… he exhausted the curse of sin, taking not only the punishment for our sin, but that by his stripes we might have health. And we stand in your presence tonight to acknowledge our need. I’m grateful for all those who can provide care and assistance, but Lord, we ask you to bring life to our bodies, health and strength. If there is something that needs to be made clear or revealed or uncovered that we might walk in that health, let it be so. Lord, we ask for your touch to bring life to us and wholeness to us in the name of Jesus. Through the power of his shed blood, may your life be ours. We thank you for it. We give you glory and honor and praise that you are still walking in the midst of your people in the earth today. In Jesus’s name, amen.
Why don’t you give the Lord a hand? All right, you can have it. I’m not done, please. This is the first time Matthew introduces us to the antagonist, the chief priest and the teachers of the law. When they saw the wonderful things that Jesus was doing and the children shouting, they were grumpy. That’s messed up. You understand if Jesus came to town today physically, not everybody would celebrate? We’ve had a misguided understanding of revival or a move of God or an outpouring of the Spirit of God. We think the response will be universal acceptance. There’s nothing in scripture that suggests that. There’s a couple of isolated places where there was that kind of a broad, widespread acceptance of a message of repentance, but the overwhelming majority of the times it’s very much a divided house.
The responses to Jesus in this scene, if you can see it, are the children excited and praising God and the chief priest and the teachers of the law and their indignation. Which seat are we gonna sit in? I’d rather have a childlike celebration of the arrival of the presence of God than the indignation of the powerful that see Jesus as a threat. Same chapter, Luke 19. I’m sorry, it’s a different chapter, it’s a different gospel. I want to go to Luke’s perspective, but it’s the same narrative. We looked at Matthew’s report. We’re gonna step into Luke’s report. «When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began to joyfully praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they’d seen. 'Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest.' Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, 'Teacher, rebuke your disciples.' 'And I tell you, if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.'»
Luke adds a layer to this. In Matthew’s report, the children were worshiping. He particularly points out that the children raised their voices when Jesus was in the temple. Luke gives us a little added layer as Jesus is descending the Mount of Olives. The men and women are lifting their voices giving glory to God in the highest and again, the Pharisees are offended. And Jesus makes this very interesting statement. He said, «If the people hush, the rocks will say it». Jesus affirms his supporters and he responds to his critics. He’s still doing that in the earth. You got to decide which camp you wanna be in. It’s not hard to be critical of the people of God. We’re a bunch of crackpots. And I don’t say that to encourage or to give license to sloppiness. I’m just telling you, don’t make your decisions about God because of people that you have seen.
There is a God and he can be known and you have that awareness in your heart. Choose him with your whole heart. I’ve seen people do some horrific things in the name of the Lord. It doesn’t diminish the glory and the wonder and the majesty of God and I’m determined that it will not diminish my intensity in serving him. And then the tone changes. Luke is the only gospel that gives us this next statement. Says, «As Jesus approached Jerusalem and he saw the city, he wept over it». Now this is a bit odd, it’s a little out of tone. There’s this crowd of people lifting their voices, worshiping the Lord with so much enthusiasm that Jesus’s antagonists are critical. And Jesus pauses as he’s descending this hill, and he begins to weep. And Luke tells us what he had to say.
«If you had only known on this day what would bring you peace, but now it’s hidden from your eyes. 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. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another because you didn’t recognize the time of God’s coming to you». You know, already in Luke’s account Jesus has affirmed his supporters and rebuked his critics, but now he’s weeping over the city of Jerusalem. It’s another part of this triumphal entry, and it’s an important part of the narrative. In the midst of this most celebratory event, Jesus is weeping over the city. Did you hear what he said? «Your enemies will build an embankment against you».
In modern day language, your enemies will launch missiles against you. In the first century, the most common form of warfare was to build a siege around the city. You would literally encircle the city with your armies and you wouldn’t let anyone come in or go out. You could starve a group of people into submission. It sometimes took a great period of time, but it was a very effective means of warfare. And as the people grew weak and hungry, then the surrounding army would build ramps up against the walls of the gates of the city where they could batter the walls with a battering ram or breach the walls. And Jesus is a prophet, the greatest of the Hebrew prophets is weeping this day in the midst of the celebration and he said, «Your enemies are going to build an embankment against you».
If I could take you to Jerusalem as I mentioned a moment ago, and we stood on the Mount of Olives this evening, you would see there today the remains of an embankment. It was within a few years of Jesus walking down that hill when the Roman legions came and they encircled the city of Jerusalem and they built that earthen embankment up against the city. They would destroy the city of Jerusalem in 70. And Jesus saw it that day. It’s an intriguing, it’s a very sobering perspective. The people in the city don’t have the ability to discern who their true friends are and who their true enemies are. It’s a divided city. It’s a confusing time. I encourage you frequently to read your Bibles, to spend time with your discretionary time with people of faith.
We live in a confusing season. A season of turmoil. A season of dissenting opinions, conflicting opinions, conflicting definitions of right and wrong, good and evil. And unfortunately many of those conflicting opinions come forth from the pulpits of churches so simply having a sign out in front that says the church doesn’t guarantee any longer that we will hear the truth. You need to read your Bible. You need a community of people that are doing their best to follow the Lord so that you can talk about what you’re reading and what you’re seeing and what you’re hearing. And finally, Jesus makes perhaps the most unsettling announcement. He said, «Your enemies will build an embankment against you and they’re gonna dash the heads of your children against the stones of this city. They’ll literally tear it apart block by block».
It’s precisely what happened within a few short years. What’s startling is with the Son of God, the triumphant king coming down the Mount of Olives within a few hours, quite literally of Golgotha and the sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins, Jesus says to the people of the city, there’s no more forgiveness for you. Judgment is coming. We’ve lost the notion of judgment in the church. We’re much more comfortable with the notion of the triumphant celebration and I would rather celebrate, but the real fuel for the celebration is understanding we have been delivered. We’ve been set free. It’s not a license or a liberty to pursue ungodliness and to point at our religious pedigree and what we did several years ago in a profession of faith or a journey through a swimming pool, the question is, are we honoring God with our life today? God’s evaluation of our life is a real thing.
Luke goes on in the same 19th chapter. He says, «He entered the temple area and began driving out those who were selling. 'It is written, ' he said, 'My house will be a house of prayer, but you’ve made it a den of robbers.' And each day he was teaching at the temple, but the chief priest and the teachers of the law and the leaders among the people were trying to kill him». Looks a bit more plainspoken than Matthew. They’re not just trying to interrogate him or trick him, they’re trying to kill him. If they couldn’t find any way to do it because all of the people hung on his words. Again, there’s these three groups, the disciples, the crowds, and these very determined antagonists. They’re still on the earth today. Which group do you fit in? Are you a disciple? Are you publicly aligned with Jesus?
The people who know you understand you’re under his authority, that you’ve reoriented your life and rearranged your life to be a part of the people who are following him. Are you a part of the larger crowd, the more nameless, faceless group of people who prefer anonymity, and you’re gonna go with the present public sentiment. If celebrating Jesus on a triumphal day is to your advantage you’ll celebrate. If screaming, «Crucify him» is to your advantage, you’ll find the words for that. Or are you an antagonist? Do you look for the flaws and the weaknesses? Do you occupy the seat of the skeptic? I never did trust those people. They’re not new postures, folks. They’ve been around since the beginning of time.
This particular day in Jesus’s story that Matthew’s recorded and Luke has shown us, it’s a day of opportunity, it’s a joyful time. Something remarkable about these moments in time. The Son of God coming into his city, it’s the city of the king. Jesus will rule and reign from a new Jerusalem. This is very much a portrayal of a triumphal arrival of the kingdom of God. But on a far more practical level, it’s a day when decisions are being made, crowds are being gathered, accounts of God in motion are being shared. There’s healing stories rippling through the crowd. Many of these people know Lazarus. They’ve seen him in the markets. They’ve heard the account. He was dead and buried for days. And in the midst of all of that, there are these powerful voices of opposition. It strikes me that our world hasn’t changed a great deal. So I have a question for you. It’s a private question. It’s not what I want you to answer out loud, but who do you say that Jesus is?
I would submit to you that ultimately we can’t really separate Jesus from his followers. It’s tempting to say, «I love Jesus. I just don’t like Jesus’s people». Why is it we’ll overlook the behavior of the ungodly? Why would we be more tolerant of the pagan? Why would we dismiss the inconsistencies of the ungodly, while we tend to be highly critical of those who are seeking the Lord? Now, Jesus said something sobering to us. He said, «Not everyone who says, Lord, Lord, is a part of my tribe. In fact, I’m gonna dismiss many who come and say, 'We did miracles in your name.' I’m not looking for some pretense, some perfunctory faith».
Well, what I’m really asking, I suppose, are you willing to be an advocate for Jesus’s entry into our culture? Are you willing to welcome him into the city? Are you willing to take off your cloak and lay it down before him? Are you willing to use your voice? Are you willing to be identified as one of his disciples? Are you willing to stand in the face of the opposition, the people who will do everything in their power to shut it down, to say it’s illegitimate. Are we willing to be Jesus people or will we remain skeptics, ambivalent, filled with indifference. We’re busy with things after all. We don’t want to deny the Lord, but we’ve got a life and things to do and a busy calendar and we’re interested in other agendas. Or perhaps some of us are just adversaries.
Adversaries primarily because we imagine that Jesus is disruptive to our self-designed initiatives. I believe the primary reason the power brokers in Jerusalem opposed Jesus was he thought they would disrupt what they had. And they thought they had momentum in their lives. They had momentum in achieving their objectives and pursuing their goals and they saw Jesus as an interloper that he would take something from them. I think we often reject Jesus for very similar ways. It’s worth noting it’s not a unified response. It’s a very divided crowd. Some worshiping Jesus weeping from time, children celebrating. The world hasn’t changed much in two millennia. But on this Palm Sunday weekend, I wanna invite you to a choice. I want to invite you to an intentional decision.
One last perspective in John’s Gospel chapter 12. Same event, «The next day the great crowd that had come for the Feast heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. And they took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, 'Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.' 'Blessed is the King of Israel.' And Jesus found a young donkey and sat upon it». John doesn’t bother with the rest of the drama of the disciples that had to go find the donkey. John simply says there was a donkey there and Jesus rode it into town. John has a slightly different vantage point in his account.
«As it is written,» John’s gonna quote the prophet. «Don’t be afraid, O Daughter of Zion. Your king is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt. At first his disciples didn’t understand all of this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that he had done these things to them. Now the crowd that was with him when he called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to spread the word. Many people because they’d heard that he’d given this miraculous sign, went out to meet him. So the Pharisees said to one another, 'See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him.'»
John gave us another critical piece of the puzzle. Did you catch it? John said at first his disciples didn’t understand all of this. In real time while these events were unfolding, the disciples struggled to put it together. Would you allow me to suggest that it’s not always easy to understand what God is doing in the earth? I’m always a bit skeptical of people that say, «Let me explain everything». I’m like, wow. 'Cause I don’t typically feel like I look at everything that’s happening and I understand completely where each puzzle fits, piece of the puzzle fits. Many times in real time, it’s why we need the Word of God. It’s why we need to know how to pray. We need to recognize the voice of the Spirit of God. His disciples stood with him. Their hearts were filled with questions and uncertainty.
I wanna suggest to you that you can follow Jesus when you don’t understand everything. When it’s hard to explain every event that’s happening. When certainty just doesn’t seem to be immediately at hand. The opposition in John’s account is unrelenting. Evidence is not relevant. When you read the narrative, you think that can’t be right. Lazarus was in the tomb for multiple days to the point that the decomposition was creating a bad odor and Jesus called him out of the tomb. And here stands Lazarus alive.
Now, I would believe that the religious leaders would embrace someone that had that kind of a God connection. But they didn’t. They’re offended by it. They’re saying we’ve got to raise the opposition. Whatever we’ve been doing is inadequate. We’ve got to do more. You understand, I hope that lawfare is not new. That when the truth is pushed into the public square, however it’s presented, there is frequently a division that it brings. We have to become better at understanding the truth, recognizing the source of truth. The Bible gives us presentations on good and evil, right and wrong. Not all truth is subjective. Not all truth is left to individual decisions. Relativism is not a biblical notion. There is objective truth, good and evil, right and wrong.
I wanna bring this session to a close by giving you an invitation. I wanna give you an opportunity to give Jesus first place in your life. I’m not recruiting you to church. I’m not asking you to volunteer for something. I wanna invite you to an attitude with Jesus that will write a different future for you. You know, my family attended church for many years and we weren’t Christ followers. My parents even had leadership roles in the church. So sitting in a church doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a Christ follower. There’s even an ebb and a flow to our own spiritual formation and our own determination to be obedient.
And this Palm Sunday weekend, I wanna give you an invitation to make Jesus first in your life. I’m gonna lead us all in a little prayer and in a moment I’m gonna ask us all to stand. I’m not gonna ask you to stand individually. I wouldn’t apologize that at all all. But I think there are many layers and many levels at which we wanna say, yes to the Lord with a more complete heart tonight. If there’s anything that you’ve held back, any attitude, if you’ve compartmentalized your life and said, well, you know, I’ll go to church, but that part of my life, that’s off limits. I want to invite you to deconstruct that. I don’t believe we live in a season where you can afford that any longer.
You see, Jesus’s most vocal determined opponents were very religious people. They were experts in the Scripture. They tithed off the most minute portions of what they had. They were expert on religious rules. They were the covenant people of God and they were opposing the purposes of God. I don’t want any one of us to be in that category. I want to invite you tonight in humility to say, «Jesus, I wanna give you first place. I wanna follow you. I want to honor you with everything I am and everything I have. If there’s pressure and opposition, I wanna use my voice to stand on your behalf. If there are those who oppose your truth, I’ll use my voice to be an advocate for your truth. Forgive me. Forgive me, when I have failed to do so».
Just stand with me, I’m gonna lead you in a little prayer. You’ve got a copy in your notes. You can have it for later. That just saves me time Monday. If I don’t give it to you. There’ll be 100 requests. That prayer we prayed. Yeah, I know it’s the one we prayed 100 times, but what was it again? Take a picture of it with your phone. Keep it with you. Share it with a friend. I’m gonna ask you to repeat it with me out loud. You don’t need to read it, you can just say it with me phrase after phrase. I probably won’t stick to the notes exactly. Are you ready? I don’t want any person leaving here without having the opportunity to say, «Jesus, I want you to be Lord of my life».
I’m not recruiting you to world outreach, folks. A laminated tag from WOC will make a hood of difference. I wish it were that simple. I’m asking you to give Jesus first place in your life. I’m asking you to celebrate what Jesus celebrates and turn away from the things that grieve him. I’m asking you to forgive where you know you need to forgive and to acknowledge that you need to be forgiven in those places where you know you need to be forgiven. We wanna to stop the bluff. You’re ready to pray? You can pray with me at home. Just repeat this prayer:
Almighty God, I’m a sinner and I need a Savior. I believe Jesus is your Son and that he died on a cross and that you raised him to life again. Forgive me of my sins. I forgive all those who have sinned against me. Jesus be Lord of my life. All that I am, all that I have, all that I’ll ever be, I want to honor you. I will live in obedience to you as my Savior, my Lord, and my King, amen.