Jesus: The Most Triumphal Entry

Imagine for a moment you are walking with Jesus into Jerusalem. You have followed Him for three years–you love Him; you believe in Him.
But you fear you are walking into into an ambush.
Yet, deep in your heart you hope you are walking into “Kingdom Come!”
Within the deepest recesses of your soul you know He is who He says He is.
He turns to you and says, “I want to tell you a story.”

Do you know the story?
We do not have to imagine what He would say; we know what He said because the story is recorded in all four of the Gospels. We know His words. He talked about kings, kingdoms and stones. Yes, stones!

This is Palm Sunday. We will gather and revisit the stories and the stones. We will walk and listen as Jesus tells us stories about stones as He and the disciples walked the last mile we call “Holy Week.” It’s a great story.

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Grace Fellowship Church
Jon Stallsmith
Series: One Story: Digging Deeper
March 24, 2013

Jesus: The Most Triumphal Entry
Luke 19:28-40

If you have your Bibles, open them up to Luke 19. We’re going to skip forward in the gospel of Luke. Last week we were looking at the section of Luke 3-6. If you need a Bible, slip up your hand. We’ll give you a Bible. If you need a gold sheet for some notes, also raise your hand. We’ll give you one of those.

We were looking at Jesus’ power to dominate sin and evil in the wilderness, the temptation, the showdown between the Lord and Satan. Then we looked at his purpose, as he was reading from the scroll of Isaiah about how God had anointed him with the Spirit to preach the good news to the poor and proclaim liberty to the captives and those who are oppressed, sight for the blind, and the year of the Lord’s favor. It was really cool that Jesus then went out and was announcing the kingdom.

Then we talked about the people of Jesus, how he was calling forth a new people of God from within the midst of Israel, starting with 12 disciples, teaching them how to live, and then adding to the number of the disciples. Really, you could divide the gospel of Luke up into three big sections. The first section speaks of Jesus’ birth and John the Baptist and Jesus’ ministry in Galilee. It’s kind of the preparation, the introduction to who Jesus is.

Then you have this big middle section that starts at the end of chapter 9, right around verse 53, where it says Jesus set his face to get to Jerusalem. The middle section of the gospel of Luke is a travelogue. It’s Jesus journeying with intention to get to Jerusalem because he knows he has a date with destiny there. Now here we are in Luke 19. We’ve arrived. This is the end of the second section of the book of Luke, and now the beginning of the third section covers all of the events of Jesus’ time in Jerusalem leading up to the crucifixion and beyond.
This is what happens in Luke 19:28: “When Jesus had said these things, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. When he drew near to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount that is called Olivet, he sent two of the disciples, saying, ‘Go into the village in front of you, where on entering you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever yet sat. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, “Why are you untying it?” you shall say this: “The Lord has need of it.”‘” (Luke 19:28-31) Have you ever used that excuse? “Why are you taking that candy bar?” “The Lord has need of it.”

Verse 32: “So those who were sent went away and found it just as he had told them. And as they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, ‘Why are you untying the colt?’ And they said, ‘The Lord has need of it.’ And they brought it to Jesus, and throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. And as he rode along, they spread their cloaks on the road.

As he was drawing near––already on the way down the Mount of Olives––the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, ‘Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!’ And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, rebuke your disciples.’ He answered, ‘I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.'” (Luke 19:32-40)

This is known as the triumphal entry, Jesus’ climactic arrival to the city of God in Jerusalem. It’s interesting as we’re reading, because just a few chapters later in Luke 23, the same people who are throwing down coats, waving palm branches, and cheering, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” find themselves facing Jesus again. The same people, the same crowd, at this time, cry out an entirely different exclamation.

Luke 23:18: “They all cried out together, ‘Away with this man Jesus, and release to us Barabbas’––a man who had been thrown into prison for an insurrection started in the city and for murder.” (Luke 23:18-19) What happens in four chapters? What happens from waving the palm branches and throwing down jackets, saying, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,” and the chant, “Give us Barabbas! We would rather have a murderer in our midst than that one live”? “Crucify him!” they cried out.

What happened in those four chapters, and what does that have to teach us about the way God works and the purposes of Jesus? How does that even apply to where we live now? How do we go from triumphal entry to terrible execution, from “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” to “Give us Barabbas”?

If we just drop into this text without any context, it’s really hard to answer that question. If we don’t know the bigger story of what God has been doing all along, it’s almost impossible to comprehend this turn of events between the triumphal entry and the terrible execution. But we’re not like that. We actually have been going through that One Story for a long time. We kind of know the big picture of what God has been doing with his people Israel all the way from the beginning, from the time of Abraham.

We know the people in Jerusalem were really waiting for some big breakthroughs from God. They were waiting for God to show up and do something amazing. They wanted God to come back and restore their people. They wanted God to come back to the temple. Remember the temple was right there at Mount Zion in the center of Jerusalem, and that was the place that marked the presence of God in their midst.

It echoed all the way back to the tabernacle when God was traveling with the people through the wilderness, all the way back to Solomon when he built that temple and the presence of God rushed in and they could do no ministry there. They were waiting for God to come back to the temple, and the prophets said when he came back to the temple people would see and they would come from all around. The nations would no longer rule the Jews, but the Jews, the people of God, would be at the center, and everybody would be coming to them.

They were waiting for the end of the pagan rule. The fact that the Romans were ruling them was really a bummer. They were supposed to be the people of God and the kingdom of God. They were waiting for the kingdom of God to come, because they were tired of the kingdom of Rome. So they had some really big expectations. When Jesus showed up… You know, he had been doing all the right things. He’d been traveling around. He’d been working the works of the Messiah.

Jesus shows up in Jerusalem, just when the city’s population had swelled into the hundreds of thousands as lots of Jewish pilgrims arrived. They thought, “This is the one who’s going to do it. This is the one who’s going to fulfill all of our expectations. He is going to meet exactly what we want him to meet.” That’s actually the reason they pick up the palms. The palms are a powerful symbol. If you’ve been reading the books of 1 and 2 Maccabees lately (I imagine you probably have been)… I guess sometimes the RSV or the NRSV has Maccabees included in there. You can get through and read it and everything else.

In there you find some of the stories of that group of people known as the Maccabees who fought against the Syrian occupation about 150 years or so before Jesus was on the scene. They fought against the foreigner, and they won a lot of victories. There’s one scene in 1 Maccabees 13 when a guy named Simon comes to Jerusalem after finally defeating the Syrians, and it’s like the Jewish leader is coming back to Jerusalem. It says in Maccabees that everybody picked up palms and started waving them in the air.

What happened over that period of time is the palm became a symbol of very great revolution. The palm became almost like a flag. Waving a palm would have been like walking into the middle of a British military camp in the middle of the American Revolutionary War, putting up that “Don’t tread on me” American colonies flag, and just waving it in their faces. That’s what the idea is.

It’s like a Red Sox fan wearing a Red Sox jersey to Yankee Stadium, you know, and everybody kind of going, “Whoa, right in the middle of all of this.” That’s what they were doing. When they’re picking up palms and waving them in the air as Jesus is coming in, it’s like this big symbol saying, “Hey, the King is coming, and everybody who’s not the right king had better look out. Herod had better look out. Pilate had better look out. Rome and the Caesars had better look out, because our guy is here.”

I remember one time a couple of years ago Amy got us tickets to go to the Packers and Falcons game here in Atlanta, and as part of the gift (it was for my birthday) she got me a big Green Bay hoodie sweatshirt. So I was wondering if showing up at the Dome wearing my Green Bay hoodie sweatshirt would be like showing up at Yankee Stadium in a Red Sox jersey, but it’s not exactly. The intensity level is not quite the same in Atlanta.

Anyway, the palm branch is a powerful, powerful symbol, saying, “Hey, this is the guy who’s going to come in and set things right. He’s going to meet our expectations.” Have you ever been really deeply disappointed? You thought something was going to work out, or you had some pretty big ideas, or you were really confident God was going to do something in your life. Have you ever tasted that bitter, bitter taste of disappointment?

I remember when I graduated from college… I played baseball all the way through my senior year of college, and I wanted to play… Like every young guy, my dream was always to play professional baseball. I wanted to play so badly, but I just wasn’t really good enough. That’s the truth. So I didn’t get drafted, but there are some smaller leagues where you can sign and play and stuff like that, sort of semi-pro ball and everything.

I had taken a job at Furman University (I was doing admissions there), and about halfway into the fall after I graduated, I got this really random call from a guy named Terry Donovan. I didn’t know him, but he had this sort of voice that sounded like he’d been around baseball fields for a while. He called and said, “Hey, Stallsmith, yeah, I got your number from your coach,” and he started talking about some stories of when I had played in college. He knew a couple of the people I’d played against and everything.

So we were kind of laughing and everything, and he goes, “Listen, I’m the head of one of these semi-pro teams, and I think we can use you. I saw your statistics. I saw you pitch a few times. We’d like to sign you.” I said, “Are you serious?” He said, “Yeah, yeah, exactly. Let’s talk about it.” I said, “All right, great. Well let me make a few phone calls.”

So over the course of the next couple of days, I talked to my boss at Furman. I was like, “Hey, I think I have this opportunity to go play baseball. I love reading student applications, but seriously…” I talked to my college baseball coach, and he was like, “Yeah, you should go try.” I was like, “You know this guy?” He was like, “Oh yeah, he sounds familiar,” or whatever. “Okay, great.” So I call home, and my parents are like, “Well yeah, if you can play baseball, set it up.”

I had to go to Pittsburgh for a recruiting trip with Furman, so later in the week I was in Pittsburgh. I had had a couple more conversations with this guy, and it looked like things were going to work out pretty well. They were going to fly me out to Arizona to see the team and to sign on and everything else.

He said, “You know, here’s what I need, though. I need you to fill out all of your player association stuff so we can make the trip go through and everything.” I was like, “Okay great. No problem.” He said, “You have to send in your membership fee.” It was like $200. “Okay, great.” So I fill everything out. You know, he faxes me the paperwork. I get the cash, and I go over to the Western Union.

It was like in between school visits in Pittsburgh, and I drop it in the box and send it off like that, thinking, “Okay, my career… I’ve made this choice. I’m about to be a baseball player. My dreams are coming true. Maybe God is actually going to let me be a professional baseball player.” I was so happy. That night I didn’t hear anything from Terry. I thought, “That’s weird.” So I called him and left a voice mail. I called him back at another number he had called me from and left another voice mail. Nothing.

The next day I called him. Nothing. The next day I checked my phone, and on my voice mail I actually had a really awful voice mail from this guy. He had called me up and said, “I can’t believe you didn’t send me this. We’re done!” and cussed me out, and the whole nine yards. That was it. I never heard from him again. I actually think he was a con man who played mercilessly on my hopes of being a professional baseball player.

I have to tell you… You know, he got $200 from me, which was a drag. You know, $200. That’s a bummer, but it was actually more than $200. It was my poor hopes that had been inflated and then crushed. I was thinking about this story. I don’t know if you’ve ever felt that kind of disappointment before. I remember driving around Pittsburgh, of all places. I mean, it’s a really cool town, but I don’t know anybody in Pittsburgh. I’m just driving around going, “Oh, what happened?”

In that moment, if I was to be really honest with you, if I had the opportunity to choose between that guy and Barabbas getting crucified, I would say, “Give me Barabbas. That guy needs to go and be crucified.” I know that’s not very Christlike, but that’s how I felt. That’s what disappointment can do to our hearts. We can want something really badly, our expectation can be super high, and when that expectation is not met, it can send us plummeting down into the deepest depths of bitterness and discouragement, even depression.

I asked that question, “How did the people go from, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,’ to ‘Give us Barabbas’?” That’s what happened. Their expectations were completely turned upside down on their head. Now Jesus was not a con man, but when he died on that cross, you’d better believe there were some people in Jerusalem who thought, “This guy is not from God. He’s dead.” You have to think that Friday night and Saturday when he’s lying in the tomb, they’re going, “This guy is a con man. He’s never calling back. We put all our hope in him.”

They were so disappointed, so discouraged. It’s right here at the heart of this story… The gospel is good news and the coming of the kingdom is beautiful, but it’s also dangerous, and it’s challenging, and it’s the kingdom that’s coming into the midst of this broken world where sin and darkness are still at work. So we really need to wrestle with this story, with what happens in these few chapters, to understand what Jesus is doing, what he’s all about.

We need to wrestle with what happens in these chapters so we can really understand what to do with our own disappointment, when things don’t turn out in our lives like we hoped they would, when that relationship we started off that looked so promising ends in a breakup, when that job we thought was going to be the thing just turns out to be a real drag, when all of those things we look to for hope start to crumble.

What do we do with that disappointment, that discouragement? What do we do when we feel like those expectations we had are beginning to not be met? Do we give into discouragement and despair and be downcast? Here’s the thing. The reason the people in Jerusalem were so out of whack on this is because they didn’t know three things very clearly.

If they’d been paying attention to what Jesus had been doing, what Jesus had been saying all along, they would have gotten it, but they didn’t. They couldn’t see it. We, by the grace of God, have the book of Luke. We can go back and read it, and we can see what’s going on. What happened was they really didn’t see clearly on three main areas.

First of all, they did not really understand the goal of Jesus. What was he after? That question… If we’re raising the palm branch, fighting for revolution, fighting for change, what are we fighting for? What’s the goal? Secondly, they didn’t really know the enemy. They had the wrong idea about who the enemy was. Then finally, they didn’t really know the King and who was doing the fighting. So we want to just spend a couple of minutes looking at each of these three things and then maybe make a few applications to our own lives.

1. Knowing the goal. What’s the prize? What are we fighting for? What’s this kingdom thing all about? If you look at Luke, chapter 19, Jesus, as I mentioned, was on his way to Jerusalem. If you’ve been to Israel and you want to take the old pilgrim’s road up to Jerusalem, it starts in Jericho, like the lowest point on earth, right next to the Dead Sea, and it winds up the hill to Jerusalem in the mountains.

Jesus gets to Jericho. Luke 19:1: “He entered Jericho and was passing through. Behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. He was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small in stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.'” (Luke 19:1-5) Such a funny scene. “Hey, I’m coming over tonight.” “Oh. Yes, Lord. Okay.”

“So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully. When they saw it, they all grumbled, ‘He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.’ Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, ‘Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it four times over.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.'” (Luke 19:6-10)

What is Jesus fighting for? What is this kingdom all about? He tells us right here. “The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost,” people like Zacchaeus, a tax collector who had grown rich on extorting money from the poor, showing up saying, “Hey, you owe me this. You owe me a little bit more. Hey, pay up,” exercising his power for the sake of oppression.

He would have been considered by the Jews in Israel at that time a major enemy. He’s one of the bad guys. He’s one of the hated guys. He’s definitely an enemy. Jesus shows up and says, “No, no. I’m coming to your house.” Somehow, in that whole conversation, Zacchaeus recognizes the Lord and shows true signs of repentance. “Hey, I’m going to give back half of what I have. I’m going to restore what I’ve stolen four times over.” Jesus says, “Yes, this is what I’m after. I’m here to seek and to save the lost.”

Of course, Jesus right after that goes on to tell the parable of the ten minas. We don’t have time to go all the way through it here, but the reason he tells that parable is in verse 11 it says, “As they heard these things, he proceeded to tell a parable, because he was near to Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately.” (Luke 19:11)

The people around were thinking, “Okay, this kingdom thing… Jesus is going to do it right now. He’s going to overthrow Rome. Jerusalem is going to be elevated again. The temple is going to be restored. Everything is going to be set right.” Jesus tells this story of the minas, of a master who goes away to receive a kingdom, and when he returns he checks with his servants.

To one servant he has given 10 of these units of money, minas, and he says, “What have you done with it?” He invested it and made 10 more. To one he gives five. Then one guy says, “Well, I knew you were a hard man, so I just hid it, and I didn’t do anything with it.” Jesus is telling this parable as a warning to the people in Jerusalem. “Hey, the Master is coming back.” Jesus is saying, “I am the Master. I’m coming back. I have the kingdom with me, and I am checking to see what you’ve done with it.”

Of course, the sad truth is the people in Jerusalem were so caught up in all of the political stuff over here and all of the right and wrong stuff over here and keeping the rules and the Pharisees and their own power structures, that they hadn’t done anything to be the light to the nations. They hadn’t displayed the gift God had given them. Then we have the triumphal entry, and then finishing up in Luke 19, we have two more little glimpses that help us understand what Jesus is really fighting for.

Verse 41 says, “When he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, ‘Would that you, even you, Jerusalem, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.’

And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, saying to them, ‘It is written, “My house shall be a house of prayer,” but you have made it a den of robbers.’ And he was teaching daily in the temple. The chief priests and the scribes and the principal men of the people were seeking to destroy him, but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were hanging on his words.” (Luke 19:41-48)

What’s going on here? Jesus comes to Jerusalem. He weeps over it and says, “Jerusalem…” You know, it’s kind of a chilling prophecy. It’s going to be hemmed in on every side, and it’s going to be torn down and destroyed, and people are going to die. Jesus is saying very clearly, “Guys, you didn’t recognize what would make for peace. Your hopes that this city would be preserved, elevated, perfected and vindicated… It’s not going to happen. The city is not going to be saved, because you didn’t know how to recognize the King when he arrived.”

Then he comes down to the temple, the other big place they wanted God’s presence to come back to. They had a big expectation it would be restored. He walks in and says, “This is supposed to be the house of prayer, and it’s a house of thieves.” He cleanses that temple and drives people out. Again, this is a pretty powerful, prophetic judgment upon the temple, Jesus fulfilling the return of God to Zion.
Here is the big challenge. The question is…What is the goal here? What is Jesus going after? What are we fighting for? The people in Jerusalem thought Jesus was fighting for Zion, that he was fighting for the city, that he was going to come in, throw off the oppressor, and set up this whole kingdom of God, maybe right from the same seat Pilate used to sit in, or maybe that Herod sat in, or something like that. He was going to come in and be the true king, just like David had been the true king. They wanted Zion.

But do you know what Jesus was after? Zacchaeus. Jesus was after the short guy everybody thought was the enemy. He wanted to see that guy’s life transformed, his heart changed, and good begin flowing out of a man from which only evil used to flow. The people had a real challenge in calibrating, “Jesus, what is the goal? What are you after? What are you doing? We want you to fix our city. We want you to set up our physical power and everything else around here.” Jesus says, “No, I’m not after Zion. I’m after Zacchaeus.”

2. Knowing the enemy. What is the enemy? As we read through chapter 20, Jesus in Jerusalem, he keeps having these various encounters, these showdowns with the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders in the town, the people who had some power there. We can see pretty quickly the people in Jerusalem thought the soldiers of Rome, the occupying power, were the real enemy.

But as we read this text, what we see is that actually the soldiers are not the real enemy. The real enemy is the selfishness of the people who live in the city, the selfishness of the scribes, the selfishness of the Pharisees, the selfishness of the elders in the town. As Jesus is walking through, he tells the parable of the wicked tenants, an indictment and a criticism of the people who lived in Jerusalem.

He says in chapter 20, verse 9, “He began to tell the people this parable: ‘A man planted a vineyard and let it out to tenants and went into another country for a long while. When the time came, he sent a servant to the tenants, so that they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the tenants beat him and sent him away empty-handed. And he sent another servant. But they also beat and treated him shamefully, and sent him away empty-handed.

And he sent a third. This one also they wounded and cast out. Then the owner of the vineyard said, “What shall I do? I will send my beloved son; perhaps they will respect him.” But when the tenants saw him, they said to themselves, “This is the heir. Let us kill him, so that the inheritance may be ours.” And they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others.’

When they heard this, they said, ‘Surely not!’ But he looked directly at them…” What a withering glare from Jesus. “He looked directly at them and said, ‘What then is this that is written: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone”? Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.'” (Luke 20:9-18)

What’s the central factor? What’s the theme that’s coming out here? Well, the tenants want the land for themselves. They don’t want to answer to the master. They want the inheritance. They’re selfish. They’re wrapped up in their own sin, so much so that they can’t recognize the messengers, the prophets God has been sending. They can’t recognize the son. They actually kill him instead. The real enemy here is not the soldiers. The real enemy here is the selfishness of the people.

Then as we keep reading forward… These passages are amazing. You just see how brilliant Jesus is as he’s talking back and forth with the various challengers. He prophesies about what’s going to happen to Jerusalem. Then we come up to chapter 22, and it says in verse 1, “The Feast of Unleavened Bread drew near, which is called the Passover. And the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to put him to death, for they feared the people.” (Luke 22:1-2) Again, the chief priests and scribes, the people with something to lose, the people in power.

“Then Satan entered into Judas called Iscariot, who was of the number of the twelve. He went away and conferred with the chief priests and officers how he might betray him to them. They were glad, and agreed to give him money. So he consented and sought an opportunity to betray him to them in the absence of a crowd.” (Luke 22:3-6) Judas’ betrayal.

Look at the other “S-word” that shows up here in verse 3: Satan. Once again, the two major things Jesus had encountered in the wilderness, the temptation to selfishness and sin and the influence of Satan’s evil, are rearing their ugly heads here. As Jesus is coming into Jerusalem and he’s walking around, he’s exposing selfishness. He’s exposing sin. He’s exposing the plans of Satan. All of this evil and wickedness and brokenness of the kingdom of darkness and mankind is coming crashing together upon Jesus.

What’s the true enemy? It’s not the soldiers of Rome. It’s the selfishness, the sin of humanity, and the wickedness of Satan. That’s what Jesus is after. If the people of Jerusalem were looking to Jesus to overthrow the soldiers, he wasn’t going to do it, but if they had eyes to see, they perhaps could have recognized Jesus was really after undoing, unmaking sin and Satan.

3. Knowing the king. Who is doing the fighting here, as we’re thinking about our expectations and everything else? The people, by Luke 23, after Jesus has been arrested… He has been beaten. He has been trumped up on false charges and convicted by the Sanhedrin, the religious leaders. They say, “Yeah, he’s blaspheming.” They bring him over to the Romans, because the Romans have the power to execute, to kill.
They bring Jesus before Pilate, and Pilate interrogates him. He doesn’t really find anything worth killing him for, but he finds out Jesus is from Galilee, so he sends him up to talk to Herod, who happened to be in Jerusalem at the time. Herod was kind of excited, because he’d wanted to meet Jesus. Herod kind of makes fun of him and sends him back to Pilate.

Pilate still can’t find anything wrong with Jesus, so he brings him out before the crowds. Of course, as was the custom, he was supposed to release one prisoner each year, so he gave them the choice. On one hand is Barabbas. On the other hand is Jesus. Luke is amazing. His gospel is full of choices. There’s constant comparison. Luke, as you’re reading through, says, “Okay, there’s this or this.”

You have the two sinners on the cross, the one who rejects Jesus and the one who receives him. You have the parable of the Pharisee who’s self-righteous and then the tax collector who’s the humble sinner. Over and over again Luke shows us the way of the kingdom of God and the way of the darkness, the wrong choice. Again, he puts the choice before the people. You have Barabbas and you have Jesus.

Here’s what we know about Barabbas. He’s a murderer, and he had been thrown into prison for an insurrection. What’s an insurrection? He’d actually tried to start a civil war. He’d tried to overthrow the government. He had fought against Rome and all of these other guys they didn’t like. He fought against the soldiers.

So now imagine you’re in the shoes of the people. You have this expectation that God is going to overthrow the foreign government. He’s going to save Jerusalem. He’s going to reestablish the temple. You have all of these expectations in your head, and on one hand you have this guy who has worked some ridiculously powerful miracles, and the people are wondering at his authority. But here he’s standing before you. He has been beaten. He’s on trial. He’s remaining primarily silent at this point.

Over here you have this sort of snarling murderer guy who stands up for insurrection and civil war. If you’re really wanting the civil war to happen, you’re going to ask for Barabbas. You want Barabbas. You say, “Yeah, kill Jesus. Crucify him.” What happens there? Who’s doing the fighting? If you’re in the crowd that day and you see Barabbas and you’re thinking, “Yeah, what we’re going to have to do is we’re going to have to take up arms, we’re going to have to fight a war, and we’re going to have to beat the Romans. We’re going to have to do this fighting ourselves,” then you’re going to pick Barabbas.

But if you recognize Jesus is the true King, the Lord of heaven and earth who can call down 10,000 angels at the snap of his finger, if you’re able to recognize Jesus is after a different enemy, if you’re able to recognize Jesus’ goal goes deeper than merely defeating Rome, then you would side with Jesus. Do you know the King? When you look to the King in the situations of challenge and difficulty, where you really want to see God break through in your life, do you know the King, and do you know the way he works?

Here’s the interesting thing. Jesus is always after the deeper victory. Jesus wants the most profound change. Jesus knows Jerusalem, the city of the people at that time, is going to be lost, but he also knows, by the way of the cross, he will open a door through which people will be able to pass and find a place in the New Jerusalem for all eternity. He wants the deeper victory.

Jesus knows that physical temple that was rebuilt by Herod is not going to be restored. It’s actually going to be torn apart, stone from stone. But what will happen? There will be a new temple of God’s people filled with God’s Spirit, way better than a building. This will be an entire people of God. The people will not just be lifted up, like the Jews elevated above all the rest like they wanted.

As Jesus takes the way of the cross and dies, drawing all evil and sin and selfishness upon himself to deal with it, to defeat it once and for all, what’s going to happen is God’s people will suddenly be opened up so that folks from all over the world can come and be a part of it. It’s the greater victory Jesus is after. Rome is small potatoes. Herod is just some king. Pilate is just some ruler.

When Jesus comes to Jerusalem, he is after the very core of human suffering. He is after the very roots of sin and selfishness and Satan. He wants to undo the whole thing. As we endeavor to follow Jesus, or we consider following Jesus, the question is…Are we willing to let him win the deeper victory in our lives? Or will we keep telling him the victories we want him to win, and then, if he doesn’t do it exactly the way we think, we get frustrated, disappointed, and want to walk away? Jesus wants the deeper victory.

It’s interesting. You know, I hang out with a group of guys Sunday mornings. We’ve been kind of doing some huddle discipleship stuff together. The last few times we’ve met… It’s interesting. One guy is a pretty successful businessman. Another guy has his own company. Another guy is a dentist. I mean, just really solid men all around who have walked with the Lord for a while. Different ages, some in their 20s all the way up into their 60s. There are seven or eight of us.
We’ve been processing the timelines of our lives lately. We did some exercises. We went through and looked at how God has been at work through the various seasons of our lives as young men, as adults, as dads, as grandfathers for some of them. We’re putting the pieces together and just remembering the key events, and then talking about, “Okay, how has God been working through our lives?”

It was really interesting, because what some of the older men observed (this will not come as a surprise to you) is the times that seemed the darkest, the times that really seemed like Jesus was not working or not showing up, were often the times when he was doing the most. The times when they were praying God would break through in a certain way, or heal, or do this or that, were the times when their faith actually began to really skyrocket. They were making the same observation, that there are times we pray for stuff, or we have expectations of God…

It’s good to pray for stuff. Jesus says, “Ask in my name.” He teaches, “Persist,” just a few chapters earlier in Luke. “Persist in your prayer.” It’s good to ask. Then after we ask, we have to be willing to let him work the way he wants to work. We have to let him identify for us the goal. We have to let him identify for us the enemy he wants to defeat. We actually have to let him do the work and do the fighting, not grab it ourselves or recruit some Barabbas to shortcut the revolution.

There’s a story Jamie tells (some of you guys know Jamie). It’s one of my favorite stories he tells. He was living in Indonesia. They’re living in the Middle East now, but when they were in Indonesia, he was teaching at a school. At the school (it was an international school for international students) there was a young girl who was actually the daughter of the janitor. She wanted to come to this school, but she wasn’t allowed to because she wasn’t officially an international student, and she didn’t have money to pay, and all sorts of things like that.

So Jamie was talking to her. It was beautiful. She actually came to faith. Her Muslim family was not very happy about it, and they actually started to beat her for following Jesus. It was a sad thing that happened. Jamie said, “Okay, next time somebody comes to beat you for following Jesus, you say, ‘You stop in the name of Jesus.'”

The next day, one of the elders from the village came in to beat her for following Jesus, and she said, “You stop in the name of Jesus,” and it was like something hit him. I don’t know how to explain it except that his eyes got real big, he turned around and ran away, and they never messed with her again. The Lord protects his people. He does, and he is a king, and he will fight for his people.

So this young girl really, really wanted to learn. She wanted to become literate. She wanted to go to school. So even though she wasn’t officially permitted to go to this school, they worked it out where she could just sort of audit or sit in on the classes. So she did that for four years. She went all the way up through high school. By the time she was finishing high school Jamie had this idea. He said, “Hey, why don’t we apply to some colleges?” She was like, “I have no money. I’m completely broke. There’s no way.”

He said, “Let’s pray. What does God want? Let’s do this. Let’s pray that God will not only admit you into a school, but that you will have a full scholarship and they will give you a suitcase, because you don’t even have a suitcase.” She was like, “Are you kidding me? This is too much. This is crazy.” He said, “No, no. We need to pray for this. Let’s ask God for this.” She said, “Okay.” I mean, she doesn’t have any transcripts, because she hasn’t ever even officially gone to school.

So they apply to three schools. The first school sends back the letter and zero. “No, sorry. We cannot admit you. We appreciate your story, but we cannot admit you.” The second one comes back, and it’s an acceptance letter. “Hey, we accept you to our university, and we will pay 80 percent.” The girl is amazed. She’s like, “This is awesome. This is perfect. Yes! This is great. I can’t believe it.” Jamie says, “You can’t pay the 20 percent,” and tears up the acceptance letter right in front of her.

She goes, “What are you doing?” He goes, “We asked God for full tuition and a suitcase,” because Jesus is after the deeper victory. So they wait and wait. Finally the third school writes back. It’s a personal letter from the president of the university. He has just been elected the president, and as part of his new tenure, he wants to initiate a new scholarship for special-case international students. As part of this, it’s going to be full tuition, and they also will provide money for travel and a suitcase. All written out. And this was the first time.

This girl took that scholarship, and she went, and she graduated from the undergrad. She went on to do her master’s work, and now she has returned to her country, where she’s married and doing amazing gospel work among her people back there. Absolutely beautiful. Do you see what happened? Jesus is after the deeper victory. It’s not, “Oh, you didn’t get accepted,” or “No, this is impossible.” No, Jesus takes it deeper.

Sometimes when it feels like God is not doing anything, or he has hung us out to dry, or that it’s just not working out, usually that’s when he’s doing the most, the deepest, the profound stuff. If we can stay in there with him, if we can walk the road with him to the cross and to the grave and beyond it, we will see he is always after the deeper victory.

There are times when tragedy happens. There are times when we pray for people we really love who are sick and they die. There are times when we really ask God for breakthrough and the university acceptance and we don’t get in. There are times when we ask God to work in the lives of our kids and it just seems like nothing is happening. “God, where are you? What are you doing?”

Those are the times we have to come back to this passage and remember Jesus is the Lord, let him define the goal, let him show us who the true enemy is, let him show us what the true victory looks like, or else we run the risk of falling into deep disappointment, discouragement, and depression. Most of us, if we wrestle with those things, if we get down a lot, it’s because at some point in our lives there was a pretty huge disappointment. There was something we expected to have happen and it didn’t, and that kind of sent us downward like that.
This passage we’ve been looking at is a reminder when we come to Jesus to let him give us fresh eyes. Not to impose all of our expectations on him, but to just come, sit, listen, and trust him. That’s the challenge. Can we trust Jesus even when it looks like he’s not doing what we wanted him to do? Can we trust Jesus when we expected him to show up with a sword and win a mighty victory and instead he rides in on a donkey?

Can we trust Jesus when it seems like he’s not even working? Can we trust Jesus when it seems like he’s just dead in the grave? The answer, of course, as we’ll find out next Sunday, is that yes, we can trust him. He’s always after the deeper victory. He has risen. He rises on the third day. He’s alive. He’s still working. He’s still the absolute powerful King, and anyone who puts their trust in him will surely be saved.

Sometimes, if it doesn’t look like God is meeting your expectations, it’s because he’s in the process of exceeding them. Not sometimes…always. What God is going to do is better than you can possibly hope for or imagine, even if it doesn’t happen in this lifetime. We’ll be with him in eternity going, “Man, I can’t believe that was a deal. That was so amazing how you worked that out.”

Now as we move into some worship and some response time, I want to close us with some prayer, and then we’ll receive the offering. You can hand in your Connection Card, maybe some next steps for next week. Jot those down. Or prayer requests, where we can be praying with you that God would break through in areas of expectation, or maybe even areas of discouragement or disappointment you’re feeling. We want to pray with you in that, that God would show you.

We’ll have Communion up here at the front. It’s so powerful, actually, that reminder of Communion, the tangible recognition that Jesus did go through the cross. He poured out his blood. He let his body be broken to win the greatest victory, the deepest victory over sin and evil, and that he invites us to be a part of it. We’ll sing, we’ll thank God, but let’s have a word of prayer.

God, we bless you tonight. We thank you for these passages of Scripture that work on us, that carve us, that challenge us, sometimes that expose us, but ultimately, Lord, we pray these passages, these true stories, Jesus, of what you did in Jerusalem and beyond, would give us deep and abiding hope.

Lord, we pray that if we have areas of discouragement or depression, places where we’ve lost hope, that you would come now and begin to bring life into those places. Lord, we ask that your Holy Spirit would minister now in our hearts. Lord, for those of us who feel like we don’t really know where you’re going or what your goal is, we ask you to speak. What are you after? What are you doing in our lives, Lord? Lord, what’s your goal?
Lord, for some of us we just feel like we’re in a tough relational spot. It almost feels like our husband or our wife or our kids or our friends or our boss is our enemy. Lord, we pray you would come now and just show us what the true enemy is. Where is the true adversary you want to deal with? What is the deeper opponent that must be dealt with in a deeper way? Lord, show us that. Speak truth now.

Lord, for some of us we just feel like we’ve been fighting the battle. We feel like we have to make the revolution happen on our own, and we’ve even invited some Barabbases into our midst to accomplish our own goals, our own expectations. Lord, we want to repent of that. Lord, we ask you to be the one who fights on our behalf. Come win the deeper victory. Don’t let us settle. Lord, come give us the faith to trust you fully, even when it seems like you’re not working. In Jesus’ name, amen.