Lifestyle

Step Out of the Crowd, Matthew 21:1-11

Pastor Tom Marcum , April 1, 2007

Some months ago, Newsweek magazine conducted a national survey about the state of Christianity in America. Some of their survey questions yielded some very interesting responses.

Question: Do you think Jesus Christ ever actually lived? 7% of Christians said, “No.”

Apparently these are people who have placed their faith and hope in a person whom they don’t believe ever really existed.

Question: Do you believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead after dying on the cross? 32% of non-Christians said, “Yes.”

These people believe that Jesus died on a cross, that later He rose from the dead, but apparently that’s not enough to move them to put their trust in Him.

I’m always fascinated by the confusion reflected in people’s ideas about Jesus. Confusion reflected in the event we’re examining this morning, Palm Sunday. So, let’s take a few moments to refresh our memories by reading Matthew’s account of Palm Sunday in Matthew 21:1-11.

(1) As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, (2) saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. (3) If anyone says anything to you, tell him that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.”

(4) This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet: (5) “Say to the Daughter of Zion, ‘See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’”

(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!”

(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.”

So, the basic details are pretty clear: Jesus rides into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey and is greeted by an enthusiastic crowd shouting their praises and waving palm branches. The picture begins to get a bit confusing, however, as we identify the wide array of attitudes and agendas that this crowd of people brought to this celebration.

--One segment of the crowd consisted of people who were outraged by the presence of the occupying Roman government. They wanted the Romans out of Israel and, having heard the stories of Jesus' miraculous powers, they were confident that He would soon be using those powers to overthrow of the government. So they weren’t so much interested in Jesus, as they were interested in seeing Jesus further their own agendas.

--A second segment of the crowd consisted of folks who simply came out to watch the show. They didn’t have any intention of actually getting personally involved in whatever was happening. They just wanted to be entertained.

--A third segment of this crowd consisted of folk who represented the religious establishment and what they saw in Jesus was a threat to the status quo; a threat to religious business as usual. Jesus was capturing the hearts of the people and they were worried that they were losing control.

--And, finally, there was Jesus Himself. And for Jesus, Palm Sunday was a kind of coming out party. To this point in time Jesus had been fairly cautious about revealing His identity. From this point on everything would be done openly and boldly. He was here in the name and the power of God to call everyone to make a choice: either accept Him as the Son of God, the Messiah, Christ, the Savior of the world or reject him as a fraud. Everyone would have to choose and the choice was that simple.

And 2000 years later, it’s still that simple today. And this is the part of Christianity that makes people so uncomfortable. In fact, it makes a lot of people downright angry.
--We now live in a society in which tolerance is hailed as the supreme virtue and tolerance is defined as accepting all beliefs as equally valid. But Jesus says, unequivocally, that all beliefs are not equally valid.

Listen to what Jesus says in Matthew 10:32, “Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.”

Listen to him again in John 3:16, 18 where he says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”

According to Jesus, what you believe about Him matters more than anything else you believe.

--We’re also living in a post-modern society where truth is no longer measured by any objective standard. We’re told that truth is now whatever the individual wants it to be. But Jesus says, unequivocally, that there is an objective standard for determining truth…and it’s Him. In John 14:6 Jesus says, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Again, according to Jesus, what you believe about Him matters more than anything else you believe.

Interestingly, when we’re confronted with that very clear decision—to either accept or reject Jesus—we discover that the world today is still populated by the same categories of folk who were present in that first Palm Sunday crowd.

--Remember those people who were all excited about Jesus when they thought that He was going to further their own agendas? They’re still with us, today. These are the people who are willing to follow Jesus as long as they don’t have to make any significant adjustments in the way they’re currently living. In other words, they want to follow Jesus on their own terms. But you can’t follow Jesus on your own terms. Jesus made that clear in Matthew 16:24 when he said, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

--And, remember those folk who came out to enjoy the Palm Sunday show but never actually got personally involved? They’re also with us today. Churches are filled with folks who are engaged in a kind of spectator Christianity that allows them to enjoy the show from the safety of the sidelines where they never have to get their hands dirtied with things like sacrifice and commitment.

But, folks, Jesus didn’t save us so we could be spectators. He saved us so we could become servants. In Mark 10:43-45 Jesus says, “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant…For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

--And remember those wonderfully religious folk whose great concern was to keep things as they’d always been—nice, safe and comfortable? They’re still with us, too and they’re still trying to get us to settle for going through the motions of “being religious,” while Jesus’ great desire is to draw us into a real and dynamic relationship with a real and dynamic God. And the difference between the two is enormous.
Being “religious” reduces the Christian life to nothing more than trying as hard as we can to do the right things and trying as hard as we can to avoid the wrong things. And when we fail…as we inevitably will…we then make yet another promise to God to try even harder next time. “And this time, I really mean it God.” Folks, that kind of “Christian living”…if you can call it that…is not only ineffective, it’s also incredibly frustrating.

It’s also not what Jesus intended for us. Folks, we don’t get saved by trying harder and we don’t live the Christian life by trying harder. That’s exactly what Paul was talking about in Galatians 3:3 when he says, “Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain you goal by human effort?”

Folks, when we trust Jesus as our Savior, he not only forgives our sin and saves us, but He also pours His Spirit…the Holy Spirit…into us and from that day forward we are filled with a new power for godly living that we’ve never had before. And it’s not the power of trying harder. It’s the power of the Holy Spirit in us empowering us to do what we could never do on our own.

The key to a full and abundant Christian life is not in trying harder. It comes from acknowledging every day that our only hope of seeing God’s purposes accomplished in us is to be completely dependent on Christ who lives in me.

If you’re tired of trying to live the Christian life, stop. Stop settling for the Christian life that you can live on your own power. Tell God, right now, that you want to experience the life that can only be lived by the power of the Holy Spirit in you.