Matthew 21: 9
Palm Sunday

I am doing two things quite differently this morning.  I have read from the very useful "one line harmony" of the four Gospels (a "one line harmony" is one that puts all the text of the inspired Word of God in the four Gospels, together into one connected story.)  The title is hokey and historically dated but the end product is very useful.  It is extremely helpful to get a good historical a picture of an event in the Lord's ministry, just five days before the crucifixion of the Lord and one week before the resurrection.  It is legitimate, because it combines the exact text from the four Gospels into one account.  Calling it "stereo," as the publishers did, is dated and hokey.  If you were to use a term describing a document in modern format with four strains put together like this, you might say, "The Life of Christ in quadraphonic."  But, in any case, it is strictly the Word of God in its content, even if not in its arrangement. 

The second thing I am doing, which is out of the ordinary, is talking about an idea instead of disecting an exact text.  If I were to have a specific text it might be John 1: 49, "Thou art the King of Israel," or the recurring phrase in the New Testament: "Jesus Christ is Lord."  It is about the Kingship of the Lord Jesus. 

It is an issue that the multitudes faced on that first Palm Sunday, but which you and I probably face every day in a considerably less dramatic way, but with a similar effect.

I. BUT, FIRST, LET ME SAY SOMETHING ABOUT PALM SUNDAY:

1. This event, one week before Easter, was a symbolic event, staged to dramatize the Lord's fulfillment of the Old Testament prophesies; in order to bring his ministry from the teaching phase to the redemptive phase and to give his many disciples the opportunity confess and celebrate his kingship, or to use a more generalized New Testament term: "His Lordship."

The event was very Jewish, even in its particulars centering about those prophesies having to do with "David's Greater Son."  It was essentially a coronation done in the ancient sense of a crowd's acclamation of the individual as "king."  It was set in terms of the culture of the time, I suppose, the equivalent of a "ticker-tape" parade, combined with riotous kinds of applause and demonstration that present-day Italians, give at the end of an opera performance.  I hesitate to mention football fever, but there is also here a comparison to the behavior of sports fans. 

But don't lose the significance or the truth of it in your inability to get into the palm-waving and throwing one's Sunday-best clothes onto the rocky roadway, a pathway that I have walked from the Mount of Olives down into Old Jerusalem many scores of times.  These people in very many cases were very sincerely giving themselves in allegiance to the Divine Messiah who would be king, not only of the nation, Israel, but king of the very lives and existence of those who would accept him as Savior and King.

I have called attention, on many occasions, that there were three things that the ancient church thought were important and central in Christianity.  One was that Jesus Christ was very God, incarnate in the human race.  Second, that he was Savior, and Third, that he was "Lord," or "King," words from two cultures, meaning the same thing.

This last belief seems to have been confessed as a part their worship service, perhaps alone or as a part of some other creed, because the words of the Pauline Letters sometimes quoting "Jesus Christ is Lord" sound as if it were it were a quotation of a kind of formula.  It is possible that the first century church repeated the phrase in unison at some place during the public service.  Whether that is so or not, it is less important than whether you affirm it by your actions and attitude every day of the week and of your life.

It is an issue that you can't face once and for all and one that will come into your life numerous times before this day, which we call "life" is over.

1. Is that title merely like the kingship and the royal titles of the English Sovereigns -- a kind of hyperbole that is flattering to the individual, but has no practical meaning in the realm of life and government?  Does Christ's kingship mean as their's does that they cut ribbons at hospital dedications and have a role in raising money for a charity.  If that is not the case, what does it mean?  What does it mean that Jesus Christ is your King as well as your Savior?

2. I want you to think about three major things that it surely means to have Jesus as your King and consider their meaning in terms of your daily life right now.

a. First, of course, "kingship" means to obey him.  I speak of the basic attempt to keep God's statues and laws with the help of the Holy Spirit.  The fact that many people have gone far afield in this, and have wrested the nature of what God wants his people to do, does not change the fact that there is something he wants them and us to be and to do.

The fact that there were, and are, and in this life, always will be, those who think that God is going to accept them because they are "good," does not change the fact that God gives us standards to live by.

If you are honest, there is probably a lot of terrain in your life where the Kingship of Christ has not entirely conquered.  I do not advise that you should ignore the fact, and you certainly shouldn't deal with the fact by a denial of what it is true and claim your position to be a position of "faith."  So often we American evangelicals have invented a kind of "instant sanctification" to go along with instant soup and instant spaghetti sauce.  Instant sanctification is where the individual looks at the enormous distance he has to go, progresses in some small degree, and then just lies about the rest.  And in two simple steps he has achieved perfection!  The outcome in sanctification as it is also in spaghetti sauce, is not spaghetti sauce but artificial spaghetti sauce that bears the same relationship to the real thing as twinkies bear to vitamin pills.

Christ's exercising his kingship in this sense, is a continuing issue of sanctification and you should be encouraged, not discouraged, even if it is only an on-going thing, in which there is progress.

Thus far: obedience.  It is basic to the Kingship of Christ over the lives of his subjects.  Where in your life do you face this?  It might be career.  It might to not be married or to be married; and to what kind of partner to be married to.  It might have to do with your church service or your ministry outside of the church.  It might have to do with your giving, or your acts of service in the name of the Lord.

b. The second of the things that the Kingship of Christ means to the individual is enthronement.  The way I am using that word is to call attention to his prominence in your life.

It seems to me that it is unthinkable that Christ could have the same place in your life as, say, membership in a fraternal organization or your place of vacationing.  Christ is not just something that is tacked on to the Christian life, but he is to be the very center!  Christ cannot legitimately be someone's hobby.  He is not content to be merely prominent but he would be preeminent!

Let me ask you on this Palm Sunday morning, how is this sense of kingship worked out in your life?  Certainly it must be there.  Can it be seen in your occupation or profession?  Is it seen in the work you do in obedience to Christ? -- your church service?  Does his picture hang there as a sign of his place in your affections?

Is the kingship of the Lord worked out in your "play life?" so that "Jesus Christ is Lord?"  Is it there in your domestic life?

c. In the third place, for Christ to be king, is to follow him.  In this, I speak of a vocational, directional following of Christ.

Guidance from God is not a very simple matter.  At times we seek it in "fear and trembling" and it is only in retrospect that we clearly see God's hand in it all.

But I am convinced that the life subordinated to the Kingship of Christ is not just racing ahead with one's own agenda.  The kingship of Christ implies a sense of his control over your career and spending, and hobbies, and recreation, and posessions and plans for the future.

When we seek God's guidance we, of course, start with our own desires.  Guidance always starts there.  But if you do not examine your proposed direction in the light of his revelation and seek his work of grace in changing your mind, then you will never know much about Christ's kingship in this sense.

So too, he leads us -- by the counsel of others -- who have a sense of the ways of God.  And he leads us by the counsel of others who are immune to our bad judgment and who have a sense of the ways of God.  And by the example of others in the community of God's people and by their approval, God's leading is confirmed.

But this sense of the kingship of Christ in which we consciously follow him, is not just in guidance.  It has to do, too, with the more passive activity of "enduring" and "putting up with."  It has to do with "taking up the cross" to follow him who was "the man of sorrows."

In your life, have you learned to submit to the limitations, the burdens, the sore points, the disappointments you may have with some people that God has sovereignty brought into your life?  Occasionally, of course, he will be pleased to take those burdens away in answer to prayer.  But experience would teach us that more often than not, we pray "once, twice and thrice," that "the thorn in the flesh" might be removed and the clear answer from our Sovereign is the answer given to Paul about his thorn in the flesh: "The request is denied."  But the note attached to the denial is, as was the case in Paul's life: "My grace is sufficient for thee."

Now let me ask you individually and personally: Can you identify such a burden, such a limitation, such a sore point in your life, that is clearly a part of your submission to Christ's kingship and must be accepted cheerfully?  Do you have a burden, an obligation like that.  Submit to it now and pray that if he will not deliver you, you may be given grace to endure cheerfully the will of God for your life. Submit and recognize the Kingship of Christ in your life, since the time that he has taken you into his kingdom.  Give him your allegiance and the "thorn in the flesh," that you might have had, will turn out to be an instrument of blessing.

As I said earlier, our culture is very different from those multitudes who followed Jesus and others who went out to meet him as he approached the city on that first Palm Sunday, long ago.  They hollered and waved palm branches and threw their best clothing on the rocky trail for the procession to traverse.  They found themselves joyfully unanimous in the Old Testament acclamation of a king: 

"Hosanna! Hosanna!  Hosanna to the Son of David! 
Blessed is the one who is coming in the name of the Lord. 
Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!" 

We respond in a culturally different way than these people but in a way that is essentially the same.  We join them as fellow pilgrims in this life as they were in theirs, with perhaps our understanding a little bit more of the implications of the Lord's kingship than they did, but still learners, and likely to learn much more in the days and years to come.  But as far as we can perceive it's implications in our own lives, we once again on this Palm Sunday join them:

"Hosanna! Hosanna! Hosanna! Blessed is the king
who is coming in the name of the Lord!" 
May his blessing rest upon each one of us as we follow in his train!