Dale Partridge - April 14, 2025


The King Who Came: Palm Sunday’s Proclamation and Promise


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Length

43 minutes

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103.2365

Word count

4,505

Sentence count

268

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4

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13

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Summary

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Transcript

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00:00:00.000 So today is Palm Sunday, and for many of us, we're not very familiar with the church calendar.
00:00:14.160 I know for me, as I came up through my life in Christ, I was at a church that did not celebrate
00:00:21.740 the church calendar. I didn't know the importance of the events, what they signified, what they
00:00:29.140 meant to me. And so this morning, I just wanted to take some time at the beginning of our sermon
00:00:34.540 to explain a little bit of what Palm Sunday is and why we celebrate it. Palm Sunday marks the
00:00:43.200 beginning of Holy Week. It is the most important week of the church calendar. It is the time where
00:00:52.580 we remember that Jesus came into the city of Jerusalem, where he pronounces that he is king
00:01:03.420 of the Jews. This, in your Bibles, is probably marked as the triumphal entry of Christ.
00:01:13.480 This is not a random act of praise that is being showered upon the Lord Jesus,
00:01:19.460 but it is an announcement of his messianic kingship.
00:01:26.420 It's the day where the world, and especially Israel,
00:01:31.860 was confronted with the question,
00:01:35.300 will you receive this king?
00:01:40.280 Palm Sunday celebrates that the true king has come,
00:01:44.880 not in disguise, not in ambiguity,
00:01:49.460 but with clarity and prophetic precision.
00:01:54.960 It's both a celebration of his kingship and a warning
00:01:58.360 of what happens when that kingship is rejected.
00:02:05.860 Palm Sunday is also deeply symbolic.
00:02:09.900 There's great symbolism in what's happening on this day.
00:02:14.260 The use of palm branches in Jesus' entry into Jerusalem
00:02:18.180 isn't by accident or merely a decoration for the road.
00:02:23.420 It's deeply symbolic.
00:02:26.920 In Jewish culture, palm branches were symbols of triumph,
00:02:33.120 of joy, of victory over an enemy.
00:02:38.720 They were used in festival processions
00:02:41.520 and even became symbols of national hope and messianic expectations.
00:02:48.180 In the apocryphal book, 1st Maccabees, it's recorded where palm branches are used in this type of fashion.
00:02:57.900 1st Maccabees chapter 13, verse 51, says,
00:03:01.880 On the 23rd day of the second month, in the 171st year, the Jews entered with praise and palm branches,
00:03:13.480 with harps and cymbals and stringed instruments
00:03:16.900 with hymns and songs
00:03:19.120 because a great enemy had been crushed
00:03:21.780 and removed from Israel.
00:03:26.140 When the people laid down palm branches before Christ
00:03:30.600 when they were welcoming him in into Jerusalem
00:03:33.920 they were welcoming him as a liberator.
00:03:38.760 A liberator like Simon in this passage.
00:03:44.160 They believed that Jesus was coming in to crush the Romans.
00:03:49.400 That he would restore the kingdom to Israel. 0.90
00:03:54.920 They were right about Christ's identity.
00:03:59.740 That he is the king of kings.
00:04:02.540 They were right about his kingship.
00:04:05.920 But they were wrong about his mission.
00:04:08.580 Jesus was not coming to liberate the people from Roman oppression at that time
00:04:15.760 Jesus was coming to set free sinners 0.84
00:04:21.300 that was his mission
00:04:25.580 his mission was to come and to reverse the curse
00:04:31.280 He would not build a kingdom that was not predicated with a cross.
00:04:44.240 This brings us to a critical truth about Palm Sunday.
00:04:49.460 That Jesus is not merely waiting to be crowned.
00:04:53.460 He has already been crowned.
00:04:55.700 his entry into jerusalem is not symbolic only it is a public claim to kingship
00:05:05.860 in the beginning of his journey to the throne that would be mounted not with gold
00:05:11.780 but with nails and wood
00:05:15.260 Too often, Christians think of Jesus as a future king.
00:05:27.020 Coming again someday to set everything right. 0.93
00:05:31.880 But this is only half the story.
00:05:38.080 Palm Sunday reminds us that Jesus is king already.
00:05:42.580 his kingdom is inaugurated his reign is real and true he has conquered sin and death not by the
00:05:52.800 sword but by the cross as abraham kuyper said and i think i've quoted this probably a hundred times
00:06:01.060 at this point but it's no less true in this place than it is anywhere else
00:06:05.960 abraham kuyper said quote there is not one square inch over the whole domain
00:06:11.780 over our human existence, over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry,
00:06:18.460 mine. So what do we do with this king?
00:06:27.680 Palm Sunday forces the question, do we receive this king or do we resist him?
00:06:35.380 If we receive him, we don't just wave palm branches in excitement.
00:06:44.060 We don't just welcome him with glad expectation.
00:06:49.340 No, we lay down our lives for this king.
00:06:54.040 We embrace his kind of victory.
00:06:57.980 The victory of the cross.
00:07:00.480 The victory of self-sacrifice.
00:07:02.320 The victory that looks like defeat.
00:07:05.380 To the world. 0.93
00:07:10.860 We celebrate Palm Sunday.
00:07:15.040 Not just as a memory.
00:07:17.620 But as a milestone.
00:07:19.920 In the story of a reigning king.
00:07:24.320 A king who still calls us to follow him in faith.
00:07:28.060 Humility.
00:07:29.440 And bold allegiance.
00:07:30.240 this morning i want us to see in the triumphal entry of christ that christ is the king who is
00:07:38.380 reigning right now and that we his people ought to embrace every part of his ministry
00:07:46.840 his life his death and his resurrection
00:07:52.140 so with that introduction if you would please turn in your bibles to matthew
00:07:59.700 chapter 21. Matthew chapter 21. I'll begin by reading verses 1 through 7.
00:08:19.380 Matthew 21, verses 1 through 7.
00:08:23.480 now when they drew near to jerusalem and came to beth page to the mount of olives
00:08:32.400 then jesus sent two disciples saying to them go into the village in front of you
00:08:37.720 and immediately you will find a donkey tied and a colt with her untie them and bring them to me
00:08:45.180 If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, The Lord needs them, and he will send them at once.
00:08:55.020 This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying,
00:08:59.520 Say to the daughter of Zion, Behold, your king is coming to you, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.
00:09:10.100 The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them.
00:09:13.460 They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them.
00:09:21.600 Just a brief clarification, the scripture can read a little weird there when it says that he sat on them.
00:09:29.160 What it does not mean is that Jesus was not straddling the colt and the donkey as he rode into Jerusalem like some circus performer.
00:09:38.240 That would be strange.
00:09:39.700 the them in that passage means the cloaks that were just laid on the colt jesus wrote in on
00:09:48.460 one animal that being the colt the colt
00:09:52.120 this is where jesus enters jerusalem as a triumphal king
00:10:06.420 this passage is describing a prophetic fulfillment
00:10:11.100 of something that was prophesied of Christ
00:10:13.820 long before this moment ever happened
00:10:16.640 it's a very interesting way to arrive to a city
00:10:22.340 when a king arrives to your city
00:10:25.980 you would not expect him to arrive in this fashion
00:10:28.940 would you
00:10:29.480 if today Donald Trump arrived in Prescott
00:10:35.340 But we would expect him to show up in some grand limousine, red carpets, security detail, paparazzi everywhere.
00:10:49.360 We would imagine pomp and style and grandeur when a king comes to town.
00:10:55.760 Now imagine instead of that limousine, Trump showed up in a minivan with muddy boots and secondhand clothes.
00:11:09.700 You'd probably be thinking, what kind of president is this?
00:11:17.620 Kings don't look like this.
00:11:20.420 They look a lot more glorious and stately.
00:11:22.760 Who is this who's showing up to our town dressed like this and coming in a minivan?
00:11:33.300 This ought to tell us of the type of king that came to this town.
00:11:40.540 He isn't the type of king that comes with jewels and gold and fancy things.
00:11:47.980 He isn't focused on wowing the crowds.
00:11:52.760 He doesn't even really care what they think at all.
00:11:57.500 Jesus is focused on fulfilling one thing.
00:12:03.120 That is the will of the Father.
00:12:08.580 He comes not with worldly power, but with the power of the scriptures.
00:12:18.380 He comes not with soldiers, but with prophecy.
00:12:21.260 he's coming to this city to be its king and lord yet he's not coming in like all the other kings
00:12:31.860 who came before the kings who came before were fallen and wicked
00:12:40.640 Samuel prophesied about what type of king would rule over God's people.
00:12:51.160 He says in 1 Samuel chapter 8 verses 11 through 18,
00:12:56.900 This will be the behavior of the king who will reign over you.
00:13:01.880 He will take your sons and appoint them for his own chariots and to be his horsemen.
00:13:07.360 He will take your daughters to be perfumers, cooks, and bakers.
00:13:11.900 He will take the best of your fields, your vineyards, and your olive groves.
00:13:17.120 He will take a tenth of your grain.
00:13:19.820 And you will cry out in that day because your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves,
00:13:25.360 and the Lord will not hear you in that day.
00:13:32.420 This is the type of king that the people were used to.
00:13:36.500 a type of king who would take their sons and put them in war,
00:13:42.440 a type of king who would take their lands and use them for his own purposes,
00:13:47.600 a type of king who did not care about his subjects like this king cares.
00:13:58.580 The rule of Jesus is not about taking things from the people of God, but giving them.
00:14:06.500 The kingdom that Jesus came to inaugurate is an upside-down sort of kingdom.
00:14:13.740 It's a kingdom where the first is last and the last is first. 0.98
00:14:18.280 Where the wise are fools and the fools are wise. 0.98
00:14:23.880 Where the rich are scorned and the poor are praised. 1.00
00:14:30.620 Where the meek inherit the earth and the domineering are put to shame.
00:14:35.060 where the servants are praised and the lofty are brought low.
00:14:38.880 This is what the kingdom of God is.
00:14:43.600 This is what Jesus was inaugurating
00:14:46.260 when he came to Jerusalem this day.
00:14:53.300 This is what Jesus means when he says
00:14:55.420 that my kingdom is not of this world.
00:14:59.640 He means that it isn't built in the same way
00:15:02.460 that the kingdoms of earth are built.
00:15:05.060 They don't have the same foundations.
00:15:10.160 The kingdom of the world are built on riches and armies and lands.
00:15:17.380 They're built by using people to glorify a king.
00:15:24.400 The kingdom of God is not established like this.
00:15:29.540 It's established by our king going before and dying.
00:15:35.060 For his people.
00:15:40.720 The king who is coming to this city on Palm Sunday.
00:15:47.340 Came to serve.
00:15:49.740 Rather than be served.
00:15:53.400 And to give his life as a ransom for many.
00:15:59.280 We have a kingdom that's altogether different from the kingdom of the world.
00:16:05.060 Because of the king who is over it.
00:16:12.120 Jesus is a completely different type of king.
00:16:17.520 And he is the one who came to fulfill all the scriptures about himself.
00:16:24.700 He is the one who was prophesied about many years before this moment.
00:16:31.040 Matthew even picked up on this reality.
00:16:35.060 He quotes from the prophet Zechariah when he says in verse 5,
00:16:40.720 Say to the daughter of Zion, Behold, your king is coming to you, lowly and sitting on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.
00:16:55.420 Matthew here is showing in these events that Jesus is the fulfillment of this prophecy.
00:17:02.580 Matthew directly ties this passage of Scripture to this moment in time
00:17:09.840 to tell everyone who would read this book that this is the Messiah.
00:17:18.940 Many of the prophecies about Jesus were not orchestrated by him specifically.
00:17:25.960 But this one seems to be unique in that Jesus orchestrated every part of it.
00:17:34.760 He tells his disciples to go into the town and to bring to him a cult.
00:17:40.620 That's pretty unique for Jesus.
00:17:43.720 He doesn't normally do this.
00:17:45.900 He doesn't normally orchestrate all these events to make them line up to fulfill a particular scripture.
00:17:52.460 But in these series of events, he did.
00:17:59.460 Did you know that there is about 1,200 prophecies in the Old Testament
00:18:05.280 that Jesus fulfilled in his life, ministry, death, and resurrection?
00:18:12.920 1,200 prophecies.
00:18:16.440 Yet this one seems to be one that he was particularly concerned to see fulfilled.
00:18:23.420 He went out of his way to make sure that this prophecy would be fulfilled in the right way.
00:18:35.020 Jesus wanted to leave no doubt in anybody's mind that he was the Messiah who was foretold in this passage.
00:18:46.220 R.C. Sproul notes in a sermon on this passage of scripture,
00:18:50.620 that this was not a spontaneous act from Christ.
00:18:55.860 It was a deliberate, prophetic performance.
00:19:02.760 He's showing to the world who he is.
00:19:06.240 He's saying, I'm the king that Zechariah foretold about.
00:19:12.360 Jesus is saying through this declaration, without words,
00:19:17.420 that he accepts his role as king.
00:19:20.620 that he is going to rule over his people by orchestrating these events he proves
00:19:28.880 that he is the one that king to rule over god's people
00:19:36.000 this brings us to a very important point that ties this sermon to the rest of the sermons that
00:19:47.540 we've been preaching here at Kingsway. Sproul adds in his sermon on the triumphal entry of Christ
00:19:57.080 that Jesus orchestrated these events to show that the kingdom is being inaugurated here,
00:20:02.520 but it is not fully here yet. And while this is partially true, how we talk about the kingdom of
00:20:13.780 God matters. It matters how you speak about the kingdom. If we only talk about the kingdom of God
00:20:24.540 in future tenses, then what it really means is that you don't believe that the kingdom of God
00:20:30.920 has anything to do with your life here and now. It matters how we talk about the kingdom of God.
00:20:39.080 And there's been many pastors and theologians throughout church history who have only framed the kingdom of God in a future prophetic sense.
00:20:53.240 This morning, I want us to realize that the kingdom of God is a future kingdom.
00:21:04.080 But it is a present tense kingdom as well.
00:21:09.460 It's a kingdom that was inaugurated in this moment in time when Jesus enters Jerusalem.
00:21:17.300 If the kingdom of God was only a spiritual kingdom and had no manifestation in the physical world,
00:21:26.040 then it is a partial kingdom.
00:21:31.100 Did you catch that?
00:21:32.340 If the kingdom of God is spiritual only, if it only has spiritual implications but does not manifest in the world physically, then it is a partial kingdom.
00:21:48.960 We have a partial king on a partial throne with partial promises fulfilled.
00:22:02.340 It creates a false dichotomy between the spiritual world and the physical world.
00:22:10.680 This should not be.
00:22:14.280 If the spiritual kingdom of God is anything,
00:22:18.940 then it will be manifested physically.
00:22:22.340 It will.
00:22:24.500 There's no other way to look at it.
00:22:26.700 the spiritual kingdom of god must be manifested physically in your life or you are living as a
00:22:34.720 hypocrite this is what all of the bible teaches all of the scriptures point to the fact that if
00:22:43.120 we merely have a spiritual reality of love and faith to christ without it manifesting in the 1.00
00:22:50.920 world, we are hypocrites. The kingdom of God, while it is a spiritual kingdom, manifests itself
00:23:07.520 physically. What do I mean by this? I mean that every time you choose to raise your children in
00:23:16.680 the nurture and admonition of the Lord, you are building the kingdom of God.
00:23:22.420 Physically, you're building it.
00:23:25.560 Every time you choose to make your business support those who are less fortunate,
00:23:30.940 you are building the kingdom of God.
00:23:35.360 Every time you love your wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,
00:23:39.900 you are building the kingdom of God.
00:23:42.880 Every time you submit to your husband as unto the Lord, you are building the kingdom of God.
00:23:57.620 Understanding that the kingdom is here, while not completely here,
00:24:03.960 is of vital importance for you to live the faithful Christian life.
00:24:13.740 The great preacher Martin Lloyd-Jones once said,
00:24:18.000 quote,
00:24:18.620 It is a kingdom which is to come, yes,
00:24:22.560 but it is also a kingdom which has come.
00:24:26.880 The kingdom of God is among you and within you.
00:24:31.620 The kingdom of God is in every true Christian.
00:24:35.760 He reigns in the church when she acknowledges him truly.
00:24:39.780 The kingdom has come.
00:24:41.640 The kingdom is coming.
00:24:45.860 The kingdom is yet to come.
00:24:49.560 We must always bear that in mind.
00:24:53.400 End quote.
00:24:56.940 In other words,
00:24:59.100 the king has come,
00:25:02.880 and the kingdom has begun,
00:25:05.460 and it will continue to grow and flourish upon the earth
00:25:10.020 until it is finally consummated at the end with the return of our king.
00:25:18.320 We have to speak of the kingdom in these terms.
00:25:26.760 Christ's kingship is real.
00:25:31.220 But not according to the world's terms.
00:25:35.940 His kingship is true.
00:25:37.780 It is right now.
00:25:42.120 And it is your duty to profess that truth to a world that doesn't believe it.
00:25:52.500 Moving on.
00:25:55.780 Verses 8 through 11 of Matthew 21.
00:26:01.560 Says.
00:26:02.280 most of the crowds spread their cloaks on the ground and others cut branches from the trees
00:26:10.480 these being palm branches and spread them on the road and the crowds that went before him
00:26:17.960 and that followed him were shouting Hosanna to the son of David blessed is he who comes in the name
00:26:23.620 of the Lord Hosanna in the highest and when he entered Jerusalem the whole city was stirred up
00:26:30.320 saying, Who is this? And the crowd said, This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee.
00:26:45.480 Hosanna in this passage simply means, Lord, save us now.
00:26:52.580 it comes from psalm 118 verses 25 through 16 which says save us we pray oh lord oh lord we
00:27:04.220 pray give us success blessed is he who comes in the name of the lord we bless you from the house
00:27:10.980 of the Lord. When the crowds were shouting Hosanna to Jesus, they were shouting a messianic
00:27:22.160 cry of hope. The people were shouting in a hope that Jesus was coming to rid them of
00:27:32.280 the terrible Romans and to free them from this oppression. They were joyful and excited. 0.96
00:27:40.980 but they had shallow understanding.
00:27:47.060 They saw Christ's miracles.
00:27:50.960 They heard his teachings.
00:27:54.280 They were ready to crown him as king over Israel,
00:27:59.440 but only on their terms.
00:28:04.740 They wanted deliverance from Rome, not from sin.
00:28:08.900 They wanted glory without a cross.
00:28:14.860 They wanted the glory of Israel restored without the sacrifice that would make that glory everlasting.
00:28:24.920 Many of us are like this when we come to Christ.
00:28:30.420 Many of us are ready to accept the glory and the awe and the grandeur of this glorious calling.
00:28:38.900 Without first counting the cost.
00:28:43.440 This is why Jesus himself tells us to count the cost before following him.
00:28:51.680 The wise men asked at his birth, 0.62
00:28:57.120 Where is this king who has been born of the Jews?
00:29:03.600 But from the cradle to his entry in Jerusalem,
00:29:07.460 people recognized his kingship, but rejected its true meaning.
00:29:18.140 From the cradle to the time he entered Jerusalem,
00:29:23.240 people saw him as king, but they rejected what that meant.
00:29:31.340 Isaiah 53, verses 2 through 3 says,
00:29:34.300 He had no form or majesty that we should look at him.
00:29:38.640 He was despised and rejected by men.
00:29:46.340 They saw the Messiah of glory, but not the suffering servant.
00:29:53.380 They wanted the crown without the cross.
00:29:57.800 But this is not how the kingdom is built.
00:30:00.760 had jesus used the crowd's energy to start a revolution 0.97
00:30:08.140 excuse me he would have been just another muhammad 0.95
00:30:13.540 he would have been just another revolutionary 0.89
00:30:17.880 using the sacrifices of others to gain power
00:30:23.100 he would have built a throne upon the blood of his servants
00:30:30.540 rather than his own.
00:30:37.140 This is not the way that Jesus chose to build his kingdom.
00:30:42.000 Because this is not the type of king that he is.
00:30:48.020 Jesus is not the king who seizes power through the sword
00:30:51.540 or manipulates a crowd's zeal to build an earthly empire.
00:30:57.580 Those are not his methods.
00:31:03.660 He is the king who lays down his life for his people.
00:31:09.380 Who becomes, in a sense, the first martyr of his own kingdom.
00:31:17.440 He's the king who suffers for his subjects, not demands their suffering on his behalf.
00:31:22.800 His reign begins not with domination, but with self-sacrificial love.
00:31:36.760 Jesus began his rule this way because he would not have his kingdom tainted with past sinful patterns
00:31:49.260 as every other kingdom before has been tainted with. 0.93
00:31:55.660 He would not allow Israel's sinful past 0.99
00:31:59.280 and its sinful kingdoms from the past 0.56
00:32:01.900 to mark the future heavenly, glorious kingdom.
00:32:09.580 He would not repeat the cycle of corruption and conquest
00:32:13.800 and compromise.
00:32:15.400 He's not going to build a kingdom on pride, or violence, or human ambition.
00:32:27.160 He came to reverse the curse, not to perpetuate it.
00:32:35.420 If Jesus had built the kingdom by the crowd's expectations, here in Matthew chapter 21,
00:32:43.600 it would have looked no different than any other kingdom we know today.
00:32:52.140 There would be no glory, no purity, no salvation.
00:33:01.700 But instead, Christ began this kingdom with cross-bearing, mercy, and resurrection.
00:33:13.600 It's a kingdom totally different than any other kingdom.
00:33:21.900 It's a kingdom of life, not of death.
00:33:26.300 That's built by salvation.
00:33:29.480 That's built with hope and joy.
00:33:34.460 But beginning with great sorrow.
00:33:39.740 This is a kingdom like no other.
00:33:43.600 Lastly, as we're coming to the end,
00:33:51.900 I want to cover that section that Pastor Dale read for us from Luke chapter 19.
00:33:59.940 Because we see a deeply emotional and prophetic moment from Jesus right after he enters the city.
00:34:08.240 it says in Luke 41 through 44 and when he drew near and saw the city
00:34:17.420 he wept over it saying would you or would that you even you had known on this day the things
00:34:28.240 that make for peace but now they are hidden from your eyes for the days will come upon you when
00:34:33.540 your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and
00:34:40.240 tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon
00:34:46.940 another in you because you did not know the time of your visitation. When Jesus drew near to the
00:34:57.300 city, he wept over it. This is the second and final time in the Gospels where we hear about
00:35:08.220 Jesus weeping. We should take note of that. The first time was at the death of his friend
00:35:17.300 Lazarus. And now we find him weeping over the city of Jerusalem. This is probably one
00:35:26.300 of the most human and divine moments that we see in the Gospels. Jesus, the King of kings and the
00:35:38.220 Lord of lords, weeps over the city. Why? I do not think, as many preachers today like to point out,
00:35:50.860 that Jesus was only weeping because the same people
00:35:54.740 who were shouting Hosanna in the highest
00:35:56.880 a few days later would shout crucify him.
00:36:01.180 I don't think that's his primary reason for weeping in this passage.
00:36:07.400 While it's true that they rejected him
00:36:09.640 just a few days after welcoming him in as a king,
00:36:15.600 Jesus weeps for an altogether different reason.
00:36:20.860 I believe that Jesus was weeping because he foresaw the destruction of this city by the Romans in 70 A.D.
00:36:32.700 He saw the rejection of his people, of him and all the prophets before him,
00:36:41.600 and the coming judgment that was due to them, and he wept.
00:36:51.820 He prophesies that they will be destroyed because they have rejected their king.
00:37:00.980 This is the fate of all who reject Christ as king. 0.70
00:37:07.080 What happened to Israel in their judgment is a sobering reminder to all of us
00:37:12.460 that to reject Jesus as the king, the Messiah, the Holy One,
00:37:19.020 is to earn for yourself a similar judgment as Jerusalem.
00:37:29.500 And yet, the tears of Jesus are not merely those of a disappointed prophet.
00:37:41.000 They are the tears of a broken-hearted king.
00:37:44.980 he's not only grieving the rejection of him personally
00:37:50.760 but the covenant devastation that their rebellion will bring
00:37:56.260 this is the city that housed the temple the center of Israel's worship the place where
00:38:05.620 God had chosen to dwell with man and now the very presence of God in flesh stood before them
00:38:13.440 only to be scorned and murdered.
00:38:21.740 Jesus weeps not just because they're going to crucify him,
00:38:26.120 but because they're about to face the covenant curses
00:38:31.380 for centuries of hearts that have been hardened
00:38:35.940 against the message of God.
00:38:38.380 he sees the coming siege of jerusalem roman soldiers surrounding the city
00:38:49.160 famine reducing the people to desperation the temple in flames children slain in the streets
00:38:57.520 his divine foreknowledge doesn't make him indifferent to these things it makes him
00:39:03.940 weep all the more his tears flow with the same compassion that once caused him to stretch out
00:39:11.180 his hands and cry come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden but they would not come
00:39:21.840 And so he weeps, because the judgment is just, but the heart of the king is tender.
00:39:41.320 Christians know this about your king.
00:39:44.800 whenever we speak about his divine justice
00:39:50.720 know this about your king
00:39:52.180 that he is a tender
00:39:56.620 hearted king
00:39:57.440 a king who truly does not delight in the death
00:40:02.760 of the wicked
00:40:03.420 but desires that they would be saved
00:40:06.720 a king who pours himself out for his
00:40:12.720 subjects, and does not demand your service without first dying himself.
00:40:21.160 We have a king who's worthy of being followed.
00:40:28.460 A king that's worthy of our praise and our service.
00:40:35.820 I pray this morning that we would receive that king.
00:40:39.980 and the kingdom that he came to establish.
00:40:45.360 That as we celebrate Holy Week,
00:40:49.180 remembering his death and his resurrection,
00:40:53.060 that we remember that we worship a king who bears a crown of thorns,
00:40:58.220 but has conquered sin and death,
00:41:01.520 that we may be victorious.
00:41:05.940 He's a king who suffered all on our behalf
00:41:09.000 and gives all the benefits to us.
00:41:15.640 Do you love this king?
00:41:20.800 Truly, do you love this king?
00:41:27.160 It is the question we have to ask
00:41:29.500 as we look upon the cross and see his finished work.
00:41:34.860 Do we love this king?
00:41:39.000 I think that that is probably all that I can say this morning
00:41:47.960 before I keel right over.
00:41:52.700 So join me, if you would, in praying for the church this Holy Week
00:41:57.600 and praying for us as we remember the death and resurrection of our King.
00:42:03.300 Let's pray.
00:42:04.020 Father in heaven
00:42:09.560 Lord we thank you
00:42:15.040 this morning
00:42:16.820 we thank you for the remembrance that you are
00:42:23.540 the king of kings and the lord of lords
00:42:26.260 we thank you for the great truth
00:42:32.000 that you are the long-awaited Messiah,
00:42:35.460 the Holy One of Israel,
00:42:37.640 who takes away the sins of the whole world,
00:42:42.020 and that your kingdom has been established
00:42:45.020 with your own sacrifice.
00:42:51.240 Thank you for the reality that you are
00:42:53.600 a loving, gracious, tender-hearted king.
00:43:02.860 Lord, help us to remember this attribute of yours.
00:43:09.920 May the seeds of it be buried deep in the souls of our hearts.
00:43:17.660 May the truth be good fruit in our minds and lives that we've heard here.
00:43:26.220 And may all these things remind us of how good you are to us.
00:43:32.000 god we love you it's in jesus name we pray amen