Series: Hope Sermon Title: Hope Arrived Passage Titus 2:11-13; Luke 19:28-42 Preacher: Dan Weyerhaeuser Date: 4.9.17 When I was a teenager, I spent a couple of weeks clearing a section of forest near where I grew up. I pulled down grapevines, dropped some dead trees, chopped up fallen trees, and piled up a debris pile about the size of a small shed… taller than me. My instructions were to burn the pile. I hadn’t done anything like this before, so I took my best guess. I got about 5 gallons of gas… and doused the whole pile. Then I stood there for a while… hunting for some matches to start it with. After about a minute… I lit a match and tossed it towards the pile. Nothing. I stepped closer, lit a match, and tossed it towards the pile. Nothing. I took a step closer, lit a match, and THAT time something…! Aircraft on approach to the St. Louis Lambert Airport called in a gigantic pillar of smoke. (Ok… a slight exaggeration, but that’s what it felt like!) There was this dramatic, searing “faaawooomph” that shook me as the fumes ignited and a pillar of fire exploded 3 stories high. A mushroom cloud did billow up and I imagined the woods I was in all burning to the ground, which gratefully did not happened.
A flame the size of a pea set a house-sized pile of wood ablaze in an instant (not to mention my eyebrows) because it was “accelerated.” Truth today: Hope is like gasoline on the fire of the faith of Christians. Christians are people who have placed their trust in Jesus Christ as our Redeemer and King and are followers of Him. The fire of our faith Jesus is DRAMATICALLY accelerated by hope! Main point: Christian hope fuels our lives as Christians Christian hope ignites our Christianity. When Christian’s hope is alive (when we are actually remembering and believing and living in light of our future), we are far more “on fire” (to use that old term) for Christ! Praise God that Hope has arrived in Jesus! This is what is happening in Palm Sunday. We all need hope! AS humans, we are hope-based creatures. Every person in the world looks for something to hope in! Why? A : life in this world is hard! There is much that’s good… but there is a LOT that isn’t! It is too much for us! We look for a reason for hope when we face something that is bad that we cannot fix! My father called me Tuesday with the news that he’d been diagnosed with colon cancer. He was upbeat and grateful they caught it early. Please be praying for his surgery on Tuesday. I am hoping for a good report. It’s my dad!
People hope they can find love. We hope they can land a job. People hope they can pay their bills, and that their kids will be OK. We hope our lives will matter. We hope that this illness doesn’t get worse. GRATEFULLY, Palm Sunday is the declaration that in the most important way POSSIBLE, hope has arrived in Jesus’ Christ! I’ll get to our text in Luke in a few minutes. But first, I’d like us to see it through something Paul tells us about how our hope of our future coming Jesus fuels our Christian lives to day. He describes this in Titus chapter 2. We’re going to spend time there and then return to the gospel account in Luke to tie this all together. What we’ll see: 1) Christians have a distinctive hope, 2) Christian’s hope in the coming of Christ, 3) Palm Sunday is a preview of Jesus’ coming.
First things first… we are talking about hope we have because we are Christians! 1. Christians have a distinctive hope We see this in Titus 2. Just a word of context to this text: On the day of Pentecost, there were Jews from Crete in Jerusalem (Acts 2:11) who became Spirit-filled followers of Jesus. They then brought their message back home. Some time later, Paul had been with Titus on Crete and then left him to help ground the church Paul established. It was rough going. There were Jewish heretics teaching false things about Christ, defiant Gentiles. In C. 1 we read… Titus 1:10 For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party. 11 They must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach. 12 One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” 13 This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith,
Paul coaches Titus (c. 1-2) in how Christ transforms old men into sober-minded, dignified Christians, and older women into reverent and not slanderous Christians, and young women into faithful wives who love their husbands and children, and young men into self-controlled followers…he shows us the place of hope to fuel our Christian lives.
2 Titus 2:11 For the grace of God has appeared,
He is talking about Jesus who doesn’t point to God’s grace or teach about God’s grace, but IS God’s grace. Jesus IS the grace of God Who a ppeared. He came… bringing salvation for all people,
He came to die on the cross a sacrifice and substitute for sin. A ll people who will be s aved will be saved by Jesus…This salvation transforms us. It… 12 train(s) us
…not like an instructional video but like a trainer, a person who is with us and speaks to us and prods us… The salvation Jesus brought us trains us… to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions,
we LOVE Him Who is holy and in loving Him we abandon what He hates and the passions of our world without him.. and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age,
NOTE: We stand out in this present age w hen we live like this… KEY… 13 waiting for our blessed hope….
Titus 2:13 is Paul’s description of the Christian. Christians are wait-ers. We live our lives like Christians when we live consciously waiting for something good in our future. We are waiting for our blessed hope. The grace of God trains us to live different… but the thing that fuels our living different is our coming b lessed hope for which we are waiting. P OINT: Christians have a distinctive hope.
What IS our hope in? Here… 2. Christians hope in the coming of Christ Christians are awaiting a blessed hope…
Titus 2:13 …the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,
Our hope is that one day, Jesus will a ppear again in His second coming. He will return to earth with the redeemed, bought by His blood on the cross. And in that moment, the glory of our great God and Savior, will appear. Hope in this future event changes how we live today. The first time Jesus came, he set aside His glory. He IS the same One Who said to Moses, “You can’t look at my face and live.” He IS the same One Whom Isaiah saw seated on a throne, high and exalted. YET in His first coming, He was born in a manger, entering the world through the womb of a young woman. A day is coming, though, when the GLORY of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ will appear.
Glory - is the way the inspired writers speak of that event again and again. "The Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him" (Matthew 25:31). Not just some of the angels. All of them, "numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands" (Revelation 5:11). Heaven will be left without a single angel. And when the Son of Man comes, "he will sit on his glorious throne" (Matthew 25:31). And from that glorious throne he will reign. "The government shall be on his shoulder. . . . Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end . . . with justice and with righteousness . . . forevermore" (Isaiah 9:6-7). Piper, John. Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ
For Christians living in THIS world, the thought of the return of Christ is a hope that effects us. With His appearing, evil will be destroyed. In a moment (we see it in Revelation) the Trumpet of God will sound. That trumpet is the battle call of victory. And as the sound of the trumpet sweeps across the earth, it will bring the glory of God in its declaration. And in an instant, God’s glory will be revealed EVERYWHERE! With His appearing, the EFFECTS of evil will be ended. On THAT day, the brokenness and corruption of this world as it is… will be gone forever! Cancer will never be again… depression is gone… along with addictions. Wars will cease and swords are beaten into plowshares because on that day Jesus returns and brings the rule of God and the glory of God is on display everywhere! The thought of this is a hope for us! With His appearing, we will be radiated with His glory. “Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father” Jesus promised us! Your relationship with yourself will be restored, and with others. And best of all… W ith his appearing, we shall see Him as He is because we will be like Him! Let me try to visualize what we’re talking about. Consider Who this is Who’s returning. If the Earth is the size of a marble, then our moon is 2 feet away. Our sun is like a giant beach
3 ball (4’ across) 600 feet away (Height of the Arch). Saturn is 1.1 miles from the sun. Neptune is 3.5 miles. (Not counting Pluto) our solar system is 7 miles across. This is our solar system, surrounding one small star that is part of billions in our galaxy, which is one of billions of galaxies.
All this was made by the voice of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, Who will appear and rule on earth. Our hope in this changes our lives. “Hope is one of the theological virtues. This means that a continual looking forward to the eternal world is not, as some modern people think, a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do. It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is. If you read history, you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get the earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you will get neither! C . S. Lewis, M ere Christianity
PA How different does life look when you remember the coming return of Christ? EVERYTHING takes on a different perspective! We are, by nature, hope based beings! We are fueled by our hope for the future!
If I employed you to do a terribly boring job, in a hot, dank room, for one 12 hour day, your attitude during that job is determined by what you hope for. If as you began, I said, “You will receive $25 for today, you would get an hour or two in and begin thinking, “What am I doing this for? My back hurts, I’m tired, its 25 bucks. This is not worth it!” But if just before you began I said, “You will receive $25 million dollars for doing this” you would spend the long, hot, tiring day with a palpable sense of joy. Why? The task is the same! A: Because your future is utterly different! Keller
In your future, you get God as your Father?! You get God! What could you hope for in this world that compares to THAT?
Last thing to share… 3. Christian hope is previewed in Palm Sunday We go to movies and see “Previews”. Palm Sunday is a preview of our blessed hope of the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ! On Palm Sunday, we remember the arrival of Jesus Who came to the city as God’s King! The people cry, “Hosanna, blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord” and wave palm branches because when Judas Maccabees drove the Greeks from Jerusalem, palm branches became an emblem of Jewish military triumph. Jesus entered under the shouts, “Hosanna, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.” Luke 19:37 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, 38 saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!
Jesus came to Jerusalem as King, wielding all the power of God, because He is God incarnate! The people called Him King, but they had no idea how right they were! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” Imagine Jesus saying to His disciples, “Ok… let's go to Jerusalem!” John tells us he has just performed his most public miracle in Bethany, 2 miles down the road from Jerusalem, in raising Lazarus from the dead in front of a huge crowd! News of this spread like wild-fire. And so as Jesus will approach Jerusalem, He will be met by a crowd of likely more than 100,000 people. MORE, for the Jewish people, this was a VERY big moment. In Genesis 3 after Adam and Eve rebel against God’s kingship, after they say, “We don’t want YOU to be King, WE want to be king of our own lives. We want to call the shots.” they fell from glory (We were created to STAND before God… but shrunk to what we see today). But in that very chapter a prophesy is given that one day, a descendant of the woman would come who would crush evil, but suffer doing it. For the Jewish people, Jesus’ arriving in Jerusalem was THAT moment! He came to set up God’s Kingdom.
However, Jesus came to Jerusalem as a King, but not like any other King, and He came to win a far greater battle than driving the Romans from Jerusalem! Back in v. 29-32, Luke devotes 3 verses to this curious account of Jesus procuring c olt t hat Jesus rides upon, the foal of a donkey. It is one part of Jesus’ story that all four gospel writers tell. (That tells you something of its importance!) It is an action that communicates a profound message… Back to the disciples, “Let's go to Jerusalem, and I want to ride… on THIS.” I can imagine that the disciples looked at his colt and through, “Really? Is THAT what you are going to ride upon? Can’t we get you a horse?” Victorious, military kings don’t ride into the city of victory on a donkey… they ride into town on a Clydesdale! They ride into town on a war-horse ready for battle!
4 But not Jesus. HE rode into Jerusalem, the King of the Universe, in humility! He rode as a servant! What they didn’t realize was that He came not to bring judgment, but to bear judgment. He came to defeat a greater enemy than Rome… He came to defeat hate and greed and murder and evil itself, and all of their effects, on the cross! On Good Friday, we’ll unpack that. MY POINT: This scene of His arrival in Jerusalem is a preview of our future hope… the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ! Response: T his is such a dramatic message… it does require a reaction. There are 3 we see here. 1) The Pharisees: Disdain Jesus Luke 19:39 And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.”
THEY got that Jesus was receiving the praise of a victorious King. They understood they were calling Him God’s Messiah. They rebuked Jesus for not rebuking His disciples. This was an offense to them.. an affront to them! The idea that Jesus is the King provokes a reaction in us to HIM! That means He is King… over ME! Some people react to this idea viscerally! Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstances I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed
Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the horror of the shade And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find me, unafraid It matters not how straight the gate, How charged with punishment the scroll I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.
W. E. Henley
Maybe you are here… dragged along by someone else. We’re honored that you are here. If you react like this on the inside, it means you GET what Jesus is saying, and that’s a good thing! You may have had people tell you that intelligent people don’t go in for religion, that faith means turning off your mind. TRUTH: Not true! There are plenty of famous smart Christians…like Francis Collins who co-discovered and mapped the human Genome. But I was once resistant and disdaining! For reasons I could not fully grasp. I had a more-than-I-had-reason-to-be-repelled-by-Him reaction! Is that YOU? Maybe its because you sense somehow that He is not a gentle creampuff here to soften your world, but none other than the King of the Universe Who wants access to your life, to rule and THAT’s what you don’t like! I know of a man from England who was visiting the states and trying to understand our culture. He was in Philadelphia and saw the Liberty Bell. But then in a gift shop selling revolutionary war relics, he found a small sign that said, “We serve no sovereign here.” America was the first nation to say, “We don’t need a king!” We have our own rights and rule over ourselves and have no king!”
TRUTH: Even though we SAY we serve no king, the truth is that we ALL do! C. S. Lewis, in famous essay once wrote “ Where men are forbidden to honor a king, they honor millionaires, athletes, or film stars instead; even…gangsters. We DEFINITELY “crown” people. We are fascinated with those on the other side of the ropes on the red carpet. They are “royalty” in American culture. Our literature and our movies are replete with mythical hero figures who wield incredible superhuman strength and who nevertheless, have a soft spot for the weak and rule. Super-hero’s are EVERYWHERE these days! MORE STILL Our “King” need not be a person. Our King is whatever we believe has the power to give us what we cannot find in ourselves. Our “King” is what we crown with authority over us. Eg: If you are looking to your career to prove to you (and others) that your life matters, it doesn’t serve you, you serve it! You fall apart at the thought of your job ending. You have “crowned” work as your king! If the approval of people at your appearance matters to you a LOT, it doesn’t serve you, you serve it. You gain a few pounds and feel horrible about yourself. You have crowned “appearance” as your king (Keller)!
Bob Dillan was right… you’ve got to serve somebody! POINT: have the integrity to admit that it isn’t just that you don’t believe Jesus is King… you don’t LIKE the idea! That’s the issue! And then ask, “Is it going so great with you in charge?” 2) The Fickle: These are people who love winners: That’s what many in this crowd are! On this day they are
5 praising Jesus, but three days later when they realize He was not Who they expected, they will be crying for Jesus’ crucifixion! We love winners who overwhelm their proponents. That’s how our world works! So the crowds saw Jesus arrive and they got on board! Some people try to follow Christ without changing… They have a “form of godliness, but deny its power.” They like the idea of a Savior dying for their sin without being overwhelmed by the fact that nothing short of the sacrifice of the Son of God was adequate to rescue them from the place of judgment they were in… Who say they are Christians because everyone around them does as well. Danger… they are unchanged at their core… when the mood changes, so do they! (Ed Stetzer’s research has showed that the shift in church attendance and opinion in our culture in the last 25 years has NOT been from a shrinking number of the committed. What has shrunk are the mildly committed Christians who used to want to identify with the church for cultural reasons but now want to identify with those not in church! My friend… HE comes into your life, not as an advisor or an assistant, but as King… or He doesn’t come at all! TRUTH: His rule is GOOD! He won’t force His way in. He knocks politely. But this Jesus is God, Whose glory will one day appear! My question… “What are you doing?!?!” When Israel was in the promise land, some kings worshiped pagan gods. In the promised land, they set up altars to pagan gods! (That is more than a momentary lapse… that is a settled plan to not honor Christ in every part of my life.)
Are YOU like that? Worshipping God but knowingly defying Him in some area! Stop it and be all in! Jesus said, “If the servant had known the time of the master’s return…” 3) His followers: Won by Christ. 40 He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.” His disciples WERE welcoming His rule and with Him as He entered the city. Of course they too were confused about what He would do. But they hadn’t jumped on the “band wagon” of Jesus’ popularity. They’d been won by Him, by His mercy and love and glory and goodness! The message to you today… Do not be surprised that you face suffering…(IF our master suffered, should we not too?) Hope in Christ Who is coming one day in full. Keep this thought before you, especially on days of challenge and pain! If you really knew the future glory coming to you, it will make the best times leave-able and the worst times bearable. John Newton
Hope in Christ Whose Spirit is present to us now!
Murdo Ewen MacDonald, a prisoner of war in Germany and chaplain to US troops, told how he learned of the Normandy invasions. Early on D-Day, he was awakened and told that a Scotsman in the British POW camp wanted to see him. MacDonald ran to the barbed wire that separated the two camps. The Scot, who was in touch with the BBC through the underground radio, spoke two words in Gaelic, meaning “they have come.” MacDonald ran back to the American camp and spread the news, “they have come!” And everyone knew the allied troops had landed at Normandy. The reaction was incredible. Men jumped and shouted, hugged each other, even rolled on the ground. They were still captives, but now they were certain of deliverance.
Christians know that. Though sin and suffering will prevail, though trouble is often our lot, deliverance is certain. How has arrived in Jesus! Know this, and share this! Jer 24:7 I will give them a heart to know that I am the LORD, and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart.
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Small Group Leader Notes April 2, 2017
From Pastor Dan… Hello Small Group Leaders and anyone else using these notes, We begin our short series leading up to Easter called, “Hope.” Today introduces the promise that a hope you cannot find in this world can be found in our unchangingly loving and merciful God. Jeremiah would know. He lived through days as horrible as any in human history. Not only was did he likely loose family and friends to the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem, but he was branded a traitor by his own people who abused and imprisoned him for speaking God’s Word. Yet even in the midst of those days, Jeremiah wrote in order to help us discover the hope he had in the Lord. There is a hope we can discover in God. These great verses will help you group as you let them do their work. Thank you for all you do, my friends, Warmly, Dan Our Scripture Study… Series: Message #: Sermon Title: Passage: Preacher: Date:
Hope 2 of 4 Hope Arrived Titus 2:11-13; Luke 19:28-42 Dan Weyerhaeuser 2017-4-9
SMALL GROUP QUESTIONS Getting to know each other: What is something for which you hope?
Personal Study: As you study (read, reread, consider, ponder, reread) the passage, list observations you make from the text. What is the main point of this passage? How is the theme developed? What “Aha’s” come to you as you read? What questions come to mind? How do you respond to the God seen in these verses? Bring your observations and questions to your Small Group this week! —————————
Luke 19:28-42
1. What are things in which people place their hope in our world? Group discussion question. Context: As Jesus enters Jerusalem, He fulfills many prophecies of the Old Testament (see Matthew 21:4-5). He arrives as God’s promised Savior to the city of God (the Temple was there) that was occupied by Roman soldiers. The Roman military leader occupied a fortress overshadowing and overlooking the temple, over which he had military control. Nothing could have more offended the Jewish people, who looked for a savior from THEM!
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2. Read Luke 19:28-35. What is Luke showing us about Jesus in these verses? 1) Jesus knew the prophecy of Zechariah that the Messiah would enter Jerusalem riding on a donkey. He lived His live in keeping with the Scripture. 2) He knew (somehow) that the animal would be there, never before ridden, upon which He would sit. 3) He would ride into Jerusalem as the promised coming King, God’s King (God Himself) receiving the praise of the crowds, including that He comes as King… but riding not on a white horse of war, but upon a donkey. He comes in humility. He is saying something about what His rule and kingship will be like. While He is ALL POWERFUL, He comes in humility, He comes to give His life, to bear judgment instead of bring judgment. 3. Read Luke 19:36-38. Describe this scene in your own words. Group observations here. 4. V. 38 what do the people believe Jesus is entering Jerusalem to bring? Likely, they expect Jesus to bring military victory over the occupying Roman army. They have been “brought to heal” by force by the Romans. They are hoping that their arriving King will do exactly the same thing to Rome. They have no idea that Jesus came to destroy evil, not just enemies. 5. Luke focuses upon Jesus’ disciples who welcome Him to Jerusalem, but other gospels describe “the large crowd that came to the feast” (John 12:12) as coming to greet Jesus. That would have conservatively been tens of thousands, all swirling around Jesus’ entering Jerusalem. What are words that describe what this scene felt like? It is hard to find a parallel in our world today. The Jewish nation has lived for 2 thousand years, awaiting the Messiah. From Genesis 3, He had been promised to set right what was wrong with the world because of the sin of Adam and Eve. The people would have been frantic in their exuberance, 6. Read Luke 19:39-40. How did the Pharisees (the Jewish leaders) respond to Jesus at his arrival? What was Jesus’ reply? The Pharisees recognize that Jesus is receiving the kinds of praise that only God’s Messiah should receive. On their watch, God’s promised Messiah came but He was not what they expected… or desired. They respond with disdain and rebuke Jesus, commanding Him to get His disciples under control. Jesus replies by noting that He IS the very glorious One God had promised… only He is not only the Messiah of God, He is God Himself. God is infinitely more involved in our rescue than we would could have imagined! 7. How do you react to Jesus’ words in v. 40? Personal reflection question. 8. Read Luke 19:41-42. Can someone restate and then explain Jesus’ words here. When Jesus arrived in the temple, He found it FAR from being the place god intended… with busy merchants impeding the worship of God’s people. He wept over the state of Jerusalem… so far were the people who bore God’s name (the Jews) from the having the heart of God. 9. Jesus did not come to defeat the enemies of God’s people in the way the people expected. Instead, He came to suffer and die as a substitute for sin. Does anyone know how the crowds will respond to Him when He is arrested and beaten? They will cry for Jesus’ execution when their expectations have been let down. 10. What rises inside of you when you consider that the Son of God came to die for you so that you could become a child of God by faith? Individual response.
8 11. We lose hope because the pain we face comes from something greater than us. Here we see the Jesus Who saves us is greater than any threat. How does this change how your life seems and feels? Individual reflection. Take time to ask, “How would this change you your life seems and feels?”
