Jesus Our Savior

Transcript

If you would go with me to Mark’s gospel in chapter 11, which is about here in the midst of the gospels, it’s in page 795 in a Bible that you might find around you, one of these pew Bibles we have. If you don’t own a Bible, we would love for you to take that Bible and we would love even more if you don’t own a Bible, we actually have nicer Bibles than those. We would love nothing more than to give that to you and for that to be something, honestly, for that to be something that means for you as much as it means for us to open God’s word. So if you’d please stand with me for the reading of scripture. Trinity Church, this is God’s word to you, written by Mark, inspired by the Holy Spirit in Mark chapter 11, verses one through 11.

Now, when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethpage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples and said to them, go into the village in front of you and immediately as you enter it, you will find a colt tied on which no one has ever sat, untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, why are you doing this? Say, the Lord has need of it and we’ll send it back here immediately. And they went away and found a colt tied on the door outside of the street and they untied it. And some of those standing there said to them, why are you untying the colt? And they told them what Jesus had said and they let them go. And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw cloaks on it and sat on it. And many spread their cloaks on the road

and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields. And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father, David. Hosanna in the highest. And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple. And when he looked around at everything as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the 12. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Please pray with me. King Jesus, we just confess our need for you right now. Lord, I pray that as we look at the simple, clear, straightforward, direct text,

that we wouldn’t allow familiarity or even a sense that we don’t understand what’s happening here historically, kind of depending on where we stand, that we would be blown away at this exclamation. Hosanna, save us. Jesus, we need you to save us. We need you to save us from our love of money, our love of possessions, our love of comfort, our love of the adoration of people. We need you to save us from every false God we put in your way. And I just pray as we see this picture of you, we would be overcome by you and your beauty and your glory, and you would light us up afresh with your faithfulness, with your humility. With your worthiness, Lord. May the gospel just be the heartbeat of our lives. Jesus, you have saved sinners from death to life. We pray you do it here in Portland,

and you do it again here in Portland, and you do it again here, and you would bring revival here, and this city would see you for who you are. Lord, I am just a human being. Whatever is me may be forgotten, but may the things of you sing in our hearts today. And Holy Spirit, we can only do this with your help. And so we pray these things in the name of Jesus, for your glory and for our joy, and in your name, Jesus Christ, amen. Have a seat.

God Saves Sinners

God saves sinners. Three very simple words. God saves sinners. When I was new to the faith, I came out of sort of a New Age-y, Native American-y, Buddhist, Shinto, all this Pacific Northwest stuff. And what I learned quickly is that in the church, there’s a lot of jargon, and sometimes that jargon is unhelpful, and sometimes even words we love, like gospel or disciple or church, that we have this shorthand word that can be so densely packed so that we don’t have to explain every piece of doctrine every time we talk about that word. Sometimes we forget that people don’t know what these things mean.

J.I. Packer, one of the greatest theologians of the last century, summarizes the gospel with those three words. God saves sinners. And I think we need to be careful that we don’t even use wonderful, beautiful, glorious words like gospel so much that we forget the dense beauty in those words. And so as I was doing my first sort of stint as a pastor, in the middle of Seattle, I found that this was so helpful because there’s all these shorthand, what is this gospel? What is this thing you’re talking about? What is this gospel? And I realized in my context, I need to open it up just a little bit. And so I started saying, Jesus saves sinners from death to life. Because what I realized, at least in my context there, and this context, of course, is basically identical in Portland, but not the same. We have to argue about who has the better coffee

and for some reason we have to put everything in a truck if you want to eat it. That’s weird, but we do it here anyways. But what I came quickly to realize is that given the new agey kind of milieu of the Pacific Northwest, you can say, I believe in God, and everyone says, yeah, I believe in God. I believe in Jah, and I believe in this Rastafarian construct of who God is. And yeah, Bob Marley sings about the Old Testament. It’s basically the same thing. No, no, it’s not. Let’s talk about who we’re dialing up when we’re praying Jesus, and Jesus saves. And in my scene, there are all these very mainline liberal denominations, and when they would talk about salvation, they would not talk about salvation from sins and the just wrath of a holy God, and they wouldn’t talk about these things.

They’d be talking about something else. And it turns out everybody wants to be saved from something. I think the stat that keeps popping up, that the most likely place, if you live in Portland, for you to move is Boise, Idaho. If you had told me, as a tried and true Pacific Northwesterner, that people from Portland were moving to Boise, I would say, you’re wrong. I just, 20 years from now, Portland’s gonna have a mass exodus to Boise. On what planet is this happening? But I would argue people are doing this because they want to be saved from something, right? They wanna be saved from something. They have a hope in the New Jerusalem, and to get out of Babylon and get into the New Jerusalem that’s Boise, Idaho. God bless Boise, Idaho, by all means.

But not just that, sinners. Jesus saves sinners from death to life, and it’s so important to say that because when we think about what a sinner is, by sinner we mean people who have rebelled against and really spit in the face of a holy God who’s perfect and beautiful and just and right and forgiving and wonderful and has created us to enjoy him and to know him and to love him as a gift of his outpouring of his love. That’s why he’s made you. But we love all these other things, all these other pretend things. But if you’re in here today, you need to know what’s bedrock to our life as a community is that we believe that this God has come into human history to save us from death to life, and life in abundance that comes only from him. Now, what’s really powerful about this little sentence

that I’ve just said, as a definition of the gospel, Jesus saves sinners from death to life, is this amazing word saves. We’re going to hear a cry that if you are used to, if you grew up in a church, and this is fine, this is not a critique, don’t send me an email or come yell at me after the service. If you’re used to on Palm Sunday having kids walk around the auditorium with palm branches and it’s lovely, and it makes me cry every time saying Hosanna. Sometimes we do that and forget to say what Hosanna even means, and it means save us, save us. And so I think as we look at Mark and we see what’s going on here, we’re gonna keep doing what Mark has been doing for us throughout this whole gospel. And that’s he keeps giving us these pictures of Jesus

that really show us different parts of who he is. And today with this cry, Hosanna, we see that Jesus is our Savior. He is our Savior, and he’s not just as we see in the Scriptures, he’s not just our Savior, he is the Savior, the only Savior. He is the way, the truth, and the life. And he’ll save anyone. Trust me, I know. Trust me. Now what’s amazing about Mark’s gospel, and this is one of those things we have to run over again and again, because sometimes we forget, is that it’s a historical theology. And by historical theology, I mean that it’s true, every word of it. This is not being preached because it’s helpful, it’s being preached because it’s truthful. This is historical, this is real, this is factual. But that Mark, in these beautiful 16 chapters, has taken the whole earthly ministry of Jesus,

and mind you, he has gone in a snappy way, saying immediately, immediately, immediately, immediately, and he’s gonna say it like two more times in these 11 verses, immediately, immediately, immediately, and he’s always moving forward and moving forward. But in this thing, in this snappy, historical account, he’s aimed to show us things about who God is. And this is what we get, we get this picture here. So my hope for us is to not forget that it’s not just, as Thomas said in the pastoral prayer, which I so appreciate, this isn’t just about getting some historical information, this is about us all leaving with an impression of Jesus and who he is and the power of his gospel, because the thing about a gospel is that it’s good news, but it’s not just good news, it’s good news that demands a response. We can’t look at this Jesus and not do something with it,

and so I have to ask us, of course, once we’ve talked about what are we gonna do with it? So we’re gonna look at four things today. Here we’re going to see, I would argue, that our Savior is faithful, Jesus, our Savior, of course. Our Savior is faithful, our Savior is humble, our Savior is worthy, and our Savior is faithful. And I know, every single person I’ve told my outline to this week has said, did you know you said faithful twice?

Our Savior is Faithful

I did. Just so you know, note-takers, that’s not a mistake. Okay, so here we go. Our Savior is faithful. Mark 11, verse one says this, now, now, that’s another word like immediately, now when they drew near to Jerusalem, okay, stop. Perfect, stop right there. So he’s coming in from the east, he’s just come in from Jericho, where we heard about blind Bartimaeus last week, where Bartimaeus called him the son of David and has picked up this messianic exclamation, and now, of course, the thing we can’t forget that Thomas did such a nice job pointing out, Bartimaeus is in the team now, right? He is following Jesus into Jerusalem. Now, the thing about Jerusalem, and to think about how Mark has so beautifully constructed his gospel, this is the first time we really focus in on Jerusalem in the life of Jesus, but Jesus, being a first century Jew,

this would not be the first time Jesus went to Jerusalem, even if we take in the other gospel accounts which just show him going to Jerusalem again and again, this is his first time in Jerusalem in a serious way in Mark’s gospel, but we see again and again, this would have been part of Jesus’s rhythm, he would have gone to Jerusalem on a regular basis, the least of which was when he was like 12, and he shows up, and he scares his poor parents as they leave, and they say, oh, shoot, where’s Jesus? It’s very odd and foreign to us as modern hearers to be like, and they’re walking for like three days, and they’re like, wait a second, one, two, three, one, two, wait, we’re missing a kid, we’ve gotta go find him, right? But of course, his response when they come to find him,

I’m in my father’s house. So Jerusalem, and this is very important for us, Mark is not acting like or pretending that this is his first time, and as a reader in the first century, you wouldn’t think this is Jesus’s first time in Jerusalem, arguably, even if this was the only gospel you had. However, Jerusalem is the direction the entire gospel has been taking us. This is where we’re going. So there are those who have remarked, you may have heard this, that Mark’s gospel is a passion narrative with an extended introduction.

Well, chapter 11, verse one, marks the end of the introduction and moves us into the passion narrative. We’re on the cusp of Holy Week. What one author said, verse one, is the vestibule of the Holy Week, and I had to say, I’m a Baptist, by the way, so I said vestibule, what the heck’s a vestibule? And so I looked on DuckDuckGo, and it turns out it’s the lobby. But it’s a lobby that’s constructed in such a way to help us experience in a kind of physical and liturgical way that when we come together as the people of God, we’re coming to worship a holy God in his transcendence and glory. Here we are in verse one, and we’re headed to Jesus. Now, our Savior is faithful. You see, Jesus has been headed to this Jerusalem, this instance of Jerusalem, through this entire thing, and every tide has been pushing against him.

Early on, we see as he prepares for his ministry, he goes out and he fasts for 40 days and 40 nights, and when he’s done fasting, Satan shows up. Now, Mark doesn’t give us the whole account that some of the other gospels give, but he shows up to tempt Jesus. Now, what is he tempting Jesus to do? Not to go to Jerusalem, not to go to the cross, particularly when we look at the synoptics. Really, the story is Jesus, you don’t have to be uncomfortable. Jesus, you don’t have to sacrifice. You can live a normal, happy life like everybody else as long as you don’t go to the cross.

Friends, this is true of us. This is also true of us. The world will love you. The world will accept you. The world will take you as its own as long as you don’t say Jesus is the way, the truth, and life. But Jesus rebuts Satan and moves on. As we see in Mark’s gospel, Jesus is there. He’s healing people. This messianic reality, the promises of God are coming to fruition. He’s healing people and forgiving people and casting out demons. And what happens? He has this guy who comes in. His friends lower him in from the roof, and he says, your sins are forgiven. And sensing what the religious leaders, the Pharisees, and we have to be careful not to put the religious leaders or these Pharisees as so far and distant that we miss. These are equivalent to Jesus, not Jesus’s pastors per se, but pastors in his world,

pastors that people respected. And what do they say? They say, this guy’s got a demon. And he says, well, so you know that the Son of Man has the authority to forgive sins, rise up and walk. Sometimes we forget that Jesus is not just God, and he’s not just man, of course, he is the God-man. He has real feelings. Can you imagine? Can you imagine the respected religious leaders of your religion at the time, right? The people of God, the people that people are looking up to be like, yo, Messiah’s got a demon. Like that would hurt my feelings. I suspect that hurt his feelings. Now, of course, Mark shows us that it’s not just that. While the pastors, the Pharisees are inside saying that Jesus has a demon, his mama and his brothers have shown up because they think he’s crazy. Choose your own adventure.

Your mama thinks you’re crazy and the pastors think you’re demon-possessed. And this whole time, the message is like, walk away, Jesus, and his own, like, homies. He tells Peter, I have to go die on the cross. I have to go save sinners. And Peter says, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, which, by the way, is the worst rebuke anyone could ever have for you when Jesus then says, get behind me, Satan. Now, he doesn’t think that Peter is Satan himself, but he is, in that moment, in league with Satan to say, Jesus, you don’t have to go to the cross to die. And the thing we have to realize that it’s not just Mark’s gospel that’s coming to fruition with this word, Jerusalem. It is all of history. God made everything good. Human beings broke it. And in Genesis chapter three, verse 15,

God makes a promise to send someone to fix it. He makes a promise that’s coming to fruition here in Jerusalem. And then God calls his people to himself, and they screw things up really, really, really, really bad, like a lot, right? He calls Israel to himself to be this lighthouse people. He redeems them from the hegemonic world power, Egypt, and they say, we kind of liked it better when we were slaves. There were like cucumbers there. Like, I’ve eaten some good cucumbers, but I don’t know that I would say, let me see here. Slavery in Egypt or walking in the manifest presence of God in a pillar of smoke by day and fire by night, and Moses is walking, we’re gonna have to put a veil on his head because the light, like, I look at that and say, that’s gotta be better, guys. Like, really, for real,

I don’t care if your food’s like coriander, the manna, the what’s that, it comes down from the sky, but it turns out we can have everything in Jesus and become the worst of grumblers. It’s easy to look at them and say, oh, they don’t get it. Pillar of smoke by day, fire by night. Friends, if you are a Christian, you have the Holy Spirit indwelling you right now.

God is with you more than you even realize, and yet we quickly become grumblers. Now, of course, there’s a promise that Moses makes that there’s gonna be a prophet like me who’s gonna come, and of course, that prophet’s gonna be better because Moses does things like get angry and hit the rock, and there’s all this stuff in there. Another sermon for another day.

But then the people of God come into the land and they choose to follow false gods, and the job of the prophets is to say, this is what God has said and this is what you’re doing and they’re different. God’s a gracious and loving God. God’s not gonna walk away from the idols and come into His good graces, and they don’t listen and they don’t listen and they don’t listen and they don’t listen to the point in which they get exiled and they’re removed from the land and now they’re back in the land. But all the stuff we’ve already seen in Mark’s gospel, I know this is a little bit of a recap because we have to know how powerful is where Jerusalem is here. Right now, they’re in a place and a time where the Romans are in charge and there’s a cat named Herod who’s an Edomite king

sitting and we’re calling him the king. He’s from Edom, which is Esau’s family, which is not the line of the promise. It’s not the promises of God and Jesus is coming to Jerusalem to fix everything. But he’s not just coming to fix all that stuff. He’s coming to fix sin because even as these people look to this promised Messiah, this king who’s gonna come, as we’ll see in a second, to sit on the throne of David, there’s something that is pretty phenomenal when you read the texts of the time. And what we would call the intertestamental period in that radio silence between the end of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New. No one’s reading Isaiah 53 and understanding that Messiah’s gonna come and suffer and die. And it’s been the clear message of Jesus the whole time. Mark 10, 45, the Son of Man came not to be served

but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many. It’s clear. He’s not hiding it. This is the mission that he is being faithful to. He’s not hiding what’s happening. And in fact, as you read the Bible pretty quickly, even in the book of Acts early on and then the letters that follow that, everyone’s like, well, yeah, of course, Messiah had to come and suffer and die. It was here the whole time. It was hiding in plain sight. And it all came to fruition at the cross in Jerusalem. So all the tides are pushing against Jesus coming in to die on that cross. And his eye is set on Jerusalem. And his eye is set on the cross. And the eye is set on your salvation for his glory and for your joy. And he goes.

Now, when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethpage, which means the city of unripe figs, the city of unripe figs, which we’ll play into our text next week. And Bethany, so Mark’s geographically orienting us. He’s coming in from Jericho through Bethany through the east side in Jerusalem. At the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples and said to them, go into the village in front of you. And immediately, as you enter in, you will find a colt tied on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it. Now, this is great. I love this part. If anyone says to you, why are you doing this? Say, the Lord has need of it. I don’t even know that he’s necessarily using supernatural Holy Spirit fruition here. He just knows that if I were to get in your car and start it up, and you’d be like, whoa, hey,

that’s my car. And I said, the Lord has need of it. You probably wouldn’t just let me drive away. You might, I don’t know. Maybe you roll that way. That’s cool if you do. I lived in Bellingham, Washington. There was a dude who had a VW micro bus that he just let the keys in and people would just borrow. Like, that’s Bellingham. So, maybe you’re from Bellingham. That’s how we roll, at least in the 90s. But he gets this picture that you’re gonna come in. They’re gonna come in to take this colt and someone’s gonna say, hey, what are you doing? And then he says, tell them, the Lord has need of it. Now, I think there’s a couple of things that could be happening here. And I don’t, the most obvious would be simply that the people would say, hey, what are you doing?

You’re like, oh, it’s this guy’s colt and I’m gonna take it. I’m gonna take the guy who owns this colt and I’m gonna take it. I don’t think that’s what’s happening. I think either they have this sort of religious vibe and they say, hey, I’m coming to take this in the name of the Lord. And they say, okay, cool, whatever. Or, and I think this is probably what’s happening. As we’ll see in a second, there’s a dust up. Jerusalem’s getting wind. This guy Jesus is coming. And he might be the Messiah. And I think when they say the Lord has need of it, they may actually think that he means Jesus. Either way, they’re gonna let it go is what Jesus is gonna tell us. But as we’ll see in a second, this faithfulness is a fulfillment. This is a fulfillment of Zechariah 9-9 which we’ll look at in a second.

If anyone says to you, why are you doing this? Say, the Lord has need of it and he will send it back here immediately. And they went away and found a colt tied on a door outside the street and they untied it. And some of those standing there told them, what are you doing? Untying the colt. And they told them what Jesus had said and they let them go. I think it’s interesting that Mark doesn’t even take the time to repeat the thing. He just says, yeah, yeah, what Jesus said. And they let him go. Okay, verse seven. Our Savior is humble. And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it. And he sat on it. One verse, significant.

So there’s something really special happening here. And I think we can just automatically jump to, especially as people in 2021, jump to, oh, it’s a guy on a donkey. This is the demonstration of his humility. Yes, there is that piece for sure. This is sort of a humble thing to sit on a donkey. At the same time, we see in 1 Kings chapter one in verse 34 and following, Zadok, which is a great name. I knew a guy, two brothers, Aaron and Zadok, which only Jan gets that joke maybe, but there it is. So Zadok and Nathan, the prophet, sit Solomon on this colt that belonged to David. And they bring him in and they say, look, it’s the continuation of David’s kingdom. There’s certainly this image there. But I think, I think certainly what Mark wants us to see, but I think what the disciples might be becoming illumined to

and certainly the crowds will be Zachariah chapter nine, verse nine, where it says this. Now, remember, this is the Old Testament. It’s old. This is before Jesus, hundreds of years before Jesus.

Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion. Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your king is coming to you, righteous and having salvation is he. Humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey

— Zechariah 9

(ESV)

. Zachariah, by the way, is an extremely messianic book. Tons of messianic images. And so our humble king gets on this humble steed, who ironically was born in the humility of a manger. This is not his first experience. There’s something poetic. And don’t hear me say poetic and think I mean untrue. There is a poetic way in God, the way God has woven Jesus’ humility with him being a carpenter, being born in a manger. So there’s so much beauty to it.

But if we only see it, and I would argue, it is humble for him to sit on the donkey. It is humble, but what we actually need to not miss here is that the humility comes from the fact that the God of the universe, not just the Messiah, is sitting on a donkey. That our humble God chooses in his grace and in his mercy to condescend to relate to us. Who are you, O man, that you would have a gift for him? We have nothing to offer Jesus. Now, that doesn’t mean that we sit around and think we’re horrible. We are sinners, and apart from Christ, we are horrible, and we need Jesus. But even on our best day, the fact that the God of the universe has taken up residence inside of you is him condescending. It is not because you are awesome that the spirit lives inside of you or anything you’ve done,

but everything that has happened through the cross of Jesus Christ, and that monitor will kill me one of these times when I am preaching. It will be hilarious and then sad. We need to see this as we enter into this beginning of Passion Week, this humiliation of God who’s condescended because at the core of the gospel is the incarnation of Christ, that the God of the universe takes on helpless form in a baby, walks on this earth so that we can know God, not because of what we have done but for his glory, that we can live for his joy. And Zachariah calls it out and says he is humble, riding on a donkey.

Our Savior is Humble

Not only that, our Savior is worthy. Verse eight. And many spread their cloaks. This is another royal image. This is what happens when Jehu in 2 Kings chapter nine becomes king. They take out their cloaks and put it on the ground, and he walks on them because he’s king and it’s this show of submission to the king. This is all kingly stuff.

They spread their cloaks on the road. And others spread leafy branches they had cut from the fields. And those who went before and those who followed were shouting. Those who were before him, those who were behind him, you sort of hear what these people and they’re shouting this, Hosanna.

Which again, if this is sort of like, if the only thing you think about Zacchaeus is that he’s short and he has a funny name, if you know what I mean from Luke 19, because you grew up in the church and you think about Zacchaeus and you kind of like put him on the flannel graph. I like flannel graphs. Flannel graphs are cool. They’re cool. It’s especially scary in a world with email on phones because when you really irritate someone they can just email you while you’re preaching and you can wait for that about the flannel graphs. I like flannel graphs.

And by the way, I hope I didn’t just give you a malevolent idea that you’re just like, oh, that way I don’t forget to send it. Don’t do that. But sometimes these words, it’s like even like hallelujah. Like these are just gigantic, deep, wonderful words. So I’ll read what they say and then we’ll take it apart. Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David. Hosanna to the highest. Now, if you would go with me to Psalm 118 in verse 25,

I was so thankful this was part of the liturgy. It’s getting me pumped up to talk about it. Not that liturgy exists to get me pumped up, but I was, it should get you pumped up, but you know what I mean. You also know you’re in 2021 when you talk about liturgy getting you pumped up, but I digress. So verse 25 says this, and when you read it in English, it says, save us, we pray, oh Lord. Now, the thing about this word, Hosanna, is it’s an Aramaic transliteration. So transliteration means that Mark has gone out of his way because the whole thing’s happening in Aramaic, right? So you have to understand that even when sometimes there’s a discrepancy between Mark’s gospel and Matthew’s gospel, Luke’s gospel, you have to understand the things that everyone’s saying, they’re saying in Aramaic, and by the way, Aramaic’s hard, and so then you take Aramaic

and then you turn it into Greek, then we turn it into English, right? But sometimes, like in John’s gospel, when John says he’s the Christ, that is Messiah, he transliterates that word just so we’re clear, this is what we’re doing here, this is what we’re talking about. So this whole thing they’re saying would have been in Aramaic, but he goes out of his way instead of saying the word in Aramaic, translated it, to leave it as Hosea, and I would argue he’s doing it because that’s the word right here. The Aramaic and the Hebrew are very similar, and one of the things I would say, one of the greatest things I’ve learned in all my studies in the original languages is that your English Bible is incredible. So never hear anyone say, oh, the Hebrew’s this, oh, you’ve got secret knowledge. No one ever intends, if the point is to exalt Jesus,

and certainly I think I can speak for everybody, I know I can speak for everybody who preaches here, no one ever says that so you feel like you can’t read your Bible. This is your Bible. These English translations are incredible. You have access to the word of God through it. So don’t ever think that it’s, you know, and when everyone starts talking about that, like getting that way, look out, I’d run. They start, it’s all secret knowledge, psh, psh, psh, psh, psh, no, be very careful there. That’s my admonishment and warning to you.

Okay, so listen, save us, we pray, oh Lord. Oh Lord, we pray, give us success. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. We bless from the house of the Lord. The Lord is God and he has made his light to shine upon us. Now, the only issue here is that we miss that they’re doing what they’re doing. We miss the dot that’s trying to be connected for us. So let’s do it this way. Hosanna, we pray, oh Lord. Oh Lord, we pray, give us success. And we think about what’s happening here in the psalm because this psalm isn’t just about this one verse and this is true. So when you hear someone quote a psalm, the sort of rabbinic method was that a little verse out of a psalm would be a way to point back to that whole text that surrounds it.

So for example, when Jesus says, why have you forsaken me from Psalm 22, you’re supposed to think of all of Psalm 22 and cross-reference it and look and say, what’s happening in psalm 18 that Jesus is pointing to from the cross? It’s a very powerful thing. And so they’re pointing back to this psalm which says things like, open to me the gates of righteousness that I may enter through them. Well, how do you enter the gates of righteousness? Well, on this side of the cross, we know that there’s one way into the gates of righteousness and that’s through the cross of Jesus Christ, through the curtain that’s been torn from heaven down by the blood of the lamb that cleanses us. We give thanks to the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord. The righteous shall enter through it. I thank that you have answered me

and have become my salvation. Listen, this should be familiar to us. The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. Jesus has leaned into this psalm himself. This is the Lord’s doing. It is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice. Hosanna, we pray, O Lord. O Lord, we pray. Give us success. Back to Mark. So we take this psalm with us and we hear them say this in a way kind of afresh.

And so I’m gonna take Hosanna out and say, save us in. Save us, Lord. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father, David. Save us, Lord, in the highest. They’re crying out to be saved. They know the world is broken. They know things aren’t the way it’s supposed to be. And they know they’re Bibles. They know what God has promised. They know he has promised a gospel and they don’t even know it in its fullness. Like I said, Jesus gets the Isaiah 53 thing they don’t yet see. But they’re calling out in earnest nonetheless. And it’s actually even truer than they realize. Save us, Lord. But God knows. God knows that the save us means that I’m going to come to Jerusalem, that Jesus is going to die on the cross, that you’re gonna be washed clean from your sins,

that you’re gonna be made my children, that the Spirit’s gonna indwell you and you’re gonna be my beloved ambassadors to the ends of the earth. Jesus knows more than they know, of course. But nonetheless, he is worthy of this praise. Blessed is the coming kingdom of our Father, David. They’re saying, God, you’ve made these promises. Someone’s gonna sit on your throne forever. When? When? Now! I think that’s what they’re saying. I think they’re saying now, now is the time. Now, of course, you and I know there’s a now and not yet to this all. But we’ll see this as it rolls out. And so the crowds are shouting and they’re doing this and it’s time. And they’re starting to really see it. They’re seeing what Emmaus saw last week and they’re seeing it now. Jesus is the one. And so he gets through the crowd.

Our Savior is Worthy

Real talk, verse 11 messed with me this week. When you read your Bible slowly, every once in a while, you see something and you say, wait a second, what did it say? I’ve preached this text before, by the way. Not for a long time, it was really bad. But hey, it was like 10 years ago.

But I didn’t see this. Now listen, our Savior’s faithful. And he entered Jerusalem and he went into the temple. And when he had looked around at everything, he was already late. He went out to Bethany with 12. So he goes in. He goes in through the east to have this sort of inauguration moment. And then he heads back out to Bethany, also in the east. So that’s probably where his people are. That’s where he’s staying. He’s got friends out there or whatever. So he’s gotta go back, because that’s where his Airbnb is. No, his friends. They’re not charging him anything. But you know what I mean. But he takes the time to go in and it’s late.

So the crowd dies down. And the temple’s done its thing for the day. And he’s looking around, getting ready. And he looks around Jerusalem, which though, again, in Mark’s gospel, this is our first time we see Jerusalem. But arguably, this would have been like somewhere that he liked to be. He goes to the temple, where he said things like, didn’t you know I was in my father’s house? Just as much as Jesus often goes away by himself to sync up with God, one has to wonder what’s happening in the mind of Jesus in this moment. And we can’t fill in what we don’t have. But I can’t imagine it’s nothing. And so he goes into Jerusalem, which he knows is both where history is going,

the new Jerusalem’s coming, through his cross. He knows that this is gonna be where the ember that becomes you sitting in Portland, Oregon in 2021, the church begins here in Jerusalem. I suspect he knows this is where Pentecost is gonna happen. I suspect he knows he’s gonna raise from the dead, not far from here. I suspect he knows these things and I suspect he knows these things that are coming.

But as we see even in the garden, when he’s crying out to his heavenly father, he also knows that today, the crowds lauded him. And tomorrow, as he enters the temple, and he starts flipping tables, there’s gonna be a whole new crowd. And I think he’s taking the lay of the land. I would imagine, again, imagine this is Andrew’s opinion when I read this, I have to stop and say, wow, what a mix of the God man. He knows what it means to be faithful. To be frank, when we are not careful in our flesh, we can come and count the cost and say, you know, that cost is too costly. I’m just gonna call it. Maybe next year. Maybe next year’s the year to cleanse the temple. Because by the way, this is not the first year they’re doing what they’re doing in the temple.

This is not the first time Jesus has been there to look around and say, this is bogus. But he knows it’s time. He knows it’s time. So Jesus is faithful. And I think he’s looking around, and he tells us tomorrow he’s gonna light the fuse. And that fuse lands at the cross.

So when we think about this, and we stop and say, okay, what does this look like? We’ve seen four things, but really three. Now I’ll condense them into three points, right? Now that I did what I did. Mark loves a sandwich. We’re gonna see it with the fig tree next week. He’s doing it here. There’s a Jerusalem sandwich here. Whatever that means, it sounds delicious.

But we see, I think, pretty clearly from this text, that Jesus is, in fact, faithful. I would argue, I don’t even just think, I’m gonna argue. We see that Jesus is faithful. And Jesus is humble. He has condescended. He has made his way into our lives, not because he’s needed to, but because he’s gracious and humble. But also that he is worthy of our praise and adoration. What a God we worship. And so what I wanna do for a moment is then say, okay, this is the picture of Jesus, that this is who Jesus is in his gospel and his glory. I just wanna stop and say, okay, Trinity Church, what would it look like if we took this really seriously, with the seriousness that I think it deserves? Because the gospel makes a demand on our life. I think this text makes a demand on our life.

Living the Gospel

So I’d just like to ask these three questions of us and think through them with you for a moment. What would it look like if every decision in your life was banking on his faithfulness? What would it look like if you were attuned to and responding to Jesus’ humility with your life? And what if all of your actions were in tune with his worthiness in your life? And I wanna think these through in three categories. Your life with Jesus or your union with God and your union in Christ, your life with this church and your life with the lost neighbors. And your life with the lost neighbors all around us here in Portland. Now, I want you to hear this. This is not a Christus exemplar. Because Jesus is faithful, you need to be faithful. Because Jesus was humble, you need to be humble. Because Jesus is worthy, you need to be worthy.

No, it doesn’t work that way, it breaks down. We do wanna be humble. Christian humility means I’m doing my whole life out of my identity in Christ, knowing who he is and who I am, and I live in a freedom there. But I want us to think about this. If every decision in your life was banking on his faithfulness, I wanna see this, by the way, not as a scolding, as more of an invitation. I’d also say that before we go down the road.

What if every decision in your life was banking on his faithfulness? So your life in his word and in prayer and seeking his faiths was not based on you feeling anything, was not based on you feeling like you should read your Bible or feeling like you should do something, but based on the fact that you believe when you open your Bible every morning that God’s going to speak because he’s faithful. And that your prayers are not going to be answered because of your emotive ferventness, though we should be emotive in our prayer, but because he is faithful. Because the reality is he hears you even when you don’t feel like he hears you. And that my life in Jesus is not based on how I feel about him or myself, but on the fact that I take to the bank and that God is faithful in all things.

Or even my resources, as I turn to thinking about loving God’s people, my time, my treasure, my talent. Do we want to live more and more in a way that people say, dude, you’re getting crazy. Like you maybe should slow down a little bit for Jesus. Or do we want to be the people like, man, maybe you should actually care about Jesus more. Here’s what I mean by that. Do we want to be the people who are banking on the radical love of God and the fact that the cattle on 1,000 hills belong to him with our resources, with our time, with our money? Or do we want to live in such a way that we’re being stingy with those things and saying, well, Jesus, I’ll get to eventually. I’ll do that when I have more time. I will put you first, Jesus, when I have more time.

Friends, we do this all the time. We might not say it that way, but we say, Jesus, I’ll get to it later. I’ll get to my holiness later. I’ll get to my life in you later. I’ll get to my life with the church later. Later is now, man. Is every decision you’re making, throwing caution to the wind, throwing the world’s senses to the wind and saying, I’m gonna go for the kingdom. I’m gonna throw caution to the wind and say, I’m gonna go for the kingdom. I’m gonna seek first the kingdom. Because seeking first in the kingdom, if you read that passage, is not based on good investing. It is based on trusting Jesus with everything. That I can give what I have away, that I can give my time away because God’s got it.

Because God’s got it. How about with the lost? Do you think Jesus can save your family? Do you think Jesus can save Portland or is it time to move to Boise? Do you think God is faithful? Do you think he can save the checker at Whole Foods? Do you think he can save the checker at Food Front, that person that serves you coffee or that really curmudgeonly guy you work with?

Do you think it’s about you? How smart you are, how good you are, how faithful you are? I have really, really, really, really good news for you as you love and serve your neighbors in Portland. Their salvation’s based on his faithfulness, not yours. Now, he works with us, without us, in spite of us. God’s in the business of using you as his ambassador to save sinners. And it is a joy. But what a weird thing when you realize there’s someone you could’ve shared the gospel with and three years later you find out they get saved. And not just because, oh, they saw your life and then later that opened the door, but you’re like, I really should’ve actually said something to them about that thing. God saved them anyways. Do you trust his faithfulness with this city? With Southwest Washington, with Northwest Oregon, with the coastal Pacific Northwest?

Do you trust him with these things? He is faithful, friends. He is faithful. How about we are, how about in being attuned and respond to his humility? He condescends, friends. He will meet you when you open his word. He will meet you when you come to him in prayer. Do you believe that? The good news is, even when you don’t feel it, you can still believe it and you can still lean into it. Likewise, Jesus, in Mark 10, 45, the sort of linchpin of the whole thing, the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many. That was a beautiful, beautiful sermon. Do you think you are here at Trinity Church just for some self-help? I’m not. What would it look like if you took Jesus’ humility seriously and laid down your life? What would our church look like if Portland knew,

oh yeah, Trinity, they are whack. They’re a bunch of people who just really love each other and serve each other. John 13, 35, they will know you’re my disciples from the way you’ve loved one another. You’ve been invited into a radical love for one another. And there’s nothing greater than being in a community where you’re known and can know and loved and can love and are served and can serve. And I know this is who you are because I’ve experienced and tasted your sacrifice in my life myself. So keep going, keep doing it, all the more as we see the day drawing near. But what would it look like if we then took that same heart to Portland and said, I’m gonna lay down my life so that people might know him here. And you say, but they’re the church’s enemies. And I say, so are you.

He died for you while you were still his enemy to make you his friend. And yeah, I get it. Paul has that great verse, he says, and inventors of evil. Our neighbors in Portland are inventors of evil. If you’re in here today, we love you. It’s not unloving for me to tell you this. There’s a way out. There’s life in Christ. There’s so much better than what you have right now. There’s freedom. But can we be the people who love the people who are enemies? Can we pray for those who persecute us? And what would happen if Trinity Church was known as the church that loves their enemies and pray for those who persecute them? There’s a radicality to the gospel. I’m not even sure radicality is a real word. And finally, are your actions in line and in tuned to his worthiness?

Are you putting him off? I’ll get on a Bible reading plan in January. January is coming so I can get to Genesis 15 again and stop. You know what you do when you get to Genesis 15 and have a week off? Don’t try and like read, get caught up. Just pick your Bible back up and start reading it.

You can’t read a verse a day. Again, invitational, God loves you. He wants to speak to you. He’s given you his word for a reason. We wanna be soaked in his word. We wanna be the people of his word. And prayer. He’s given us prayer. He’s given us fasting. He’s given us all these wonderful things that we could glorify him and enjoy him and know him. And ours is a simple faith, friends.

One of the greatest things you can do, you have an app on your phone probably that tells you how much time you spend on your screen. Don’t wait two days till you’ve kind of amended it and it looks better to check this. Real talk, have a look this afternoon. I suspect if you spend any time on your smartphone doing anything other than texting or making phone calls, you probably have enough time to read a couple verses. And God loves you.

He loves you. He saved you for a relationship with him. And we’re kind of busy being the bad spouse, like I’ll talk to you next week. Why would we do that? That’s insane. We’re invited in to so much more and it’s so much better here in the gospel. You’re already set free. You don’t do it so that he’ll love you. You’ll do it because he loves you. Does your bank account reflect his worthiness? You want a real good way to check your priorities? Have a look where you put your money. Have a look where you put your time. Could a stranger open up your books and say, wow, that family thinks Jesus is more valuable than anything and I can tell because they’re helping here and they’re serving here and they’re investing here and they’re doing this.

Does this flavor our conversations, family, when we’re together? Is your conversation flavored with the sweetness of the gospel when we all have dinner together or get coffee or whatever? It is, by the way. I’ve spent time with so much of you now, you know, as a member of the church. Man, this church loves Jesus all the more. Let’s keep after it. Let’s keep going. Let’s go deeper. Let’s go further.

How about your non-Christian friends? I’ll tell them I’m a Christian next year. It’d make it really uncomfortable at work if everybody knew I was a Christian. I’m just gonna like lay low. I could lose my job if they know I’m a Christian. I’m just gonna like not talk about it. This is Portland, right? We can have an hour-long discussion about the values of late 90s Prague metal recorded on TASCAM four-track tape while we eat sushi and drink oat milk lattes and compare the merits of several oat milk brands. Listen, I’m down. You wanna talk about Prague metal and eat sushi and drink oat milk lattes? I’m in. I love Portland for this stuff. It’s a gift. But if you’re willing to evangelize about your favorite whatever, people know what you value from what you talk about and what you care about. Do your non-Christian friends know

that Jesus is the most valuable thing in your life? If you’re in here today and you’re not a Christian, Jesus is the most valuable thing in our lives, and we want you to know it, and we want you to know him. Turn from your sin and be saved today. This is our Savior. This is our God. He’ll save you from your sin. He’ll save you from all the wrong things you’ve ever done. He’ll save you from all the right things you’ve done for the wrong reasons. He’ll save you from your idolatry and from making little things big things and making unimportant temporal things, eternal things in your mind and heart. And if you’re in here today, how you doing? If you’re analytical, by the way, I just gave you a rubric by which you can have a sober look at your own life in three areas

with three areas on the other side. If you’re that person, if you’re that person drawing the spreadsheet in your mind, or you can just pray about it and kind of see how it goes. Choose your own adventure. Try it, right brain, left brain. If this isn’t obvious, if the worthiness of our King isn’t obvious from our life, that he is your Savior and that is the most important thing in your life, what needs to change? And I don’t mean at our New Year’s resolution. I mean before the benediction. What would it look like to take it this seriously? And if you’re resonating here and this is you, not all the time. We’re sinners saved by grace. We’re taking off the old person, we’re putting on the new. But what would it look like for you to give of yourself to help other people follow Jesus?

And how would you need to do something in your life, just something in your life today, to position yourself to help other people follow him? Let’s pray. Hosanna, you are our King, Jesus. You are our Savior. I pray for us, Lord, that our hearts and minds would be synced up with this thing, with this reality, with this call. Lord, you are the cornerstone. You have been both rejected by the world and accepted by our Heavenly Father. You have bled and you have died to make us your own. So Lord, we don’t try and do anything so that you will love us. But because you have loved us, because we see you for who you are, I pray we would respond in grace with every heartbeat of our lives, with every meal with friends, with every day at work, with every drive into the city, that everything we do would be attuned to your worthiness

and be reflected in our great joy for you. Jesus, we can only do this with your help. So Lord, help us to incline our hearts to the worship of you. We love you, Jesus, and pray these things for your glory, for our joy, in your name, Jesus Christ, amen.