When Someone Knows Something You Don't

This is awesome. I tell you, it’s good to have the family of God, you know, liking each other. That’s kind of a nice problem to have, you know. So thank you for being who you are. I also want to thank Jeremy for every once in a while throwing an old bone to an old preacher. So thank you, Jeremy, for sharing your pulpit.

Let’s go to Lord in prayer. Father, thank you. Thank you for this day. I thank you for this church. I thank you for its pastor. I thank you for you. And just open our hearts and minds today that you will touch them, that they will not hear me, but they will hear you. And that when they hear your word, that they’ll be different. And when they leave this place, they’ll be so different that a lost and dying world will see the difference. We want to be part of that. So Lord, we give this time to you. It’s your time. In your son’s name we pray. Amen.

Got your Bibles. We’re continuing our study in Mark. We’re going to be in Mark 11 today. So we’re going to be looking at verses 1 through 11.

Her name was Jennifer Johnson. She banged her head, her hands and almost her head on the steering wheel. She was frustrated. She goes, “I can’t believe it. I knew I should have went and got gas this morning.” And she didn’t. It was now dark. She was out of gas. Tank was absolutely empty and she was scared. Through the twilight smog, she could barely make out the silhouettes of large warehouses, railroad tracks, chain link fences. She looked to lock her doors. Her eyes searched the area for any kind of friendly restaurant, diner, telephone booth, gas station, something. Where she was at was nothing. Maybe sooner or later, maybe a police car would come by and maybe help her out. So she slumped down in her seat to wait.

Then she saw him. Her heart began to pound uncontrollably as a form of a man made his way down the middle of the street coming straight towards her. First thought that went through her was, maybe he won’t see me. Maybe he’ll just walk on by. She closed her eyes and prayed. But when she looked up, he was standing right at the window tapping on the glass. Instantly, she became hysterical. She screamed, “Get away. Leave me alone.” Yet he only intensified his tapping, yelling something. But she couldn’t hear him through her screams. Unable to enter the car through the window, the man tried the doors. Now perspiring heavily, she began blowing the horn. And to her relief, he left. However, in a short time, he was back. This time, he had a steel bar. He shattered the windows. He was able to unlock the door, reached to grab her arm, sliding away from him. In fear, she kicked at his face. She crushed his nose. Bleeding, he pulled her, reluctantly and crying, from the car. And when she loosened his grip on her arm, she scooted away from him and prepared to defend herself. She was still dazed from the blow. So then he stood, trembling, wiping the blood from his battered and bruised face. That is when she saw the flashing lights approaching in the dark night. A strange rumbling noise increased in volume as the ground began to tremble under her feet. And she watched the monstrous train roar past, crashed into her disabled car, and dragged it, totally demolished down the railroad track.

Sometimes God knows best, doesn’t He? Sometimes when we think we know everything, we really don’t know enough. When I look at, I was trying to figure out, Jeremy had assigned me the triumphal entry, the entry through the eastern gate that Jesus makes on that colt. Give me a new perspective. Sometimes I just kind of came up there. Sometimes in our lives, someone knows a little bit more than we do. How do we trust that person?

Last year, when I preached on this, it was the 10th of, you know, in the Jewish calendar, it’s the 10th of Nisan. The month of Nisan is kind of our March, April time frame. And the 10th day is a specific day. It’s an important day. Of course, for us, it’s the beginning of Passion Week. For the Jew, it’s kind of getting started for Passover week and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. On this time of the year in Jerusalem, there’s going to be about 3 million people there. Just imagine that for a second. No one there are going to be 3 million people there. There are going to be about 250,000 lambs that are going to go through the gate that they go through. Quarter of a million sheep are going to be slaughtered probably that week. The importance of the 10th of Nisan is interesting. It’s that day where they look back and, you know, they’re celebrating Passover and they’re celebrating being, you know, being let out from Egypt and freed from bondage of over 400 years. And what’s interesting about that is that it was on the 10th of Nisan that they were to choose the lamb that they were going to slay on the 14th, need on the 15th.

See, the 10th of Nisan also has specific meaning because the day that Miriam, prophetess of Israel, the sister of Moses, would die. It’s on the 10th of Nisan that exactly a year later that the Jordan River will dam up in an incredible miracle and they will cross the Jordan into the promised land. 10th of Nisan is important. They will choose the lamb. And as those quarter of a million lambs are entering through their gate, our lamb is entering through the eastern gate to do what He was meant to do.

So that’s why the 10th of Nisan is important. It’s important because it fulfills prophecy. Zechariah 9:9 says, “Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion. Shouts in triumph, daughter of Jerusalem. Look, your king is coming to you. He is riding and victorious, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” Daniel 9:24 and 25 will talk about 69 weeks. And times that times seven. So 69 times seven years comes to 483 years. He talks about the coming of the anointed one. If you add that according to the Jewish calendar, that comes at 173,880 days.

Now what’s interesting about that is they go back to when that prophecy was made and when it would have started, which would have been when Cyrus, the king of Persia, would have sat there and told Nehemiah, “Go and rebuild the wall. Rebuild Jerusalem.” From that day, 173,880 days later. You know what day it is? The day that Jesus enters through the eastern gate.

Now I’m here to tell you this. If a God can look down the halls of history and know what’s coming up, don’t you think we ought to trust Him? Don’t you think that as God looks down the halls, and we’ll talk about this later, of your life and my life, and knows what’s coming, and knows all the scenarios you have, the choices you can make this way or that way, good, bad, and He knows the outcomes. Don’t you think we ought to trust Him? I think we do.

So that’s why this day is so important. So what I want to do today is what can we learn from this? What do we learn from a story that says about Jesus entering Jerusalem? What does it say about where we have our children bring palm branches, which were used for victory and acknowledge that this person was special, possibly a king, and He comes in as not just the king, but He comes in the king of peace that we’ve already talked about, and that’s why He’s on a colt and a donkey.

So follow with me as we read Mark 11, verses 1 through 11. When they approached Jerusalem at Bethphage and Bethany near the Mount of Olives, He sent two of His disciples and told them, “Go into the village ahead of you. As soon as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it. And if anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘Well, the Lord needs it, and we’ll send it back here right away.’”

So they went and found a colt outside in the street, tied by a door. They untied it, and some of those standing there said to them, “What are you doing untying the colt?” And they answered them just as Jesus had said, and they let him go. So they brought the donkey to Jesus, threw their clothes on it, and He sat on it. Many people spread their clothes on the road, and others spread leafy branches cut from the fields. And those who went ahead and those who followed shouted, “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David. Hosanna in the highest heaven.” And He went to Jerusalem and into the temple. And after looking around at everything, since it was already late, He went out to Bethany with the twelve.

Thank you for following me with that. It’s interesting as we look at this. You know, the four gospels are incredible stories of the life of Christ, the teachings of Christ, the words of Christ, the acts of Christ. Christ. And when we get it, we get an entire full perspective, as Jeremy has told us on numerous occasions. This is one of those stories that’s in all four gospels. So apparently it’s important. It’s something that they all remember, which is pretty important.

You know, all four are said to go get the colt. If they ask you, why are you taking this thing? Here’s the answer. It’s incredible in all four. As soon as they say it, it’s like something comes over and they go, okay, go just take it. But in Matthew, there’s something added to it. We see in Matthew, the crowd is going, well, who is this that’s causing this stir? And the answer is, well, that’s Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth, from Galilee. Mark is kind of the basic of the story. In Luke, we get added where at the end of it, they say, peace in heaven and glory to God in the highest. Where else do we see that? In the book of Luke, we have a bunch of angels in heaven.

In Luke also, we have the Pharisees come to Jesus and they say, teacher, rebuke your disciples. Remember what Jesus says? They don’t cry out. And I’ll let the stones cry out. He literally starts to weep over the city. In fact, let me just read a little bit of that. As he approached and saw the city, he wept for it, saying, if you knew this day would come, would bring peace, but now it is hidden from your eyes. For the days will come on you when your enemies will build a barricade around you, surround you, and hem you in on every side. They will crush you and your children among you in the ground, and they will not leave one stone on another in your midst because you did not recognize the time when God visited you.

And John, it tells you why most of the crowd’s there. Most of the crowd’s there because they had, they had, they had, some of them had seen Jesus heal Lazarus or they had heard about it. So they came not to just see Jesus, but they came to see Lazarus. So there’s a large crowd there. And the Pharisees get all ticked off because they’re looking, look, the world follows him. Everything we’re doing is not working. And so all of a sudden, you start putting all that together and you start to get a bigger picture of what’s happening when Jesus enters the city.

So let me just kind of give you quickly three perspectives that I think can help us in our lives as we go on this Christian walk. Number one, how to handle the frustration. Now you’re sitting there going, why would Jesus be frustrated? I mean, they are throwing cloaks on him so he can sit comfortably on this colt. By the way, in another one of the, of the gospels, it talks about that Jesus not just takes the colt, but he takes the donkey, the colt’s mother. The Bible says that this colt had never been ridden. Tells you maybe God was saving it for, for His son. And maybe this mother kind of comes along this colt just to kind of steady him.

But you also, Jesus is, he’s frustrated because he knows what’s about to happen next. The word frustration means this, the feeling of being upset, annoyed, especially because of the inability to change or achieve something. It’s the prevention of progress, success, or fulfillment of something. Jesus is looking down knowing this is going to be short-lived. Firstly, success is always short-lived, don’t you think? How many times have you been up here and it doesn’t take long to be brought down here?

Some of you older guys like, you know, like me, you can remember following football back in the late 60s, early 70s, when a coach by the name of George Allen was coaching the Redskins and they had some success. Then they started not to have success. And instead of blaming the coach, you know who they went to? It jumped on the quarterback. Remember his name? A guy named Sonny Jurgensen. I remember him? Great quarterback in the NFL for the old Washington Redskins. One day a reporter got in front of Sonny and said, doesn’t that bother you? People throwing stuff at you when you leave the stadium or enter the stadium and this is your stadium. And he says, no, not really. He said, if you’re a quarterback in this league, you understand something.

It’s a short distance from the penthouse to the outhouse. And that’s true. Earthly success is always short-lived. You know, that’s what’s kind of going on here. He’s frustrated because He knows it won’t even be a day. He’ll be turning tables over in the temple. It won’t even be, you know, hardly, the week will go by before the Pharisees will be plotting to kill Him and meeting with one of His own named Judas. It won’t even be a week before they’ll stick Him on a cross and leave Him to die.

You would think this would be glorious. I’m thinking if I’m one of His disciples, you’re kind of going, this, this is what we’ve been wanting. This is awesome. They’re acknowledging Him as King. And Jesus is allowing that to happen for one of the first times that He’s been teaching. He’s allowing them to honor Him as King. Do you know what Hosanna means in the original language? It means Lord save us. You know what blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord? All this comes out of Psalms 112. What it means is this. It means that blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. He’s a descendant of the family of King David and He’s coming back to His city. I’m wondering why they’re saying that. I’m kind of wondering what makes them sing this particular psalm. Why is it that? Because maybe it’s true. And all that is going on and yet some of the very crowd who’s acknowledging that will turn on Him within day. Say, give us Barabbas and crucify Him. Earthly success is short lived.

Now let me tell you why I think that it’s important to know that and understand how to take frustration. This past week, I read a statement by an author that I love, a professor of philosophy who was at Southern Cal for 50 years, a guy named Dallas Willard, incredible Christian, Bible teacher. He said, and please understand this. You may want to write this down. God doesn’t care what a church does. What He cares about is what a church is. Get that? And that’s what a Christian too. God doesn’t care what a Christian does. Sure cares what a Christian is. So you get the is right, you get the being right, the does or the doing will come. That’s important. That’s how it’s supposed to be. We got to get that. And there’s only one way to do that. It takes us to point number two, focus on the mission.

See, no one is more focused on the redemption of mankind than God is. Jesus could have turned off anywhere. He could have said, okay, make me your King. He could have said, nah, I’m not going to follow through and do what I need to do. But He was focused. He was focused on the redemption of mankind. And no one is more focused on what is in your best interest than God is. So that’s how you know when you have a friend. A friend looks at you and goes, see, I care about what happens to you. I do. I just do. You got to stay focused. You can control what you can control. You can only control you. I like what Craig Tuck said when he spoke at Jeremy’s ordination. He’s our director of missions. And he said this, it’s always got to be mission over me. Does that make sense? What’s the mission? As I look at scripture, you know what the mission of the church, you know what the mission of an individual Christian is? It’s stated in Romans 8:29 is to be more Christ-like that we become more conformed to the image of the Son. Folks, I want to tell you, you become more like Jesus, I won’t have to worry about what you’re doing. He won’t have to worry about what you’re doing. If you’re more conformed to the image of the Son.

And what’s that image? Well, let’s look at the, let’s look at the Holy Spirit when He enters you. What does He bring with you? He brings gifts that He wants to develop in you that are more like Jesus. Peace, love, joy, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Isn’t that more like Jesus? Isn’t that what He wants? Again, God doesn’t care what a church does or who, what you do. He cares about who you are. I love the passage in Matthew where, where He sits there and He, and the guy comes, You know, they say, “Well, I did this. I healed in Your name. Demons in Your name. I did miracles in Your name, which I’m thinking is Pretty impressive. Remember Jesus’ response? Depart from me. I never knew you because Jesus always knows the heart. You get your heart right with Jesus, stuff comes later. It’ll come. It’s about taking care of the big picture. It’s about focusing on what’s down there. Jesus never lost His focus. He knew why He was there. He knew that He was coming in. They were proclaiming king, but before long, He’ll be on a cross. That was the plan. That goes back to Christmas.

Bernie May is an author that I love. He’s just got a little book. It’s called Under His Wings. Bernie May was the president of an organization. First of all, he was a missionary for them for 25 years and a missionary pilot for an organization called JARS. If you’ve ever been outside of Charlotte, there’s a little place called Waxhaw, North Carolina. It’s where they’re located. Their headquarters is located. And they bring in guys and they train them to be pilots. These guys are not only missionaries and seminary students and seminary graduates, but they become missionary pilots and missionary technicians. They have to take care of their aircraft. And these guys go all over the world. They’ll put them on the backside of the Stone Age. And these guys can take their aircraft and get missionaries and important people to certain places that it will take you days, weeks, or months to get to.

Bernie May says one of the hardest things he said you have to teach a missionary pilot is not to look to the side and see what’s on the side of the runway. Okay, you’re bringing your aircraft in and you’ve got a little pass ground. These guys can land on beaches, a little pass, I mean, top of mountains. I mean, it’s incredible where these guys can land. He said, “What I’ve got to teach them is to focus on where they’re going, not what’s on the side of the runway. See, if there’s a stump over there or there’s a ditch over there, there’s a cliff over there, there’s some trees over there, and all that guy, he’s looking over there, making sure he don’t miss, you know where he’s going to end up? He’s going to end up in the trees in the ditch next to the stump, on the stump.” He says, “I’ve got to get them to focus.”

He said one day he was taking two gentlemen to the, he was down in Argentina and he was taking two gentlemen to the top of a, up around a mountain and into pretty tough areas and it was foggy and different things and these two guys look and said, “How long have you been in country?” He says, “Oh, about a year.” Well, that didn’t excite him. And then he says, “Well, do you know where all those mountaintops are and all those places over there that, you know, between that here and the little town we’re going to?” He said, “No, sir, I don’t. No, we’re not.” And they said, “Okay.” And they got in the aircraft.

Sometimes we need to focus on where the things that are evil in our lives are not. And that’s where we go. That’s why we stay away from evil things. That’s how we watch what our eyes see and our ears hear. And we stay focused on the things of God where those things are not. Jesus was focused on what He was there for and what was coming at the end of the week and why He would have to do what He had to do.

Here’s the last thing. We need to finish strong. See, with Christ, death is never the victor. Jesus knew what was coming. His disciples are, they’re so unfocused. They’re so blown away. They’re so realizing earthly success is short. That’s pretty much come to a conclusion now. God wants us to finish strong. That’s what He wants in our lives.

See, endurance is the fruit of godly character. Some of my favorite verses in scripture is about endurance. You know, let me define endurance. Endurance is defined, it refers to the ability to withstand and persist through challenges, difficulties, hardships. In the Bible, it’s often associated with perseverance and steadfastness. It’s a quality that allows us to keep going even when we face hard times. And what it builds, what’s the outcome? Resilience, inner strength. It helps us endure suffering and trials without giving up. And what does it help? It gives us proven character. I can tell you all day long that I can work with a compass in the middle of nowhere, but until you put me in the middle of nowhere with a compass and I come out, you’re not going to believe me. Proven character refers to maturity, completeness, spiritual growth. It’s a result of enduring trials and with faith and integrity, biblical context. It’s the concept of proven character appears in passages like Romans 5:4, which states that endurance produces character. Character always produces what? The proven character means we’re mature. We lack in nothing when we When we need to succeed in our spiritual and physical life. It’s all about integrity. That’s what endurance does.

I wrote down some verses on endurance. James 1, one of my favorites. Consider it pure joy, brothers and sisters, when every face trials of many kinds. Do you like trials? I don’t like trials. I don’t like suffering. Thinking, you know, but if you’re a Christian, you’re going to face it. Here’s what the Bible says, because you know that the testing of your faith will produce endurance. First Corinthians 10:13, no temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. God is faithful. He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear, but when you are tempted, you will provide a way out. Why? So you can endure it. Colossians 1:11, being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might, so that you may have great endurance and patience. Hebrews 10:36, for you need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what is promised. Endurance. That’s why, so we get through it. You ever wonder why God, Jesus, Jesus is going to get through it.

Dallas Willard always makes a statement too about death for the Christian, which I love. He said, you know, sometimes for some of us, we’re not even going to know we’re dead as Christians until we look back. We’re not going to have to go with what Jesus went through. I’m just, I’m just amazed with all that. I just, that just blows me away. It’s the fruit of godly character.

When I think about finishing strong, you know, there’s one thing that runners that compete hate to see. They hate to see the initials of DNF. You know what that stands for? Did not finish. I was reading some things on marathon runners this week, which I found pretty fascinating. If, if, I mean, if they can’t compete or their body shuts down or, you know, because they have to stay hot. If it’s a hot day, they just got to be pouring water in them and taking some kind of potassium, something just to kind of keep them going. But even in a sense, remember when the Boston Marathon was, was, was bombed a number of years ago, they stopped a lot of those guys at, at mile number 25. Can you imagine being 1.2 miles away from the finish line? You’ve run 25 miles and they stopped you. Those folks were devastated. Those folks came back so that for a number of reasons, but one of them was just so that that DNF would not be, just got to get it out of their system. Because I think about the months of training that they put their body through and what they, what they put, tried to frame their mind around about trying to run those races did not finish. How many of us, ladies and gentlemen, don’t want to have next to their name, virtually DNF?

One of my favorite illustrations about how to finish is with a movie that I saw a number of years ago. I love this movie called Cool Runnings. It’s about the Jamaican bobsled team. Don’t know if you’ve ever seen it. You ought to go get it. It’s just a fun movie to watch, but the ending is amazing. And I just want you to watch it.

PICTURE WHAT GOING TO HEAVEN. JESUS GIVES US THAT PERFECT PICTURE AS HE ENTERS THE CITY. JESUS IS GOING TO BE SHORT-LIVED. THERE’S BUMPTS IN THE ROAD. DON’T KNOW WHAT’S COMING DOWN THE PIKE. BUT I WANT TO TELL YOU SOMETHING. JESUS KNOWS WHAT’S COMING DOWN THE PIKE. FOR YOU AND FOR ME. HE KNOWS WHAT’S COMING DOWN THE PIKE, WHAT’S COMING DOWN THOSE HALLS OF YOUR life way before you ever do because He’s God. He knows everything. He knows every bad decision you can make and the consequences and every good decision you can make. And He knows about the major decision, which is whether you’ve accepted Him or not and what comes from that and what comes from giving and surrender your life to Him.

I love what that great theologian Alice Cooper, Rocker, once said. He said, you don’t choose Jesus, you surrender to Jesus. That’s the deal, folks. You want to trust to the guy who knows It all, who sees what’s coming, who has all the information. This picture, this, what Jesus does on Palm Sunday, I read Hebrews 12:1 and 2. Therefore, since we are, have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us, lay aside every hindrance and the sin that so easily ensnares us. Let us run with endurance, grace that lies before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus. Focus. For the joy that lay before Him, He endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

The question is this: what do you have to trust Him with this morning? Some of you may be extremely frustrated with your life. You need to focus so you can finish. The most important thing for the Christian is finishing right. It’s not what you do, who you are. What decision do you need to make this morning?

Let’s pray. Father, thank You. You came through that gate. They were crowning You king, and You were still, You were already weeping because You knew their heart. Came through that gate, calling You king, You were so focused, You knew exactly what You were going to do, that You were going to go to a cross and die for us. And You didn’t have to do that. We wouldn’t have chosen that way, but You finished. Thank You for finishing. You’ll not just finish on that day. You will finish when it’s all said and done, when You come back again. But until then, Lord, help us to deal with the frustration, to focus on being more Christ-like, helping us finish strong to the end. Help us do that, Lord, like You did. We ask this in the name above everything, the awesome name of Jesus. Amen.