I invite you to turn with me to Mark chapter 11 this morning. Mark chapter 11. Mark chapter 11, if you are following along in the Pew Bible, this is found on page 1,167. Mark chapter 11, page 1,167. When you found that, would you stand with me for the reading of God's word? Mark chapter 11. And I will read the first 11 verses of Mark chapter 11. Please follow along in your Bibles as I read. Now, when they drew near, let me try that again. Now, when they drew near Jerusalem to Bethpage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples. And he said to them, go into the village opposite you, and as soon as you have entered it, you will find a colt tied on which no one has sat. Loose it and bring it. If anyone says to you, why are you doing this? Say, the Lord has need of it. immediately he will send it here." So they went their way and found the colt tied by the door outside on the street and they loosed it. But some of those who stood there said to them, what are you doing loosing the colt? And they spoke to them just as Jesus had commanded. So they let them go. Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their clothes on it and he sat on it. And many spread their clothes on the road, and others cut down leafy branches from the trees and spread them on the road. Then those who went before and those who followed cried out, saying, Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. And Jesus went into Jerusalem and into the temple. So when he had looked around at all things, as the hour was already late, he went out to Bethany with the 12. This is the word of the Lord. Thank you, you may be seated. I wanna preach to you this morning a message which I've titled, Sovereign is He Who Comes in the Name of the Lord. This summer, at the jujitsu class I was involved in, An individual decided to express his views on Christianity in general, and Christ in particular. In his mind, Christianity was a false, is a false, and abusive system that even Jesus would not have endorsed. Jesus, he said, was not a savior, and he certainly was not the promised Messiah. Rather, he was simply a revolutionary who had advocated the overthrow of Rome. But in his view, Jesus' plans failed miserably. He came up against a force stronger than his, and all of the plans that he had were not able to come to pass, and as a result, encountering this stronger force of the Roman system, Jesus was defeated by the Romans and hung on a cross. Of course, I pointed out that he was wrong, Jesus came to give his life. Jesus was not caught up by forces and powers that were greater than his, beyond his control. In fact, Jesus walked intentionally to his destiny, even orchestrating the very events that would lead to that destiny. This is the reality that is set before us at the beginning of Mark chapter 11. Jesus is not only the blessed one who comes in the name of the Lord, he is the sovereign one who comes in the name of the Lord. Sovereign is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. You might wonder where I get this, why I would say this, but as we read Mark chapter 11, verses one to 11, this theme of the sovereignty of Christ is woven through the passage. Jesus goes to a particular village and tells them to go get a particular donkey. He tells them what to say if people wonder about taking the particular donkey. Jesus then enters riding on that donkey, receiving the applause of the crowd, and then goes to the temple. which we'll talk about in just a moment. All of this is Jesus fulfilling prophecy, intentionally walking toward his destiny. Though Mark does not specifically mention this, Jesus is doing this in fulfillment of Zechariah 9, 9. In fact, a parallel passage of Matthew 21 1-5 we read that when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethpage, the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Loose them, and bring them to me. And if anyone says anything to you, you shall say, The Lord has needed them, and immediately he will send them. Sound familiar? And then he says, all this was done that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophet, saying, tell the daughter of Zion, behold, your king is coming to you, lowly and sitting on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey. Jesus is doing this intentionally to fulfill his destiny. This is something, this is a realization that the disciples would come to later. Have you ever had an experience that looking back on, you realized, that was a whole lot more significant than I thought? I remember times where I have met someone and didn't really know what the path might be ahead for them, And I look back and I think, you know, that meeting with that person was a whole lot more significant than I might have imagined. I remember one time meeting an individual at a little church up north. And he was speaking, one of the speakers at a conference, and I remember hearing this man speak, and I was like, yeah, this is a really articulate individual. And at that time, he was just a professor, and I say just, that's not the right word, but he was a professor at Toronto Baptist Seminary, and that was the only thing that he was doing. Well, I look back from where he is now, he's actually now teaching at Southern Baptist Seminary, and he is one of the higher professors there. He's one of the ones that are the most regarded professors there at Southern Seminary. So I look back on that and I was like, yeah, this was a bigger thing than I realized. This guy attending this little church in the middle of nowhere, seemingly, There was a lot more going on there. This guy has a lot going for him. That was a significant individual that I met. And maybe something like that has happened with you. Maybe you look back on your life and there was something that, some event that in passing seemed so minor, so trivial, and looking back on it now, wait a minute, that was really significant. Well, this is what the disciples did later. Regarding this event, John chapter 12 and verse 16, his disciples did not understand these things at first, John says, speaking about the triumphal entry, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written about him and that they had done these things to him. So this passage presents Jesus as the sovereign one. I want us, under this heading of the sovereignty of Christ, I want us to think about four things about Jesus that we see in this passage. First, Jesus is the sovereign Lord who is worthy of submission. He is the sovereign Lord who is worthy of submission. Jesus is not only the Sovereign Lord who orchestrates this event, he is the Sovereign Lord who actually demands and is worthy of our submission. Consider the day that Jesus enters Jerusalem. One scholar has made a detailed study of the prediction of Daniel chapter 9. about the coming of the prince who is to come, and has concluded that Jesus enters this on the exact day that was predicted in Daniel chapter nine. He enters the city. And notice how he says, if anyone says to you, what are you doing this, when it comes to losing this cult, you say, the Lord has need of it. And of course, when the disciples are asked that very question, they respond just as Jesus has told them. There's this theme then of the lordship of Christ. Jesus comes at this exact time. Jesus commands his disciples to do something that might seem strange to them, but they do it. He commands them how to respond when people ask them why they're doing it, and they respond that way. Jesus is the Lord who has the right to command us. He is the sovereign Lord who is worthy of our submission. Jesus is the Lord to whom we must submit, not the other way around. Rather, imagine if you're one of the disciples, right? And Jesus says, I want you to go into this town, and you're gonna find a donkey there. Just untie that donkey and bring him to me. Like, to put this into our current day's terms, this would be like Jesus saying, hey, go over two streets from here, and you will find a car with the keys and the ignition. Open up the door, pull out of the driveway, and bring it here. You might wonder if the disciples were a little bit... I mean, wouldn't you be? But Jesus has the right to command them and they go. And then when the people ask, why are you pulling that car out of the driveway? Why are you untying the colts? They simply say the Lord has need of him. Jesus was worthy of all of this. Jesus had the right to command all of this. And so as we consider this truth about Jesus, it's good for us to reflect at this point, are we submitting to Jesus? Is our default setting have thine own way, Lord, or is it more about how we want Jesus to have our way? Do you obey his word? Are you even in the word? Do you submit to his plan? There are probably things, just truth be told, honest with one another, there are things about whatever's going on in our life right now that we, in our own wisdom, would probably rather change. And there are some things that God has given us the freedom to change, but there are some of those things that we may not like that much in our life that we cannot change. What do we do at that point? Do we grump and gripe at Christ? Do we resent his hand of providence in our lives? Brothers and sisters, he is the Lord. May we submit to him. Remember Peter's words, humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God and he will exalt you in due time. Brothers and sisters, Jesus is the sovereign Lord who is worthy of submission. Do you recognize his claim over every single area of your life? See, there's a problem sometimes that we have as Christians where we compartmentalize our faith. We're like, okay, here at church, I know there's certain things that I should do or not do, and maybe around other people, here are some things I should or shouldn't do, but then there's this whole other area of my life where I just do my own thing. And sometimes, you know, there are societal forces, you know, the society or the life of the church or certain things are expected or whatever that we kind of conform to. What I'm talking about here is, do we recognize that over and above all of that is Christ? And he is the one to whom we must submit in every moment of the day. It's not like if you're on some diet and you have a cheat day on the weekends, right? We are constantly under the sovereign reign of Christ. He is the sovereign Lord who is worthy of submission. Second, and I must hurry, Jesus is the sovereign Messiah who is worthy of praise. We see this, I think, in verses seven to 10. Jesus has orchestrated the entry into Jerusalem, and the disciples and others have responded with praise. The praise that they are giving is a praise that is only due to the Messiah. Look at what they say. Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Quoting from Psalm 118, they are quoting a passage that is only applicable to the Messiah. Blessed is the kingdom of our Father David that comes in the name of the Lord." As they praise Jesus, they are praising the King whom they believe at that moment is bringing the kingdom. Now, of course, in their mind, they're thinking an earthly kingdom. They're thinking Jesus is now going to overthrow the Romans. They're thinking the establishment of the earthly reign of Messiah is going to happen. If we look at comparing Scripture with Scripture, we see that Matthew and Luke place emphasis on the portion of the crowd that are Jesus' disciples. And so there are some who have looked at Matthew and Luke and they've said, well, all this preaching that is sometimes given about the crowd that said hosanna to Jesus and then later turned on him, that's all misguided because the only people who were crying out hosanna to Jesus were people who were already his believers. They were not people who turned on him. Well, I think they failed to take into account Mark's gospel. To be sure, there were people who followed Jesus, who were disciples of Jesus, who cried out Hosanna. But Mark's Gospel does not indicate that it was only people who followed Jesus. In fact, Mark really goes out of his way to express it more in general terms. These are the crowd, random people. They're not specifically Jesus' disciples. They may have been speaking better than they realized. This happens often in scripture, where someone will say something that is in complete conformity with divine truth, though they don't realize it. Remember the high priest says, well, it's better that Jesus dies so that one person died for the nation and then the whole nation died. And John's like, this is in fulfillment of prophecy because Jesus would die for that nation. Here, as these people are crying out, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, they are crying out praise to the Messiah, but they don't realize what kind of Messiah they're praising. In fact, truth be told, there's a sense in which they still want to control the destiny of the Messiah. They want the Messiah to establish the kingdom now. They want him to be this earthly leader, but he is not that Messiah yet. He's the Messiah that's going to go to the cross. But the actions that they perform are consistent with prophecy, they're consistent with the receiving of a king, they spread their clothes on the road, they cut down palm branches, and this is so obviously messianic that in Luke's Gospel, the Gospel actually records that the religious leaders say to Jesus, Master, rebuke thy disciples. But as I said, I get the sense that some of these people are speaking better than they believe. As we'll see in a moment, the anticlimactic note of verse 11 shows that they do not truly receive Jesus as their Messiah and King. What they speak is true. Jesus is the Messiah who is worthy of praise. He is blessed. He is not only a blessed earthly king, he is the King of kings and Lord of lords. His kingdom is not just a temporary earthly kingdom, but a kingdom that will not pass away. He is the one of whom Revelation 19 speaks, the one who rides on a white horse, the one who has the white garments that are dipped in blood, out of whose mouth goes the sword, the word of God. This is Jesus, the one who has that name written on his thigh, King of kings and Lord of lords. This is that Messiah. but that Messiah has to go to the cross first. All of this to say, I think that they see something of the glory of the Messiah, but not all of it. What they say is right. but their eyes are blinded in part to who Jesus really is and how great Jesus really is. As the Messiah, he is sovereignly orchestrating his destiny of the cross before the crown. The cross before the establishment of his reign in physical form and the new heavens and the new earth. The cross comes first. I wonder if we see the greatness and glory of Jesus the Messiah. I wonder if we respond with praise. They didn't completely see how great Jesus was, but what they did was right in response to Jesus. He is the Messiah. He is worthy of our praise. If people on this road who had such a limited understanding of the greatness and glory of could lift their voices in praise, how could we not lift ours in praise? We who have the fullness of the revelation, we who have the presence of the Spirit, how could we not praise Jesus? May God make us a people of praise. I wonder, brothers and sisters, do we praise Christ? And some of you might say, well, yeah, I sing the songs on Sunday. That's a good start. But do you think Jesus is worthy of praise for more than an hour on a Sunday morning? Of course he is. He is the sovereign Messiah who is always worthy of our praise. May God give us the eyes to see Jesus, to see his glory. I've told you this so many times. It's like every scene that Mark gives us under the Spirit's inspiration, every scene is pointing us back to the truth of the first verse. This is the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And just over and over, Mark is just opening our eyes to how great Jesus is. He is the Savior, he is the Messiah, he is the Son of God. We are far too, this is not original to me, C.S. Lewis would say we are far too easily impressed. I'm paraphrasing him. We're amazed by things that really aren't the most amazing. I was reading a Puritan recently and he was talking about how even some of the most amazing and glorious things that we think of, and he was thinking, of course, in his time, how when you look at them from another perspective, they're not that amazing. They're amazing, but not amazing. He was talking about how silk is the regurgitation of worms. He was talking about how sap that makes syrup is just the sweat of a tree. And he's describing things like that. If those things are amazing, and they are, how much more amazing is Jesus, Lord, over all of those? Brothers and sisters, may God make us a people of praise. So Jesus is the Sovereign Lord who is worthy of our submission, and he is the Sovereign Messiah who is worthy of our praise, but Jesus is also the Sovereign Savior who is worthy of our trust. In this passage, the crowd cries out twice, Hosanna. And in saying this, I believe they speak better than they realize, once again. So by the time that we come to Jesus' life, the term Hosanna had really come to be a general expression of adoration or praise. But the original meaning of the word Hosanna is save us. It's amazing that as they cry out, Hosanna, its original meaning, save us, not really understanding, some of them at least, not really understanding what Jesus was doing, where Jesus was going, the cross that awaited him, they're still crying out, save us. Here's Jesus intentionally walking toward his destiny. He is the sovereign savior. He's walking to his destiny. The disciples are actually fearful of Jesus even going back to Jerusalem because they know how much opposition Jesus has faced and how the religious leaders hate him. Why would Jesus go back there when it's so dangerous for him? He's going back there because it's so dangerous for him. He's going back there because he is going to meet his destiny at the cross. Matthew 1.21, call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins. But how would that salvation come? How is it that Jesus would be the Savior? Well, we saw this in the last chapter of Mark. Mark chapter 10 and verse 45. The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. Salvation would come through a bloody cross and an empty tomb. So they cry out, Hosanna, save us. And though they may not perfectly understand what they are saying, it is entirely appropriate because Jesus is the sovereign savior who is worthy of our trust. Jesus can and will truly save the one that cries out to him for salvation. And I ask this question often here, but have you trusted in Christ? Perhaps you've attended here for years. Perhaps you've heard the gospel many times, but there's a sense in which you don't even feel your own need of Christ. You don't see your sinfulness. You think of yourself as pretty good, pretty honorable, pretty righteous. But I must remind you once again that your righteousnesses are as filthy rags. You cannot save yourself by your own works. You are in need of salvation because your sins have separated you from God, and God is angry about your sins, and you face the just punishment of his wrath for your sins. But there is one to whom you can cry out, Hosanna! You can cry, save me to Jesus, and if you come to Jesus on Jesus' terms, he will receive you. All that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. If you come to Jesus on Jesus' terms, believing in him, trusting in him, he will save you. Receive him. Receive him now. before he comes in judgment. But if you have trusted in Jesus as your Savior, are you practically trusting him from day to day? If you have entrusted your eternal soul to his keeping, do you think you cannot trust him with the moments of your earthly life? And yet that's the pattern that we fall into sometimes, isn't it, in our thinking? We've trusted our soul to Jesus, our eternal destiny to Jesus, and yet we fail to trust him moment by moment by moment. Friends, if you can trust your soul to him, if you can give yourself to him for eternity, do you not think that you can trust him in the here and now? So Jesus is the sovereign Lord who is worthy of our submission. Jesus is the sovereign Messiah who is worthy of our praise. He is the sovereign Savior who is worthy of our trust. But Jesus also is the sovereign judge who is worthy of fear. We come to verse 11. Jesus goes into the temple, went into Jerusalem and entered the temple. Looked around at all things, as the hour was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve. Kind of a strange end to this scene, isn't it? Kind of anticlimactic. I mean, shouldn't the people have received him with open arms? Shouldn't the people have submitted to him? Shouldn't they have repented before him? And yet none of these things happen. And why is it that Jesus even goes into the temple? What is going on? Jesus goes into the temple because he is considering and evaluating the state of that temple, considering and evaluating the spiritual state of Israel. The very presence of Jesus in the temple ought to have moved people to repentance. In fact, if we study the story of Jesus' life, Jesus has already passed judgment on the temple once. John chapter two records that early in Jesus' ministry, Jesus came and cleansed the temple. He's already passed judgment on that temple once. Here Jesus comes. He looks around at the temple and leaves. There has been no repentance. wrong and manipulative practices, the practices that prevented even some from entering fully into worship, those things were still there. Taking advantage of people, all of those things were still going on in the name of God. The next time Jesus will return to this temple, he will return in judgment. We will read just a few. Verses later, in verse 15, Jesus comes into the temple and he begins to drive out those who buy and sell in the temple. And really, brothers and sisters, this is something that points to an even greater reality that's going to happen. Jesus coming, looking, seeing the deadness of the temple, seeing the lack of repentance in the Jewish people, and then coming in judgment prefigures what is going to happen to Jerusalem. The judgment of God is gonna fall upon Jerusalem because the people do not repent, because the people do not receive their Messiah. And it's important for us to realize that Jesus comes upon a white cult offering peace in this moment. There's a day that Jesus will come, not upon a colt, not upon a donkey, but upon a white horse. He will come in judgment. Jesus is the sovereign judge who is worthy of fear. Jesus is the one who passes judgment on the temple and its leaders, and he is the one who will pass judgment on you. Jesus would say, the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son. And here is the reality. If you do not receive Jesus as your Savior, you will face Him as your judge. Submit to Him while there is time. Jesus is great and greatly to be praised, brothers and sisters. He is the Sovereign One. He is the Sovereign Lord who is worthy of submission. He is the Sovereign Messiah who is worthy of praise. He is the Sovereign Savior who is worthy of trust. And He is the Sovereign Judge who is worthy of fear. Oh, may our eyes be opened to see just how great Jesus is. Now think for a minute, brothers and sisters, those of us who have truly trusted Jesus, we have a great, great Savior. We have a great, great Lord. There is none greater. There is no Lord like Jesus. There is no other Messiah than Jesus. There is no other Savior and None like Jesus. There is no other Judge like Jesus. Let us see and savor the glory of Christ. Let us be in awe of Him this day. May He be praised. Amen.