Let me encourage you now at home to take your Bibles, either your Bible, your physical Bible, or find it on the phone, and turn with me this morning to Luke chapter 19, as we look at Luke's account of the first Palm Sunday from Luke 19, and we'll look at verses 28 through 40. So Luke 19 verses 28 through 40, of course, as we said, this is Luke's account of that first Palm Sunday as Jesus entered into Jerusalem with much fanfare, but only for a matter of days that have that fanfare turn into this murderous bloodlust as he is crucified on the cross. Now all four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, devote a total of one third of their Gospels to telling about this week. So all the Gospels, put them together, a third of them are made up of talking about this week, beginning with Palm Sunday and continuing through to the Lord's Supper, the institutional Lord's Supper on Monday, Thursday, to the crucifixion on Good Friday, and to Jesus' resurrection on Easter Sunday. Just thinking about the volume of that is a good reminder to us of how important this was to the gospel writers. And if it was that important to them, it needs to be that important to us as well. And so this morning we want then to look at this, to find that importance, to share in that importance as we look at that first Palm Sunday together through Luke's account of it here in Luke chapter 19. So hopefully you have found it in your Bible, on your phone, whatever device you're able to have your Bible on. And so let me pray for us as we come now before God's word. Oh Lord our God, we come to you on this Palm Sunday. We pray that you would take this account that maybe some of us are familiar with and give us fresh ears to hear it. And Lord, we pray that you would take this account for those of us who are not familiar with it and not only give us fresh ears, but give us understanding ears. Give all of us fresh ears and understanding ears in this. So we may hear your truth and be confronted by the glory of your truth. Be convicted of our sins, but be comforted by your grace. and encourage to be conformed more and more into the image of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Lord, do this, we pray this morning, and we ask this now in Jesus' name, amen. So Luke chapter 19, let me find it here in my Bible, I told y'all to find it. I did not have it ready for Myself. All right. So Luke chapter 19 beginning in verse 28 through verse 40 And when he has said these things he went on ahead Going up to Jerusalem When he drew near to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount that is called Olivet, he sent two of the disciples, saying, Go into the village in front of you, where on entering you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever yet set. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, why are you untying it? You shall say this, the Lord has need of it. And so those who were sent away and found it just as he had told them. And as they were untying the colt, its owner said to them, why are you untying the colt? And they said, the Lord has need of it. and they brought it to Jesus. And throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. And as he rode along, they spread their cloaks on the road. And as he was drawing near, already on the way down the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest. And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, teacher, rebuke your disciples. And he answered, I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God stands forever. Amen. Excuse me. Have you ever wanted something so much and so badly and then when you finally got it, you found that it isn't what you thought it would be, it isn't what you wanted it to be. Now I am a child of the 80s, which can mean a whole lot of things, but one thing it means is that you would find me every Saturday morning in front of the TV with either a bowl or maybe a total of three bowls of some very sugary cereal watching Saturday morning cartoons. Some of my favorites such as G.I. Joe and Thundercats and He-Man and Looney Tunes. Every Saturday morning there I was in front of the TV on Hickory Street, Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter, South Carolina. eat my cereal watching these cartoons. And of course at some point during the cartoons there was a commercial break and those commercials that came on during that break were very much aimed to the children who would be sitting there with a bowl of cereal watching Saturday morning cartoons. Now I remember in particular one Saturday morning watching the cartoons and a commercial came on for a Hot Wheels racetrack. But this was different than any other racetrack I've seen because this one had a ramp right in the middle of it. So you get your Hot Wheels going it would come around and it would hit that ramp and on TV it would make this perfect jump from one side of the ramp to the other land and keep on going around the track and I was mesmerized. Because again being a child of 80s not only meant I love my Saturday morning cartoons. I also meant I love the Dukes of Hazzard If you've ever seen the Dukes of Hazzard, you know at beginning credits and at any point throughout the show Bo and Luke Duke were going to jump to General Lee and over some bridge or a ditch or something. And so when I saw this commercial and I'm being a fan of the Dukes of Hazzard, I thought, man, now I can live out my Dukes of Hazzard dreams right here in my own home. I can be Bo Duke. I can be Luke Duke. I can have my own little Hot Wheels General Lee and live out my Dukes of Hazzard fantasy right here. I mean, how much better could it get? And so I did what those marketing geniuses wanted me to do. I put down my bowl of cereal and I went to my parents and I said, I need this. If you love me, you will get this for me. My life is not yet complete until I have this track. I will not be a complete person. I will not grow into a healthy adulthood unless I have this Hot Wheels racetrack with the ramp in it. I eventually wore them down, and I believe it was for my birthday. I had this gift, this big gift, and I opened it up, and there is that Hot Wheels track. So I get my dad, and we put it together, and it's just right, just like we saw on TV, just like it is on the box. And I grabbed my General Lee Hot Wheels, and I put it on the top, and it went down, and it hit that ramp, and it jumps. But it didn't land like it should. It didn't work like I thought it would. So we worked on the ramp and the track. We got it all together again. I got the general lead back in the starting place and sent it around. And again it jumped, but it didn't land right. We kept on doing it over and over again. And every time the general lead would jump, but it would go left, right, up, down. It would never go straight and land on the other side. So after fiddling with it for who knows how long, not being able to get it right, we put it aside. It wasn't working like how I saw it on TV. It wasn't working like how I wanted it to. It wasn't working like how I thought it should. The track got pushed aside and I was disappointed because something I very much wanted when I got it wasn't what I thought it should be, what it ought to be. It isn't what I had wanted or what I thought I wanted. Now imagine that many of you, if not all of you, have had the same sort of situation in your life. Maybe not with a Hot Wheels track and a General Lee little Hot Wheels car. But imagine at some point in your life, you wanted something very much. And when you got it, it wasn't what you thought it would be. It wasn't what you maybe wanted it to be. And this morning, in our passage in Luke, looking at that first Palm Sunday, we see that same attitude beginning to blossom in the people of Jerusalem. The people of Jerusalem want a Messiah. They want a Messiah badly. And they were excited on that Palm Sunday that Jesus was coming into Jerusalem. The week of Passover, he was coming in as their Messiah, and they were excited about it. What they had wanted for so long, they now thought was coming. And we see their excitement in several ways in Luke's account and the other gospel accounts as well. We see their excitement and that the crowds gathered. They gathered in excitement and then they began to spread their cloaks on the road, excitedly spreading their cloaks on the road, which was a sign of recognition of royalty, a sign of a recognition that this was their Messiah. We see example of this even back in 2nd Kings chapter 9. So with this act, this excited act, they are signifying that they believe that Jesus is their King and Messiah. They are celebrating the coming of their Messiah. We see their excitement and that some of them also took palm branches and these big leafy branches and they spread them on the ground. And this recalls the past triumphant entries of past kings into Jerusalem. We see their excitement and that as Jesus came in on this colt, walking over the cloaks and the palm branches, that they are shouting out to him, blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest. Now they're reciting this from Psalm 118 verse 26, which is about the coming king, about the coming Messiah. And so what the crowd is saying in their excitement of laying the cloaks on the ground, of having the palm branches out there, of reciting the psalm, is that Jesus is the fulfillment of the psalm, that Jesus is their Messiah. So on that first Palm Sunday, this excited group of people believed that their Messiah had come. They laid down their cloaks for him. They put down palm branches for them. They recited scripture to him that you are the fulfillment of the scripture. They are excited because they believe they have gotten what they wanted. And here is where we see the problem start to brew. And that is that at least some of them there celebrating were not celebrating the coming of the Messiah. What they were celebrating was the coming and the Messiah that they wanted. Either through bad teaching by the spiritual leaders such as the Pharisees and Sadducees, or by their own bad spiritual concoction, they were looking for the wrong Messiah. For some, their idea of the Messiah is summarized best in Matthew, where he records that they were shouting, Hosanna to the son of David. And what they're saying with that is showing that the Messiah that they were taught to look for, the Messiah they were trained to understand would be one who would very closely resemble King David, would almost in a sense be a reincarnation of David. And what they were looking for was this Davidic Messiah to save them, to save them as a nation, as a physical nation, as a political nation. They saw Jesus coming in as a physical, political liberator. See, they wanted a Messiah who was solely political. They wanted a politician Messiah. They wanted one who would come in and make Israel great again. They wanted one who would come in and get them out from the oppression of the Romans, out from underneath the tyranny of their evil. They were looking for a Messiah who would make them a strong and free Israel again and a great nation to be feared again. That is the Messiah they were looking for. That is the Messiah they thought they were getting that first Palm Sunday. Now we also can see that others in that crowd were looking for a Messiah who ultimately looked a lot like them. Not physically, but spiritually. They had concocted this idea of what they wanted the Messiah to be. They didn't base it solely upon scripture. They didn't base it upon sound teaching from scripture. They wanted a Messiah who just essentially looked like them. Not a biblical messiah, but a bad caricature, a bad self-caricature of a messiah. If you've ever been to Myrtle Beach, you can go along on the strip and the boardwalk and you can find these people to make these, to draw these caricatures of you, these sort of exaggerated pictures of you. And that is in a sense what these people are looking for. There's a bad caricature of their selves that they said is their messiah. It's never good. when we when we find them when we try to concoct a messiah who's just like us because all we do is just take ourselves and try to put on a little bit holier apparel and that's not the messiah and so we see that crowd at some large portion of them was getting it all wrong the messiah they wanted wasn't the messiah they were getting jesus didn't come to be a politician. He didn't come to be a physical national liberator. He didn't come to be a messiah that looked just like them, a sort of self-help, make yourself feel good sort of messiah. No, Jesus came to be the messiah, the biblical messiah, that was prophesied about back in Genesis 3.15. was prophesied about throughout all the Old Testament and into the New Testament that John the Baptist was telling the people of Israel about. Jesus was the Messiah of the Bible, not a political Messiah, not a reincarnation of David, not the self-help Messiah. He came to be the Messiah. And that is what we see the crowds getting wrong, at least some, a portion of them. They didn't want the Messiah of the Bible. They didn't want the Jesus of the scriptures. Now, how do we know they were getting it wrong? Because some five days later, just five days later, some of them, at least some of them, went from lauding the Messiah to now calling for the death of Jesus Christ, simply because he wasn't the Messiah that they wanted. He wasn't the Messiah they thought they would get. So in a sense, they had buyer's remorse, and they wanted him gone. And so this morning, this Palm Sunday morning, as we look at this account, I think it's well worth each of us to keep in our mind as we look through this and ask some questions, that we keep the big question in mind, and that is, who is the Jesus that we have professed our faith in? Who is the Jesus that we have trusted our eternity with? Is he the Jesus of the Bible? Or is he the Jesus of our own concoction? Is he the Jesus of just a bad caricature of ourselves? Is he the Jesus of bad, heretical, unbiblical, unscriptural teaching? Is your Jesus the Jesus of the Bible? And that's the question that needs to be at the forefront of our minds this morning as we look at this account. And so to answer that question, to answer the question of who is Jesus, who is your Jesus, which we were talking about in a moment, has eternal implications. That answer has eternal implications to it. We need to define who Jesus is according to the right standard, and that right standard is God's word. Now many of us are familiar with the passage from 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17, that all scripture is breathed out by God. and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. Now, this passage has a special place in my heart because I wrote my Greek exegesis paper on this, so I could get all geeky with the Greek about it. But this is a passage we love to turn to to talk about our doctrine of scripture, that we believe the scripture is infallible and errant. It's God's word because of this. It applies to other doctrines of scripture as well. It also applies to the doctrine of Christ, this Christology. Who we know Jesus to be, how we know who Jesus is, should solely be based upon the standard of God's word. Now a lot could be said from that, couldn't it? There have been so many books written about this, so many sermons preached, so many debates had, so many of our creeds and confessions have come from trying to answer this question of who Jesus is. So what we're gonna do this morning is we're gonna answer this in the most Reformed Presbyterian way by looking at three attributes of who Jesus is in the Easter story. Now for those of you who may not get that joke and wonder why I'm laughing at myself in an empty sanctuary, it's well known in Reformed Presbyterian churches that every sermon has three points. If you come to Bethel, if you listen to a sermon, more often than not, much more often than not, my sermon has three points. To answer this in the most Reformed Presbyterian way, three attributes of who Jesus is that we find in the Easter story. And that first attribute of who Jesus is, is his divinity. that Jesus is divine. Now when we say that Jesus is divine, what we mean is that Jesus is God. He was never created. There can be this idea that there was first God the Father, and then God the Father created God the Son, and then they created God the Holy Spirit. That's not what it is. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit have coexisted eternally. Eternally before, and eternally ever after. So Jesus Christ wasn't created, he is divine, he is God. He is the second person of the Triune Godhead, the second person of the Trinity. And when we say he is divine, we also mean that he wasn't a superhuman, he wasn't somebody who was just better than the rest of us. And when we say he's divine, we don't mean that he was just a great moral teacher. When we say that Jesus is divine, we mean that Jesus is God. As we know from the Easter story, Emmanuel, God with us, that when Jesus was born, he was the divine God in the flesh, the second person of the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Jesus is the same substance of the Father and the Holy Spirit and is equal in power and glory to the Father and the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ is God. He is divine. Now where do we see that in the Easter story? Let me point you to just a couple places. First we see it when Jesus on the cross quotes Psalm 22. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Now that Psalm was originally written by David and written in the midst of some sort of suffering that David was going through. And then when Jesus was on the cross, going through the greatest suffering that anybody has ever known, that suffering of becoming our sin, the innocent Son of God becoming our sin, taking upon the wrath of God for our sins, that suffering of the innocent Son of God taking upon the wrath of God for our sins, He now takes that psalm and He applies it to His suffering. And that is something that only Jesus could do in his divinity. Now, we do believe, yes, that David wrote it, David prayed it, David sung it, the church has sung it, the church has prayed it. We believe all that, that it came from a particular situation or maybe a conglomeration of situations in the life of David. But in the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that psalm was also given so that it could ultimately be applied to Jesus, on the cross, applied to Jesus on the cross, and by Jesus on the cross. That God used that situation of David to give a psalm that ultimately is about Jesus Christ. So what Jesus did on the cross is something that only the divine Son of God could do. Now listen, we can pray that psalm, we can pray others. We absolutely need to use these psalms to pray. They are there to guide us in our praying. But we also need to remember there's a greater sense that this psalm was given so that it could ultimately be applied to Jesus' suffering on the cross. His suffering for us. To begin to, in words, explore the depth of his suffering. For the innocent son of God to look to his father in heaven and to cry out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? that shows us the divinity of Jesus Christ. We also see his divinity in the events that surround his crucifixion. We remember the accounts that tell us that the sky went dark, supernaturally dark, not an eclipse, not cloud cover, supernaturally dark from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. There is a supernatural earthquake. The curtain And the temple that separated the holy holies from the rest of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. There was a resurrection of the dead. People were rising up out of the tombs and walking around Jerusalem. Now listen, I have been to a number of funerals. I have officiated a number of funerals over my pastoral career. I have never been to a funeral like that. I've never seen a death like that. because there's only been one death like that, and that was the divine Son of God being crucified. That's why the sky went dark in a supernatural way. That is why the curtain was torn in two from top to bottom to signify that we may now boldly come before God's throne. That's why the earth shook. That's why the dead were resurrected. All this took place because the divine Son of God was on the cross dying for the sins of his people. It is well worth each of us asking ourselves, is the Jesus we believe in the divine son of God? Not some good moral teacher, not some creative being, not some supernatural human. Is your Jesus the divine son of God? Is he the second person of the Trinity? Is he Emmanuel, God in the flesh? Is he Trinitarian? And that you believe that he is, that you believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Is your Jesus divine? Another attribute of who we see Jesus is in the Easter story is that he is Lord. And again, going back to the cross, as Jesus is being crucified on the cross, he looks down on his mother and the apostle John, and he tells John that he will now take care of his mother. He looks at his mother and says, look over here at John, behold your son. And he looks at John and says, look at my mother, now behold your mother. Now on one level, this is Jesus being a good son, making sure his mother's gonna be taken care of after his death, his crucifixion, death, and resurrection. But on another level, this is Jesus acting as Lord, isn't it? Mary had no say in this. John had no say in this. Jesus as Lord is directing their lives in this way. He's being a good son, but he's also being Lord and providing for and directing and guiding his people in this way. And we see Jesus in his actions before the cross and on the cross, and that he is acting in a very lordly, kingly way. We think about all the mockery and jeering of Jesus on the cross, and as Lord, he never stoops down to your level. All the name-calling, and he doesn't resort to name-calling back with them. When we look at the composure of Jesus Christ on the cross, he is composed as the Lord of lords. He is the fulfillment of Isaiah 53 7. He was oppressed. He was afflicted. Yet he opened not his mouth. Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter. And like a sheep that before its shears is silent, so he opened not his mouth. When we look at Jesus on the cross, we see the composure of the Lord on the cross. And we say Lord, not only do we mean divine, we mean sovereign. If you remember back a few years ago, as we were going through our sermon series on Mark, I talked about how we reach this place in Mark. And each of the gospels reach the same place, that reaches this point in their narrative where Jesus begins his march to the cross. And he does so as Lord, in his sovereignty, in his divine sovereignty, He knows what needs to be done for the salvation of his people. He knows that there's eventually going to be a cross on the hill of Golgotha. So as the Lord of his people, he marches to that cross. He begins to prepare for that cross, begins to prepare his people for that cross. He does so for the salvation of his people. He does so as the Lord of his people. It is well worth each of us asking this morning, is Jesus your Lord? Is He the one you have submitted to? Is He the one you have freely given to to have reign over your salvation and life? Do you submit to Him to guide you and to direct you on the paths of righteousness? Do you follow after Him in His way? Do you go to Him in His word? Do you go to Him in prayer? Do you go to Him in word and prayer to find His will and direction for you? Is Jesus your divine sovereign Lord? And then finally, we see in the Easter story that Jesus is Savior. We remember that when Jesus was crucified, there were thieves on either side of him. And one thief mocked him and jeered him. And the other one eventually professed his faith in who Jesus Christ is. And do you remember what Jesus said to that one who professed his faith in him? Jesus said to him, today you will be with me in paradise. The thief professed faith and Jesus responded by saying, you have been saved from your sins. We see that Jesus is savior. As Jesus was on the cross paying the penalty for our sins, he looked to this thief and he said, you have been forgiven. Today you will be with me in paradise. Jesus is savior. So the Bible refers to him as being the savior of sinners. Jesus came to save us from our sins. We also see the heart of Jesus, the Savior, as also on the cross, he looked to the Father in heaven and he said, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. For these people who were killing him, so inhumane in their actions and in their attitude, he, with the heart of the Savior, looks to the Father in heaven and says, Father, forgive them from the heart of your Son, from the heart of the Son who is the Savior. Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. Now, understand, these people needed to repent of their sins. What we see is that heart of Jesus is Savior, that they would repent, so that they would be forgiven their sins. That's what John 3.16 tells us, right? Jesus is Savior. Is Jesus your Savior? This morning, wherever you are, is Jesus your Savior? You may have grown up in the church, you may have grown up around the church, you may have gone to Camp Bon Clarkan, Horizon, Quest, Retreats. You may have done all the wonderful things. You may have gone to your own denominations, retreats and conferences and camps. You may have been in the church, around the church, but have you ever come to Jesus Christ? Come to Him in faith, that He is Savior. Confess your sins to Him. Repent of your sins, ask for His forgiveness, trust in His forgiveness. Is Jesus your Savior? Not about what you can do, but all that Jesus has as Savior done for you. Is Jesus your Savior? So this morning, wherever you are, who is Jesus to you? The Bible tells us he is divine, the second person of Trinity, that he is Lord, he is sovereign, that he is the savior of sinners. Is Jesus the divine son of God to you? Is he your Lord? Is he your savior? There is a sweetness and a joy to this Easter week. It's a horrible story of Good Friday that Jesus had to endure the cross for us. But what a joyful story Easter is to know that you are so loved that Jesus rose from the tomb for you. That you are so loved that Jesus was crucified on the cross for you. that you are so loved that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit did all this for your salvation, all so that you could glorify Him and enjoy Him all your life. There is a sweetness and there is a joy in knowing the real Jesus. Not the false Messiah, not the concoction that you've made up. There's a real joy in knowing the real Jesus. Know the Jesus who is divine. Know the Jesus who is Lord. Know the Jesus who is Savior, so you can know that sweetness and that joy of knowing the real Jesus. May this be the Jesus you believe in, and may this be the Jesus you're looking forward to celebrating and worshiping. He died on the cross for you, suffered under the Father for you, so he can be resurrected on that third day for your eternity. May this be your Jesus. Join me now as we pray.