Bible: Zechariah 9:9 and Matthew 21:1-11
SERMON – Palm Sunday 2011
The steadfastness of God compared to the fickleness of man
What is Palm Sunday all about?
First of all about palms – palm branches – big fronds,
torn from palm trees to be laid down on the rough surface of a road
that would be more like a dirt track than what we would call a ‘road’ today.
Palm Sunday is about the ride into Jerusalem
that Jesus would make
for the last time in His natural life.
Palm Sunday is about the entrance of a Holy man into the Holy city.
Palm Sunday is about people praising and cheering,
happy and expectant,
but Palm Sunday is also about the steadfastness of God
compared to the fickleness and shallowness of mankind.
When I was a boy, I had a friend who was a member of the Boys Brigade.
Their motto is SURE AND STEADFAST.
My friend was a BB, but he wasn't steadfast.
Sometimes he would be friendly and want to play with other boys;
but usually he would only play with them
if they played the game HE wanted to play,
and if he didn’t win, he was upset, and in a bad mood,
until he got bored, and it suited HIM to play with someone.
Everything had to be the way HE wanted it,
unlike God, my friend wasn't a steadfast friend.
The dictionary definition of Steadfast is:
fixed, unwavering, determined, regular, and stable.
Unfortunately, there does not seem to be a lot of this around these days.
We shouldn't be surprised
because that's the way people have been since the beginning of time.
When God created Adam and Eve He placed them in the Garden of Eden
and told them they could do anything, everything they wanted,
except eat the fruit of one tree.
For a while they steadfastly obeyed God;
then they gave in to temptation, and ate the fruit of that one tree.
I'm sure we could all could give examples
of times when people we have relied upon for years,
suddenly let us down.
And I'm sure that if we are honest
we'll admit that we have also let other people, and God, down.
The Old Testament has many names and titles for God,
which help us to understand something of the nature and character
of our infinite, immortal Creator;
such as El Shaddai, Almighty God, Adonai or Lord,
and Jehovah Jireh, the Provider,
but one of the words that appears many times throughout the OT,
which describes God perfectly,
is CHESED, which is translated as STEADFAST.
CHESED means God is:
STEADFASTLY holy
STEADFASTLY just
STEADFASTLY morally perfect,
STEADFASTLY patient,
STEADFASTLY generous,
STEADFASTLY merciful, and
STEADFASTLY honest in His dealings with man.
The Boys Brigade tries to get boys to be like this,
STEADFASTLY holy, just, generous and honest,
and while my friend wasn't STEADFAST in all these things,
he wasn't a bad lad; maybe 60% steadfast; 70% steadfast on a good day,
,
but God is perfect and 100% STEADFAST for 100% of the time
in His love for us,
and that's how He wanted His chosen people to be.
The Jews in Jesus' time should have been a STEADFAST people.
They had had the Law for 2,000 years;
had been waiting for their Messiah for 1,000 years;
and had been waiting for someone to deliver them
from the Greeks and Romans for over 100 years,
before Jesus came riding into the Holy City of Jerusalem on a donkey,
in clear fulfilment of the Messianic prophecy in Zechariah 9:9.
If it had been on TV News
we would have seen the Jews jumping up and down in the streets,
smiling, clapping their hands
and waving palm branches
before placing them down in the road
like a red carpet before a V.I.P.
We would have heard them shouting Hallelujah, Praise the Lord,
Hosanna in the Highest, Jesus Christ Superstar,
and generally rejoicing,
on that first Palm Sunday.
But it didn’t last, because only a few days later
they would turn from best of friends to worse of enemies..
Whereas on that Sunday the Jews in Jerusalem shouted
"Praise him, praise him"; ‘Roll out the red carpet’;
only five days later on the first Good Friday
they shouted "Crucify him, crucify him!".
They wanted a Messiah, a man sent from God,
but He had to be a warrior Messiah who would save them from the Romans;
but not the sort of Messiah God sent Jesus, to be.
God came into this fallen world in the Person of Jesus,
to be a spiritual Messiah;
a Messiah who would save them, not from the Romans,
but from sin, the devil, and a lost eternity.
And because Jesus did not live up to their expectations,
they had God’s Son executed.
This illustrates clearly the fundamental difference
between the nature of God, and the nature of man.
God is STEADFAST, unchanging.
In Deuteronomy 32 verse 4 He is called "The Rock".
While man is fickle, unreliable, like shifting sand,
and the Bible is full of examples that bear this out.
In Genesis 6 it says Noah was a righteous man
but in Genesis 9 it says he got drunk on wine and lay around naked.
Jonah was a prophet and evangelist
but he tried to run away rather than preach to the people of Nineveh.
In Judges 13 it says Samson was a mighty man of God
killing a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of an ass
but in Judges 16 it records how he sinned with Delilah.
In 1st Samuel chapter 9 Samuel anointed Saul as Israel's first king
but in chapter 15 we read that he had done so many ungodly things
that God said He was sorry that He had ever made Saul king.
In 1st Samuel 16 David was anointed to become Israel's greatest king
but in 2nd Samuel 11 there is the account of how he sinned with Bathsheba.
In Matthew’s Gospel chapter 16 we see that of all the disciples
Peter was the closest to Jesus
but Matthew 26 records how he denied him
three times before the cock crowed.
In John's Gospel chapter 13 we can read how
Judas was the keeper of the moneybag, a trusted disciple,
but in Matthew 26 we read how he betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.
And so it has gone on down through history.
Japan was our ally in the First World War,
but our enemy in the Second.
The motto of the London Stock Exchange
is "My word is my bond".
These words are supposed to give the impression of
honesty and integrity, in insurance, finance, stocks and shares,
the backbone of our economy, the source of our pension funds;
but in recent years we have seen fiddles and corruption,
scandals and sheer greed;
which affect every one of us who has savings or a private pension.
Anyone who watches programmes such as ‘Watchdog’
will be aware of shops and businesses, often household names,
that we trust and deal with
on the basis of their adverts and guarantees,
but so often let us down and don’t want to know
when something goes wrong.
How many of us thought we had a friend, a really good friend,
one who would stand shoulder-to-shoulder with us
when the going got rough,
only to find that they ran away and left us to stand alone;
and to be honest, how many of us have let a friend down, or God?
How must Jesus have felt
when the crowds who shouted "Hosanna", "Hallelujah"
on the first Palm Sunday,
shouted "Crucify him" on Good Friday?
Surprised?
Disappointed?
Angry?
Upset?
In His humanity, He would be!
In His divinity He knew this would happen.
How do we feel, what do we do, in similar situations?
If we can't always rely on our friends or relatives,
or banks or shops;
who can we trust ?
The answer is God, and God alone.
That's why we call ourselves Christians, Christ’s people;
that's why we gather each Sunday to worship Him,
because the wonderful thing is - that God will never let us down.
It is just not in His nature.
God is not FICKLE as sometimes our friends and relatives are,
and sometimes as we are,
but sure and STEADFAST, reliable and true, loyal and faithful.
He is our Rock.
In Proverbs 18 verse 24 it says there is a friend
who is more loyal than a brother.
Who is it?
The Lord God almighty, and His only begotten Son,
the Word who became flesh;
the One who lay down his life for his friends.
This is why we love Him, and want others to know Him too.
Whatever our problem, whatever our need, whatever our situation,
God is STEADFAST
and God is there,
not only when He feels like it,
or when it suits Him;
but every minute of every day.
How much is He there for us?
The answer is 100%, 24/7.
As much as His only begotten Son was
when He humbled Himself to death on the cross,
for our sake.
The message of Palm Sunday and every Sunday
is that God is constant and steadfast.
May we be as steadfast in our faith and service for God,
and witness for His kingdom
as God is steadfast in His love for us.
In Jesus' name, Amen; and ........................................
