Public or Personal King?

Ephesians 6:5-9

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

What do you think in your own mind about Palm Sunday? We’re all taught to take it for granted. It
comes every year. But what do you really think about as to what happened on that day – the day when
Jesus came into Jerusalem and they spread palm branches in front of him? I don’t want to seem
heretical but sometimes it seems like a parade that didn’t quite come off. It’s like a media event
where the central character or the key figure doesn’t really seem to be wholly with the idea. It’s
almost a celebration of a kind of anti-hero.

If you ask me, “Oh why do you say that? Isn’t it a triumphant procession?” I say that partly
because of what Jesus was riding on. It wasn’t the victorious white charger or a Roman chariot, it
was a little donkey and its little foal following behind. Yet all the crowds seemed to lap that
right up. Part of the reason they did, was because they had all been taught in school for 600 years,
that that’s the way their Messiah would come. I don’t know if you know where to find that but it’s
in Zechariah, a prophet who wrote about 600 years before the procession took place. It’s in
Zechariah 9:9.

All the Jews had learned this at school and knew that this had been prophesied for 600 years or
more. Zechariah 9:9, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Lo,
your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on an ass, on a colt the
foal of an ass.”
And so they had that in their minds. To you and me it might not look exactly like a world ruler
riding into Jerusalem but to them it was what they were told to expect their Messiah would be riding
on.

And so, when they saw him coming that way, it meant a lot more to them than it might mean to us.
When they threw their clothes before him, for him to walk on, that had a hidden message. They had
done that on one notable occasion before when a certain man called Jehu came into an important
position in their country. And the position loved ones, was the word that is used in that verse that
we just read, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Lo, your
king comes to you.”

The last time they had thrown garments on the ground for someone to walk on was when Jehu was
crowned king of Israel. When they saw Jesus coming on the donkey to them, he was the Messiah. But
most of all, he was going to be their king. For 400 years, they had been in slavery in Egypt. For
another 400 years they had hacked out a land for themselves in Canaan. Then for a brief period of
about 250 years, they had some experience of united independence under the great King Saul and
Solomon and David. Then, for the past 750 years, they had been the downtrodden, oppressed vassals of
the Assyrians, then the Persians, then the Greeks, and then the Romans. They were a downtrodden,
oppressed, occupied country for the greater part of their lives. And what they yearned for, was the
Messiah who would come as the king and who would deliver them from the oppression that they were
experiencing.

So loved ones there were all kinds of feelings in their hearts as they saw Jesus coming on the ass
into Jerusalem. In their hearts, they were crying out, “Jesus, king of Israel, we want you to do

what Judas Maccabeus did. Hundreds of years before, Judas Maccabeus had murdered the tax gatherer
who came to collect taxes. He murdered him in his own yard and carried out a successful revolution
against their overlords. So, the people were thinking in their hearts, “Jesus, King of Israel, come
and deliver us from these Roman overlords and lead us in a successful revolution and free us from
these chains around us. Give us civil freedom and liberty.”

Loved ones that was what was in their dear hearts as they waved the palm branches and threw down
their clothes. What was Jesus’ attitude to all of that — to all that emphasis on delivering them
from their present civil and political troubles? Well, you’ll find it in the interview that was
conducted by Pilate. It’s John 18:36.

Pilate pressed Jesus regarding this very event: Israel’s independence, its nationalism and its
political freedom. In John 18:36 Jesus answered “My kingship is not of this world; if my kingship
were of this world, my servants would fight, that I might not be handed over to the Jews; but my
kingship is not from the world.” I think that’s why I feel some of the ambiguity that I do about
the procession into Jerusalem.

You feel delight and elation that Jesus is being recognized as king. The little donkey signifies the
kind of person he is and that seems appropriate. But isn’t it true that along with that, you feel
that the people are expecting something different from him than what he has come to give. They want
deliverance from their political oppression and he has come to give something else.

Loved ones, you can almost imagine that. You can almost imagine Jesus on the donkey saying to them
in his heart, “I know the oppression that you’re suffering because of your personal situations and
your political situations. I know that. But that’s not the deliverance you need most. The
deliverance you need most is the deliverance within you. The kingdom of God is within you. And
that’s where you need deliverance. You need deliverance from that selfishness inside you that
dominates your life. That’s the deliverance that I have come to give.”

“It’s that selfishness that makes masters and slaves. It’s that selfishness that makes some people
rich and some people poor. It’s that selfishness that makes some people have babies that they don’t
want. It’s that selfishness that makes people fight wars and invent weapons to destroy each other.
It’s that selfishness that has caused the ills of this world. Now I have to come to deliver you from
that selfishness. That’s why I have come this first time. The second time I come — when I return
again to the earth, I will deliver the world from its ills. But I come this time to deliver YOU from
the causes of your ills.”

Loved ones, that was something that the people didn’t really understand. And yet that was the basis
on which Jesus’ apostles operated during the years following his resurrection from the dead. I can
show you in Ephesians 6:5-9.

“Slaves, be obedient to those who are your earthly masters, with fear and trembling, in singleness
of heart, as to Christ — (It’s interesting, isn’t it? He didn’t say “Slave, free yourself, break
your chain and be free.”) — not in the way of eye-service, as men-pleasers, but as servants of
Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and
not to men, knowing that whatever good any one does, he will receive the same again from the Lord,
whether he is a slave or free. Masters, do the same to them, and forbear threatening, knowing that
he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him.”

Jesus and his apostles knew that slavery and all forms of captivity were utterly opposed to his
Father’s will. But he knew that political evils and social evils were only a symptom at that time
and in that society of the basic selfishness that was at the root of man’s problems. If you kept on
concentrating on simply the political evils, it would be like Hydra’s head. You would cut off one,
and another would grow in its place. As soon as you remove one social evil, another one would grow
in its place, unless you dealt with the cause of the social evils, which was the basic sin and
selfishness in men’s hearts.

So, Jesus and his apostles continue to emphasize that what we needed was a deliverance from that
selfishness within us. That call “king of Israel, king of Israel” must have been very mesmerizing.
We heard it recently on television, ‘king of Israel, king of Israel’, and it must have been very
powerful in its effect on Jesus. Yet He knew after the Romans, will come the barbarians and after
the barbarians will come another overlord and after that will come another overlord and another
dominator and another and another.

What you most need is deliverance from the inner sin and selfishness in your heart that causes these
evils. Loved ones, it’s easy to get caught up in a Palm Sunday triumphant procession and think that
you’re on your way to heaven. When someone up there shouts, “Get rid of abortion”, you think, “Yes,
that’s right, we should get rid of abortion.” And someone behind you shouts, “We ought to have
prayer in our schools.” And you think, “That’s right, we ought to have prayer in our schools.” And
someone over here shouts, “No nukes here.” And yes, there shouldn’t be any nukes here. And somebody
else shouts, “King of Israel, king of Israel”, and you feel yes, “king of Israel, king of Israel.”
But then you go home and there’s no problem there about prayer in schools and there hasn’t been an
abortion in your home for years and there are no nukes from the front door to the back and there
isn’t an Arab in sight. But your heart is filled with irritability and criticism and has no warmth
in it and no love and no Jesus.

That, loved ones, is where the triumphal procession lies on the ground useless. It’s too easy to get
caught up in Christian causes. It’s too easy to stand up for Christian causes, which are good in
themselves, and to think that that is what Christianity is. Loved ones, they’ll come and go. We’ll
have nukes here, we won’t have nukes here, we’ll have abortion, we won’t have abortion, we’ll have
prayers in the schools, we won’t have prayer in the schools, it’ll come and go.

I remember one old Christian brother whom I taught with years ago in Benilde High School. I was
saying to him, “What do you think of the modern math brother?” And he says, “Oh it was in 40 years
ago and it’ll be back in 40 years hence.” These things come in their cycles. On the whole, our
society improves a little and goes back a little, improves a little and goes back a little. Now it
is true wherever Jesus comes, slaves are freed eventually. Wherever Jesus comes, schools are started
to share truth, wherever Jesus comes, violence does cease, wherever Jesus comes, justice is
established, but first He must come. First Jesus comes and then the other things come about. But if
Jesus doesn’t come first, all you’ve got are causes. Some of the causes you’ll win and maintain a
win, and some of them you’ll lose and some of them you’ll lose later.

Loved ones, the fact is, the world will not be perfect until the millennium. That’s no reason for us
not to try to do what we can, but the world will not be perfect until the millennium which will take
place after the rapture, after the battle of Armageddon, when Jesus himself comes and establishes
his rule here on earth for a thousand years, prior to the setting up of his own kingdom and the
redemption of the whole universe. Until that time our world is committed even by scripture, to go on
getting worse and worse, proving more and more that man can do nothing independent of God.

Do you know why Jesus rode on a donkey? So that you could believe it easy for a man like him to come
into your heart, that’s it. That’s why the record ends – “he left them all and went out of the city
to Bethany and lodged there.” Because the only real deliverance is when Jesus comes into your heart
or mine and delivers us from our self-absorption, which is what produces all the social evils in our
world. And the first responsibility you and I have on this day of triumph is to allow him to come in
and to supplant our own selfish wishes for ourselves with his wishes for his Father and for the rest
of the world.

The spirit of yourself that thinks first and foremost of what is for your benefit, needs to give way
to the Spirit of Jesus who thinks first and foremost of his Father’s wishes and his Father’s
purpose. Loved ones, that’s why Jesus rode on the donkey, so that you would see how easy it is for
him to slip off and come into your life and come into your heart. Maybe we’ll free the world from
slavery, and we should try. Maybe we’ll free the world from nuclear power and we should try. Maybe
we’ll free the world from injustices and we should try. But it’s probable that with all our trying,
Jesus himself will still be the only salvation for a world that will have brought itself to the edge
of disaster.

But loved ones, all of that is simply a framework within which Jesus can come into our personal
lives and deliver us from our selfishness. So I would ask you, have you allowed him to do that? All
these causes are good loved ones and I’m for them. But the reason Jesus came was to deliver you and
me from the things that make life miserable for our friends in our lives. That’s how he wants to
come as king into your own heart today. So I would ask you, let’s turn our eyes away from all the
noise and all the shouting and all the waving of the palm branches. Let’s ask, Lord, you’ve left the
city now, would you come into my house and stay? Let us pray.

Lord Jesus, we thank you that you came for me and for each of us. Thank you Lord. Thank you Lord
Jesus that you didn’t come to lead processions or to take care of causes. But you came to save each
one of us from ourselves. And Lord Jesus, we would invite you now to come into our hearts and to
deliver us from this self-centered absorption with our own interests.

Lord Jesus, will you take over our lives and will you come in and bring some warmth and life here.
Will you replace all the causes for which we live, all the things that we think are good or bad, and
all the things that we have great opinions about? Will you come in and take over my life? Will you
live here as king and ride your donkey in here? Lord, we ask you to do that so that you may be
crowned in the only way in which you really care, the way that is dearest to you. You want to be
crowned the king of our life, thank you Lord. Amen.