The Gracious, Loving, Generous King

and turn in your Bibles for the Old Testament. reading Zechariah 9, we'll be reading verses 9 through 13.

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your king is coming to you, righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem, and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall speak peace to the nations.

His rule shall be from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth. As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you,

I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope.

Today I declare that I will restore to you double, for I have bent Judah as my bow, I have made

Ephraim its arrow. I will stir up your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Greece, and wield you like a warrior's sword.

You may be seated. Please stand again as we do the New Testament reading.

New Testament reading is Matthew chapter 21 verses 1 through 17.

Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethpage, to the Mount of Olives, then

Jesus sent two disciples saying to them, go into the village in front of you and immediately you will find a donkey tied and a colt with her.

Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, the Lord needs them, and he will send them at once.

This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying, say to the daughter of Zion, behold your king is coming to you, humble and mounted on a donkey and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.

The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks and he sat on them.

Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.

And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the

Lord. Hosanna in the highest. And then he entered Jerusalem. The whole city was stirred up saying, who is this?

And the crowd said, this is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee. And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple.

And he overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. He said to them, it is written, my house shall be called a house of prayer, but you make it a den of robbers.

And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did and the children crying out in the temple,

Hosanna to the Son of David, they were indignant. And they said to him, do you hear what these are saying?

And Jesus said to them, yes. Have you never read, out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies, have you prepared praise?

And leaving them, he went out of the city to Bethany and lodged there. You may be seated. It's good to see you all this morning and good to see some of you we haven't seen for a while.

Welcome home and I'm just glad to see you. Breaking new ground here, you know.

Stand up base. Wow, that's pretty cool. Yeah, all right.

Take your Bibles and turn to Luke chapter 12. Luke chapter 12. This is

Palm Sunday, the day that we remember and consider and meditate on the

Lord's triumphal entry into Jerusalem so many centuries ago.

The proclamation of him as king. Before we look at our text today, let's pray and ask

God that he would help us. Father, we are here because of what

Jesus has done for us. We are here to praise and to honor and to glorify you in all this service.

We are here now to hear your voice as you speak to us from your word, as you direct us, as you change and form our beliefs and our attitudes, our values, our affections.

So now we pray that you would help us to listen carefully to your words. We thank you for the scriptures that are before us.

They are our life. Help us now as we listen to you in Jesus' name.

Amen. Jesus and his disciples began their trek to Jerusalem from far off Galilee and like many others they were headed to the

Holy City to celebrate the Passover. As they walked the dusty roads other pilgrims joined them and soon their ranks had swelled to hundreds and hundreds of people.

Word began to spread that Jesus, the prophet, the miracle worker was in their midst and a certain excitement began to build like a giant wave starts to build in the ocean.

And soon that wave of excitement was carrying them along with unbounded enthusiasm. When they reached the

Mount of Olives, Jesus sent a couple of disciples ahead to the village to get a donkey and a colt, or unbroken colt, and as the wave of enthusiastic crowd swept

Jesus along he mounted that colt and he rode down the Mount of Olives and through the gates of Jerusalem.

And Jesus did that on purpose. He purposely did that. He was saying by this action that he was indeed the promised

Messiah, the ruler God had promised them centuries before. At that moment he fulfilled

Zechariah's words, say to the daughter of Zion, see your king comes to you gentle and riding on a donkey on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

The pilgrims by now were wild with excitement. They start spreading tree branches before the king.

They start laying down their cloaks in front of him. It's the, if you will, giving Jesus the red carpet treatment, treating him like a king.

And they start to shout and they start to sing all the words from the Psalms that talk about this king.

Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the

Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest. The residents of Jerusalem start shouting back, what's going on?

Who is this? And the crowds respond, this is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth and Galilee.

What is going on here? It's really quite simple. Jesus had all along been preaching that the kingdom of God had arrived with his arrival.

And now he reveals why that is true. The promised king had arrived.

I am the king you've been waiting for. The king and his kingdom have arrived.

Now when the Pharisees, who were immune to such enthusiasm about Jesus, said to him, teacher, they did not recognize him as king, they said, teacher, rebuke your disciples.

And Jesus responded with, if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out. In other words, the king and his kingdom has arrived and everybody sees it.

And if no one sees it, it's obvious that the rocks would start to cry out.

Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord. You see, the king arrived that day.

He's the ruler that we've waited for. And now he rules a kingdom from his throne in glory in heaven.

But we need to ask the question, what kind of a king is he? He entered

Jerusalem not on a stallion, ready to force submission, but rather on a donkey, a meek, gentle, humble king.

And so we picture ourselves welcoming the king into our city and into our hearts, a king who is humble, a king who is gentle.

And sometimes I wonder how many of us look upon the lowly servant king and think that this is just camouflage.

Maybe beneath his lowly exterior there's a terrible power and authority just getting ready to burst out.

Maybe this is merely a veneer of gentleness, hiding the real Jesus who's ill -disposed and angry towards us.

But Jesus is at pains to help you think differently about him and his father,

God. The king who comes in the name of the Lord perfectly represents and speaks for God.

And this morning, let's consider what Jesus the king says about his father and his kingdom.

Let's consider carefully the words that Jesus says in Luke chapter 12 verse 32.

Luke 12, 32. And I find this verse interesting because it appears that Jesus goes to great pains to explain exactly who he is.

Luke 12, verse 32. We're just going to spend our time on this one verse.

Fear not, little flock, for it is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

That was the first thing he says. The first thing he says is, fear not. Do not be afraid.

Do not be afraid. Now, we have much to fear in this world. If you would look at this whole chapter, you would see that in verse 4, he says,

I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body and after that have nothing more that they can do. You will fear, in that context, as he talks about that, you will fear because people will try to kill you for pledging your allegiance to Jesus.

There are people out there, he says, who will try to kill you for being a follower of me.

And then in verse 11, he says, and when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, for the

Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say. He says, you're going to be fearful. You're going to be anxious about what to say when you will have to answer for your faith in Jesus.

And when your answer is going to determine whether you are free or imprisoned, whether you're going to live or whether you're going to die.

Now, I'll be honest with you, I get anxious about preaching every week.

And I have a week to prepare what I'm going to say. And I'm going to say it to people who,

I think, like me. But he's telling them, don't be afraid when you don't have any time to prepare, and you're going to speak before people who hate you.

Right? Don't be afraid. In verse 22, and he said to his disciples, therefore,

I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on.

He says, you're going to be afraid for the essentials of life. Here's something else that you can be anxious about.

There's always something to fear. Right? There's always something to be anxious about.

But when you get down to verse 32, Jesus indicates that you might be afraid of something else.

And it's fascinating to me that he begins here saying, fear not, little flock.

Fear not, little flock, for it's your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. There's another fear we have that might go deeper.

And Jesus kind of hints at it here. It's this. God is not the kind of God who really wants to be good to his children.

It's kind of a fear that all of us have, and he addresses it here. Hey, don't be afraid.

Look at what God is like. We fear that. Sometimes the fear rises in our hearts that God does not want to be gracious to us.

We're afraid that he really does not want to be generous and helpful to us. Sometimes we give intellectual assent to the fact that God is good, but we feel in our hearts that maybe that goodness is a bit constrained.

Maybe God is like the judge who some clever attorney has backed into a corner on some technicality, so he has to be gracious, even though he really wants to send you to jail.

But he has to, you know, he has to be gracious. We're waiting for Jesus to get off the donkey, pull out a sword, and start swinging it, right?

Yeah, God is good, we think, but he begrudges his benefits. And if we don't say this in our words, it's the attitude that we have in our hearts.

God is good, but he begrudges his benefits. He's constrained to be good to us, to do nice things.

But really, he's kind of angry, and if he had his way, he'd vent his anger. Well, what does

Jesus tell us about this God, his Father and ours? He says, first of all, do not be afraid.

Why not? Because of God's grace. Jesus says, it is your

Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

It is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Good pleasure is one word in the original text, and it's translated in a variety of ways to delight, takes pleasure in, well -pleased.

When you sit around the Christmas tree handing out gifts, do you take pleasure in giving gifts to your children?

Do you take pleasure in that? How many of you have ever said, this is just too much fun,

I cannot take it any longer. I'm not going to do this. This is the last

Christmas I'm doing this, I just can't take it. No, why not? Because you love to do that.

You love to do that. God does not act in this generous, gracious way that is presenting to you

Christ the King and his kingdom to hide some malicious motives. He doesn't do it to hide some malicious motives.

It's not like you sitting there around the Christmas tree waiting for the kids to show up and rubbing your hands and saying, you know what,

I cannot wait to hand out the gifts to the kids because that's just going to set them up for, man, when I get after them, they're just really going to feel miserable then, right?

That's not how you do that. At least I can't imagine any of you doing that.

No, you're acting out of your deepest delight. You're not setting them up for the fall.

You're acting out of your deepest delight. You're doing what you love to do. You're doing this good thing because you just love it and so it is with God.

He gives you Christ and his kingdom and he takes pleasure in doing that. It is his joy.

It is his delight. It is his pleasure. It is his gladness. It is his great desire to give you

Jesus and the kingdom. It is his pleasure to do it and he goes on to say, it is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom, to give you the kingdom.

Now, my brother -in -law, Alan, and many of you know Alan, Alan is just an amazing negotiator.

I mean, he's always negotiating. Okay, when they lived up the road from the family farm, they rented it and somebody, the owner was saying, we're going to get rid of the house.

We're going to put all this under crops. So, Alan moved down to the farm and built another house but man, so here's what he did.

You know, he goes, okay, you know what, I'll take that gravel out of here.

I'll take the gravel out. So, he dug up all the gravel in their old driveway and took it down and put it on the new driveway.

He goes, you know, you want these trees. You want to get rid of these trees? Listen, I'll take those off your hand. So, he took those trees and he took them down to the where he's going to live and he sawed them all up and made boards out of them.

That became the paneling in his house. They're tearing down the high school. They're tearing down the high school in town.

He goes up and he says, you want to get rid of that hardwood floor, don't you? Yeah, tell you what,

I'll take it off your hands and he reworked it all and that became the floor in his house.

I'll never forget the time we went into the Hy -Vee grocery store late at night. Our families had been out that somewhere on a trip.

We went in, he sees these doughnuts. Now, doughnuts in a grocery store, right?

You all go into the store and you see these doughnuts sitting there, right? What do you do?

Well, if you like them, you buy them. Not Alan. You know what Alan does? He goes in, he says, look, it's evening, isn't it?

It's night and tomorrow you're going to sell those doughnuts cheaper because they'll be day old.

I'll take them off your hand now. Can you imagine going into the store and negotiating for doughnuts?

He did it. I mean, he does that. Now listen, why do

I tell you that? Because you've got to understand, God does not come along and say, hey, I'll make you a good deal on this kingdom.

What do you got to offer? Right? He doesn't do that, nor does he say, you know what, this kingdom costs me a lot.

This kingdom cost me a lot. In fact, it cost me my son, right?

You're going to have to pay a pretty penny for this. He doesn't do that. There's no way you can merit this kingdom.

There's no way you can earn your way into this kingdom. God takes pleasure in giving it to you, in handing it to you.

The thing is, you have to receive it. It's interesting, if you look ahead in Luke chapter 18, if you want to look there,

Luke chapter 18 verse 17, he says something about receiving this kingdom. He says, truly

I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.

You know how absolutely depraved we are as human beings? God says,

I'll give it to you. And we start saying, well, let me make you an offer.

I've got to find some way of making it up to you. And he says, no, you receive it like a child.

How does a child receive a gift, right? So your dad gives you, your little guy, let's say, let's say, let's say

Andy Green gives Joe, when Joe's about that tall, gives Joe a slinky for Christmas, right?

When his dad gives him that, does Joe say, how much do I owe you, dad? Or what do

I have to do to earn this, dad? Children, that doesn't even cross their minds, right? He just took it knowing that it was a gift because little children do not think about earning gifts.

And so Jesus says to us, the father's going to give you it. You've got to receive it like a child.

Don't, I mean, can you think how absolutely how our depravity produces the most incredible stupidity that God is going to give us something, but we as human beings are always wanting to say, oh no, no, no, don't give me anything.

What do I need to pay? How can I earn this? And when you tell people the good news that Jesus is willing to give it to them, what do they do?

What did you do for years? You rebelled, didn't you? I'm not going to take that.

I'm not going to do that. I don't want that. We're like the most ungrateful, ridiculously stupid children who someone gives us a gift.

A dumb child is going to say, I don't want that. An ungrateful child is going to say, don't give me anything.

It's the father's pleasure to give it to you. All you have to do is say, oh, okay, thanks.

Right? That's it. God is not stingy. He's not a scrooge. He is not tight -fisted.

He's generous. He gives you his kingdom and his king. There's no fear here.

God takes delight in giving us this kingdom. Jesus says, don't be afraid.

Why not? Because of God's love. He says, don't be afraid because of God's grace. Now he says, don't be afraid because of God's love.

Jesus says, your father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. He does not say your slave master has given you lodgings.

He does not say your employer has given you your wages. He does not say your king has condescended to kind of give you some things in a begrudging way.

He says, your father has taken delight in giving you his kingdom. A father cannot help but take pleasure in giving good things to his children.

Those of you who are dads, you know what that's like. You love it. You go out and you buy your child a bike and you can't wait to get home that night and surprise him with it.

You buy your little girl that doll and you can't wait to get home and give it to her. You're just absolutely looking forward to that.

Why? Because you're the father. You love them. God does not act begrudgingly or miserly or deviously.

He acts like a father. He gives to you generously without ulterior motives. There's no ulterior motives.

This is God's love. He is your father who gives you the kingdom.

By the way, I'm the older I get the more convinced I am that we do not think God enough.

We do not think enough. We do not think him, wow. We don't think of him as father enough.

That's what I want to say. He does not, we do not think of him as father enough. Is he the king?

Yes. Is he the sovereign? Absolutely. Is he a God of unapproachable holiness?

Yes. All of those are true but it's also true that he's our father. If you have come and received this kingdom and have embraced

Jesus and you have said I am not worthy of any of this. I am a sinner.

I am undone. Oh God have mercy on me. I believe in Jesus. He then becomes your father.

We don't think enough about him. We don't think of him as a father enough.

He is our father who's holy, right? He is a father who is love.

He is a father who is sovereign. He is our father. In Christ he is our father.

And here is love that casts out fear. Do not be afraid little flock. We are the flock of Jesus.

He's the shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep. We are his his flock. He cares for us.

Now the Parkers, Lydia and Lee, you know, my girl Lydia and my boy

Lee and all his all the the kids. I don't know if you knew this the other night their little goat

Poppy had four kids. Four.

Count them. One, two, three, four. Poppy popped out four little goats, all right?

And we saw the the films of that and the kids are there. It's all they mean they love these little things, right?

They love those little things and if you're raising that sort of thing you there's just an attachment to that, right?

Some of you've experienced that. There's an attachment to these little things in these mommy goats and things.

Well we're Jesus' little flock. We're his flock. He knows each one of his sheep.

So I haven't got all the names yet. There's Gail and Lucy and two more names.

I haven't got them all yet but they're all named, right? Listen, Jesus knows every one of our names.

He knows each one of us and he knows all of us. We're his flock and you know what he says in John chapter 10?

He says he gives up his life for his sheep. He says no one takes my life from me but I lay it down of my own accord.

I lay down my life for the sheep. He knows each one of us so well. He knows all of us so abundantly that he lays down his life for us.

The father did not begrudge the gift of his son and the son did not begrudge his giving.

We are his flock, his little flock. None of us are going to be lost in the shuffle.

It also says that the father's love for us is not based on our greatness. We're a little flock.

You know the famous and the powerful and the rich always have somebody looking after him, after them, but not us.

You know we're not loved. I don't know if you've noticed that can

I give you an example just this week? Everybody is going crazy about the

Cinderella story in the NCAA basketball tournament.

The Cinderella story this year is Oral Roberts University made it to the sweet 16. Now you know

I haven't followed basketball that close. They may still have gone on. They still may be there.

They may have been eliminated but they made it to the sweet 16 of the basketball. Oral Roberts University.

But then there's a writer, the sports writer in USA Today says that is awful. This is no

Cinderella story. This is a school that has backwards morality that violates the that violates the canons of human decency because they say in their rules that you cannot be homosexual and you cannot practice and have any kind of sexuality outside of marriage.

This school should never have made it even into the tournament ever. We should not allow things like that.

We are not loved folks but we are

Jesus' little flock. The powerful, the with it people, they have enough protectors.

We don't have any except the king. We are his little flock and he will not leave us.

This is a little flock that God loves. Here's the last thing I want to say this morning. We don't need to be afraid.

Why not? Not only because of God's grace, not only because of God's love, but we do not need to be afraid because of God's gift.

Jesus says your father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Now the kingdom in the gospels is not referring to some geographical entity.

It means whenever you see it talking about God's kingdom in the gospels,

Jesus is talking about the rule of God, where God rules, and his rule is a saving rule.

It is God intervening to restore harmony everywhere.

We are in under his rule. We are those who are being restored to harmony and what that means is that the omnipotent authority and rule of the king of the universe will be engaged forever on behalf of this little flock.

God's rule will be exercised on behalf of this little flock. This is what

God gives to us, the rule of King Jesus for our ultimate good. The rule of Jesus sometimes seems hard when he tells us to follow him and obey his commandments, but the reason why it's hard is not that he's hard, it's that our hearts are still too attached to the world.

God gave us this king to rule for our ultimate good.

He knows what's good for us. He's given, God has given us the kingdom in this king and because of that gift, rather than living life in fear, you can live life on the edge.

And again, maybe I need to expand this a bit and preach on the rest of the verses in this little paragraph, but notice we don't have to be afraid because it's

God's good pleasure to give us God's kingdom so that what we can live life on the edge. So what?

Sell your possessions and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with money bags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail.

Where no thief approaches and no moth destroys, for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

We can live life on the edge because it's God. God loves to give us his kingdom, little flock.

So why did Jesus ride in triumph into Jerusalem? Simply proclaim that the king and his kingdom had arrived.

So what does that mean? It means it points to a life without fear, especially the fear that God is angry with his little flock and delights in pouring out his wrath.

But Jesus describes the kingdom he brings in different terms. This kingdom and its king is a free gift from God.

It is a gift given to you by the love of our great God who is the father of this little flock. It is a gift that God delights to give.

Some of you here are strangers to that kingdom and I want to say just a few words to you.

It's the little flock that's in that kingdom and if you're not part of that flock, if you haven't said, oh

Lord, I am a sinner, I'm undone, then he's not your father and there is anger and wrath waiting because you haven't just said,

Lord God, I'll take this free gift. Come to Christ and his kingdom and you will find a joyous relationship with a great

God. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for the promises you give to those you love.

Father, I pray, first of all, that if there's any here who are not part of that flock, that you would, that they would heed the warning that you are angry and there is judgment.

But, Lord, as we look at this, we see that you take pleasure in rescuing people.

It's your pleasure you love to give this good gift.

So, I pray that if there's any here today that do not embrace

Jesus, that they would find instead, that they would look to this

God and accept his gift, repent and choose to follow

Jesus. For your flock here today, Father, I beg you, remind us of your goodness and your grace and your love and your unbelievable generosity.

Help us to rest in that love and help us to love the kingdom that you've given us.