Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – John 12:12-19

John 12:12-19. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. The next day, a great multitude that had come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palm trees, and went out to meet him and cried out, “Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel.” Then Jesus, when he had found a young donkey, sat on it, as it is written, “Fear not, daughter of Zion.

Behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt.” His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written about him, and that they had done these things to him. Therefore, the people who were with him when He called Lazarus out of his tomb and raised him from the dead, bore witness. For this reason, the people also met him because they heard that he had done this sign.

The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, “You see that you are accomplishing nothing. Look, the world has gone after him.” Let us pray. Father, it is our desire to see the world go after the Savior and come to him in worship and praise the way your people do on this Lord’s day. To that end, Lord God, we pray that you would bless these scriptures to our understanding. Open the hearts of our understanding, Lord God, that we might indeed be transformed by your word and go into this world as transforming agents of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We ask this in his name and by his authority, fully expecting it to be answered. Amen. May you be seated.

Thomas Watson, in his book The Body of Divinity, which is a commentary on the Westminster Catechism, writes this. He quotes from 1 Peter 4:11 that God in all things may be glorified. The glory of God, writes Watson, is a silver thread which must run through all of our actions. Glorifying God has respect to all the persons in the Trinity.

It respects God the Father who gave us life, God the Son who lost his life for us, and God the Holy Spirit who produces a new life in us. We must bring glory to the whole Trinity. Our purpose in life is to glorify God in all that we do and say. The Westminster Catechism says, “What is the chief end of man?” The answer is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. This Lord’s Day on Palm Sunday, I’m going to speak on how we glorify God.

And next week on Resurrection Sunday, I’ll speak on how we enjoy God all the days of our lives. It is the great purpose of our lives then to give glory to God and to enjoy him. And so what is the meaning and purpose of our existence? Why are we here? Why do the things that happen to us happen to us the way they do? The answer is clearly given over and over in scripture. They happen for the glory of God. And you are here to be measured according to the standard of how well you conform to this task that God has given to you to glorify him in all that you do and say.

The catechism correctly sums up the whole of the scripture teaching on this matter. It’s a wonderful thing to have little children glorify God. When I think of this particular question and answer I think of the truncated version found in the little children’s catechism that some of us use or have used, and some are using now. And Charity, when she was two or three—I don’t remember exactly when she was able to talk—I would have her memorize the answers. She couldn’t say “glory” though. Why did God make you? In the little children’s catechism it’s “for his own glory.”

But she couldn’t say “glory” because she didn’t have her G’s down yet. So it was “for his own gowwy.” But you know, it was wonderful, and I’ll remember that all the days of my life as a picture of young ones glorifying God even before their speech is yet formed to speak the very word glory.

Palm Sunday is of course an appropriate time in which to speak on this text because we have here as Jesus enters into Jerusalem for Passion Week—so called—today for the final week of his ministry in life. We see the crowds of Jerusalem glorifying him, praising his name and we’ll see that as we go through the text.

I want to first of all mention that we read as the call to worship the account of the triumphal entry found in the Gospel of Matthew. It’s also found of course in Mark and Luke as well as in John, which is the text we’re going to be speaking on today. John is different from the other accounts. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are very similar to one another with some additions or deletions along the lines of that.

You might have heard the term “the synoptic gospels.” That refers to Matthew, Mark, and Luke. They have essentially the same kind of viewer perspective, same kind of optical view of perspective on their presentation of the gospel, whereas John is really very different in terms of the gospel. But in any event, just to flesh some of this out, remember that we don’t have here a complete account we’re dealing with.

And I want to begin by saying that there are aspects to the triumphal entry that are pointed out more directly in the other accounts. For instance, we’re told in the other accounts that Jesus had come through Bethany and Bethphage up to the Mount of Olives. These were two towns that were like suburbs of Jerusalem, as it were. Mount of Olives being the ascent to Jerusalem. The synoptic gospels also mention instructions about how this colt—and actually a donkey and a colt, a mother and her colt—were obtained by our Savior. The word in the synoptic gospels shows the specific nature in which Jesus would obtain these things for his use and the fulfillment of the prophecy which we’ll get to in the context of our sermon.

In addition to the palm branches that were cast before our Savior on his triumphal entry that we read about in the Gospel of John, the other gospels record that the garments of the people were put first on the animal on which he rode—or the animals on which he rode—as well as upon the road itself.

In addition to the citations from John that we just read, the other gospels tell us that they cried out “Hosanna to the son of David. Hosanna in the highest. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest.” Hosanna means “God save.” That’s what it means. It becomes a term of praise and adoration. But in its literal meaning, it means “God save.” So “Hosanna to the son of David. Hosanna in the highest. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest” is part also of what the crowds were shouting out.

We also find in other accounts The Pharisees, upon all this going on for several days, attempted to get Jesus to quiet the worshippers. And he says that if they were quiet, the stones themselves would cry out at his entry into the city. Additionally, he tells them that God has perfected praise in the mouths of babes in response to the Pharisees trying to tell him to get his people not to sing forth his acclamations, his worship, and his praise.

The whole city is moved as Jesus makes this triumphal entry.

Now, a couple of things here. This occurred on a Sunday. The time reference in the text is “six days before the Passover,” and we’re told there is some dispute about the events of Passion Week. I will tell you that today many people believe that Jesus actually died on Thursday, not Good Friday, and that the reason for that is that Passover was on Friday in AD 30.

We know that now. Some of these things were not known until the last few years. And without getting into all the details of it, the point is that this initiates Jesus coming to Jerusalem for what he knows will be his death and resurrection. And so the events here are that he comes into the city and if indeed he does die on Thursday evening at the Passover, then we had two Sabbaths there.

Okay, remember the Jewish day goes evening and day. Thursday evening, Friday morning is the first Sabbath, the Passover. Friday evening, Saturday during the day is the weekly Sabbath rather. And then on the Lord’s Day on the Sunday after the Sabbath, our Savior is resurrected. If that’s the correct scenario, then when Jesus enters Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and it was a Sunday, then he enters it along with thousands of lambs because the Passover required lambs for every family.

Certainly roughly every ten people would have one lamb. Josephus recounts that during his time at this time there was an actual census done of the lambs that were brought into Jerusalem at the required time, which would have been the Sunday before the Friday Passover or beginning Thursday evening. And Josephus records that there were over 200 thousand lambs brought into the city on that day. That would mean there were well over two million people that had swelled the ranks of Jerusalem as a city.

And in the midst of all these lambs coming to Jerusalem, here is the Lamb of God who is the emblematic picture of all the Old Testament sacrifices. The Lamb of God who enters into Jerusalem to die for the sins of his people. So that’s kind of the picture we have before us.

Now, also by way of introduction, let me go back now to the outline. Actually, some little indicators here that I want you to notice in passing. I’ve mentioned already the geography of this—that you have Bethany and Bethphage that Jesus passes through as he comes to Jerusalem for the triumphal entry. What I didn’t mention is that it begins in Jericho. In terms of the literary structure of these accounts in the gospels, Jericho is prominently mentioned. So Jesus comes through kind of the wilderness sort of area outside of Jericho, passes through Jericho, then into these suburbs of Jerusalem.

There’s this movement from Jericho to Jerusalem. What Jesus is going to do is he’s going to die for his people, be rejected by Jerusalem, and he will tell prophecies of that city being torn down and the temple being destroyed. And after the Romans seize Jerusalem for a number of months in AD 70, they are so mad by the time that the whole thing is over, they come in and slaughter everybody. And they tear down every building except for the wailing wall which still stands.

So it is a Jericho of sorts that he is going into—from Jericho into the greater Jericho. The greater responsibility of those who had the stewardship of the word of God rejected him and so the whole city will be destroyed.

Secondly, there are some incident markers here. Mighty works of the Lord Jesus Christ surround this triumphal entry. Remember we’ve said that last week about God’s mighty works are things we praise him for in terms of the communion sharing time—ultimately the mighty work of his resurrecting power.

And as Jesus moves toward Jerusalem, the day before his entry, he spends it at the home of Lazarus. And Lazarus is the one whom he had resurrected from the dead. This is important for the text because the texts tell us that it’s because of Lazarus and the miracle of his resurrection that many people have come to see Jesus in terms of this triumphal entry. And actually, it says a lot of them too were at Lazarus’s home and then follow him into the city because they wanted to see Lazarus. They’d never seen a guy before raised from the dead.

So this mighty work even prior to Jesus eating at Lazarus’s home on his way in again from Jericho—he heals a couple of blind people. He gives sight to blind Bartimaeus. And it’s interesting, you know, the people say, “Don’t bother Jesus on his way to Jerusalem.” And Bartimaeus cries out and Jesus says, “What do you ask?” He asks for his sight and Jesus restores his sight.

After Jesus comes into Jerusalem during the Passion Week, the days leading up to his death, he heals more blind people and makes more lame people to walk. So the wondrous works of Christ, restoring sight, restoring wholeness of limbs, and restoring resurrection life to the dead is the context for what the people are praising him about in terms of his entry.

Third, there are some context markers in these accounts and I haven’t given you all of these, but I’ll just let you know by reading here some of the things that happened prior—and I’ve already mentioned some of them. Prior to coming into the triumphal entry, Jesus had dinner with Lazarus. He was anointed at that dinner by Mary for his burial. The people are there wishing to see Lazarus. The Pharisees are actually plotting not just the death of Jesus as Jesus begins his triumphal entry, but they’re plotting also to kill Lazarus to get rid of the evidence of Christ’s miraculous power, him declaring himself to be the Son of God with power.

So they seek to put both Lazarus and Jesus to death. Jesus in the context of his movement toward the triumphal entry predicts his suffering and death. But the apostles don’t seem to understand this. They argue over who would get the powers, the positions of honor and authority as Christ is ushered into his kingdom. So they may seem to be of the same mindset of the crowds—that Jesus will enter into Jerusalem as the conquering hero to remove Roman oppression.

In any event, even though he’s just told them about his suffering and death to come, they argue then about who could be greatest. “Can I sit at your right hand? Can I sit at your left?” The healing of two men who were blind, as I mentioned, in spite of the cheering multitudes telling the blind men to be quiet. Zacchaeus’s salvation occurs in the context of this same triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Zacchaeus is brought to salvation through Christ’s words.

Jesus comes to seek and save, he says, that which is lost. The people aren’t happy that Jesus is going to eat now with Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector as well as being a rich man. So Jesus shows that he doesn’t exactly keep to politically correct notions in terms of his visitation of Zacchaeus and bringing salvation to his house.

Jesus teaches a parable of the man returning to the kingdom as he prepares for his triumphal entry. A man has a kingdom. He goes away, leaves some people in charge. When he comes back, the people that he left in charge say, “We don’t want this guy to reign over us anymore.” And he also demands an accounting from them. “What did you do with the talents and gifts that I gave you, the money I gave to you?” “Well, I didn’t do anything with it.” And he curses that man and takes away whatever he was given. And he takes the ones who would not have him to reign, the ones who would not have the owner of the establishment to reign over them.

He kills them in his presence. This is the parable that Jesus speaks, preparing the people and preparing us for this message of his triumphal entry. Judgment comes upon a fearful preservationist, defeatist mindset in terms of the men who would not use his talents and upon the pitiable rebellion of those who would not have the Lord Jesus Christ to reign over them.

Indeed, this very crowd that cries out “Hosanna” will in four or five days cry out “We would not have this man to reign over us. Give us Caesar as king.”

Now, after Jesus’s triumphal entry, some things happen that I want to touch on briefly, preparing the context for the event itself. After the event, in striking contrast with the masses cheering him, Jesus as he’s about to enter Jerusalem weeps over Jerusalem. So you’ve got crowds cheering him, him overseeing the city and weeping—and not just crying softly. The words seem to indicate kind of a racking—you know, the way your chin trembles, your chest kind of heaves. That’s the weeping that Jesus performs over Jerusalem.

He then enters and he evaluates Jerusalem. He doesn’t begin with changing, turning over the money changers’ tables. He begins by looking around and then leaving, going back to Bethany that evening. The next day he comes in and on his way into town—then on the second day, this would be on Monday morning—he curses the fig tree that bears no fruit.

And of course this is a picture of the cursing of the nation that bore no fruit for the one who indeed was the owner and planter of the vineyard. He drives out the money changers then in Jerusalem. He did it at the early point of his ministry and he does it here the second time at the conclusion of his ministry. He as it were heals the blind and lame as well. The cheering continues causing the Pharisees to rebuke him for not silencing them.

But he responds with scripture: “Out of the mouth of babes, God has perfected praise or worship.” The fig tree is indeed withered. Our Savior, who has in the context of driving out the money changers exercised the demon of the bride, so to speak, instructed that the temple is to be a house of prayer for all nations.

All right. Uses the occasion of the withered, righteously judged fig tree to instruct the disciples in the power of faith to hurl mountains into the sea and the need to exercise biblical forgiveness. At the same time, amazingly, said you’d call the fig tree to wither up. He says, “If you have faith, you can throw a mountain into the middle of the sea.” And then he tells them, “As you pray, forgive your enemies as God has forgiven you. Otherwise, God won’t hear your prayers. And that mountain will not go into the sea.”

Mountain worship will move into the sea of the Gentiles, bringing the conversion of the world—that is brought to awareness of its sin and blindness through the means of the worship prayer of those who understand and acknowledge before God that they are forgiven sinners.

After Jesus’s entry, the Greeks want to see him. Interesting account. They don’t get to see him. It’s not their time yet. Jesus says it’s Monday or Tuesday. His response is that the hour of his glorification by death and resurrection are at hand, which will change and save the entire cosmos. The Greeks represent the cosmos. Jesus has come to save the whole world. “If I be raised up,” he says, “all the world will be drawn unto me.”

And then Jesus prays that the Father’s name would be glorified and the Father’s voice from heaven sounds forth saying, “I have glorified and I will glorify.” He has glorified Christ in his own name through the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ and by causing people, even his enemies, to sing forth his praises as he comes into the city. But the final act, the penultimate act of glorification is the resurrection of the Savior.

And then we have the action itself, the praising of the Savior. The picture is much like our worship service hopefully should be. Jesus comes in to be with us and we rise to heaven to be with him and we’re to sing forth his praises. “Hosanna. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” This is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords with whom we have to do. Our worship and praise sound out the way their worship and praise sounded out nearly 2,000 years ago.

I want to talk and use this illustration then in the chapter in John chapter 12 as a means to talk about how we glorify God. These people were moved to glorify God in various ways in the account before us. And I want to use these verses to help us to instruct ourselves how we fulfill that purpose for which we’ve been created, which is to glorify God in all that we do and say.

Okay. Number one: we glorify God by worshiping the King.

We read here in the context of John chapter 12 in verses 12 and 13 that the great multitude comes out. They take branches of palm trees. They go out to meet him and they cry out, “Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel.” They worship Jesus Christ.

Now, you say, “Dennis, when you’re talking about worship, this is not the formal worship service of this church of that existed at the time of Jerusalem?” But it is. You see, they have palm branches. Why do they have palm branches? Because palm branches were used in the context of the worship of God’s people as recorded in Leviticus 23:39-44. The palm branches or branches of trees were used at the Feast of Tabernacles. Now, this wasn’t this feast, but it was a religious element that they brought into their celebration of Passover week. So they were supposed to cut down these branches and then they were supposed to use them in the praise of God.

Nehemiah, the text talks of the same thing—that the palm branches are used in the formal worship of the church. And indeed in the book of Revelation in chapter 7, verses 9-12, we see the same thing. In Revelation 7, we see the worship going on in heaven. And we see in verse 9, “After these things, I looked and behold a great multitude which no one could number of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues standing before the throne and before the Lamb clothed with white robes with palm branches in their hands.”

Palm branches in their hands. There is a symbolic sense in which as we come together to worship God, we come with palm branches in our hands. Palm branches were used as symbols of conquest. Rulers would be given palm branches in terms of their conquest of peoples. And the Lord Jesus Christ is the palm branch bearer—palm branch bearer of all palm branch bearers. The book of Daniel says that the Lord Jesus, the King of Kings, is he who rides upon the heavens for our help, for the help of the people of God.

In the citation on your outline, Jesus is the one who rides on the heavens who walks as it were on treetops because he is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. So these people were engaging in glorifying God through their worship of him for who the scriptures say that he was.

Now they were using a citation here in terms of this particular version in John 12. “Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel.” They’re using a citation here from Psalm 118. Turn to Psalm 118 and we’ll look at this verse being cited, particularly verses 22-29 and more specifically verses 25 and 26.

Psalm 118 is the last of the Hallel, which means the series of Psalms 113 to 118. “Hallel” means praise God. So it’s a section of the Psalms we use specifically to praise God. And indeed, after the Last Supper, when it says they departed, singing a hymn or psalm, most people believe it was one of these Hallel psalms that were sung as they went into the evening for Jesus’s arrest and betrayal.

Psalm 118 concludes these. And Psalm 118 was one of the first things that the cultures of the Jews would teach their children. Every boy would know Psalm 118 very early in his life. The children would be able to sing this psalm. This song poem was sung, by the way, in terms of palm branches at the Feast of Tabernacles when they would come in and they would circle the temple once a day for six days and seven times on the seventh day with these palm branches and they would be singing Psalm 118.

There was this correlation in their mind between the culmination, the coming of Messiah, the Feast of Tabernacles and ingathering as well as the giving of praise through Psalm 118.

In Psalm 118, verses 22 and following: “The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This was the Lord’s doing. It is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. Save now, I pray, O Lord. Oh Lord, I pray. Send now prosperity. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. We have blessed you from the house of the Lord. God is the Lord and he has given us light. Bind the sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar. You are my God and I will praise you. You are my God, I will exalt you. Oh, give thanks to the Lord for he is good for his mercy endures forever. This is the day the Lord has made.”

We sing that little chorus, don’t we? “This is the Day.” Well, the context of that is the triumphal entry of our Savior quoted appropriately by the people in the providence of God asking Jesus to save. He would save, but he would do it in a manner that they were not accustomed to, which we shall talk about in a couple of minutes.

So the praise of God is going on using God’s words from Psalm 118, God’s symbols—the palm branches to be used at the Feast of Tabernacles and other religious occasions. And they were singing forth the very words of God in praising the Lord Jesus Christ. They were glorifying Christ by glorifying him as King of Kings. And I’ve given you a number of citations on your outline in which he is referred to as the King of Kings and the King of Israel. So worshiping Christ is a means here of glorifying him and glorifying God.

Now moving on in your outline. We don’t see this just in John 12. I give you a number of citations relating worship and the glorification of God. If our chief end is to glorify God, how do we do it? Dennis, tell me how to glorify God today. If you tell me that’s what I got to do and I want to do it according to the scriptures, how do I do it? And the most significant way, the most often repeated manner that God says you’re to glorify him is through the worship of God’s people like you’re doing today.

You have already this day met at least in outward obedience the requirement of you. The joyous duty we have to join those throngs with the palm branches before Christ saying “Hosanna. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” We’ve done that today, haven’t we? We’ve sung praises to God. We’ve glorified him. You fulfilled your purpose in life as you came here today and as you sang these songs of praise to God.

The Psalter is filled with references to the requirements to glorify God by praising him. I have listed some here from various places of scripture. 1 Chronicles 16:28: “Give to the Lord, O families of the peoples. Give to the Lord glory and strength. Give to the Lord the glory due His name. Bring an offering and come before him. O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.”

Obviously talking about the corporate worship services of the Old Testament community. “Give the Lord glory. Bring an offering, come before him, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.” We glorify God by coming together and worshiping him.

Glory means to give weight, value, honor to. And we honor and give God weight and value being the ultimate source of all value and standard by which all values are measured. When we sing forth his praises and we say “Hallelujah”—

Psalm 69:30: “I will praise the name of God with a song. I will magnify Him with thanksgiving.”

Psalm 86:9: “All nations whom you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name, shall worship before you and glorify your name.”

Worship, thus glorifying the name of Jehovah God.

Psalm 91:12: “I will praise you, O Lord my God, with all my heart. I will glorify your name forever.”

Revelation 4:11: “You are worthy, O Lord to receive glory and honor and power for you have created all things and by your will they exist and were created”—and of course the other citations in the book of Revelation which we’re familiar with having sung them for the best part of the last two years off and on. We sing these statements giving glory and praise to God.

In the context of God’s worship we glorify God by worshiping him. Worship has these elements of admiration. Again to quote from Watson in his Body of Divinity: We glorify God when we are God admirers, admiring his attributes, which are the glistening beams by which the divine nature shines forth; his promises, which are the charter of free grace and the spiritual cabinet where the pearl of price is hid; the noble effects of his power and wisdom in making the world, which is called the work of his fingers.

To glorify God is to have God-admiring thoughts, to esteem him most excellent and search for diamonds in this rock only. We come today, don’t we, people of God, to give God glory and praise by being God admirers? To know our God, to know what the scriptures reveal of him, to understand what the heavens reveal of him as well through general and special revelation. We know God by what he has shown us to be. And we look at his excellencies and we admire him. We love him and are moved to worship and praise and we glorify him by being admirers of him.

We glorify God through adoration and worship. We glorify God through affection. You know, I threw this in very self-consciously. We don’t want to think somehow—and I know we’ve talked about this for a couple of months now, but I think it’s so important—we know that 1 Corinthians 13 talks about love and actions. We know that love is related to God’s law. If we love Jesus Christ, we’ll keep his commandments.

But we don’t want to end up on the other side of the fence where it is some kind of cold, unemotional obedience to God’s word that finds its purest expression as being called love for God. We should have an emotional response to the God who has delivered us from our sins and from the delivery of sins from the God who has manifested his holiness, his perfections, his light, his love, his grace, his purity, his strength, his wisdom.

We should be moved in terms of God himself, his person, to give him worship and praise with affection, with admiration, with feelings that are deeply responsive to our Creator. And we do that, don’t we, come together today? And if the song is right and we understand the words, the pastor isn’t too long and it’s not too complex—we understand a picture of Jesus through the scriptures, some aspect of his being—it strikes, it resonates in our core, the cord at the center of our being, and we respond to God.

And you know, we want to say “Yes, Alleluia. I love the Lord God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength.” It’s a requirement we have. It’s not just obedience. It’s obedience in the context of a loving response.

If the only thing your wife did for you or your husband did for you was to just do the duty required of a husband or wife and had no emotional impact—and “impact” isn’t quite the right word, but no response of soul, maybe that’s a better way to put it, response of soul to you as your mate—then you know your marriage isn’t doing real well. You need to kindle it somehow. And Jesus says that we’re his bride. Our worship of him should involve affections and admiration.

It involves subjection. Obviously we worship God because we want to obey him. We want to be built up in his obedience to him. It also involves confession. In Joshua 7:19 Joshua told Achan, “Give God glory, my son. Admit what you’ve done wrong.” And we come forward and we glorify God when we stand here every Lord’s day and say, “We’re sinners. Please treat with us according to the grace of Christ. We’ve done things wrong.”

And when in our minds and hearts and on our lips during the week we confess particular sins to one another, we’re glorifying God. That’s why it’s good for us. Satan tells you, “Don’t do it. Hide your sins. Say you never sinned. Hide it from other people.” God says, “No, confess your sins. It’s good for you. You’re going to enjoy it ultimately because it’s the very thing you were created to do—to give God glory through the confessions of our sins.”

We glorify God through belief. It’s the other side of the picture. It’s not glorifying God to dwell on our sins and think that somehow we’re not forgiven of them or that we don’t experience the release from them. That’s a failure of belief. Abraham, the text tells us, believed God in spite of all the evidence. And God says to you, Christian, as you profess your faith in Christ, he says, “You’re forgiven of your sins.” And it is glorifying to God in heaven to say, “Amen. I know I am.”

In spite of all the external evidence—I’m 100 years old, I can still have kids if God says I can. And if God says I’m forgiven, no matter what it looks like to me when I look in the mirror, I’m going to believe him. And when I believe God, the text tells us that Abraham believed God. He was not, the text tells us, he did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief. He was strengthened in faith giving glory to God.

Dearly beloved, we’re strengthened in faith with the affirmation that Christ has forgiven us. And we give God glory when we believe those things and enter into that joyous fulfillment of what we’ve been created to do. Our worship did have an element of reverential fear. I’ve only given you one citation here, but there are many we could cite. But Psalm 22, verse 23: “You who fear the Lord, praise him. All you descendants of Jacob, glorify him and fear him, all you offspring of Israel.”

Praise, glorification, fearing—all wrapped up together. Because our worship, while it is admiring of God and affectionately oriented toward him and submissive to him and delighting in the confession of sins and our forgiveness, it also has a degree of reverential fear or awe. I don’t want to take the edge off of the word “fear,” but I want you to understand it’s not a slavish fear. It is a reverential fear.

Somebody once said it’s like being next to a freight train coming through. I mean God is no buttercup. As Alistair MacIntyre says, God has power and strength and there’s a reverential awe. We come into his presence to enter into this transaction we have with him of worship. We must do so with a reverential fear.

So, one: how do we glorify God? We come here every Lord’s day and we try to do this thing right. And we try to reform our worship. We try to make it better. And we try to think about not just the forms and the liturgy and all that stuff, or even so much about each other. We focus our thoughts on the worship of God at the worship services of this church. And when we do that, we glorify God. We fulfill our purpose for being. We don’t come here ultimately for fellowship. It’s good to do that. We come here ultimately to glorify God. And then our fellowship indeed glorifies God as well as it’s our great object at which we aim: God’s glory.

What does this mean? Children, you come together. You may not understand it yet, but you’re created to give God glory. And you can do it right here, right now, by trying to attend to what the words of the scriptures say, by trying to sing out. I love it when I hear someone singing loud in the worship of this church. And I would love it if we all would sing a bit louder every Lord’s Day.

Not because we want to blast each other out, but because our hearts are filled with this sense of worship, reverence, thanksgiving, admiration, affection, and belief in the God who is and who has come to meet with us. And we want to praise his name. And when we do that, we glorify God in the context of this church. When we sing together, when we do the liturgy together as a united group of people, offering praise to God.

I’d ask you to do some evaluation. But more than that, I’d ask you to say, “Thank you, God, that I have come here today as I came last week and the week before and have the opportunity to fulfill the very purpose of my being, which is to sing praises to you and to glorify you.” Praise God.

Makes me want to wave a palm branch literally in the context of our hope—your heart feels that way today as you think about what God has done to you, in bringing you to be a palm waver for the Lord Jesus Christ, to sing forth his praises.

Well, secondly, we glorify God by submitting to the method of his reign.

We sing, “Glory to the King of Kings,” but we must also submit to the method of his reign. What do I mean? Jesus had told them coming in and he told them on the other side of the triumphal entry, “I’m here to die. I’m here to glorify the Father by laying down my life. This is how I’m going to glorify God the Father.” He said through my death. And they didn’t get it. They didn’t want to get it. What they wanted was him to come in with lightning bolt power and toss the Romans out of their ear. That’s what they wanted.

And you know, it looks so stupid to us, doesn’t it, that they wanted that. But you know, all too often, that’s what we want too. We want the guy off our back who’s given us trouble or grief. We want this situation taken care of that we’re unjustly suffering under. But Jesus’s method of exhibiting his reign is through death and resurrection. He doesn’t—I mentioned Psalm 118 and they were singing that psalm. It was a psalm they sang that was a victor’s kind of conquering kind of song they would sing, and they’d think about one day Messiah will come and he’ll get these Romans or whoever’s oppressing us today off of our backs.

They sang Psalm 118 when one of the Maccabees—wrote in after a great conquest—getting one of the oppressing nations off the backs of the Israelites in the Intertestamental period. They sang this very song. They waved branches to the Maccabee. He did that and that’s what they wanted Jesus to be. Another greater Maccabee, the ultimate Maccabee of Maccabees, the Messiah whom they anticipated wouldn’t die but would indeed cause the enemies of the church to be killed.

So they sing in Psalm 118, but Jesus very strikingly in all four accounts is him coming in on this colt. What is that about? Why is that such a big deal? Well, it’s a reference to Zechariah chapter 9, verse 9, in which we read in Zechariah, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your king is coming to you. He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.” That’s why we had to have a mother and her colt because that’s what Zechariah said.

And the significance of this is that—we won’t take time to read the other verses, but the other verses in Zechariah many take to be verses 1-8—a reference to Alexander the Conqueror, the one who would come with power of might. But behold, your king comes not riding a horse, which is in the Old Testament jargon, a tank. He’s riding a donkey. Now, a donkey wasn’t looked down upon. A donkey was a regal animal.

Kings would ride on donkeys in Israel, but it was different than a horse. When you’re going to go out making war, you ride a horse. When you come announcing peace, you ride a donkey. He’s lowly and meek in his triumphal entry. He’s riding a donkey. It’s a picture, a visual picture of what he’s already told them. He’s not going to come with, you know, laser guns and tanks and Huey helicopters and, you know, stealth bombers.

He’s coming to give his life and then to be raised up and to commission people to go out not with swords. Even when the picture is a horse in Revelation 19, we don’t have swords, do we? We’ve got a sword coming out of our mouth. We’ve got the word of God. So we glorify God as these people should have by submitting to his particular method of reign. And his method of reign is humiliation, abasement, submission before rule.

And this is not just in the context of this particular account. Scriptures tell us in other places as well. This particular truth is told to us in John 21:19. “This he spoke signifying by what death he would glorify God.” His death explicitly—the text tells us—glorify God. But in 1 Peter 4:14-16 we read, “If you’re reproached for the name of Christ blessed are you for the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. On their part he is blasphemed but on your part he is glorified when you’re persecuted in this way.

“But let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, as a busybody in other people’s matters. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him rather glorify God in this matter.”

You see, Jesus came and glorified God by suffering righteously. No charge could be put to his account in truth. And we glorify God when we enter into the sufferings of our Savior. When we suffer for what is right and do not kick at the goats, so to speak. We do not, you know, complain, grumble, and dispute, but we submit ourselves to God’s sovereignty, his power, and wait for his deliverance.

Okay, and this is real important. You know, we’ve said—I’ve said for months now—that Jesus died, not that we don’t have to die or suffer, but that our sufferings have meaning. They make sense because remember, if our purpose is to glorify God and we’re called Christians, we’re being predestined conformed to the image of the Son, then we shall all enter into sufferings for him.

I saw a movie the other day and they said one line of the movie said, “Well, I don’t know. Maybe all this has a point in our lives. We all, you know, maybe it has a point. Maybe God will tell us when it’s all over what it was all about. Maybe there is no point. But all I do know is this: Nobody gets out of this life without a lot of suffering and a lot of goodbyes being said.” That’s true. That’s true. And you may not believe it. You may think you’re the only one, but it’s true that all of us have sufferings.

But properly understood, we glorify God in the midst of those sufferings by recognizing the method whereby Christ brings his reign to us and to the nations. And that method is submission to the sovereignty of the Father in the midst of difficult times. We get to glorify God. You glorified God, I’ll bet you did, this past week, this past month. You had something happen to you that wasn’t really your fault. It wasn’t something you liked. It was a suffering. And you maybe you kicked and screamed some. I’ll bet you did. I know I do.

But you also—there was a part of you that at the end of the day knew that God was sovereign and you could suffer patiently waiting for God’s deliverance, if it took a long time even. And when you did that, when you said that to yourself, to your soul, when you quieted your soul in the midst of difficulties, you fulfilled your purpose by which you were created. You glorified God. That’s what we want to do.

And there’s a joy that comes then even in the midst of sufferings because we recognize that the end result of our life is not how much pleasure we had, how many toys we got, but how well did we glorify God. And God gives us opportunities to glorify him when he brings suffering into our lives. The big picture is Jesus riding in on a donkey, not a horse. And when the suffering that you’re called to go through next comes upon you, remember the donkey and not the horse. And remember that even on the donkey, joining the sufferings of our Savior, if we need be go to our deaths, yet we do so glorifying him, recognizing his normal method of reign.

Third, we glorify God by bearing witness of him.

You know, the text says—well, these things happen. And the disciples didn’t really get it at the time, but later it says in the chapter here we’ve just read in verse 16, “When Jesus was glorified, when he was crucified and resurrected, then they remembered that these things were written about him and that they had done these things to him. Therefore the people who were with him when he called Lazarus out of his tomb and raised him from the dead bore witness.”

They bore witness. They glorified God by bearing witness to the fact that they knew that Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead. Remember I said it’s important the context here. Why are a lot of those people there with him? Because they knew what had happened with Lazarus and they were there to see him and some were there to say, “Hey, we saw it. He did raise that guy from the dead.” They bore witness and they glorified God by bearing witness to him, to the Lord Jesus Christ and his work.

And we do the same thing in Isaiah 25:1-3: “Oh Lord, you are my God. I will exalt you. I will praise your name. You have done many wonderful things. Your councils of old are faithfulness and truth. You have made a city of ruin, a fortified city of ruin, a palace of foreigners to be a city no more. It will never be rebuilt. Therefore, the strong people will glorify you. The city of the terrible nations will hear you.”