Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript: The Triumphal Entry

Sermon text is found in Matthew 21:1-17. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. Matthew 21:1-17.

Now when they drew near Jerusalem and came to Bethphage at the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied and a colt with her. Loose them and bring them to me. And if anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord has need of them,’ and immediately he will send them.” All this was done that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophet, saying, “Tell the daughter of Zion, behold, your King is coming to you, lowly and sitting on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

So the disciples went and did as Jesus commanded them. They brought the donkey and the colt, laid their clothes on them, and set Him on them. And a very great multitude spread their clothes on the road. Others cut down branches from the trees and spread them on the road. Then the multitudes who went before, and those who followed cried out, saying, “Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.”

And when He had come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, “Who is this?” So the multitude said, “This is Jesus the prophet from Nazareth of Galilee.” And then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of thieves.”

Then the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple and He healed them. But when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that He did and the children crying out in the temple and saying Hosanna to the Son of David, they were indignant and 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 babes and nursing infants, you have perfected praise.’” Then He left them and went out of the city to Bethany and He lodged there.

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Let’s pray. Lord God, we pray that You would give us courage. Remove fear from us, Father, as we prepare to enter into the cities, the places of commerce, community, and relationships that You’ve given us this week. Thank you, Lord God, for the young children this morning who emulated these children that we read of from 2,000 years ago. Thank you, Lord God, for their singing. They are saying loudly, “Hosanna.” And we thank you also that they remind us as they come into the sanctuary and become a little self-conscious of our self-consciousness as we go into our cities tomorrow.

Bless Your word to us, Father. Transform us by it. Empower us with it that we may see ourselves as more than conquerors through the King whose triumphal entry we celebrate today. In Christ’s name we ask it, and for the sake of His kingdom, amen. Please be seated.

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Well, we sang once more the “Lorica” this morning—St. Patrick’s Breastplate, his confession of faith. Words changed a little bit and made into a singable form, but a singable form nonetheless.

St. Patrick is at the heart of controversy this year. It’s unusual—it’s very rare that this happens—but St. Patrick’s Day, tomorrow, Monday, falls in the context of Holy Week. Holy Week is from Palm Sunday on Sunday through the week into Good Friday and then culminating on Resurrection Sunday. And so various communions, the Roman Catholic Church particularly, has designated these days as Holy Week. And according to canon law, you’re not supposed to during Holy Week celebrate any other saints’ feast days.

So the idea was to set apart these eight days in a special way to see the source of all of their faithfulness, such as men like St. Patrick.

So you know the Roman Catholic Church has said that St. Patrick’s Day shouldn’t be celebrated. It should be moved this year. I haven’t kept up on the controversy, but it is a controversy, and it seems silly to us in a way, doesn’t it? But maybe it is. But I want us to think about the fact that there’s a reason why the historic church has done this, has said that this week, we don’t want to be distracted by thinking about the lives of any saints.

This week—as I say in the outline—are eight days that shook the world. And not just because of the content of those eight days do we stress it so much. Clearly, we have, you know, the kind of the meaning of what’s going to happen a week following Resurrection Sunday laid out for us in the triumphal entry.

But you know, and clearly we have the death of the Lord Jesus Christ for our sins on Good Friday. We have the beginning of what we see at least as the kind of the predecessor of the Lord’s Supper in New Testament times at the Last Supper Thursday night. So we have all kinds of things going on filled with import for not just our faith but reality right. We think that the world changed definitively because of Christ’s work on the cross and His resurrection.

And next week I will talk about the resurrection and the absolutely shocking reality that it was. It wasn’t like, “Oh yeah, we know He’s going to be”—no, it wasn’t like that at all. Resurrection was something quite, quite unexpected. And if we understand the full import of the resurrection, we’ll understand the significance of these eight days that changed the world.

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You know, it’s interesting. The Gospels, of course, are the culmination of the rest of Scripture, right? Jesus says that all the Old Testament spoke of Him, spoke of His ministry. So all the Old Testament comes to, you know, focus in the four Gospels. And then the Epistles and the Book of Revelation can be seen as talking about the implications of that historical reality given to us in the four Gospels.

Christianity is not at its heart a philosophy. Now, it does have philosophical implications, but Christianity is rooted not in a set of ideas. Christianity is rooted in history, real life stuff that happened in real life. History. And those historical acts that we celebrate during so-called Holy Week or during these eight days—these are the historical realities that determined everything else that will produce philosophies, that will produce all kinds of things.

But the heart of the Christian faith is history. And so you can see why the church will want to preserve this history. These four Gospels are history, right? And we think about the Gospels and we may not recognize this all the time, but for instance, in the Book of Matthew, which we just read from, it’s the longest Gospel. It devotes 20 chapters to the first 33 years of the Savior’s life and seven chapters to the last six days.

So 20 for the first 33 years and then a whole seven chapters at the end on the last six days of the Savior’s life. Mark devotes nearly 40% of the total space of that Gospel to Passion Week—Holy Week, the last six, seven, eight days of Christ’s life. Luke devotes 20% of his Gospel to these days. And John nearly half of his Gospel is a record of what happens from Palm Sunday or triumphal entry to Resurrection Sunday.

So you see, you can see why these eight days meant so much to the historic church and the celebration of the history of the life of Jesus. It wasn’t supposed to be, you know, kind of distracted from by the celebration of various saints’ days.

So these were days that shook the world.

If we took the time—well, let’s just look at a couple of verses from John’s Gospel. If you turn to John 12, we have—oh, I should mention, by the way, that the triumphal entry is mentioned in all four Gospels. See? So it’s very important. And as I said, this Holy Week stuff, it’s not just mentioned in all four Gospels, but it becomes the focal point by far, given much more weight and significance than the three years of Christ’s ministry or His birth, etc. So the Gospels really do focus us in on so-called Passion Week.

And so these historical facts are quite significant. And we’ll talk next week about resurrection and the implications of that. But you know, the bookends of Passion Week are the triumphal entry and then Resurrection Sunday. And at the triumphal entry, we see some things happening that are really quite significant.

In verse 19 of John 12, for instance, the Pharisees had therefore said among themselves, “You see that you are accomplishing nothing. Look, the whole world has gone after Him.” Implications of the universality of the reign of Christ’s kingdom that will happen, as given to us right here on the day of the triumphal entry.

Verse 20: “Now there were certain Greeks among those who came up to worship at the feast.”

So what do we have here? We have the testimony of even rebellious men saying the whole world has gone after Jesus. And we immediately then had the verification by that of the Spirit of God working through the author of John’s Gospel—John, of course, the disciple John, the one that Jesus loved—to say, “Well, here’s an example: even on the day of the triumphal entry that we celebrate today, that historical day, the Greeks came up and wanted to worship Him.”

What do we have? This is a picture of well, it’s all that Old Testament stuff, that upon the hill of Zion all the nations would proceed. Isaiah 2 quotes identically to Micah. The same theme is essentially rephrased in Jeremiah. The prophets say that the end result of the death and resurrection of the true Israel—Jesus—will be that all the nations will come to Zion’s hill.

So that’s why these are eight days that shook the world, that changed everything. And that change is given to us in sort of a symbolic or prefigurement way in these few little verses that we’ve mentioned.

Down on page or on verse 32 of John 12, in this account—and I’ll come back to John by the way a little later to John 12 and his account here—but in verse 32, for instance. Well, verse 31: “Now is the judgment of this world. Now the ruler of this world will be cast out.” And I, if I am lifted up from the earth,” Jesus says, “will draw all people to Myself.”

Now, I think that “lifted up” is in the first instance in John’s Gospel the death of Jesus. But clearly we can see that as also a kind of a forebringer of the resurrection and what will be the result of His dying on the cross and being raised up to usher in the new creation. The result will be all the world will come after Jesus.

So these are world-shattering events. And we can understand the historic church’s desire to maintain an emphasis upon them that isn’t distracted by saints’ days.

So hopefully, whether you agree or not with the Roman Catholic Church, that little thing in the newspaper about the controversy involving St. Patrick’s Day, hopefully you sort of see it in a broader context. And what it should do again is show you the great importance of these historical events—not ideas, historical events—that we begin to celebrate on today, on the day of the triumphal entry.

So history is changed definitively through the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

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And this is related. What we’re going to do today is talk very briefly about the triumphal entry itself. I’ve given you on your outline some points, some facts about it that you may not remember. I talked about these same facts in 2005, so this is kind of a way to review. The first part very briefly review what that’s all about. And then secondly, I’ll try to place us in that story. And so today we have a little illustration of this that I’ll mention in a minute.

And then third, what we want to do is prepare ourselves for the ordination of two new deacons at RCC, David T. and Gary B., by looking at the relationship of deacons to our entry into the city.

The big picture of the sermon—in case you fall asleep—you know, in the next five minutes—the big picture is that we’re servants of Jesus. We do what He does. He entered the city to bring judgment and blessing, and we enter into our cities tomorrow as Christians following the Master. Over and over again in the last week, the Master does things and His servants will do what the Master has done.

So today, if you come forward to tithes and offerings in this box, you’re going to walk on palm branches the way the Savior walked on palm branches. Okay? Today we have deacons and a deaconess—a number of deaconesses, okay? Got your attention now, right? And a number of female servants downstairs helping organize the children by way of an illustration of the deacons helping organize you to enter into your city as more than conquerors through the Lord Jesus Christ.

Tomorrow morning when you go to work, when you go about your work in your home, whatever it is, you enter into the reality of the world which reflects to some extent the new creation. But there are still elements of the old creation, and you are to enter in the power of the Holy Spirit to be more than conquerors.

Jesus was Luke Skywalker, right? I mean, He walked in the sky. The palm branches are normally up. If we wanted to visually represent you, you know, doing a matrix thing, flying through the air or walking on the tops of the trees—more than conquerors. This is the way symbolically to do it. You’re walking on the tops of trees in this service. That’s what you do tomorrow.

Where is our citizenship? Our citizenship is in heaven. Amen. It’s not ultimately on earth. We are those who follow the Lord Jesus Christ in triumphal procession, and we walk on those palm branches. We’re elevated people. We’ve been called to move into our various cities both to bring judgment and to bring healing.

So that’s the picture. And when the deacons are ordained today, understand it in reference to this triumphal entry. They are an element, an office within the church that has been given by God to help prepare you to do that tomorrow morning.

Now, as I pray—what’s our problem? Fear. This sermon is about the triumphal entry as triumphal entry, and it is prefiguring what will absolutely happen in seven days after that. On the day of resurrection, the new world comes. We need to be reminded of that. We’ll see in the illustration I’m going to use of deacons and priests and the army of God. The whole thing is set in the context of the removal of fear.

He—you know, the little kids were downstairs and we were practicing the Hosanna thing, and they were loud. We were a little group right in that little thing at the base of the stairs coming up, and they were all together and nobody was watching, and it was really easy to say Hosanna. Hosanna. And they were doing it. Then we started coming in here, and a few of them started looking at you, and they got kind of spread out. They weren’t tightly packed anymore. And now the Hosannas aren’t quite so loud.

Isn’t that just like us? We come here and we sing the praises of Jesus Christ and we acknowledge His sovereignty, and we know who we are. And then tomorrow we’re not all packed together. We’re kind of going out by ourselves, and we’re going in the context of people who are looking at us that we don’t know who they are, and we’re a little frightened. That’s who we are. We tend to be tempted to fear and lack of courage as we go into the city to conquer it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And this sermon is an attempt to show you: don’t be fearful. Walk in the power of the Holy Spirit into your city tomorrow the way Jesus did. And that’s why deacons are given to you. That’s why you have elders. That’s why you have deacons to encourage you in the reality of who you are, to encourage you to live Spirit-filled lives and to be more than conquerors through Jesus who loves us.

That’s the point of the sermon.

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Now, let’s look at the details. I’ve got a reference here to what percent parades and the triumphal entry. Kind of interesting. We’re at lots of interesting sermon illustrations last week in the news—the relationship of faith and public office. So Jesus, you know, parades and processionals. We’re to be led in procession. Processions and political parades were representations of the procession of the Holy Spirit and the procession of God’s people as more than conquerors through Christ.

Now, they were perverted. The Romans would lead forth their captive enemies in their parades. But we’re to be led in procession by the Holy Spirit as well. The Spirit proceeds from the Father, empowering us to engage in parades, so to speak, demonstrating who we are.

And specifically, what we’ve got in this account is Jesus is out there staying on the Mount of Olives, right? And the Mount of Olives is Spirit-land. That’s Spirit-filled world. That’s dwelling in the context of the Holy Spirit’s empowerment. That’s where He lives this week. Every night He goes back there, and He goes from there into a city. Now, I know it was the temple and all that stuff, but it’s a city, Jerusalem. It’s a palace. It’s a political entity. And He is taking the message—the Spirit-filled message of the Crown rights of His Father—into that palace. Okay?

So there’s a relationship in the triumphal entry between faith and the political structures that we see evident in the city. And we’ve seen this last week. We’ve seen some very strange things. The Lord God is really stirring things up. I don’t know if you’ve been watching the news or not, but of course we had Mr. Spitzer having to resign because of his moral failures. Praise God that this country still has some kind of semblance of biblical morality.

But beyond that, of course, we had the incredible videos of Barack Obama’s pastor for 20 years. You know, I haven’t read stuff on the Muslim Nation, the Black Muslims, in the last—I probably haven’t studied them for 10, 12 years—but their theology was this: Lewis Farrakhan. You know, Barack’s pastor gave a lifetime achievement award to Lewis Farrakhan, and last year went with Lewis Farrakhan to Libya to visit Muammar Gaddafi, which should raise enough concerns in your mind already.

What the heck’s going on here? And if you look at these sermons, you know, this guy is trying to do what we’re talking about today—applying faith to political structures—but he’s doing it in a very dangerous, rather horrific way.

And I say that because Lewis Farrakhan, for instance, what that church that he is head of teaches—you know, there are two creation accounts in Genesis, right? I mean, it talks about the first creation, then chapter 2, you got another account. So these are retellings of the same account. We don’t—you know, there are four Gospels, too. It doesn’t mean there were four different men. But white supremacists and black supremacists base their view that the black race is the only good race, or the white race is the only good race, upon those two creation accounts.

Theologically, that’s where it comes from. And they think the first people were created with souls, and the second people were animals created without souls. So we got two kinds of people out there: soul-filled people and animal people. And the white supremacists say only the white people have souls, and black people and yellow people and other people, they don’t have souls. They’re just animals.

And the black Lewis Farrakhan—can you imagine a candidate whose pastor for 20 years was hooked up with somebody who thought that black people didn’t have souls? But that’s what Lewis Farrakhan and the Muslim Nation has taught for a long time in this two-creation account: that white peoples don’t have souls. He’s called Judaism a gutter religion because it’s in the gutter. It’s not really soulful because the whites don’t have souls and the Jews don’t have souls.

So it’s rather incredible. And the Lord God is stirring it up. Try how do we apply faith to public policy matters? And I don’t know what God is going to do in November, but it’s the most interesting, shocking—and not just that. That’s just been the tip of the iceberg this last week. There’s so many things going on.

And what it should get us to do is think afresh about how we apply these things. We go into a city. We go into a culture in America that for the last six months has seen an uprising of racism and sexism. The Democratic Party has attempted to produce integration and equality on the basis of civil laws rather than on the basis of the Word of God.

And the end result is: within the Democratic Party, we got a bunch of people voting for Hillary because she’s a woman and they’re women. We got a bunch of black people voting for Barack ‘cuz he’s black and they’re blacks. We got Hispanics don’t want to vote for the black guy. And the Jews in New York wouldn’t vote for the black guy either.

Within the Democratic Party, the Lord God is using the front pages of the Oregonian to tell you, Christian: don’t be afraid tomorrow. You got the only answer to racism. You got the only answer to it. You got the only answer about the equality of the sexes—the scriptural answer, the power of the Holy Spirit.

So don’t be frightened, and recognize that the Lord God says when you back out of a particular city, this is the way it goes. And it’s going to be tougher for us now to go back in. But that’s our job. All right.

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First of all: Overview of the triumphal entry in Matthew’s Gospel.

One. The King’s procession is from the Mount of Olives to the temple. And I’ve got various citations here about the Mount of Olives. In Luke 21:37, it says that Jesus spent every night on the Mount of Olives. Okay? So what I said earlier is found in Luke 21:37.

So who cares where He spent the night? Well, it’s not just any old place. It’s the Mount of Olives. The olive branch, you know, was the beginning of the new creation, right? I’ve got various citations here. Olive oil was used to anoint the priests in Exodus. The olive oil fed the lampstand. In Zechariah 4, there’s a vision where these olive trees are feeding olive oil into the lampstand.

So you can’t shine bright for Jesus. You can’t rule without the power of the Holy Spirit, represented by the olive oil coming from these trees. That’s in Zechariah 4.

In First Kings and John, we read that there were described as olivewood cherubim inside the holy place and doors in the temple as well. So the temple itself has representations of olive wood. And the olive press—Gethsemane is this place of, that means “olive press.” Basically, Jesus’s passion will happen in the context of the olive press. That’s where His passion occurs. And His ascension occurs according to Acts 1:12 in the grove—that is, the olive grove.

So who cares? Well, olive oil in the Scriptures is a representation of the power of the Holy Spirit. What it tells us is that in order to be successful, to enter the city, the Savior Himself is baptized, anointed with the Spirit, abides in the context of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the context for His death and His resurrection, out there away from the city. And it gives us a picture of us.

If we don’t have the Holy Spirit feeding us as we’re lampstands for Christ, our entry tomorrow will be ineffective. We’ll be darkened. If we don’t reside where Jesus resides in the terms of this Holy Week, the historicity—if we don’t reside in the context of the Holy Spirit’s empowerment—you see, we’re dead.

Deacons and elders, officers in the New Testament, the one basic qualification is they got to be Spirit-filled guides, full of the Holy Spirit. They got to be able to reside on the Mount of Olives in their homes, in the conduct of their lives, because their job is to prepare us as the army of God to go into our world the way that Jesus did on the day of His triumphal entry.

Secondly, the King’s procession is marked by a sign of humility. We just read it. He’s on a donkey, and that represents a couple of things. Surely the donkey is a mark that the greater son of David, Solomon, rode a donkey. So it is connected with rule and authority. But clearly the text also told us today that we read from Matthew. It’s a sign of His humility.

Right? These are important things. Spirit-filled life, humble life is necessary to be triumphant in the context of the city.

Third, the King’s procession is marked by a sign of ascension and heavenly rule. And I’ve got all these verses about palm branches. Jesus walks in the heavens. He’s heavenly rule. We’re heavenly rulers in Him. That’s why I want you to walk on palm branches today. Be the servant of Jesus. Do what He did. Recognize that what He says—our citizenship in heaven—is essential to understanding and fulfilling the task that He places before us to go triumphal into our cities tomorrow.

So Jesus—it’s marked by a sign of ascension and heavenly rule.

Fourth, the King’s procession is unto judgment, but also healing and transformation. So, you know, it says there that He goes in and He cleanses the temple, right? We always associate that. But in Matthew’s citation of what happens here, verse 12: “Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple and overturned the tables of the money changers.” He said, “You made it a den of thieves.”

Then verse 14: “Then the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple and He healed them.”

So Jesus’s entrance is not just judgment. It’s not just the cleansing of the temple. It’s restorative. It brings to light the new creation. It rolls back the effects of the curse. You know, if you’re blind or lame, it doesn’t mean that it’s your sin that made you that way. But it certainly means it’s a result of the sin of Adam.

God doesn’t want people to be blind and lame eternally. He’s going to heal them. The new creation is pictured by Jesus restoring people back to health.

So the triumphal entry—tomorrow has a for you an element of judgment against the sin you might see. But you should see yourselves as being those who bring healing, restorative power, bringing people back to fullness and bringing them into the new creation of joy as you go into your cities tomorrow.

You know, Jesus says in Revelation that the leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations. The healing of the nations. That’s what Jesus affects through His people. Now, and what was pictured for us in the triumphal entry of our Savior:

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Where are we in this story—this great story that we know about and begin to learn more and more about? We’re singing His praises. We are those visited by Jesus Christ today. Okay, so one place we are in the story is we’re like those multitudes singing forth Hosanna, Hosanna. We just did it a couple of minutes ago, right? We sang. What did those multitudes do by Good Friday? They said, “Crucify him.”

So clearly, in terms of where we’re at in the story, we’re the worshiping host that Jesus comes with today, are we not? I mean, before we can get to the other part, we got to understand this part. We’re the ones who are singing forth the praises of Jesus. We’re all singing loud Hosannas today.

Well, the question is: what will we do tomorrow? If we do that on Sunday and deny Him tomorrow and through fear and cowardice, you know, don’t do our job of carrying His message, then we’re like these hypocritical people that we read about in the Palm Sunday narrative. What happens to those people?

Well, God brings judgment against them. Judgment begins at the house of God. God comes here today and grabs a hold of each and every one of you individually and He says, “Why are you here? Are you here just as a show? Is this just your way to kind of make sure you’re okay with me? Or are you here to get empowerment to proclaim My Gospel in everything you do and say tomorrow?”

You see, there’s a difference. So first of all, we’re those who are visited by the Lord Jesus Christ, and He visits us to ring out the dross from our lives and to make us shiny gold and silver metal for Him, make us good people for Him.

God—Jesus guards God’s holiness and He has a zeal for the Father’s house, and He won’t let hypocrites stay within the context of the church for very long.

So first of all, we’re those who are visited by Jesus.

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Second, united with Christ. United. That should be united—untied from sin and united with Jesus. We’re grafted into the olive tree lampstand, and we are those who enter the city. And so I’ve just talked about this, but Psalm 52:8 says, “But as for me, I’m a green olive tree in the house of God.” Hopefully, that’s what you see your basic identity as, as you’ve been grafted into the olive tree, right?

You are part of the lampstand. You’re supposed to shine, you know, as lights in the midst of a dark world. That’s what the lampstand did. It was the only light in there. And we’re supposed to be those who are united with Jesus. We’re supposed to enter into our places tomorrow, too. Whatever our task is to do tomorrow, we leave corporate worship. We enter back into our normal world.

And in that normal world, we’re supposed to see ourselves united to the One who brought both judgment and restoration and healing to that city.

In Isaiah 60:11: “Your gates will always stand open. They will never be shut, day or night, so that men may bring you the wealth of the nations, their kings led in triumphal procession.”

See? So we’re led in triumphal procession, and we’re to help bring the Gospel to the nations so that they’ll be led in triumphal procession as well.

Second Corinthians 2:14 says: “But thanks be to God who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of Him.”

So we’re those who are led in triumphal procession to the end that we would spread forth the beautiful fragrance of the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s who we are. That’s who we are in the story. We’re both those who are visited by Jesus, but we’re also those who are processing into the city with Jesus to do the work of proclaiming His Gospel and His world come, His new world come.

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Three. The officers of the church help prepare us for that entry.

So where are we in the story? Well, we’re the ones who are visited, but we’re also the ones who are united to Christ. We walk on palm branches. We’re more than conquerors. He’s led us in procession that we could go in procession into the city tomorrow ourselves.

And where we’re at today in the history of Reformation Covenant Church is we’re adding two more deacons to the officers of the church. And what’s the relationship of the deacons? Well, the deacons, the officers of the church, help prepare us for that entry.

On Sunday, we get together and do the world right. We live the way the world should always live. We’re more careful. We’re more kind. We’re more careful not to sin. We exercise community together liturgically, ritually at the table. But then we have a meal together. We enjoy our fellowship. See, we sort of live the way we’re supposed to live today.

And the church is like a little micro-cosmos. And this community is what you’re supposed to take into and try to affect in the context of the broader world tomorrow. To do that, the officers of the church thus—so the church isn’t central in that. Who cares the other six days? The church gets it all started. It gets the pattern started. And the deacons of the church are given to help get you started in your task tomorrow of living out in the rest of the community, the rest of the world, what you do here.

I’ve got a definition here from Piper’s book on the relationship of marriage, and I’ve kind of changed it a little bit to talk about the officers of the church. But let’s first turn first to Deuteronomy 20, verses 1 to 9. Deuteronomy 20. Turn there in your Scriptures.

And this is just a little picture. Some of you know this, but it’s just a little picture to kind of help remember how Reformation Covenant sees the relationship of the deacons and the elders and the people of God. Deuteronomy 20, verse one: “When you go out to battle against your enemies.” Okay, so He’s preparing us to go do battle. Okay. And we can look down at verse 10: “When you go near a city to fight against it, proclaim an offer of peace to it, and it shall be that if they accept your offer of peace and open to you, then all the people who are found in it shall be placed under tribute to you and serve you.”

So the big picture here—what’s going on in this text—is preparing us for the triumphal entry into the city tomorrow. And it’s saying, “You’re going to do battle, but you’re going to create peace and blessing.” Jesus was going to overturn the money changers, but He’s going to give sight to the blind and He’ll let the lame walk again.

So it’s the same thing here. When we go into a city, He says—and by the Old Testament, this is a picture of Israel waging war against pagans, etc. But by way of application to us today, when we go into the city, you see, we’re supposed to proclaim peace. Peace. That’s the Gospel. Jesus reigns. Peace is at hand. That’s what we’re supposed to do.

You boil it all down to what we’re supposed to do in evangelism. Forget all the tactics and the techniques. And you know, if you just remember your job tomorrow is to go proclaim peace and live out the implications of God’s order, which is what peace is. See? We’re supposed to do that.

Well, how do we do it? Well, in the Old Testament, He gave them priests. And so what happens is they got ready to go out there. And notice the first thing He tells them is: “When you go out to your enemies, verse one, see horses and chariots and people more numerous than you.” That’s you tomorrow.

If you’re going into Portland, you’re going to see horses and chariots and people committed to other worldviews more numerous than you. This morning, the streets of Portland weren’t closed so that worship services could be conducted in quiet. That used to be the case in America. No. This morning in Portland, the streets of Portland were closed so that the St. Patrick’s Day run could be run this morning. That’s what they closed down Portland for. That’s the heart of Portland.

Now, I think in reality, far more people worshiped in the greater Portland area today than ran in that race. But you’re going to go into a city with enemies, and they’re going to look scary to you. He says, “Don’t be afraid.”

This is what I was saying earlier. Don’t be like those little children. You know, you’re going to—that’s the way we’re going to feel. We’re going to go in and it looks like we can’t be effective in our proclamation of the Gospel. He tells us, “Don’t be afraid.”

Well, how are we going to not be afraid? He says, “Well, it shall be when you’re on the verge of battle that the priest shall approach and speak to the people. And he shall say to them, ‘Hear, O Israel, today you’re on the verge of battle with your enemies. Don’t let your heart faint. Don’t be afraid, and do not tremble or be terrified because of them. For the Lord your God is He who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to save you.’”

I’m supposed to say this every week. Now, you got your Bibles. You know the verse. They had their Bibles. They knew the verse. But somehow God says it’s important to prepare a people for triumphal entry by using the voice of priests to speak His word to them. That’s just what He—that’s the way He set it up. He wants incarnational representations of Jesus Christ—pastors—to tell you today: don’t be afraid. It’s going to be all right. Try remember you’re walking on the clouds, you know, with Jesus. You got the power of heaven on your side.

That’s all reality. Now, in terms of these eight days we celebrate this history, so I’m supposed to tell you what the Word of God already tells you. That’s all I do every week. Just say the same thing the Bible says. I do that.

Then in verse 5, the officers shall speak to the people. So in the Old Testament, we got these priests, guys who are speaking the Word of God. Now we got the officers. And I think this is correlary to our deacons.

What do they do? Well, these officers speak to the people saying: “What man is there that’s built a new house and has not dedicated it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in battle—another man dedicated. What man is there who has planted a vineyard and hasn’t eaten of it? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man eat of it. And what man is there who is betrothed to a woman and has not married her? Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in battle and another man marry her.”

Then the officer shall speak further and say: “What man is there who is fearful and faint-hearted? Let him go and refrain and return to his house. Let the heart of his brethren faint like his heart—lest the heart of his brethren faint like his heart.”

What’s going on here? Well, these are laws God has given to the priests. The priests have instructed the congregation and the officers in them. The priests encourage the people. But then the officers come through and actually now get the host ready for battle. And they say, “Well, okay, you’ve been married. Get out of here for the next year. You got a year to be taken off.” That’s what the Word of God says. That’s the priest told me. And I’m going to tell you: I’m going to make it active in your life. That if you’ve been married in the last year, you can’t go into battle. And you over there, if you got a vineyard going and it hasn’t given fruit yet, you can’t go either. You pull out a line right now. Get out of here.

And you, I know you’re trying to not be fearful, but you know, you’re just shaking like a leaf and you’re doing other things that evidence your fearfulness. We can’t have you bring fear to the whole trip. You go on home.

Now, the officers prepare the army for its triumphal entry by speaking the words of God’s law to them and organizing them for battle. Well, that’s what the deacons do here. The deacons are the same thing.

Elders are to have a sense of benevolent responsibility to lead, provide for by word and sacrament, protect the church. And deacons are to have a freeing disposition to affirm, receive, and nurture, strengthen, and leadership from their elders. So they’re supposed to do what the elders have instructed them to do and to organize the people of God for their triumphal entry.

Look at verses 2 and 6 and back in the Matthew text, 21. And you know, we don’t have actually deacons here, but in a way we do. We’ve got Jesus who’s the priest, he’s the officer, and he got then he’s got these guys around him who are servants of his and he’s getting them ready so that they can get the people ready to do what they’re supposed to do.

And in verse 2, it says He says to the disciples, “Go to the village opposite you and immediately you will find a donkey there and a colt with her. Loose them and bring them to me. And if anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord has need of them,’ and immediately he will send them. All this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet saying, ‘Tell the daughter of Zion you’re here.’”

And then it says in verse 6: “So the disciples went and did as Jesus commanded them.”

In the John text, it tells us they didn’t know what was going on. They didn’t understand this whole two-donkey, colt thing. And maybe we don’t either. But the point—and that’s the point—they didn’t understand it. The servants of Christ. But they did it.

The elders provide direction, vision for the church. We say, “Well, here’s what we need to have done. We need to have a couple of—we need to have a colt and a foal here, or we need to have, you know, the agape meal designed this way.” So they say, “This is what we need to have done.” And the deacons then respond by going, “Yeah, okay. Let’s get at it then.”

Because God set up the elders to speak the word of Christ, and He set up us to help organize the people of God to get that stuff ready to do what’s supposed to be done. So they have obedience without comprehension—these servants of Jesus, the disciples. And in a sense, that’s what deacons do. They don’t have to figure it all out. The elders supposed to figure stuff out, provide direction. And then the deacons help organize you and do the things the church needs to have done for its benefit.

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So the deacons do this. Secondly, there’s one of the things that happens. The deacons prepare you for is morality in the marketplace. I was real pleased that the Gideons last week were here, and to remind us to be reminded of the story of the development of the Gideons, right? That they began as a fraternal organization to help businessmen on the road, okay? That, you know, things were difficult on the road. They would help each hold each other accountable. They wanted to be good warriors for Jesus as they went on the road as Christian businessmen. And only later did they start handing out Bibles.

You see, we have a job. Most you men are going to go into the business world tomorrow. And the deacons want to help prepare you with biblical economics, and you know how to do things right so that you won’t become those who are content with the den of thieves where you work. God doesn’t want you putting up with the den of thieves.

Jesus went into that house of prayer and said, “You’re a den of thieves.” There are other things going on, but one thing at least going on is they were cheats. They weren’t good businessmen. They were corrupt businessmen.

So the deacons helped organize the church so that the church, and particularly the businessmen of the church, might go into the business world and uphold the basic biblical morality of the Word of God in the marketplace.

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See? Every believer ministry. Every believer in ministry.

Verse 15 of this text says: “But when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that He did and the children crying out in the temple and saying, ‘Hosanna to the son of David,’ many were indignant.”

Even the children were organized for ministry. We could say we’re part of the serving congregation that day that we celebrate today. In every believer ministry. Ephesians says that God gives officers to the church so that everyone might be built up for ministry in the context of the church.

Not that the church is the end-all, but as you minister in the context of the local congregation, God is preparing you to minister in the rest of your life. You see, you take those same basic principles of organization and honesty and love, servant leadership, etc. And that becomes the model for what you do in the world.

So here’s one thing that Dave and Gary are supposed to do, that our deacons are supposed to do. This is a telephone directory of RCC. This is two pages on your outlines of, fill, you know, volunteer sheets for things that need to get done around here. I got more pages. I pulled these two out though as an example to you.

So we need, for instance, some people to make sure the curtains are hanging in the same manner before we use the fellowship hall on Sunday after. I picked this one out because it isn’t being done. Because if you go downstairs many times in the last few weeks, those curtains look like heck. They’re hanging all different directions. They’re not picked up. They’re not kept orderly. We need somebody to help us keep that place looking beautiful, right? Bring some orderliness to it.

Wash the church windows once a year. So we need some now. Somebody Hannah there has volunteered to oversee that and coordinate the washing of the windows, but so far nobody’s signed up to actually help her get that done. So she’s going to coordinate some people to do that, but we need people to sign up to help her.

Weekly sanctuary jobs, help with the paper and pickup. That’s why this coloring sheet, the last page in the outline today—because the text tells us that the little children were part of the ministering congregation to Jesus Christ. And when I say we want these volunteer sheets and the telephone directory matched up, that means the little kids, ‘cuz their names are on here. We told you last week, children, you’re part of the host of Jesus Christ. You get to take this holy supper here every week at RCC. But it means you got responsibilities. It means you should want to do some little task at church.

And maybe it’s just picking up the wine glasses or picking up the paper. I know there are people volunteering to do that now. But also know that we need to get it a little bit more organized and get other people moving into the context of that little kids.

The deacons are supposed to help little kids think through what they can do here at the church as a way of preparing them for service in the broader world.

Flowers for the sanctuary. We’d love to have flowers up here every week. We need people to volunteer to do that.

Good Friday service. Now, I got this down here because Patty Prentice came in my office this week, showed me the candle stand. She cleaned it all up, showed me the candle she bought. I thought, ‘cuz she signed up here I don’t know a couple months ago to help with the candles for the Good Friday services. She does do that. That’s a job—probably I’ve got to think about, or Angie or somebody—because it’s got to get done. It’s a little thing. But Patty ministers to the body of Christ here by picking up that task and responsibility.

Zach and Jordan, they were in here having a lot of fun this week with the new mixer, whatever it was, and some kind of—I don’t know—gigantic sub. I don’t know what they’re doing, but they can make this building shake now. And they were having fun getting that, you know, earthquake sound effect ready. They were. And I don’t know what they did, but it seemed like they put it on some kind of timer because it seemed like there was an earthquake in here when nobody was here at times during the week. I don’t know how they did that, but they signed up. They’re doing that task.

You know, Zach Lions is doing great work in the sound system. I know other guys are helping them—Scott C., etc., Jordan. They signed up and they’re doing it. And now we—I don’t have to worry about it because they got these guys.

Now, somebody hasn’t signed up to dim the sanctuary lights. Maybe somebody’s already volunteered and I just don’t know it. But to the best of my knowledge, this sheet is kept in the church’s computer. Nobody. I don’t know who’s dimming the lights this Friday. Does somebody volunteer? No. Call us up. Volunteer. We need somebody to do it.

And see, if the deacons don’t help you guys, encourage you guys to do this, then what happens is when Wilson, Shawn, and I come here on Friday evening, we’re, “Oh, what should we do? What should we do?” We’ll be distracted from focusing on the prayer and the worship service of the church because we don’t got people signed up to do these simple little tasks.

And you will be, you know, diminished if you don’t have some work here at church that you’re doing to help out in some small way. It reflects you being part of the community.

So, you know, I’ve got other things on here. I won’t take more time, but that’s a big deal. We need deacons. This is one reason why God has given the church deacons: to match up jobs in the church with the people in the church. And if you’re new here and you’re not doing something, you know, think about it. Ask Angie to send you the list, the signup sheet.

Doesn’t have to be on the signup sheet. There are other things deacons know about, too. So these guys that we’re ordaining today, part of their job is to make sure people are signed up in a way, right? Not just on this list, but generally speaking here at the church. To organize the congregation by taking the direction the elders have charted, applying it to you, and organizing you to accomplish these tasks.

A heart for children. You know, Dave T., I thought of Dave several times the last few months where Matt D. is coordinating 20- and 30-year-old couples. Now, the 30-year-old daughter I have is married to a guy that’s 40-some, but that’s okay. I still count them as a 30-year-old couple.

So the young couples of the church—Matt D. is going to get them together. They’re going to plan a progressive dinner. They’re going to learn how to do some leadership stuff. The men are, you know, it’s going to be a cool deal. Five or six meetings.

Well, in a way that’s resulted from something Dave T. said at our Schkeam Lodge planning session. He said, “We need to find a way to take the young couples and get them dialed in to have them recognize this is their church.” You see, the all the deacons, all the elders—we’ve got increasingly a sense, a heart for children. Jesus had a heart for kids. And it isn’t just because they’re cute little kids. It’s because they’re the future.

You know, the Psalm we read responsively—children defeat the enemy. Ultimately, praise of God defeats the enemy, which they engage themselves in. But then that praise determines that they’ll also be triumphal enterers into their cities as they mature and grow up.

So the deacons should have a heart for kids and young people. And it’s so nice that Dave and other deacons as well at that meeting—let’s start working with these young people.

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Fifth, servant leadership. In John’s account, John 12:26 and 31. Verse 26 says: “If anyone serves me, let him follow me, and where I am, there my servant will be also.”

That word “servant” is deacon. It’s the same basic word. Deacon is a transliteration of diaconis, and it means servant. It just can mean generally a servant, right? The very name of this office—there only two offices in the Old Testament: elder. And in the New Testament, elder and deacon. And the very name for deacon means servant.

Deacons are to be exemplary servants. Now they’re leaders. They’ve got real authority. Those officers told the congregation, “If you’re frightened, get out of here. I know you guy. You’ve been married this last six months. Let’s get out of here.” They got real authority. But they lead primarily by their service. They’re to be men who are exemplary in demonstrating humble service to Jesus Christ by demonstrating humble service to His church.

Servant leadership is pictured for us in John’s account of the triumphal entry. And He tells us that if you’re My servant, follow Me.

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Now, I said I’d say something about deaconesses. Well, you know, we—what should I say?

In the Bible, certain women, Phoebe for instance, are referred to as a deaconess. And it’s just this same word “servant,” but it’s the feminine form of servant, right? So servant, female servant, is what Phoebe is said to have been when Paul talks about her in his letter to the Romans.

And there’s a lot of history in the Old Testament to this. Women served in various capacities at the temple. Helped with different things. Female servants are part of the whole flow of the Scriptures. Jesus, of course, had a lot of female servants working with Him and the disciples. They weren’t disciples. All His disciples were men. And Phoebe wasn’t an officer. When the letters, the New Testament epistles, are written, they’re written to two male officers: elders and deacons.

So when we’ve been real good on that part, but I don’t know how good we’ve been as a congregation in recognizing that there are women who are engaged in servant leadership that we ought to recognize as servants, deaconists—small D, not big D—deaconists, servants in the church. Nothing wrong with a woman, or for instance, what I just read about Hannah Roach organizing window washing. That’s a good thing. She can organize men and women. There’s nothing wrong with that. There’s something very right about that according to the Scriptures.

We should encourage women to not just do the work, but to recognize that work by calling them servants of the church. I think we should maybe think of God doing that. Not sure what that looks like, but that’s what Paul did. He called Phoebe a deaconist. And there are other places as well where people are supposed to, you know, the women servants of the church. They do things.

We like, you know, sort of the reform model is that we kind of like the women do a lot of the work, but then we want a guy as the representative of it all, so he gets the glory. Okay? You know, when we walk into the city tomorrow, we do walk into a culture that has done good things about properly recognizing the equal value of women with men. But a culture that has further to go.

And that means the church has further to go. And I just want us to be sensitive to that. And I don’t want us always to try to find some symbolic titular head of a man to put over everything. We shouldn’t be worried about seven women over particular functions even though it’s not a particular office in the church. Okay?

So servant leadership is the next thing I said.

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And uh, as I said at the beginning of this, we got to live on that Mount of Olives, right? We got to live in the context of the Holy Spirit.

Here are the sort of men that elders and deacons should be, or first what they shouldn’t be like: the works of the flesh. The Bible tells us adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like. That’s the fruit. That’s the works of the flesh. Those are the characteristics that are not to be seen in the officers of the church.

When you dwell in the power of the Holy Spirit, that indwelling of the Spirit produces a life that looks different than those things. And that says this: the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy—you know, officers should be joyful people—peace, creating peace in the context of their community, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, following through. See, servant leadership. They serve by being faithful, by keeping their word to people. Better not to speak your word to somebody than to fail to keep your word. We’re supposed to be faithful as officers of the church.

Gentleness, self-control. Against these there’s no law. That’s the kind of servant leadership that Dave and Gary have and which we are commended to as officers in the church as well.

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So, you know, servant leadership.

You know, it’s interesting at the very end of the John text. In verse 43 of the John account of the triumphal entry. Do I have it? Where do I have it? Oh yeah. One last characteristic: they love the praise of God. “In verse 43: ‘For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.’”

So officers of the church have to be men that don’t care if they get a lot of praise. They want their praise to come from Father in heaven and not from men.

And so that’s another final characteristic taken from the triumphal entry of what servant leadership in the church looks like.

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It’s interesting because then at the end of the day of the triumphal entry, He goes back to the Mount of Olives to spend the night. And He comes in and He sees the fig tree and He’s hungry. The text tells us specifically that Jesus on His way into Jerusalem sees the fig tree and he’s hungry. But there’s no fruit on the fig tree. And when He sees that no fruit on the fig tree, He curses the fig tree.

You’re grafted in to the fig tree, that is, the people of God, Israel. Jeremiah in his book said there were two baskets of figs he saw: good figs and bad figs. And the good figs were the ones actually who went into exile, who knew that Nebuchadnezzar was now God’s servant. They obeyed God. Went into exile. The bad figs are the ones that hung in there tenaciously in the wrong place and sinned.

But the point is: you’re a fig. Jesus expects fruit from you. He didn’t graft you into the fig tree so that you could just kind of hang out without fruit. He wants this sort of spiritual fruit we’ve been talking about today in your life.

He’s hungry. He wants to see who you are. He wants to taste you today to see what your fruit is.

And the warning is that if we see ourselves with the works of the flesh instead of the fruit of the Spirit—if we see ourselves failing to be courageous, fearless, bold as we enter our cities tomorrow—you see that? Power of the Holy Spirit is a power not of fear and intimidation, but a power that has this crowd, Abba, Father—knowing that Jesus is our great elder brother and God our Father is empowering us.

So if we don’t have that kind of fruit, what does Jesus say He’s going to do? He’s going to curse us.

So there’s the responsibility. This is Gospel. This is who you are. You’re identified with Christ in the triumphal entry. You’ve been given officers to help equip you and empower you for service first here in this little microcosm of community, and then in the broader community.

And Jesus said that’s all Gospel. He’s doing great things. He’s told you who you are today. He’s given you reasons not to be fearful, and your witness for Him tomorrow. But then there’s a responsibility that comes. You’re supposed to exercise that fruit. You’re supposed to be good fruit for Jesus Christ. You have an obligation in your life to shine for the King.

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Let’s pray. Lord God, we thank you for the wonderful message of Palm Sunday and what it is for us. We thank you for these two men we’re about to ordain and bless our ordination of them, Lord God, and bless us as well. Help us each tomorrow morning when that alarm clock goes off or when somebody wakes us up or the internal alarm clock goes off, to think about our triumphal procession tomorrow into the city that needs judgment and needs as well healing and blessing. In Jesus’s name we ask it. Amen.