Sermons

In our final message in this years passion week series entitled, Joy From Sorrow, we shall seek to unpack the greatest of all miracles known to man. A miracle of such immense proportion that our present purpose and future continuance rises and falls on this miracle, the miracle of the resurrection of Jesus the Christ from the dead. The apostle Paul declares it like this:

1 Corinthians 15:12–19

ESV

12 Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. 15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

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The last time we met, on Good Friday evening, we learned how God’s servant, his Son, the Messiah, had to endure the sorrow of the cross in order for joy to be the outcome. We learned that the peace we seek with God can only come through the sacrificial, substitutional death of the Messiah in our place, in other words,

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Isaiah 53:3–7

ESV

3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.

Thus it was so as we left Friday night. However, if Christ remained in the grave, he would have been no better then any other humble religious leader. But it is the miracle of the resurrection that sets Christ apart from them all, for Paul goes on to say, from our call to worship this morning,

‌1 Corinthians 15:20–22

ESV

20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

‌It is the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, that gives us hope here this morning, and every morning. This we will see was not a manufactured hope brought on by some fanatics who were living in deception, but real unexpected hope which we seek to unpack this morning in our message entitled, Exaltation of Joy, from Luke 24:1-12.

Continuing in our Passion series entitled Joy From Sorrow, you will remember that in last Sunday’s message we saw Jesus ride into Jerusalem and declare himself to be the messiah, the prince of peace, using Zechariah’s prophecy, in preparation for his final steps to the cross. But why was this necessary? Was there no other way in which God’s wrath against our sin could be appeased?

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Isaiah, who was called the prince of prophets, prophesied some 700 years before the coming of Christ and the events we looked at on Sunday. His prophesies were during the time when the ten northern tribes would be taken into captivity by the Assyrians and also prophesied that the two southern tribes would be captured and then taken into exile by the Babylonians some 150 years later. So that by the end of the 6th century BC, all of Israel, all 12 tribes, would experience God’s judgment because of their relentless sin against him.

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So how does this all fit into the idea of Joy? In the midst of the doom and gloom, God’s covenant decree would be realized through a payment for sin. God has not nor will he ever wink at, or, overlook sin, in fact, sin is such an abomination to him that he must judge it with an outpouring of his great wrath. The answer is of course a payment, a sacrifice, one who would take on himself all the sins of God’s people and thus satisfy, once and for all, the wrath of God. Isaiah describes this sacrifice in chapter 53, where we see the prophecy concerning his servant, the messiah, yielding himself to this sacrifice by crucifixion and thus implementing what we shall call this evening, the Endurance of Joy! It is this endurance of the sorrow that would eventually bring the joy. We read this in Hebrews 12:1–2 (ESV)

1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

It was the joy that was set before him; the joy of forever sentencing Satan and his kingdom to everlasting doom; the joy of eternally completing redemption’s plan in obedience to his father; it was this joy that gave him the endurance to delve into the deepest of sorrows, the cross, the separation from his father, and the agonizing death he experienced. So read with me that account of Christ’s endurance this evening…

As we enter what is referred to as “Passion Week”, beginning with Jesus’ Triumphal entery into Jerusalem, and ending with his glorious resurrection, our desire is that you will become mesmerized by the events of that week and how they forever changed the course of humanity. The fear is that every year it is the same messages, and though we believe them to be important, we become almost numb to the spiritual reality and instead allow ourselves to be entangled with bunnies, and eggs, and ham dinners. The truth is, without the events we are about to unpack in the three sermons of our passion week series entitled,

However, praise the Lord, those events did happen, and as we review them one by one, we will see that what began with great sorrow, ended up with an explosion of immense joy where the glory of God is indelibly cast in our hearts and minds. So we will begin our series, this morning, with a look at the Preparation for Joy, as Jesus rides into Jerusalem on what we call Palm Sunday, and is declared to be the Son of David. What does that have to do with the events of Passion Week? Let’s look together at that this morning from Matthew 21:1-11.