The reactions
[0:00] We sing now to God's praise. We sing two verses of Psalm 103, verses 8, through to verse 10, as they're marked in the Gaelic.
[0:17] The Lord our God is merciful, and he is gracious, long-suffering and slow to wrath, and mercy plenteous. He will not try continually, nor keep his anger still.
[0:27] But thus he dealt not as we sinned, nor did the quiet our own. These verses we sing in Gaelic, but in a secret to sin, to God's praise. The Lord our God is merciful, and he is merciful, and he is merciful.
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[4:16] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Lord God we thank you for who you are We thank you that you are the God of mercy That you are the God of grace We thank you that you are long suffering That you are patient with us And we thank you Father that you have not treated us As our sins deserve if we are trusting in Christ Because you have treated Jesus as our sins deserve We thank you that as we see him on the road to Jerusalem In this passage we know that he is headed towards a cross Where he would be punished for our sin So that we could be saved if we look to him To help us we pray To look to and to trust in Christ As we consider these verses together today Enable us we pray to respond in faith To the message of the gospel
[5:18] And to take hold of the grace That is offered to us in Jesus So help us Lord we pray May the Holy Spirit be moving in us and amongst us May he be our teacher And may we be brought to that clear vision of Jesus Through all of you And we pray this in Jesus name Amen If you would turn with me please To the passage that we read These days every time we switch on the news We kind of switch on the news with a heaviness in our own minds Because we used to wonder what the news stories would be But now we know that the first 20 minutes of every news broadcast
[6:19] Will be to do with Brexit We hear the news stories of the day The conversations that have happened The conversations that haven't happened The acts, the statutes The different things that may be reportable items In terms of the news So there's the actual news stories that are broadcast And they take a while But then there seems to be endless reactions to these stories Afterwards Or for those who watch the football or watch sport We spend maybe 20 minutes watching the highlights of a game And then we spend maybe 25 minutes listening to the reaction Of the men in the suits who are giving their opinions on the game We seem to spend a lot of our time In reactions and responses to different events And different people In villages we probably do that all the time actually If something's happening in a village Then it will go around the village
[7:20] Very, very quickly as a story And then everybody will give their reaction to And their responses to And their opinions with regards to the story And today I want to think a bit about reactions and responses But not to Brexit And not to boxing And not to football And not to the local gossip I want to think about reactions to Jesus And I want to look at four particular reactions To Jesus that we find in the verses that we read And the first reaction I want to think about to Jesus Is maybe one that might seem peculiar to some It's the reaction of the donkey To Jesus See when we pick up in Mark 10 Going into Mark chapter 11 Jesus is making his approach into Jerusalem He set his face to go to Jerusalem
[8:22] And he knows that he's going to Jerusalem Not to be welcomed And not to become a celebrity Not to be crowned as king But he's going there To suffer He's going to a cross He's going to do the work Of our salvation And as Jesus makes his approach Into Jerusalem He knows That this is an event That was foretold Hundreds of years Before time In Zechariah The book that we've been studying In the evenings Chapter 9 Verse 9 We have a prophecy Of exactly what's happening In these verses Zechariah sees Sees this and says Rejoice greatly Daughter Zion Shout Daughter Jerusalem See your king comes to you Righteous And victorious Lowly And riding on a donkey On a colt The foal Of a donkey And so here we have Jesus
[9:24] And he's coming Into The The city of Jerusalem And he has the scriptures In his mind He has known them He knows All that was written of him And knowing that He sends His disciples off To get a donkey He makes his approach He knows he's not walking in But he's riding into Jerusalem On a donkey So he takes all of his disciples And he sends two of them off To go and get a donkey That was their job for the day Go and get a donkey And one of the commentators He makes the comment That's part of being a disciple That's part of being a disciple You have to be a donkey Fetcher If Jesus needs you To be a donkey Fetcher You have to be willing
[10:26] To do the lowly jobs You have to be willing To be a runner If Jesus requires you To go and run his errands And that's quite In contrast With what was in the minds Of the disciples The disciples Were in their own minds In the previous chapter People who were Actually full of pride We are the disciples Of Jesus We have a special status As disciples We're set apart From the common man That's what some of them thought Jesus has chosen us We're the special ones So when we hear about Somebody else Who's casting out demons And they're not one of us We want to stop them And they have the audacity To ask Jesus In the previous chapter For the top seats in glory They come to Jesus
[11:27] In chapter 10 Verse 57 You can glance there And they say to Jesus We want to have The special seats On your right And your left In your glory We want the top jobs Jesus We want people Not just to be looking at you But to be looking at us Because we're the disciples And Jesus is saying here Disciples If you want to follow me You need to be Donkey fetchers You need to be Feet washers You need to be willing To get your jackets off And roll up your sleeves And get your hands dirty You need to be humble Not pride And the entrance That Jesus Makes into Jerusalem Is a humble one J.C. Ryle says
[12:28] How did he enter Jerusalem When he came to it On this remarkable occasion Did he come in a royal chariot With horses Soldiers And a retinue Around him Like the kings Of this world We are told Nothing Of the kind We read that He borrowed the coat Of a donkey For the occasion And sat Upon the garments Of his disciples For lack of a saddle This was in perfect Keeping With all the tenor Of his ministry The humility Of Christ He doesn't work In the ways Of this world So Jesus Sends his disciples Off Two of them Off Go and get a donkey Verse 1 As they approached Jerusalem And came to Bethphage And Bethany At the Mount of Olives Jesus sent Two of his disciples
[13:28] Saying to them Go to the village Ahead of you And just as you enter it You will find A coat tied there Which no one Has ever ridden Untie it And bring it here And I just Underlined in my own Bible The coat Is a coat Which no one Has ever ridden I don't know If any of you Are a kind of Horse here Donkey type people But if you are You'll know That To try to sit On the back Of a donkey That's never been ridden Is a dangerous business I mean I've never tried it But I know enough Not to try it Remember the children's game I think it made a comeback Actually in recent years Remember the game Buckaroo It was the donkey And it had Spring loaded legs And you had to Push it down And the game was
[14:29] You had to try and Put things on its back But this was a wild donkey And after a certain period And certain things Were put on the back The back legs went off And everything that was On the back of the donkey Went everywhere And you lost the game See donkeys That have never been ridden They kick you off That's what they do Donkeys that haven't been broken That haven't been tamed The first person That sits on them Is going to End up in the next field So Jesus' plan To send his disciples off To get an untamed Wild Donkey Just seems like a bad plan But what happened next It says in verse 7 When they brought the cloak To Jesus And threw their cloaks Over it He sat on them No kicking
[15:31] No bucking No undignified scene Jesus Simply Sits On this wild donkey And there's not a word Or a yelp Or a nay Or a whinny Or whatever They do Or protest How is that?
[15:57] If you and I Tried to send that donkey We would have the The bruises To show for it How is that possible? The reason it's possible Is because Jesus Has all Authority That's the point And when Jesus speaks As we glance back Through Mark's gospel We see Demons flee And when Jesus speaks Diseases Vanish When Jesus speaks Death is overcome When Jesus speaks The wind The wind stops The seas Are still And donkeys Do what they're told Jesus Is lord Of all Creation And the response
[16:58] Of the donkey Teaches us Something about that Remember If we go back Into the Old Testament We see how God Used the wild Things of this world To do his work When Elijah Was hungry God used the ravens To feed him When Daniel Was in the lion's den God shut the mouths Of the lions When Jonah Is in the deep Of the sea God used the big Fish To save him And redirect him And here God Uses A wild Untamed Unbroken Donkey To ride Into Jerusalem And it's Underlining For us The message That Mark Set out To communicate In this gospel Jesus Christ Is the son Of God He's not Simply an ordinary Man He's not
[17:58] Just a gifted Teacher He is Who he says He is And the donkey Who is employed Here Actually does a Great job In showing us That It's kind of Ironic That We often Do a much Worse job Than the donkey God has Given us Free will So when Jesus Comes to us We can Submit to him As the donkey Dead Or we can Kick Kick When God The Holy Spirit Begins to Strive with us We can Recognize Christ as Lord We can Give him The reins Of our Lives We can Allow him To lead us In the direction That he would
[18:59] Have us Go Or we Can resist Him And Jesus Calls us To trust Him We can Let him Into our Hearts And our Lives Or we Can push Him Back The donkey Teaches us Here In its Response About About the Lordship Of Jesus The donkey Also gives us A lesson In the fact That we Shouldn't Resist Jesus So the Application For point One Is be Like the Donkey It's the First reaction To Jesus The second Reaction Is the Reaction Of some People If you Look at The verses From Three To six That are Before us Here In sending Out the Disciples To get The donkey Jesus Speaks to
[20:00] Them about Some People Jesus Says In verse Three If anyone Asks You Why are You doing This Tell him The Lord Needs it And we'll Send it Back here Shortly And they Went out And found A coat Outside In the Street Verse Four Tied At the Doorway As they Untied It Some People Verse Five Standing There Asked What are You doing Untying That coat The answer Is Jesus Had told Them to And the People Let them Go So I Wanted to Look at The reaction Here of Some People To Jesus Or to The messengers Of Jesus Jesus sends The disciples Off with That message To go And get The donkey And some Of the Commentators Say Well Maybe Jesus Had Arranged A donkey Hire And he's Got terms And conditions Organised in advance He's going to hire This donkey Between 3 and 6pm On that day That's possible
[21:00] But I think It's highly unlikely When Luke's Telling us About this story He says In chapter 19 Verse 33 As they were Untying the Coat Its owners Asked him Why are you Untying the Coat I think if Jesus Had arranged To take hold Of this Coat Before The owners Wouldn't be Saying Why are you Untying the Coat They'd be Saying Are you The men That have Been Organised To come And pick Up The cold So I think It's more Likely That Jesus Had foreknowledge Of all That would Happen I think It's likely That Jesus Knew That the Owners Of the donkey Would say What are you Doing with Our donkey That's our Donkey And so They were To be told The Lord Needs it And these People Some people How did They respond To being Told that
[22:00] The Lord Needs Your donkey Well it Seems they Were happy For the Lord to Have it Little did They know That this Donkey Was going To be used For such A glorious Purpose Little did Some people Know That Two thousand Plus years Later We would Still be Talking about The donkey Spurgeon Says this This was The highest Moment In that Poor Dumb Creature's Existence Oh blessed Blessed Blessed Animal To hear Such music As this Sounding In its Ears From the Son of God The Lord Hath Need of The And yet That's Something that We all Hear Not just The donkey The Lord
[23:02] Hath Need of Thee Our time Perhaps more than we're given Our attention Just now Our resources Our gifts Our donkeys The Lord Hath Needed Them What's Jesus Asking you For In your life That you're Perhaps Somewhat Reluctant To hand Over to Him What's your Donkey You might say Well I don't Have very Much I haven't Got many Gifts I don't Have much Money in The bank What can I Offer To the Lord I've only Got just A wee Bit
[24:02] Well we Might not Have very Much But the Lord Can use A little Remember If we Flip back To Mark Chapter 6 Jesus Feeds 15,000 People On an Afternoon But he Feeds them With a Little Boy's Lunch He Doesn't Just Magically Cause all This food To be In Circulation He Says to The Little Boy It Might Spare We Lunch But yeah I Need It He Blessed It And it Multiplies Incredibly The Big Catch Of Fish In Luke Chapter 5 Jesus Had Need Of The Disciples And Their Boats And Their Nets Spurgeon Said The Catch Of Fish In That Chapter Was Miraculous Yet Neither The Fisherman Nor His Boat Nor The Fish In Tackle Were Ignored But All Were
[25:02] Used To Take The Fish The Lord Had Needed Them What Is It That The Lord Has Need Of From You And I What Is It That The Lord May Put To Extraordinary Use If We Will Just Hand Over To Him And Maybe More Of Our Time Maybe A Wednesday Evening Maybe A Sunday Night It Could Be Some Of Our Gifts Or Talents For Some Particular Cause In Serving Him It Could Be Our Money For Some Mission That God Has Put On Our Hearts It May Not Be Much It May Just Be A Glass Of Cold Water For Someone Who Needs It But As We Sometimes Sing Little As Much If God Is In It So If God Is Asking You For Something As
[26:04] He Asked Some People For Their Donkey The Right Response Is To Give It To Him Jesus Is Maker And Owner Of Heaven And Earth And Everything In It Anyway Everything That You And I Have He Is First Given To Us But When He Asks Us To Give Back Something That He First Gave Us Thing He The I For Point Is The Response of many people. Verse 8.
[27:02] Many people spread their cloaks on the road while others spread branches they had cut in the fields. Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted, Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David. Hosanna in the highest. That was the response of many people. We have the some people.
[27:30] We have just the couple of owners of the donkey that we've looked at and their response but now we see the response of the huge crowd that was gathered around Jesus. From when we're very young we're warned about being part of the crowd.
[27:50] There's a lot of young people here today. I'd be surprised if at some point in your life you haven't been told, you know, be careful. There's danger in the crowd. I remember I was brought up in Stornoway.
[28:02] I remember in Stornoway one night when I was about probably two or three and we'd been at the Nicholson, the old school, playing football. We're heading back to Kennedy Terrace where I lived and one of the boys, there was a crowd of us, maybe about ten of us and one of the boys said, let's throw some stones at that grumpy man's window.
[28:28] He's always grumping and moaning about football and causing trouble on the street. So one of the boys says, let's throw some stones at that grumpy old guy's window. And so someone did.
[28:43] And sure enough within one second the guy was out of his door like a rocket grumpier than ever and everybody in the crowd took off at high speed.
[28:57] But as we took off some of us the slower of us of which I was one we were recognised. Now I didn't throw a stone but I was in big trouble because I was part of that crowd.
[29:16] There's danger in being part of some crowds. And in Mark's Gospel if you glance through it you can see the crowds actually are not a good place to be in.
[29:33] Yes the crowds were amazed by Jesus. Yes they were hungry and they liked to eat Jesus' lunch when he miraculously provided it. Yes they were amazed by his teaching.
[29:46] But the vast majority of the crowds remained unsaved. They didn't believe.
[30:00] And here if we were just to look at the response of the crowds not knowing what's going to happen down the road it seems so encouraging. Crowds are all shouting Hosanna Son of David Jesus Saviour clapping their hands cheering waving their palm branches throwing their cloaks down.
[30:22] And it looks like the beginning of a revival as they shouted their professions of faith. But just a few days later this same crowd would change their cries from Hosanna to crucify him.
[30:48] We don't want him we want him dead. As I was thinking about this in preparation it suddenly struck me that many of the crowd that we read of in this passage who experienced the high point of this day they will reenact something of this scene.
[31:15] we see Jesus here coming into their vicinity and they're confessing him as Lord and they're bowing their knee to him in that moment.
[31:35] And there's coming a day again when Jesus will return and it says that every knee will bow as these knees bowed and every tongue will confess as these tongues confessed that Jesus is Lord.
[31:59] But on the day that Jesus comes back he will not come back as Savior. He will come as Judge.
[32:13] On that day when Jesus returns it will be too late to cry out have mercy upon save me.
[32:29] Mark 7 21 says not everyone who says to me this is what Jesus says he says not everyone who says to me Lord Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven and many of this crowd here who were saying Lord Lord they did not and they will not ever enter the kingdom of heaven because emotional as they were they had no faith in Christ so the warning here in looking at their response is to make sure that our response is not like that of the crowd it's to be rather like Bartimaeus that's the final response we'll look at very briefly we see
[33:32] Bartimaeus in the end of chapter 10 just as Jesus is coming into Jerusalem and we've looked at Bartimaeus before as a congregation and I just want to take a glance at him today as we finish because he teaches us much about how we should respond to Jesus remember as we saw Bartimaeus there at the end of that chapter he's a man who's in need he's in physical need his eyes are blind he's in spiritual need his heart needs to be touched and so he hears about Jesus passing through and he wants Jesus to come to him he wants to see he wants to speak he wants to reach out to Jesus but he's disadvantaged and as Bartimaeus tries to to cry out to Jesus the crowd tried to keep
[34:35] Bartimaeus away from Jesus and that's often the way things are in this world some of you here may have people in your families some of your friends people you work with and they will always try and hold you at a distance from Christ just like the crowd were saying to Bartimaeus no no no you're not getting near Jesus but the more Bartimaeus heard them saying you're not getting near Jesus the more Bartimaeus cried Jesus have mercy on me so Bartimaeus wouldn't be held back that's something she learned from him the crowd tried to silence Bartimaeus they tried to suffocate this prayerful call they tried to shush him when he cried out for Jesus and that's not unusual either whenever we try to speak about Jesus the world will always tell us to shut up whenever we express an interest in Jesus if we're not yet believers the world will always try to quieten this time just like this crowd tried to quieten
[35:56] Bartimaeus time but he wouldn't be shut up neither should you be if you're seeking the Lord Bartimaeus knew that he was a sinner he knew that he was in need that's why he cried out have mercy on me you don't cry out for mercy if you don't know that you have sin Bartimaeus has faith in Jesus as saviour that's why he calls out son of David that was the name for the Messiah it was the name for the son of God and when Jesus hears him and heals him bringing both sight to his eyes and life to his heart Bartimaeus he doesn't just say to Jesus thanks for the gift now I'm off to live my life with full sight and full pleasure no
[36:59] Bartimaeus once his eyes are opened by Jesus once he sees the beauty of the face of Jesus it says he follows Jesus along the road and let me say this clearly to finish that's the sign of a true believer that's the sign of a true believer it's not about how many branches or palm leaves or cloaks that you throw down when your emotions are high it's not about the drama of being part of the crowd on the high festival days like we have Christmas Easter it's not about how loud your semen profession of faithless there are very many loud professions of faith as Jesus entered
[38:06] Jerusalem that amounted to nothing the sign of a true believer is found in the day by day following Jesus along the road Edward says faith that does not lead to discipleship is not saving faith whoever asks of Jesus for salvation must be willing to follow Jesus even on the uphill road to the cross or as somebody else put it I can't remember who it was we are not saved by our perseverance we're not saved by our following Jesus but our following Jesus shows that we are truly saved if you're here this morning and you made a profession of faith five minutes ago or five hours ago or five months ago or five years ago or 50 years ago you can remember clearly the emotions you felt on the night that it happened and the events that were all going on on that day but since that day you haven't been following
[39:38] Christ you've been here then everywhere your bible readings go out the window you're never at a prayer meeting you're hardly in prayer how can you have any assurance Jesus calls us to be disciples not converts and Bartimaeus is shown to be a disciple of Christ as he determines that he will follow Jesus along the road that was his response and that's the right response that's the response of a true believer and the question to finish with is is this your response are you following Jesus are you going his way and not your own way are you seeking to live by his word and not your own designs are you seeking first his king and not your reputation and your comfort and your security and your pleasure that's our calling and that is the clear sign of what it means and looks like to be a disciple are you one heavenly father we thank you for this passage and we thank you for the teaching within we thank you that as we look at these different responses even the response of the lowly donkey we see something of the lordship and the glory of christ we thank you that we see that jesus when he calls us to let go of certain things and hand them over to him these are not wasted things but they can be used for such glorious purpose we pray we pray that you would help us to heed the warning of just being part of a crowd that floats along through life based on our emotions and lacking in faith we see the cries and we can imagine the drama and the high emotion and the happiness of the moment as jesus walked into jerusalem and yet there is that horror of thought to think that these same people change their plea from hosanna to crucify her enable us lord we pray not to be people who walk by emotion and who trust ourselves enable us we pray to be like bartimaeus who saw jesus who called upon the name of the lord jesus and he was saved and then showed the fact that he was saved as he determined to follow jesus all the way along the road to the cross give us the strength we pray to do the same and we ask it in jesus name amen do the