If you've got a Bible, go ahead and get that open to Genesis 2.
If you don't, that's OK. We'll have all the words on the
screen for you. We're in Genesis 2, just two
verses, chapters or chapter 2. Verse 24 through 25.
Today liturgically is called Palm Sunday.
I've already brought this to our attention, but the kids are in
the room this morning. Kids, I am psyched that you're
in here, OK? If you guys are loud, that's
between you and mom and dad. I personally like it loud in
here. OK, You're not.
You're not going to interrupt me by being loud.
If anything, I find a quiet church distracting.
OK, so we're we're glad that you're here.
And I love a loud church. And so like every preacher on
Palm Sunday, I am preaching from Genesis to Nobody's doing that,
but we're doing our quiet walk through our long walk through
the Book of Genesis that happens to be where we're at this
morning. And so you may get 2 sermons for
the price of 1, not in length, but you might get 2 sermons.
I think I'm actually going to keep it pretty tight and pretty
quick this morning. Last week, if you were with us,
if you weren't, that's OK, I'll cut yourself.
Last week we saw the 1st wedding ceremony in human history, Adam
and Eve and God the Father in the garden.
Today we pivot and what we see is the result of that first
wedding ceremony. And so maybe another way to ask
the question is what? Why get?
Like, why get married? What's it actually accomplish?
What's it, what's the result? What are we, what are we doing
when we're linking up with I do's and the Bible's actually
really clear on that. So if you're able, let's stand
for the reading of the word of God.
OK, So you see Adam, you see Eve coming to the picture.
God's created everything. They come together for a wedding
ceremony. And then God essentially
explains what happens when two people get married.
Genesis 2, verses 24 through 25. Therefore, a man shall leave his
father and his mother and hold fast to his wife.
Pause that. The biblical idea here is
simple. It's not saying that you cut
your mother and father off relationally.
That's not healthy. That's not what's going on here.
OK, But in a culture like this, in the ancient Near Eastern
world where family loyalty is everything, it's everything.
It was a radical thing for when a marriage happens, for a
priority shift to happen, when that when two people come
together, there's a priority shift that happens.
Not a relational cutting off, but your husband or your wife
becomes your first priority. Why?
Keep reading and they shall become one flesh.
Notice. Notice that biblical math is not
1/2 person plus 1/2 person equals 1 flesh.
That's not what's happening here, Adam.
Adam doesn't complete Eve, he's got God.
Eve doesn't complete Adam, she's got God.
The biblical math here is that two complete humans, 2 come
together and they form 1-2 become one.
And how does that happen? Kids?
Plug your ears for just a second.
Keep reading the Bible. Hey, it's in the text.
You guys want me to preach the text right?
And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
Hey yo, the Bible is saucy. Get used to it.
You can have a seat. I'm be quick this morning to the
point. Here's the the big idea of these
two verses. This right here is actually the
first instance of new creation that we see in the entire Bible.
First instance of new creation. Everything else, the heavens,
the earth, the sun, the stars, the moon, all of creation up in
this point is just that it's creation.
But then at this wedding ceremony, something new explodes
into the cosmos. Adam and Eve come together to
form a new creation 2 become one.
That's what's happening. New creation.
The the pastor who trained me and developed me, He always did
this funny thing in wedding ceremonies where whenever he did
a wedding ceremony, I can't even remember if he did this at my
wedding ceremony. I don't remember a lot of of the
day. But he would do this thing where
he would try to prove he he would try to really illustrate
that the two are becoming a new creation.
And he would say, OK, Cole, you from this moment on are no
longer Cole. Chloe, you are no longer Chloe.
The two of you are coming together.
And now you have become Coley. And I don't, I always thought, I
always thought that was kind of funny.
And I sometimes I try to do that with the wedding ceremonies that
I do. I couldn't do it at the last
wedding ceremony even though I wanted to because I was doing a
wedding ceremony for Peter and Megan.
And I was like, I was like running through it luckily the
day before and I was like, OK, so I'm going to say, what am I
going to say? That part?
I'm going to say, OK, you are no longer Peter and you are no
longer Megan, but together you have become Pagan.
I was like, I can't because they're Christians.
They're not pagans. So I was like, I can't do that.
And they're like, well, you can just do meter.
And I was like, yeah, I like the joke better.
But here, here's the point. There's this new thing
happening, this new creation that is exploding into the
cosmos. And this is massive.
Adam and Eve to form a new creation, come together naked,
yes, and unashamed. And of course, that's really the
math for every good marriage. It is.
It's really the math for every good relationship to be truly
known and truly loved. Both, not one or the other.
If you're, if it's not enough to be loved, if you're not known
because then you can't receive it.
They're like, no, they don't love me.
They love this fake version of me.
So that's not enough. And on the other end of the
spectrum, it's also not enough. It's actually everybody's
greatest fear to be truly known without being truly loved,
right? Like that's what the FBI is
accomplishing when they investigate criminals.
What you need are both of that truly loved and truly known, or
the way that Genesis describes it, naked and unashamed.
I got a pro tip, and this is a pro tip a while back, that every
time you you leave a wedding ceremony and the bride's walking
down the aisle, take, take a good look at the bride.
But then I don't know if you've ever done this.
If you haven't done this, you should try it at the next
wedding you're at turn and look at the groom's face.
And I love that. I love it for a lot of reasons.
It's a pro tip. It's moving.
Adam and Eve, their walk down the aisle, that's what's
happening in Genesis 2. That must have been glorious
too, right there in paradise. They're in Eden.
When I when I imagine Adam's walk down the wedding aisle to
wait for Eve at the altar, I imagine it as a pretty triumphal
entry. Picture it.
Picture this paradise. Adam's walking down the aisle.
The birds in the air and the creatures on the earth are
singing and shouting. The sun and the stars are
singing and dancing. Even the palm leaves on the
trees are clapping their hands in celebration of the arrival of
the first new creation, all of creation.
As Adam was walking down that wedding aisle shouting He's
here, she's here, the king and the queen, the ones who are to
rule over all of creation kindly and generously, they're finally
here. It would have been epic.
Adam imagine after only seeing animals, turns, wakes up from a
deep sleep, sees Eve, explodes into poetry.
It would have been awesome, right?
First first groom, First bride. Jesus is a groom.
The church is the bride. What was Jesus walk down the
wedding aisle like? You ever thought of that?
Because if you haven't, welcome to Palm Sunday.
Here's what Jesus has walked down the wedding aisle was like
Matthew 21. They call this the triumphal
entry. It's absolutely electric.
It just goes right into your veins.
Jesus is he's entering in on Palm Sunday to the holy city of
Jerusalem's. And this happens.
They brought the donkey in the Colts and put them on their
cloaks and he sat on them. And then when Jesus is entering
into the city, most of the crowds spread their cloaks on
the ground and others cut branches from the trees and
spread them on the road. Palm Sunday and the crowds that
went before them and that followed him.
So you got people in front of him, you got people behind him.
It's basically it's like a UFC entry, right?
Or like a fighting entry. Like it's just everybody around
them is going absolutely crazy. They're 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 entered Jerusalem, the whole city, the whole city
was wild. And they were stirred up.
They were saying, what's going on?
Who is this? And everybody yells.
The crowd said this was the prophet Jesus from Nazareth and
from Galilee. This is awesome.
If you don't know what's going on here, this is basically
ancient street theater, right? It's St.
Theatre. The crowds are full of exuberant
joy and genuine celebration. Did you see what they're doing?
They're ripping off their coats like ripping off their cloaks,
throwing them on the road. They're cutting palm branches
down and throwing them on the road.
What's going on street theatre? What they're doing is they are
enacting something deeply symbolic in the ancient world.
This is what crowds of people would do when a king arrived in
his city after a military victory.
You guys with me? Jesus knows this.
He's also twisting it. He's also publicly redefining
kingship. This is crystal clear by the
choice of his ride. He doesn't pull up on a War
Horse, like you had guessed. What's he pull up on a donkey?
What's going on here? What's going on?
This is a redefining of kingship around Jesus.
What's going on here is that when you need to get this, when
Jesus, when he pulls up to earth on a ride, he doesn't, he
doesn't pull up in events, right?
What he's doing is he pulls up in a Hearst.
That's why he's going donkey rather than War Horse.
He knows that this is a slow death March in front of us.
He knows everything that's about to happen.
And in the midst of all of it, the crowd is freaking out.
They're hooping and hollering. And probably the most important
observation I can give you about the crowd is this.
The crowd here is 2/3 right and 1/3 wrong, 2/3 right, 1/3 wrong.
They think Jesus is the king. That's right. 1/3 right.
They know what true kings do. So they think he's going to win
a military victory. That's right, 2/3 right.
But they also think that the military victory is going to be
a victory over the government of Rome, and that is wrong, 2/3
right, 1/3 wrong. What they don't understand is
that they don't need to ultimately be set free from
Rome. What they need to be set free
from ultimately is their own sin.
And so suppose we take this analogy of Palm Sunday and Jesus
triumphal entry, and rather than just seeing it as a King's
victory, marched to his throne, which it is.
Suppose we also imagine his triumphal entry as a groom's
March down the wedding aisle to go wait on the wedding altar for
his bride, which it also is. So as you think about this
triumphal entry on Palm Sunday, think about it, visualize it.
What we need to know is, I hope you can see clearly what the
groom is like. What's Jesus like?
He's heroic, kingly, sacrificial, worthy of praise.
That's the groom. What's the bride like?
What's the bride like during this March down the wedding
aisle? Well, we know that the bride of
Christ is the church, and the church is composed of all
believers. So what's the bride like during
the March down the wedding aisle?
Exuberant, cheering hosanna, which essentially means save us,
save us, they think from Rome, Jesus knows from sin, Hosanna,
save us. Hosanna in the highest they love
him. On Palm Sunday, they love him
right now, but let's step back that moment.
The triumphal entry is on a Sunday.
That's why we call it Palm Sunday.
Beginning of the week. Cool cool.
Jesus is going to be crucified roughly 5 days later at the end
of the week, correct? On Friday, besides a few people
at the cross, what are the crowds yelling at the
crucifixion of Jesus? Hosanna.
Now, what are they yelling? Crucifier.
That's interesting. Who are those people?
Probably the same people at his triumphal entry.
So here's what I need you to give The same people who at the
beginning of the week were yelling at Hosanna are probably
the same people at the end of the week who are yelling crucify
him. In a week when they found out
that God ain't going to do exactly what they want him to do
for them, they stop yelling Hosanna and they start yelling
crucify him. And who are these people?
These are the people that Jesus died for.
These are the people who would by faith, through grace, become
the bride of Christ. So who are these people?
This is you and it's me. It's me.
Like can I just be cool for a second?
I know I'm a pastor and sometimes people think there's
like 3 categories of people, non Christians, Christians and
pastors. There's not there's two
categories of people. There's there's people who
aren't believers and need grace and there's people who are
believers and receive grace. OK, and so I'm just going to be
frank with you guys. Like sometimes I sometimes I
don't even need a full week to go from Hosanna to crucify.
Sometimes I don't even like sometimes that happens in a day
for me. It was that kind of week for me.
Like I did not a lot of not a lot of sleep this week, some
lingering family sickness behind on things.
All it took for me it was like 1 migraine.
It sometimes beginning of the day, ma'am, at the beginning of
the day I'm in the word of God and I'm like, oh God, you are
everything. Thanks for saving me.
Everything's for your glory. You're awesome Hosanna in the
highest and the noon comes around.
I get a bad text or a migraine and you know what happens in my
heart? That's all it takes.
And I'm like, what are you doing up there?
What what's going on? Curse you right in a single day.
Hosanna in the morning to crucify him at noon.
And like, it sucks to admit this, right?
It, it sucks to admit that even as Christians we're like this
weird mixture of beloved and sinful of made righteous before
God and still jacked up. But that's something that
especially on Easter week, we just, we got to come to terms
with it and coming to terms with your own sinfulness.
Please hear me here like you got to hear me on this coming to
terms with your own sinfulness. It's not ultimately about having
a negative view of self. No, it's not even ultimately
about having a realistic view of self, although it will result in
that. Coming to terms with your own
sinfulness is ultimately about like seeing the glory of Jesus
and the holiness of Jesus and the perfection of Jesus and the
grandeur of Jesus. It's about seeing Jesus as big
and self as small. Easter week is all about coming
to terms with that. As uncomfortable as it is, maybe
it'll be like that for you this week.
Maybe this week you'll even get a blank sheet of paper out later
today and throughout the week. Maybe you'll even make a list of
all the things that Jesus died for in your own life.
Your sins, your besetting weaknesses, your addictions,
your vices, all of that stuff. It's really convicting.
Conviction, definitely. But not only not just
convicting, it's also comforting.
And here's the comfort about this, OK?
The comfort is that the triumphal entry isn't just about
the crowd getting Jesus 1/3 wrong.
It's about Jesus getting the crowd 3 thirds right.
Jesus knows exactly who we are and he still chose to come to
save us. Isn't that crazy to phrase him
as flamboyantly as possible with the groom and bride analogy?
You just need to hear me say this, OK?
You need to, especially when you make mistakes and sin and screw
up. You need to hear me say this.
You need to hear that Jesus knew he was marrying a crazy bride.
He knew he was marrying A bridezilla.
And you can relax. I'm not going to tie that back
to you. Your marriage.
That's not a gender thing. I'm the crazy one in my in my
wedding, in my marriage, OK, but it is a Jesus and bride thing.
Like Jesus did know that we were jacked up.
It doesn't surprise him as you picture his triumphal entry into
into Jerusalem, his March down the wedding aisle.
He knows exactly what he's getting into.
He knows that he's got a bipolar wife.
You know what the good news is? The good news is, you know who's
not bipolar? Jesus.
No, he's not crazy. Jesus.
You know who doesn't change at the beginning of the week and at
the end of the week? Jesus on changing, theologians
say immutable on changing in all of his ways and all of his wants
and all of his character. He does not change.
He's not gravity. Don't relate to him.
Luckily, he doesn't change, so I may as well just he's not
gravity. He's not an impersonal force,
but he is an unchanging in all of his ways, in all of his wants
and in all of his character unchanging.
Look at the triumphal entry, Jesus at the beginning of the
week. He's fixed on dying for his
bride. What's he doing at the end of
the week? Dying for his bride?
He's unchanging. Like do you want to know how
much Jesus doesn't change? If you've never read this, wear
a helmet. This is going to blow your mind.
This is Revelation chapter 13. It describes Jesus as quote, the
Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world before
the world was even created. You know, that means that means
that Jesus wasn't just thinking about dying for his bride on the
cross. He wasn't just thinking about
dying for his bride at his triumphal entry.
He was thinking about dying for his bride before he even created
the world on changing and his commitment to crazy Christians
who are jacked up and just need constant, constant grace.
The whole reason that all of human history exists, all of
reality. It's all a elaborate playset.
It's all a plot. It's all one massive story
that's built around 1 moment in human history when Jesus dies on
a cross for his bride. He's on changing.
You're not. He's on changing.
I'm not. And when you get this, the
triumphal entry, when you understand your own changing
nature, the crazy bride of Christ, the spiritually bipolar
crowd, when you face this honestly and intentionally, then
and only then is your soul ready, Ready.
You ready? Catch it on a hop.
Can you catch it on a hop? Here comes Julian.
Get it. Get it, get it, get it, get it.
That's right. Then and only then Are you ready
for the good news of the resurrection.
But that's next Sunday, so let me pray as I'm praying.
Families dedicating kids, come on up, Heavenly Father.
I pray that we would see Jesus as an unchanging God, an
unchanging groom who is fixed, fixed from beginning to end
before the creation of the world and after the creation of the
world, fixed on saving people that he knows needs salvation.
That can be anybody and everybody in this room.
If somebody doesn't know that, Jesus, I pray that you would
give them the Spirit and that they would come to know this
Jesus this morning. So it's in the precious name of
Jesus that all God's people prayed.
Amen.