Unstoppable Power/Undeniable Goodness – Mark

Brandon Werner   -   February 25, 2024

Unstoppable Power, Undeniable Goodness

Mark 11:1-11

Pastor Brandon Werner | Together Church OKC |
February 25, 2024 | Series: Mark

INTRODUCTION

With Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday just about a month away, it’s fitting that we find ourselves at the beginning of Mark 11 and at the first event of Passion Week.

 

Passion Week is a traditional name we use to describe the final week of Jesus’ ministry on the earth. Passion Week begins with this story of Jesus’ triumphant entry; an event we traditionally celebrate on Palm Sunday every year. And it continues with significant events like Jesus’ last Passover meal with His disciples, His betrayal by Judas Iscariot, His crucifixion on Good Friday, and His resurrection on Easter Sunday.

 

To say this is a significant week in the life of Jesus would be a gross understatement. The importance of this week can also be seen in Mark’s gospel account. Up to now, in the first ten chapters of Mark, we have covered about three years of Jesus’ ministry. But we have only covered about two thirds of Mark’s gospel account. Which means that the entire final third of Mark’s gospel account covers only the last week of Jesus’ ministry. Two thirds for three years, one third for one week… that’s a significant week!

 

And Mark’s record of Passion Week starts with a very important event: the triumphal entry and Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem on a donkey.

 

What is this event and why is it so important?

 

Let’s begin with the most obvious reason this event is so significant: what took place occurred in fulfillment of Messianic prophecy. Hundreds of years before this event ever took place, the prophet Zechariah foretold that it would happen. He foretells of the people of Jerusalem rejoicing and shouting praise as their King, their Messiah, comes to them riding humbly on the back of a donkey…

 

Zechariah 9:9

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!

Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!

Behold, your king is coming to you;

righteous and having salvation is he,

humble and mounted on a donkey,

on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

 

It’s hard to imagine that these words were written by the prophet Zechariah about 550 years before this story in Mark 11 ever took place! That’s more than twice as long as America has been a nation!

 

But that’s just the beginning of the significance of this event. When we step back and look at the details surrounding this story, the importance of what is happening here continues to swell.

 

 

What this story reveals, and what I hope you walk away with today, is the unstoppable power and undeniable goodness of God. It reveals His ability to bring about precisely what He intends to bring about. It demonstrates His sovereignty over the affairs of people. It magnifies God’s goodness in the midst of an evil and broken world.

 

And, if we will listen, this story reminds us that the same God who orchestrated the events of Passion Week is the same God who is orchestrating the events in our world and the details of our lives today.

 

 

BODY

 

That’s the message. To understand it, we need to investigate the background and environment surrounding this story.

 

You may recall that, up to now, Jesus has taken great lengths to keep a cap on who He is and what God was up to.

  • After healing people, He would often tell them not to tell others what He had done for them.
  • As crowds formed around Him, Jesus would often withdraw and disperse the crowds.
  • Up to now, Jesus would not allow others to openly identify who He was or announce Him as King. One time, in John’s gospel, a crowd wanted to take Jesus by force and make Him King. Jesus did not allow it but withdrew away from them.

 

Because of His teachings and His miracles, crowds formed often; but Jesus had gone to great lengths to conceal His identity and to keep crowds from gaining any real momentum.

 

But here, on the dawn of Passion Week, Jesus does two things that He knows will take the cap right off this whole operation: He performs a high-profile miracle and raises Lazarus from the dead, and He incites the crowds as He rides into Jerusalem on a donkey.

 

First, just before His triumphant entry into Jerusalem, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. Mark doesn’t record the event in His gospel, but it’s timing and location are well documented in the gospel of John.

 

Before now, Jesus had already raised at least a couple others from the dead. But the circumstances and timing around Lazarus’s resurrection were high-profile and unlike anything up to this point…

 

  • Lazarus had been dead for four days. Lazarus was a moderately well-known figure in that area. The fact that he had been dead for four days gave plenty of time for people to hear about his passing. More importantly, it was a long enough period that people knew with certainty that Lazarus was definitely dead.
  • Lazarus died and was buried in a town called Bethany. This town was located just two miles outside Jerusalem; the largest city in Israel. That means Jesus’ miracle took place in a highly populated area.
  • Jesus raised Lazarus just days before Passover. Passover was, by far, the largest holiday in Isael. It is estimated that around 2.6 million people converged on Jerusalem for this very important feast.

 

Put all these things together and what do you get? A high-profile resurrection occurring in a highly populated area during peak season.

 

It’s safe to say that Jesus’ attempts to keep a low profile were officially over. His fame and popularity had already spread throughout Israel; now, travelers would arrive for Passover and immediately hear the story of Jesus raising a dead man to life in Bethany! Undoubtedly, many of these travelers would walk the easy two miles to check it out for themselves. Perhaps they would see Jesus, or at least might hear from an eyewitness firsthand.

 

So, at the start of Passover week, Jesus first takes the cap off His entire operation through a high-profile miracle that is sure to spread His fame throughout the massive crowd.

 

Then, right after that, Jesus rides into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey in fulfillment of the Messianic prophecy. Large crowds lined the streets and put out the red carpet for Him, throwing their coats and palm branches on His path and shouting out praise!

 

Before now, Jesus had never allowed any crowd to openly proclaim Him as Messiah and King. But now, at the start of Passion Week, Jesus allows this massive demonstration of public admiration!

 

What’s going on here? I’ll tell you what was going on…

 

God was orchestrating everything so that His divine timeline for Passion Week would be carried out exactly as He planned.

 

How’s that, you ask? Well, there’s one more factor we must consider…

 

Jesus had enemies. Jesus was already considered a significant threat to the Pharisees and religious leaders before any of these Passover week events. To put it into a modern vernacular, leading up to Passion Week, Jesus’ threat was already at DEFCON 3.

 

They knew they had to deal with Jesus, but Passover week was the biggest holiday of the entire year! The logistics and organization required on their part was through the roof. On a week like that, if anything could wait, it had to wait. They had to give their focus to the Passover event.

 

But when Jesus raised Lazarus and the Pharisees saw how the people responded to that high-profile miracle, Jesus’ threat went to DEFCON 2.

 

Then, on the biggest possible stage, Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey in fulfillment of Messianic prophecy. The Pharisees watched as the people lined the streets and shouted their praise.

 

DEFCON 1. Immediate action required.

 

The Pharisees already hated Jesus because His teaching had correctly exposed their hypocrisy and undermined their authority on multiple occasions. They were power grabbers, and they thought they were losing power to Jesus. Through Lazarus’s healing and Jesus’ triumphal entry, the threat of Jesus became so intense that they believed they had to act now regardless of the demands of Passover week. That’s how they saw things from their perspective.

 

But from God’s perspective, everything happening was under His control. He was divinely orchestrating the affairs of people to carry out His perfect plan!

  • God planned on Jesus fulfilling all the prophecies, including His entry into Jerusalem.
  • God planned on Jesus’ fame and notoriety reaching its peak at this precise time.
  • God planned for Jesus’ sacrifice to be made on Passover: He is the Passover Lamb whose death atones for the sins of the world.
  • God planned to take what Satan and others meant for evil and turn it into good.
  • God planned all this before the foundations of the world and knew He had the power to bring it about despite any and all human efforts.

 

Just think about it! Here are the Pharisees working around the clock to try to put a stop to Jesus when, in reality, God is using their scheming to orchestrate everything so that their plans just add to His glory as He accomplished His divine purposes!  Ultimately, their planning to kill Jesus led to Jesus becoming our Passover Lamb on Passover day as He suffered and died for our sins according to God’s predetermined will. That’s unstoppable power!

 

To call their efforts to stop Jesus a speedbump would be giving them too much dignity. If anything, the efforts of the Pharisees only added momentum towards God’s will being accomplished through Jesus!

 

Our God is the sovereign God who rules and reigns supremely over every event in this world and over the affairs of all people. And, because our God is perfect love and entirely good, He is capable of taking the most wicked, evil, and painful things in this world caused by the sin of people and using them to reveal His love and work out His salvation for all. That’s undeniable goodness!

 

 

Our God is the God of unstoppable power and undeniable goodness! Do you believe that this morning?

 

 

Let me tell you how you know if you believe that or not.

 

 

When you look around at this world and all the evil taking place, do you see a world out of control? Or do you see all that God’s Word has foretold coming about to, once again, set the stage for His unstoppable power to be revealed on the grandest of stages and His perfect plan to be executed with flawless precision?

 

And when you look at the details and circumstances of your own life, are you overwhelmed by the hardships, the evil, the struggles, and the suffering? Or do you believe that you serve an undeniably good God who is sovereignly orchestrating every event of your life to accomplish His very best in you and through you?

 

Examining your worldview is how you know if you believe in this or not. What you believe will inform your worldview; both in how you interpret the events going on in this world and how you even interpret what is happening in the details of your life.

 

 

I’ll be among the first to acknowledge that, when we are in the moment, the pain and suffering we experience in this life can be overwhelming. Left up to my feelings alone, I am sure I would not have great confidence in God’s unstoppable power and His undeniable goodness. Thankfully, I am not left to my feelings alone.

 

If not for the example of Jesus, it would be all too easy to assume that our suffering and the evil we experience in this world are indicators that God has vacated His throne or that He is no longer good.

 

But because of the example of Christ, specifically His example on this most important of Passover weeks, we can look past our feelings and see His power and goodness despite the wickedness of people and the evil that exists in this world.

 

Consider the evil Jesus endured as God was simultaneously orchestrating His very best for Him and for all people on that fateful week of Passover:

  • Jesus was betrayed by Judas, one of His closest friends.
  • In His most desperate hour, all of His disciples abandoned Him.
  • The trial Jesus endured was a kangaroo court that was never interested in justice and only interested in brutal murder.
  • Jesus endured public humiliation that would have been excessive even for some of the worst public offenders.
  • Jesus’ mother, Mary, had to watch as her son was beaten beyond recognition and publicly executed.
  • Jesus endured all this even though He never sinned and had only ever practiced perfect and selfless love towards others.
    • That made this the greatest display of depravity of all time.

 

You can look at that story one of two ways. You can either say, “See! God has lost control! He can’t even protect His own Son! Look at how evil prevailed in the life of Jesus!”

 

Or you can say, “In the midst of great darkness, among the greatest evil that has ever occurred, God was not only present, but He was orchestrating every detail… revealing His unstoppable power and His undeniable goodness towards all.

 

How do you see it? This is how God sees it…

 

John 3:16

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

 

1 Peter 2:24

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.

 

Colossians 2:13-15

13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.

 

What Jesus endured was nothing short of evil. But what God did through His suffering is nothing short of unstoppable power and undeniable goodness. Do you believe this?

 

And that same God who orchestrated these events in Jesus’ life is at work right now orchestrating the details of your life.

 

Romans 8:28

28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

 

CONCLUSION

 

Do you believe that is true? Do you believe that, according to God’s divine power, His all-knowing wisdom, and His undeniable goodness, is presently orchestrating the details of your life to bring about His very best and your very best, despite the evil and brokenness we experience in this world?

 

The only agenda of this one-point sermon is to convince you to be all in on this biblical truth. To see your life from this divine perspective. So that, instead of missing God, you train your soul to trust God and to look for His activity in every detail of your life.

 

Believing this is guaranteed to change your perspective as you encounter difficulties and hardships in this life.

 

But it won’t always make everything clear in the moment. Sometimes, when we are in the middle of the chaos, it will be hard for us to personally see the evidence of God’s unstoppable power and His undeniable goodness…

  • When someone we love is suffering from illness.
  • When we experience loss, severe grief, or pain.
  • When something evil or traumatic happens.
  • When we are overwhelmed by burdens and worry.

 

Just like us, the disciples of Jesus had to feel confusion about what they were experiencing that Passover week. What a rollercoaster!

 

Jesus was constantly being adored and hated; praised and accused; celebrated and threatened. Try as they might, there’s no way they could have understood the depths of God’s unstoppable power and His undeniable goodness in those moments.

 

But that’s okay. Even in this story of the triumphant entry, we see how God relates to those who don’t fully understand but whose hearts are willing to trust in Him.

 

What do we see Jesus do for those around Him in Mark 11?

  • Jesus led them to trust Him (He revealed His divinity).
  • Jesus led them to obey Him (go get that donkey).
  • Jesus included them (through obedience and radical generosity).

 

Jesus’ plan would be accomplished with or without the help of His disciples. He knew they couldn’t understand all that was happening, but He did. He knew didn’t know what to do, so He guided them.

 

Jesus still understands, and Jesus will still guide you.

 

What should you do when it feels like our world is falling apart? How should you respond to the challenges we face? You should do what Jesus led His disciples to do in this story…

  • Trust Him.
    (Trust His unstoppable power and undeniable goodness.)
  • Obey Him.
    (Simply ask, “God, what are you doing? What do You want me
    to do?)
  • Surrender your life to serve Him.
    (Say, “Lord, I trust You. I will depend on You. Your Kingdom
    come, Your will be done in my life and in me.”

 

You will only have grace to respond like this if you genuinely believe that, no matter what you face, God’s power is unstoppable and His goodness is always undeniable. (LOOK AT JESUS.)

 

 

INVITATION – INVITE RESPONSE TEAM FORWARD

 

  • What challenges are you facing in your life right now?
  • What suffering are you enduring?
  • What evils have you experienced that have cost you greatly?
  • What pain do you carry?

 

ILLUSTRATION: Clinching Fist (and lead in prayer)

 

Sing: “Goodness of God”

 

Brandon Returns to Close:

 

Our Hope in Jesus’ Return:

  • This entry will not be His last.
    • He entered the first time humbly on a donkey.
    • He will enter again as ruling and conquering King.
  • King Jesus will return and plant His feet on this earth.
    • He will plant them on the Mount of Olives (same place).
    • This time, that mountain will break in two.
    • He will enter and take His seat as King in this world.