The King Who Wouldn’t Seize

Here's what's going to be interesting because we look at this and we go, "Yeah, well, Jesus is the king, so what they're doing is good and right." And I want you to think about this from a different perspective this morning. Because what the crowd wanted from Jesus that day, the crown they were trying to place on his head along with their hosannas, while on the surface appears so legitimate, I think we have a word for what it actually is. It's a word we've used in this series over and over again. It was actually an idol.

Not an idol carved from wood or cast from gold. This idol was shaped from something far more powerful than either. It was shaped from centuries of genuine suffering, legitimate longing, and real theological hope. They took everything that had been promised by God in the scripture, and they built for themselves the image of the king that they believed they needed. A king who would ride Pilate's kind of horse and wield Pilate's kind of power only on their side. They wanted Jesus to be the king of Israel and Israel alone. They wanted Jesus to come and meet Rome according to Rome's agenda and power. A king made in their image. And they tried to place that image over Jesus like a crown.

Now, what Jesus does on Palm Sunday is so fascinating to me. We often talk about the beginning of it, right? Him coming in and the crowds and the cloaks and the palms and the shouting. But what he actually does is so fascinating. So if you keep reading through the text, what does he do? He rides the donkey into the temple. He looks around, turns around and rides out. Doesn't do anything. He looks and he leaves.

No speech, no sword, no declaration of war against Rome, no seizure of the temple from the corrupt priesthood. He just looks and leaves. What I want to do this morning is I want us to see together that Jesus was indeed a king. Jesus is indeed the king, but he will not be the king of the crowd's making. His kingship is not determined by those that he rules over.

We spent this entire series talking about this simple spiritual principle that we become what we behold. We begin to resemble what we revere. We're shaped by what we serve. And we've said that from week one. And we've mostly applied it in one direction. The way that beholding an idol shapes and deforms us. You remember I quoted Calvin. He said, "The heart is an idol making factory." Which means that we can make an idol out of anything, even Jesus.

That's exactly what's happening on Palm Sunday. They're not welcoming the Jesus that is. They're not welcoming the Jesus that God is sending them. They're welcoming the Jesus that they want him to be.

Now none of you would ever do that with Jesus, but just humor me and think about it for a second that maybe we actually could. Maybe we actually create a version of Jesus that matches our values and our agenda to the point that it's almost impossible for us to imagine a Jesus that doesn't agree with everything that we do. Wouldn't that be convenient? Of course he's not much of a king, not much of a god if he simply serves our bidding.

And see, this is the challenge. This is the mistake that Israel made. This is the mistake that humanity has been making that we've been looking at with this series from the start. When we make the exchange, when we exchange the glory of the God that is for a god of our own making, we ruin ourselves. And it's not just idols of wood and gold. It's not just idols of money, sex, and power. It can be idols of religion. It can be idols of morality. We can make Jesus into an idol when we try to superimpose our view of Jesus instead of receiving him as he is.

My dad already mentioned it. We know that this is idolatry because of how the week plays out. It's just days later that the same crowds who are saying, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord" are saying, "Give us Barabbas. Kill him." Not just kill him, crucify him. Why? Because he won't be the king we want him to be. Are you with me this morning?

Again, I know that nobody would ever think this way in our day and age. No one would ever think that Jesus is for our party. No one would ever think that Jesus is for our country. So I probably don't need to talk about that, right?

But this is not the first time in Jesus's life and ministry where somebody tried to make him into a different kind of king. In fact, we spent a lot of time last week in Matthew chapter 3, Jesus's baptism, and then Matthew chapter 4, the temptation of Jesus. And I want to look at that again this morning with you. And I want to look at it through the lens of Jesus's kingship. Because the three temptations that Jesus faces in the wilderness are not simply three tests of moral virtue. There are three offers, three auditions, three temptations to hand Jesus a crown in a different way than God intended. In fact, the same crown the crowd is waving palm branches at.

Let me show you what I mean. So in Matthew chapter 3, Jesus is baptized. The spirit descends when he comes out of the water. The father speaks. "This is my son, the beloved. I'm well pleased." Listen, this amazing creation reference. Jesus is the new Adam. And Adam was the representative king and priest and prophet of humanity. And so Jesus is going to step into that role. The spirit anoints Jesus. And the first thing the spirit does is take him into the wilderness to be tempted.

And for 40 days and 40 nights, Jesus fasts. And what happens to you after you fast for 40 minutes or four hours or 40 days is you get hungry. I get hangry. A whole different ballgame. So this is where Jesus is at. And that's when the tempter came to him and said to him:

3 If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.

Now, I unpacked this last week with you carefully. I'm not going to linger here too long, but there's an offer underneath this temptation. It's not simply satisfy your hunger with the bread. See, in the first century, the expectation of what the Messiah was going to be and what the Messiah was going to do was very clear. The rabbis taught that when the Messiah came, he would do what Moses did. He would bring manna from the heavens, bread to rain down upon the people.

This is the temptation. Be the king who gives the people the food. Be the bread king. Be the bread king. They'll crown a bread king. They'll serve a bread king. Give them food and they'll give you everything. It's the offer of a kingdom secured through meeting the felt needs of the people. A populist kingship, a king whose throne is built on what he can produce for the people who need him.

But Jesus answered:

4 It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'

Jesus refuses this path towards kingship that comes by giving the people what they want. That's not where his life is coming from. That's not where his authority rests. That's not where he is going to be crowned king. He will not be the bread king.

Jesus moves, the devil then moves to the second temptation and he takes him to Jerusalem to the temple, in fact to the pinnacle on the southeast corner where the royal portico meets the Kidron valley. It's 450 feet straight down. Josephus, the Jewish historian, says that when he stood on that point, he got vertigo and dizziness just looking down. Some of you know what that feels like. The sweaty palms, the heights bring.

And so the tempter brings Jesus to the heights, right? It says he brings him to the holy city, set him at the pinnacle of the temple and said to him:

6 If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you,' and 'On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.'

He moves from the bread king to the spectacle king. Jesus, show off your power. We're right here on the highest point in front of everybody. The word says, do you see how Satan's like, "Oh, you're going to counter me with the word. I can use the word, too." The word says he won't let you hurt any part of you. That his angels will carry you up. So, why don't you do this? Throw yourself off in front of everybody and you'll be rescued and everybody will see your power and you'll be known as the king.

Devil's offering a kingdom that bypasses the long slow obedience to the father, the slow costly person by person work of building genuine trust. It's a shortcut to authority, a credential so dramatic that no one can question your legitimacy. Here's the insidious thing. Again, he quotes the scripture, but Jesus...

Jesus sees it for exactly what it is. He says to him:

7 Again, it is written, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test.

Jesus refuses to use his power like a genie in the lamp. He's not going to create a spectacle simply for the spectacle.

As I was reading through this, I started thinking about one of the most well-known stories in the Gospels when Jesus feeds the 5000. We kind of have a little bit of both of these temptations in there. He gives them bread and fish in this miraculous way. Everybody eats. There's baskets left over. It's amazing.

There's an interesting little detail at the end of that account. After Jesus gives them the bread, after Jesus performs this spectacular miracle, do you remember what it says? It says that the crowds tried to seize him in order to make him be the king. Is that interesting? So exactly what the tempter is offering Jesus is actually what plays out when Jesus does give them bread and when he does perform the miraculous.

But the problem with that is if your kingship is based on what you give people or the miracles that you do, are the people really trusting in you or are they trusting in what you give them? Take away the spectacle and the following evaporates. His kingdom is only as durable as his most recent miracle. I know you would never pray this way, but I've read about people that live like this. What have you done for me lately, Jesus?

The devil's not done. The devil then takes him to a high mountain. Matthew continues:

8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9 And he said to him, "All these I will give to you, if you will fall down and worship me."

Serve me. I don't know that we understand really what's going on here. It's easy to read this and think, "Well, that's crazy. Jesus isn't going to worship the devil. How can the devil give Jesus the kingdom?" Because in the current moment, the world has been subjugated to the prince of the power of the air. The god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers from seeing the gospel of the glory of Christ (2 Corinthians 4:4). Satan has legitimate power and authority over the world because of the fallen rebellion of mankind. This is a legitimate offer. It's not a ridiculous offer. It's actually the most sophisticated temptation of the three.

Here's what the devil is laying on the table: the end result of God's own plan. This is what you came for, Jesus, to rule over the nations. But I'll give it to you without a cross. You remember those commercials for the easy button? That's what this is. First, he tempts him, be the bread king, be the spectacle king. Now, how about the easy king? How about the pain-free convenient king? I'll give you what you came for with no suffering, no rejection, no slow, agonizing three-year ministry that ends in betrayal and execution. Just here it is. You only have to do one thing. Bow down and worship me.

One act of worship, one moment of subservience. This is the idol of idols. The devil is asking the one who bears the true image of God, the one in whom all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell to bow before a false image, to take the posture that belongs to God alone and redirect it towards the one who has been stealing it since the garden. He's asking the true icon, the true image to make the exchange. The exchange of Romans 1. The same exchange every idol in this series and every idol in our hearts has asked us to make. Don't give God what he's due. Give it somewhere else.

Jesus doesn't barter, doesn't negotiate, doesn't deliberate. He says to him:

10 Be gone, Satan! For it is written, "You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve."

Just that's such an interesting little reality of who Jesus is. All right, I've let you play enough. You're done. Get out. Go away.

Jesus won't be that kind of king. Not because the kingdoms aren't worth having. Not because ruling the nations isn't his destiny. It is. But because a kingdom achieved by worshiping the devil is a kingdom that belongs to the devil. That means that the means determine the nature of what is built. You cannot build the kingdom of God with the methods of the kingdom of the enemy. You don't produce light with darkness.

Which means that the cross—the cross is not an obstacle to Jesus's kingship and sovereignty. The cross is the method by which Jesus is enthroned.

Jesus refuses all three of the temptations. He won't be the bread king. He will not be the spectacle king. He's not going to be the shortcut king because their crowns are offered on the wrong terms.

So now we get to Palm Sunday. Three and a half years later. Jesus walks not into the wilderness but into the city of David. The crowd is singing. The branches are waving. The cloaks are on the road. He enters not on a warhorse but on a donkey. Look with me at how John describes it in John chapter 12:

12 The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. 13 So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, "Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!"

So hosanna again means God save us now. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord, even the king of Israel. They're being clear about what they expect Jesus to be and to do.

And I mentioned this is not a random chant. Somebody didn't make it up on the spot. This is actually what they would have sung and prayed and chanted every year when they came together for the Passover. It comes from Psalm 118. It's a Passover psalm:

25 Save us, we pray, O Lord! O Lord, we pray, give us success! 26 Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! We bless you from the house of the Lord.

So they acknowledge Jesus as the prophesied king who comes. But he doesn't come like a king.

There's no army, no weapons, not even a warrior. Instead, we go back to John 12. Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it just as it is written:

15 Fear not, daughter of Zion. Behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey's colt.

I think we don't give the prophets enough credit as comics. Like that's funny. Fear not. He's coming on a donkey. Oh well, that clears everything up. That's all we needed. But see, this is the beauty and the irony and the mystery of God's ways not being our ways. We think we need a king on a warhorse. We think we need an army. We think we need the most superior weapons. We think that might makes right. But God doesn't, not in the way that we do.

He says, "Fear not, daughter of Zion. Behold, your king is coming sitting on a donkey." This is a quote from Zechariah 9:9. Let me give you a freebie this morning. When the authors in the New Testament quote a passage from the Old Testament, they're not just quoting that one little thing. In a literary society, in an oral society that doesn't value writing the way that we do, when you start that quote, what happens in people's minds is they begin to fill in the rest. So he only quotes verse 9, but verse 10 is actually really, really important.

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. 10 I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall speak peace to the nations. His rule shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.

See, the crowds want Jesus to come and simply be the king of Israel so that he can fight Rome and give them back what they feel they've lost. What they deserve to lose, by the way, but that's a whole other story. God had promised a king that would enter into Jerusalem seated on a young donkey. But he didn't come to make war. And he didn't come to simply be Israel's king.

He comes to be the king of the nations, the king of all. Not just the king from the river to the sea, the king from the river to all seas. The king not of one place but the king of every place. Not the king of one people, the king of all peoples. He isn't entering Jerusalem to make peace for Israel. He's entering Jerusalem as the true Israel to make peace for everyone.

See, that's the mistake Israel has made at this time. They think they're the end where they've always and only been the means to the end. God made the nation of Israel to be the blessing to the rest of the world, to bring the blessing of God to the rest of the world. Israel's lost that. They want God's blessing for themselves. They want God to smite everyone else. Jesus comes to bring God's blessing to the world, not just for you.

You got to forgive me, but I was trying to picture this in my mind and all of a sudden I'm picturing the crowds with red hats that say, "Make Jerusalem great again." Because that's where they were. And more than we'd like to admit, that's far too often where we are. Jesus, be on our side. Jesus, do what we want you to do. Jesus, smite our enemies. Jesus, make us great. Jesus came not for one people, but for all peoples. He came to make peace by the blood of his cross. Not for one, but for all, that he might make all once again into one.

What Jesus is doing in this moment—see, it's not a king making the best of a bad situation. He's not coming in humbly because he doesn't have other options. Jesus could have entered with an angel army. There's not enough Depends in the world to make you safe and secure when an angel army shows up. You got to understand the humility of what Jesus is doing is not because his options are limited. He's doing this because this is what he chose and came to do.

He was offered a warhorse three times in three different forms. He says no every time. Not going to be the bread king. I will not be the spectacle king. I'm not going to be the shortcut king. He will be king on his terms in his time by God's will. And it's on his own terms in his time that he rides into Jerusalem. Not on the warhorse, but on the donkey. Not as the king the crowd constructed. As the king God always intended, weapons cut off, battle bow broken, peace spoken to the nations.

It's not weakness riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. This is the most deliberate, intentional, astonishing exercise of sovereign freedom in human history. Every other king who has ever lived has been shaped by power, seized it, inherited it, fought for it, performed for it. Jesus had it all offered to him that way and he walks away. And now he enters the city not to take a throne, but to accomplish something that will make every human throne look like a children's high chair. The crowd is singing the right song. They just don't know what the victory looks like.

Here's what I want you to wrestle with this morning. Everything we see Jesus refuse—the bread, the spectacle, the shortcut—he refused it because he understood something about power and kingdoms and how true sovereignty actually works that no one around him could see. There is an understanding of how power works in the world and there is an understanding of how power works in the kingdom of God. And Jesus was operating out of the kingdom of God, not the kingdoms of the world.

Let me go to Paul's reflection on this. Paul in Philippians 2:5-11, writing twenty years after these events, describes this reality of Jesus's entrance into Jerusalem, his refusal to be the kind of king that the people wanted him to be. He describes this in the best way possible. Whenever we're trying to describe mystery, it's always...

Poetry is going to be the best way to deal with it. And so that's what Paul gives us in Philippians chapter 2. It's a song. It's a poem. It doesn't seem like a poem to us because it doesn't rhyme. We're so limited in poetry in our culture that if it doesn't rhyme, it doesn't count. But it's what it is.

So let's take a look here. Philippians 2:5-11:

5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Somebody say, "Amen." I'm going to live in just the first part of that passage right now with you. I want to show you a word that Paul uses that we need to understand in verse six. Says, "Who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, to be seized."

The Greek word here is ἁρπαγμός — harpagmos. It only appears one time in the New Testament right here. It's a verb that means to seize, to snatch, to take by force and refuse to let go. It's the word of a toddler, right? This is how toddlers function. They see it, they're going to grab it, then they're going to put it in their mouth, of course. But it's this "I want, I see it, I want, I need it, I need, I must have it. Give it to me. Give it to me." That's what this word is.

It says that Jesus who was in the form of God did not count equality with God something to be grasped onto. I want you to notice this is a word that's been underneath every sermon I've preached in this series. See Romans 1, they exchanged the glory of God for the glory of a lesser thing. It's a seizing. It's a grabbing. Right? They saw it. They wanted it. They took it. Harpagmos. That's what it is.

And that's the story of the scriptures. That's Genesis 2 and 3. The first fall sees the fruit. It's pleasing to the eye. It's good for food. She sees it. She takes it. Harpagmos. She sees it. Genesis 6. The sons of God, the Benei Elohim, see the daughters of women are beautiful. They see and they take. They seize. Harpagmos. This is the story over and over and over again.

Every idol and every act of idolatry is an act of trying to seize glory, trying to hold and control. The crowd on Palm Sunday draping their cloaks on the road crying out Psalm 118. They see what Jesus has and they try to seize it and make it their own. That's how idolatry works. That's what idols do. It's what every false king offers. It's the fundamental posture of every human being who attempts to secure life, identity, and significance without God. We seize it. We grasp.

And Paul points out what makes Jesus so unbelievably unique is that he refuses to grasp it. This is unlike anything I can even wrap my brain around this because this is what we do. We grasp but Jesus doesn't. And it gets even more staggering because of who Jesus is.

Paul doesn't say that Jesus was simply a good man or a prophet or a teacher or a servant who chose not to grasp for divine status. No, that would be remarkable but not astonishing. What Paul says is something else entirely. Look at what it says. "Though he was in the form of God." The form of God.

You might think that Paul uses a word here eikon. Again, we've used that word over and over again in this series. The word for image, the word for an idol, something that's carved, a representation of something. That's not the word he uses here. He uses the word μορφή — morphē. See, morphē is different. It's deeper. Eikon is the representation. morphē is the real deal that is being represented in the eikon. morphē is the essential nature itself. The form that genuinely corresponds to and reveals what something actually is at its very core. It's not the appearance, it's the reality.

Paul is saying before Jesus became the new icon, the new imager, the new Adam, before he became that for us to see and witness, he was and is the morphē of God. He's not merely the image of God. He's the morphē of God, the essential divine nature itself, clothed in flesh walking among us.

Paul's not saying, and Christianity doesn't teach that Jesus looked like God. He's not saying Jesus represented God or approximated God or reflected God the way a mirror does like we are supposed to. He's saying the very form of what God is, the essential irreducible eternal divine nature is his, always has been, always will be, completely from the beginning it's his by right.

Which means when Paul says Jesus did not treat equality with God as harpagmos, as something to be grasped, seized, held onto, he's not describing a man nobly refusing to reach for something above his station. He's saying something so much better and bigger and more astounding. He's describing the eternal son of God, the one who is the morphē of God, in whom all the fullness of deity dwells bodily (Colossians 2:9), the one the entire cosmos was created through and created for.

Looks at equality with God, looking at every legitimate claim he had on every throne the devil ever could have offered him. Looking at the crowd trying to install him as their king and he opens his hands. What everyone has done before him is grasp, is seize, is hold onto. Jesus opens his hands.

It's not weakness. It's humility. It's sovereignty freely surrendered. It's omnipotence choosing limitation. It's the one who had every right to grasp, more right than any being in the existence of history, choosing instead to release. And what does he do when he opens his hands?

He opens his hand? He empties himself. He relinquishes. He takes the form of servant. He takes the form of humanity. He becomes vulnerable and limited. He descends. He descends to a servant. He descends to a human. He descends to death. He descends to death on a cross.

The distance that Jesus traveled from being the morphē of God to death on a cross is the longest distance in the history of the universe. And Jesus traveled every inch of it voluntarily with open hands. It's because this and not the warrior. It's because this the cross and not the wilderness shortcuts, not the crowds crown. This is how the true king builds the only kingdom worth having.

It's what makes Jesus so remarkable, so absolutely unique. He didn't cease. He released and trusted the father. And the result, man, Philippians 2:9-11:

9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Therefore, therefore, dia; because of on account of this, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name. Every name. The name was not seized. It was not grabbed and it was not given to him by the crowd. Jesus is not the king because you say he's the king. He's the king because God has named him the king. See the difference here this morning because that difference makes everything.

It was not given, it was bestowed on him. The Greek there is χαρίζομαι — charizomai, graced to him, given to him, bestowed upon him by the father. The name above every name. The one who did not grasp received everything. The one who opened his hand had his hands filled. Not by the enemy, not by the crowds, but by the creator, by the father.

See, every idol and idolatry always grasps and loses. My favorite way of thinking this, I've said it many times in this series. It's like trying to squeeze Jell-O, right? Go home and do it this week. It's fun. I promise you'll enjoy it. Squeezing Jell-O. The harder you squeeze, the less you have. That's what idolatry always does. The more you give, the more you serve, the more you hope, the more you trust in the lesser things, the more you make the exchange. It keeps promising. Oh, I'll make you happy. I'll make you satisfied. I'll give you identity. I'll give you peace. I'll give you purpose. And the harder you squeeze, the more you give to that idol, the more it takes from you, and the less you actually have.

Jesus released, trusted, walked in faith, and he received everything. I want to make sure you don't just see this as some beautiful piece of theology. Paul writes this in the most practical way possible. Now Paul wrote the book of Philippians for a couple of different reasons but one of the most significant reasons that he wrote it is that there was some conflict in the church. In particular there were two women in the church that were fighting. He names them Euodia and Syntyche. I don't remember who I heard say this years and years ago, but I've never forgotten it. The guy was reading it and he named them Odious and So Touchy. I thought every church has somebody like that, right? There's somebody that's got a smell, somebody that you got to walk on eggshells around and they get into conflict and then the whole church gets drawn into the conflict. That's what's happening in Philippi.

Philippi's been an amazing church for Paul and they've supported him and there's been amazing things that have happened. But division has crept in and these two women are fighting and people are choosing sides and so Paul writes to them to help them deal with this reality. And what he tells them to do is what I read to you in Philippians 2:5-10. Right? So they're jockeying for position, angling for recognition, protecting their own reputation, demanding their rights. Sound familiar?

And it's because of that that Paul says in Philippians 2:5:

5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.

So Paul's answer to the conflict that has taken place within them is that he wants them to have a certain mind. The Greek word there is φρονέω — phroneō. I give you this word because it answers a question I've been getting from several people as we've been walking through this series. People have been coming up to me and saying, "Okay, I hear you. We become what we behold. So, how do I do that? How do I behold Jesus so that I can just transform?" I love that question because I think it's honest. But what it does is it reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of what beholding Jesus is.

It's not a single act. I'm not here to give you five tips and techniques to behold Jesus. There's no easy button to that kind of transformation. Beholding Jesus is not a singular act. It's not one spiritual discipline you add to your routine. There's no quiet time technique or prayer method or church attendance strategy. Phroneō is not a moment. It's an orientation. It's the arranging and ordering of your entire life around something.

So to behold Jesus is not an individual act but it's the organizational structure of our life. It's what happens when Jesus stops being one of the most important things in your life to becoming the gravitational center upon which your life is built. I hear people say this all the time. What are your values? Oh, God, family, football, country, whatever. However, and I get what people are meaning when they say that, but there's something fundamentally wrong about putting God in that list because it's an incredible diminishment of God, right? When we try to put God in that list with everything else just reveals we're not living the way we were meant to live. Jesus is the center of everything.

And beholding Jesus is not an individual act or an individual discipline. It's a lifestyle, a mindset, a way of orienting and aligning ourselves to him. This is what Paul is asking of the Philippians. Not Euodia, try harder to get along.

He's saying both of you, all of you, order your lives around Jesus and around the way that Jesus lived with open hands, refusing to seize, and watch what happens to the conflict among you. Because here's what I've said from week one and what I want you to feel with full force right now. We become what we behold. It's not just a warning about idolatry. It's the most hopeful practical reality of transformation in the gospel.

If beholding an idol bends us and corrupts us and dehumanizes us, then beholding Jesus will unbend and uncorrupt and rehumanize us. Beholding Jesus, having our minds directed around Jesus, the whole orientation of our life aimed at him does the opposite of every idol. The person who is genuinely, consistently, persistently beholding Jesus—the one who refused every crown, the one who descended from the morphē of God to the death on the cross with open hands—when we orient our life around that person, we find that our hands begin to unclasp as well slowly, sometimes very painfully.

Degree by degree, we let go of the idols we've been holding on to that we might hold on to Jesus. He doesn't tell them try harder. Doesn't say just get along. He says look to Jesus. Paul's answer to a divided church is not conflict resolution strategy. Look to Jesus. He says, "Behold him. Orient yourself around him. Let him be the center of gravity. And the grasping for position, for recognition, for the crown of the crowd will become less and less powerful and have less and less purchase on your heart because we become what we behold."

What does the father give the son who wouldn't grasp? He gives him all things. He gives him everything. I want to end this morning back in Colossians chapter 1. We've been coming back each week to this. I want to point you to Colossians 1:18:

18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.

Couple notes—that phrase "that in everything," the word there in the Greek is hina. It's a purpose clause. So it's a statement of intentionality. It doesn't mean this is how things just happened to turn out. It means that this is what the whole thing was designed to do—in order that. So he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead in order that in everything he might be preeminent.

This means that this has always been the goal. This has always been the goal. The donkey was not a compromise. The wilderness refusals were not damage control. The cross was not a tragedy that God redeemed after the fact. Every open hand, every refused crown, every step of the descent, it was all moving purposefully, intentionally by design towards this, that in everything he might have the preeminence.

Jesus is kind of a big deal. Jesus has always been a big deal. This is actually what creation was for. All things were created through him and by him and for him (Colossians 1:16). This is what the incarnation was for. This is what the cross is for. This is what the resurrection is for. The entire architecture of the universe from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22 was constructed around this singular sovereign breathtaking purpose that the son who descended would receive the preeminence in everything as the father's gift to open hands.

He is preeminent. Again, this is a word that's only used once by Paul or anybody in the New Testament; πρωτεύω — prōteuō. It appears this only one time. And it means to hold first place. It means to have supremacy, to be preeminent. Not in some things, not in spiritual things, not in Sunday morning things, not in moral things or religious things—in all things.

There's not a corner of the universe, not a square inch of human existence. There's not a relationship, a vocation, a fear, a longing, a political system, or a power structure. There's not a single atom in all of creation over which the king who wouldn't grasp does not stand now as the one who holds first place.

I've shared this quote before—theologian pastor by the name of Abraham Kuyper said this: "There's not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ who is sovereign over all does not cry out 'Mine!'" I can't read this without thinking about Finding Nemo and the seagulls—"Mine! Mine! Mine!" And Jesus is the anti-seagull in this. He doesn't say "mine" because he seized it. He doesn't say "mine" because he held on to it. It's not installed by a crowd waving palm branches. It's not won by a warhorse or a sword. It's certainly not given by the devil's shortcut. It's granted and bestowed. It is graced to him by the father to the son who descended all the way to the cross with open hands. Everything is given to him.

I just want to say it again. You've got to hear me this morning. This was always the plan. Before the pilgrims packed into Jerusalem, before the palm branches were cut, before Pilate rode in from the west, before the wilderness and the temptation, before the incarnation and the birth, before the first word of creation was spoke, the lamb was slain before the foundation of the world. The descent was purposed before the first star began to shine. The king on the donkey wasn't simply making do. He was fulfilling the design of eternity. This is always where it was going.

Which means that when you behold this king, you're not just beholding someone who stumbled into glory. You're not watching a good man make the best of terrible circumstances. You are beholding the sovereign, intentional, eternal purpose of God made flesh. Riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, knowing exactly what the week ahead holds, and choosing every step of it along the way, because this is the only way the only kingdom worth having could ever be built. That is what deserves the first place in everything. That is what deserves the first place.

That's what deserves the first place here. Everything has to start somewhere. Where it starts is not with the cosmos. It doesn't start with the powers and principalities. Where it starts isn't even in the church. Where it starts is with the human heart. The preeminence of Jesus in everything begins with the preeminence of Jesus in your hearts. Because whatever has your heart has your life. What you behold you will become.

See, in the heart is the place where grasping starts. It's the place where idols are built. It's in the heart that we construct our own version of the king. It's in the heart that we build grievances and divisions in places where there shouldn't be any. The supremacy of Christ, the preeminence of Christ must land here first. It starts with us.

Not with a command, not with a try harder resolution, but with a vision, through beholding, organizing our life around the king who descended, the king who refused to seize, the king with open hands, the king who died, and the king who rose, the king who received the name above every name and now holds preeminence in everything as the father's gift to his open hands. Make it your prayer, Lord. May I become what I behold.

The question I want to leave you with this morning as we walk into the most sacred week of the year. Let me tell you first what the question is not. The question is not, have you given Jesus preeminence in every area of your life? It's a good question. It'll kill you. It'll crush you because the answer, the honest answer for each and every one of us including me first, is no I haven't, not completely. I still have my idols.

The question is what I've said each week: what are you beholding? What are you organizing and orienting your life around? What is the gravitational center of your life? What is the thing your whole self, your mind, your freno is oriented towards? And are you looking to him as he presents himself to you? Or are you trying to superimpose your own idea of who he is or who he should be onto him?

What is the king you are constructing? Is it the king on the donkey? The one who wouldn't grasp? Or is it a king of your own making? A king you design because of your needs, your fears, and your vision of what a good king ought to do for you?

You know, this is not simply a personal question. The crowd on the road was not simply a collection of private individuals with private idols. They were a people with a shared image of the king they wanted. Communities build idols together. Countries build idols together. Churches build idols together. It's not simply what king am I constructing. It's also what king are we constructing.

This week, what we call Holy Week, you'll have the chance to follow this king through the darkest days of his story. Friday is coming and what happens on Friday is the final, fullest, most complete expression of Jesus refusing to harpagmos, to hold on, to seize. But we'll see that the cross is not a tragedy that happens to Jesus. It is the destination he chose. The open hands nailed open. The descent completed. The king enthroned in the only way the king who wouldn't grasp could ever be enthroned.

Behold the king who wouldn't seize. Behold the king of open hands. Behold the king who cries, "Not my will, but yours be done." And watch him die and breathe his last on that cross. And then wait, because Sunday is coming. And what the father does on Sunday with the son who wouldn't grasp, well, that's next week's sermon. We'll see you then.

Amen.