SPEAKER_00: So we're um in Matthew 21.
SPEAKER_00: We've been going verse by verse through the book of Matthew, and it brings us to the triumphal entry.
SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna look at the first 11 verses there.
SPEAKER_00: I'll read them to you.
SPEAKER_00: We'll pray and then we'll try to unpack it, asking the Holy Spirit to really teach us from this text.
SPEAKER_00: So let me read to you verses one through eleven.
SPEAKER_00: When they approached Jerusalem and came to Beth Page at the Mount of Olives, Jesus then sent two disciples, telling them, Go into the village ahead of you.
SPEAKER_00: At once you will find a donkey tied there with her colt, untie them and bring them to me.
SPEAKER_00: If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them and he will send them at once.
SPEAKER_00: This took place so that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled.
SPEAKER_00: Tell daughter Zion, see, your king is coming to you, gentle and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt the full of a donkey.
SPEAKER_00: The disciples went and did just as Jesus directed them.
SPEAKER_00: They brought the donkey and the colt, and then they laid their clothes on them, and he sat on them.
SPEAKER_00: A very large crowd spread their clothes on the road.
SPEAKER_00: Others were cutting branches from the trees and spreading them on the road.
SPEAKER_00: Then the crowds who went ahead of him and those who followed shouted, Hosanna to the Son of David, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest heaven.
SPEAKER_00: When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in an uproar saying, Who is this?
SPEAKER_00: Then the crowds were saying, This is the prophet, Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we thank you for this text that we get to walk through this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And we're really grateful for just the presence of your spirit in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: And there are some in this room that they've not yet surrendered their life to you.
SPEAKER_00: They're not in a personal relationship with you, but you've promised that your spirit would be at work even in their life, convicting them of sin, of righteousness, and judgment.
SPEAKER_00: And for those of us that are followers of you, you've given the seal of your spirit on our life.
SPEAKER_00: And you want to teach us, leading us into what is true.
SPEAKER_00: You want to use your word to comfort us and to correct us, to instruct us in righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: And so, Lord, as we look at this text, this narrative here, we ask that you would connect the text with our personal lives.
SPEAKER_00: And we just want to tell you up front, God, that you have permission to speak to us.
SPEAKER_00: You have permission to lead us.
SPEAKER_00: And we are in desperate need of your wisdom and guidance in our life.
SPEAKER_00: So have your way with this time.
SPEAKER_00: May you find in us just hearts that are ready to leap up with a response of yes, God, I'll obey.
SPEAKER_00: We give you this time in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So we're looking through the book of Matthew.
SPEAKER_00: If you're new to Matthew, it's a biography about the life of Jesus, composed by one of Jesus' disciples, an apostle named Levi, also named Matthew.
SPEAKER_00: And Matthew, before he knew Jesus, he was a tax collector.
SPEAKER_00: And he was radically converted to be this follower of Jesus and an apostle.
SPEAKER_00: And he made this historic account of the life of Jesus, his teachings, his death, his resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to see Matthew the writer coming through even this morning as we look at this text.
SPEAKER_00: For years, Jesus has been doing ministry.
SPEAKER_00: We're in the third year as we get into this text.
SPEAKER_00: We're in the third year of Jesus' ministry.
SPEAKER_00: And he's been quietly healing people and teaching about God's kingdom almost like he was keeping his true identity under wraps.
SPEAKER_00: But now as he enters Jerusalem, the gloves come off.
SPEAKER_00: He stages a bold public statement: riding a donkey and not a war horse.
SPEAKER_00: And this was not random.
SPEAKER_00: In that culture, donkeys were a symbol of peace and service, while the war horse screamed military power.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was shouting with words, without words, rather, he's shouting without words, essentially saying, I am the king that you have waited for, but my throne is a cross, and my battle is against sin, and my victory looks like surrender.
SPEAKER_00: The crowd goes wild, waving palm branches and cheering, yet they are missing the point.
SPEAKER_00: They want a political hero to overthrow Rome.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus plans to overthrow death itself.
SPEAKER_00: Their shouts of Hosanna, which means saves us, it rings with irony.
SPEAKER_00: They are praying for deliverance from soldiers while the deliverer rides towards a different kind of rescue, one that will cost him everything.
SPEAKER_00: And so let's look at these first three verses.
SPEAKER_00: We will see that verses one through five, we could basically break the text into two pieces.
SPEAKER_00: One through five is the instructions that Jesus gives about the donkey and the cult, and then six through eleven is the act of getting the donkey and colt and the response of the crowd.
SPEAKER_00: So verse one again talks about them approaching Jerusalem and coming to Beth Page on the Mount of Olives.
SPEAKER_00: This location, I figured I'd show it to you.
SPEAKER_00: We're about a mile outside of the temple.
SPEAKER_00: We're a mile outside of the temple.
SPEAKER_00: So we're here in between Bethany and Beth Page, and this conversation goes on between Jesus and these two disciples that he sends.
SPEAKER_00: Now, we've been riding with Jesus on this journey for a few weeks.
SPEAKER_00: You remember that Jesus healed the two blind men?
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember the location of where he healed them?
SPEAKER_00: It was right on the suburbs, right outside of Jericho.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus was leaving Jericho where there was often times people that were poor asking for money.
SPEAKER_00: It was a common location for the poor to ask for alms.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus encounters these two blind men.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus is with the crowd, it said.
SPEAKER_00: And the journey that they're on approaching Jerusalem is not just an average visit, but Jesus and the disciples are participating with what is happening nationally for the Jews.
SPEAKER_00: And so there's this anti religious anticipation.
SPEAKER_00: For us, you think of like a holiday that we might come into where, you know, like in the next big holiday, um, well, we have Juneteenth, and then we have the Fourth of July.
SPEAKER_00: And there's kind of this like sense of patriotism as we get into 4th of July.
SPEAKER_00: When we get into close to Christmas time, there's this sense of like we're going to celebrate Christmas, and it becomes Christmassy, and there's a debate of when can you start playing Christmas music, right?
SPEAKER_00: But for the Jews, there was these high holy days, Passover being one of the most significant, and so the crowds are traveling with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And at points, Jesus has pulled his disciples off to the side.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I've got to tell you guys, I'm going to Jerusalem, I'm going to suffer, and then I'm going to be raised from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: So there's different things that have been taking place on this journey.
SPEAKER_00: And now they get to this mile outside of Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: And this is where Jesus says to his disciples, he sends two of his disciples, and he says, This go into the village ahead of you, being Beth Page, at once you will find a donkey tied there with her colt.
SPEAKER_00: Untie and bring them to me.
SPEAKER_00: And so this location, some other significant things about this location is that it's a Sabbath-day journey from Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: So it was almost considered a part of Jerusalem because you could be celebrating the Sabbath and still be with kosher and walked to on the Sabbath to Beth Page.
SPEAKER_00: Very close.
SPEAKER_00: And so he tells him to go into this village.
SPEAKER_00: He says, You're going to find a donkey tied there with her colt.
SPEAKER_00: And he gives these instructions in advance saying, if anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them and he will send them at once.
SPEAKER_00: He's anticipating that there's going to be questions.
SPEAKER_00: Because you don't just go and take somebody's donkey and cult, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like that's not usually allowed.
SPEAKER_00: And so some of the things that we see here just in these first three verses is that Jesus knows that there's a donkey and a cult.
SPEAKER_00: So the Jesus of the Bible, the Jesus that we are learning to follow, is the one who knows the case before it happens.
SPEAKER_00: So this very moment, Jesus knows the small details of your week.
SPEAKER_00: If he knows that the donkey and the cult are there tied up, he knows what's going to happen tomorrow in your life.
SPEAKER_00: One of the great benefits of being a follower of Jesus and being filled with the Holy Spirit is that God is guiding us into what is already known.
SPEAKER_00: And so here he is, just in this small way, he's telling his disciples, hey, go in and you're gonna find this, you're gonna find this donkey there.
SPEAKER_00: And the second thing is that he delegates this task.
SPEAKER_00: I know sometimes sometimes people have trouble figuring out how to turn off the sound, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: And it's okay.
SPEAKER_00: We have people that know how to how to work it.
SPEAKER_00: So just notice this one little thing that Jesus is delegating, delegating the task.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Jesus could have just walked up and done it himself, but again, here he is, he's giving the task to his disciples.
SPEAKER_00: And I know that that's small, I know that's relatively small, but but this is the thing you need to understand as a follower of Jesus is that he happily is giving to us small tasks to do on his behalf.
SPEAKER_00: Being a follower of Jesus is is um has some grandiose, beautiful vision, right?
SPEAKER_00: Of eternity and God, you know, saving the world and rescuing the world.
SPEAKER_00: But so much of our following Jesus is going to be just obedience in the small things.
SPEAKER_00: And here for these disciples, it was like go and get a donkey in the colt that's tied up.
SPEAKER_00: You know, if you get this question that comes to you, then just feel, you know, give them this response that the Lord has need of it.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is not a passive victim as we go into the Holy Week.
SPEAKER_00: Just so just so you know the timing.
SPEAKER_00: We've talked about where this is happening and who the crowds are and why the crowds are coming into Jerusalem into Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: But just so you know the timing of this in Jesus' life, this is Sunday, the Sunday before the resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: So five days from the day we're on here, Jesus is going to be crucified.
SPEAKER_00: And um so this is uh an occurrence that happens just five days before the crucifixion.
SPEAKER_00: And as we go in and we spend the next few weeks as a church studying this holy week, there's gonna be some major teaching with parables kind of between here and chapter 26 when the story continues.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus, in that last week, it seems like he's teaching quite a bit, and that's recorded by Matthew.
SPEAKER_00: But we see that he's not a passive victim in the events of the Holy Week.
SPEAKER_00: He is the Lord who orchestrates and in and directs even the small events of like getting this donkey and colt.
SPEAKER_00: He's in command.
SPEAKER_00: He isn't hoping they'll find a donkey, he knows.
SPEAKER_00: Guys, go into the city, you're gonna find this donkey and colt.
SPEAKER_00: We also see that following Jesus means trusting his word.
SPEAKER_00: Even when the task is unclear or the outcome is uncertain.
SPEAKER_00: So these guys receive this instruction, and there's a bunch of unknowns that come with this instruction.
SPEAKER_00: Is the person gonna be mad at me that I'm taking their donkey?
SPEAKER_00: Um, what am I gonna do like with the donkey?
SPEAKER_00: Do I need to pet its nose?
SPEAKER_00: Like you can think of all these different funny things that happen when you yeah, what's you what do you think of?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you could ride it back.
SPEAKER_00: Should I ride it back or walk it back, right?
SPEAKER_00: You should ride it back.
SPEAKER_00: Is that what you would do?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: I wish I could see that.
SPEAKER_00: That sounds like a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_00: So there's a bunch of unknowns in this text, but Jesus is giving these instructions that are meant to be obeyed.
SPEAKER_00: And so in verse 4, it says this took place so that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled.
SPEAKER_00: So Matthew, who's the writer of this book, he steps back as the narrator and he gives us an insight.
SPEAKER_00: So he's just yet told us the story, but he steps back, he says, Let me give you some commentary on what's going on.
SPEAKER_00: And that this scene, this event takes place so that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled.
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: What's he talking about?
unknown: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about like the Old Testament, right?
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about the Jewish Bible.
SPEAKER_00: They could go back and they could see that the prophets gave clear, um, there is clear written messages by the prophets.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the prophets are unique genre of scripture.
SPEAKER_00: We have the major and minor prophets.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of how we divide it up in the um the Protestant Bible.
SPEAKER_00: But these prophets were messengers sent by God to just speak very truthfully to their moment, to say, this is God's word for the nation of Israel right now.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes they spoke to the nation of Israel, sometimes they spoke to Judah, sometimes they spoke to the surrounding nations, but God was faithful to speak.
SPEAKER_00: God, the God of the Bible is a communicator.
SPEAKER_00: And he spoke to through these prophets, but sometimes the prophets wouldn't just speak to their contemporary setting, but they would also speak to a future day.
SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes that future day would be about the Messiah, how the Messiah would come.
SPEAKER_00: And so here we see Matthew giving us a why Jesus did this.
SPEAKER_00: Why is Jesus designating and saying, hey, go get this donkey and the colt?
SPEAKER_00: Was it a cultural practice, or was he connecting himself with prophecy?
SPEAKER_00: And it's the latter.
SPEAKER_00: He's connecting himself with the prophetic message about the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: When we see Jesus riding in Jerusalem on a donkey and a colt, it may seem as if it's an odd, deep detail, but it is actually the fulfillment of deep and ancient promises in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Genesis, Zechariah, Isaiah all speak, and sometimes in a mysterious or poetic language, about a coming king who would arrive in just this way.
SPEAKER_00: Can I show you those three passages?
SPEAKER_00: If we go over to Genesis, this is the scene of Jacob blessing um his sons and the sons of Joseph, his grand two grandsons.
SPEAKER_00: And um he proclaims a blessing over each of his sons, but when he gets to Judah, he says, the scepter will not depart from Judah.
SPEAKER_00: The scepter is the royal um barbell, or what would you call it?
SPEAKER_00: Like it's the staff, yeah, the royal staff of um the king or the um leader of the nation.
SPEAKER_00: So the scepter will not depart from Judah.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, um the leadership of the nation will originate from Judah, or the staff from between his feet until he whose right it is comes, and the obedience of the peoples belongs to him.
SPEAKER_00: There's one more verse here.
SPEAKER_00: He ties his donkey.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see this?
SPEAKER_00: Jay, this is Jacob, thousands of years before he ties, he he um he's speaking, and Jesus is fulfilling this.
SPEAKER_00: He ties his donkey to a vine and the cult of his donkey to the choice vine.
SPEAKER_00: Crazy, right?
SPEAKER_00: Crazy that this is a word that Jacob as an old man is speaking with Judah right there.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine he's just praying and blessing, giving this blessing over Judah, and God gives him this word about a donkey and the cult and being the royal lineage.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, but it continues.
SPEAKER_00: If we go to Zechariah, who's a prophet much, much later, he's uh Zechariah prophesies after Israel returns from exile, the 70-year exile into um Assyria or into Babylon.
SPEAKER_00: One of the obscure prophecies is rejoice greatly, daughter Zion, shout in triumph, daughter Jerusalem, look, your king is coming to you.
SPEAKER_00: He is righteous and victorious, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
SPEAKER_00: Crazy, right?
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that interesting?
SPEAKER_00: There's one more in Isaiah.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't talk so much about the donkey and the colt, but it it has the same language about calling the audience to look.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Look, the Lord has proclaimed it to the ends of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: Say to daughter Zion, look, your salvation is coming, his wages are with him, and his reward accompanies him.
SPEAKER_00: So here we have daughter Zion again that's being referred to.
SPEAKER_00: And so all of those prophetic messages are in view as Jesus stands there on this dusty road outside of Beth Page.
SPEAKER_00: And so you imagine for a second being one of these 12 apostles of Jesus, and he says, All right, you know, let's kind of do a sidebar here.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to, I want you to go there into that village there, and I want you to untie a donkey and a colt.
SPEAKER_00: And if anybody asks you a question, just tell them, hey, the master has need of it.
SPEAKER_00: And it's all gonna be good, right?
SPEAKER_00: And and Matthew reflects on this, having been one.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe Matthew was even one of the guys to go and get the colt.
SPEAKER_00: We don't we don't know who they were.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but Matthew reflects on this and he goes, hey guys, this is that, those, this is the Old Testament prophets who were led by God, their words being fulfilled in this normal day.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what I here's what I want to bring home: this sense of like we Paul talks about how we we see through a glass dimly.
SPEAKER_00: And and our spiritual experience as followers of Jesus is sometimes kind of this obscure experience where you're you're like, maybe that's God working.
SPEAKER_00: How's God going to put the pieces together?
SPEAKER_00: But then after the fact you look back and you're like, whoa, God did it.
SPEAKER_00: Paul talked to the Corinthian church about how we um we don't look at the things that are seen, but we look at the things that are unseen.
SPEAKER_00: How we walk by faith and not by sight.
SPEAKER_00: And there is this, there is this way of following Jesus where you're operating out of this obscurity and fogginess.
SPEAKER_00: You ever driven through the like a foggy day where it's just like, man, I don't know if I what's out there.
SPEAKER_00: Like, who knows what's just like 15 feet away.
SPEAKER_00: And it's just this eerie sense of obscurity of like what could just like pop up in front of me, right?
unknown: I never car.
SPEAKER_00: You know what?
unknown: I never car.
unknown: I threw my car.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you have not?
SPEAKER_00: No, I never cared.
SPEAKER_00: You never cared.
SPEAKER_00: Another car.
SPEAKER_00: Another car, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
SPEAKER_00: Another car might be right up there in the fog.
SPEAKER_00: And you might get like, yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_00: And so sometimes, like when we're following Jesus, there is this sense of like, man, I wish I had it all laid out.
SPEAKER_00: And it's so interesting to have these types of narrative moments from a Matthew where he's like, wait, this is what this fulfills those prophetic messages.
SPEAKER_00: Like if you go and look at, look up Zechariah, like, or look at Isaiah 62, or you look back at um, look at look at like Genesis 49, as here's Jacob praying over his 12 sons.
SPEAKER_00: And God's like working in that moment, which is kind of a like pretty normal moment to bless your sons at the end of your life.
SPEAKER_00: And God's giving this prophetic word that ends up being this thing about Jesus as he's coming into Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: It's crazy.
SPEAKER_00: So you you may be doing your life now and sincerely desire to please God and to know like, what does God have for me?
SPEAKER_00: But it's sometimes it feels like you're driving in that fog.
SPEAKER_00: And you just need to know that that you're not the first one who's been in that experience.
SPEAKER_00: And the thing that we're asking God for is the types of directions that He gave to these disciples.
SPEAKER_00: Like a good way to pray is to pray, God, what what do you want me to do today?
SPEAKER_00: And then be learning to listen for His voice as you spend time reading the Bible, your senses, it says in Hebrews, your senses are exercised, so you're more attuned to like, oh, that I think that's God's guiding me.
SPEAKER_00: God's directing my steps.
SPEAKER_00: The more you do that, the more reps you have of listening for God's voice, the more you realize, wow, the voice of God in my life is strangely normal.
SPEAKER_00: It's almost as if, like, that's just kind of like, you know, I've talked about like how I was diagnosed with attention deficit.
SPEAKER_00: So my brain wanders in really weird directions.
SPEAKER_00: And I used to think of that as kind of like a as a handicap.
SPEAKER_00: And so I would second, like, oh man, I wish, you know, I got me in a lot of trouble when I was a kid.
SPEAKER_00: It took me like twice as long to finish homework assignments because I was like thinking about the squirrel out the window.
SPEAKER_00: But as an adult, I've learned that like sometimes the things where it's like seems like, wow, that's like, why am I randomly thinking about that?
SPEAKER_00: Many times it's God just intervening in the course of my thinking, laying ideas on my heart and in my mind and guiding me.
SPEAKER_00: And how do I know that that's the case?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's just lots of reps of like thinking it through, because God usually doesn't speak one time, usually he's confirming it multiple times and giving you grace to take steps of obedience.
SPEAKER_00: But you don't know if you don't really engage the Lord, if you're not praying and asking.
SPEAKER_00: God guide me like you did with these disciples.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's this beautiful moment where He's God's guiding these individual disciples.
SPEAKER_00: And just notice, notice that back in this text here, um, that it's your king is coming to you gentle and mounted.
SPEAKER_00: That word right there also could be translated humble or lowly.
SPEAKER_00: Your king is coming to you humble and lowly, mounted on a donkey.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't come on a war horse, he didn't come to overturn Rome.
SPEAKER_00: He came and his method was subversive.
SPEAKER_00: He continues to surprise his followers, he continues to do things in a way where it's just like, wow, that's not how the world executes on a plan.
SPEAKER_00: That is not the normal conventional path to change the course of history.
SPEAKER_00: He comes gentle.
SPEAKER_00: Let's keep going.
SPEAKER_00: I uh Matthew 21, 6 says the disciples went and did just as Jesus directed them, a simple statement of their obedience.
SPEAKER_00: And you see, we're now in that second section where we go from instructions now to action.
SPEAKER_00: And the disciples went, right?
SPEAKER_00: What did Jesus ask them to do?
SPEAKER_00: He said, Go.
SPEAKER_00: What did they do?
SPEAKER_00: They went.
SPEAKER_00: That we would just be a people that are obedient.
SPEAKER_00: Then they brought the kid the donkey and the colt.
SPEAKER_00: What did Jesus tell them to bring?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, look at that.
SPEAKER_00: They did it.
SPEAKER_00: They brought the donkey and the colt.
SPEAKER_00: And then they laid their clothes.
SPEAKER_00: So now they take over.
SPEAKER_00: They embrace their culture with the clothes and the branches that get cut down in a second.
SPEAKER_00: All of these are an embrace of a cultural significance, saying, You are royalty.
SPEAKER_00: So they brought the donkey and the colt, they laid their clothes on him, and they sat on them.
SPEAKER_00: And a very large crowd spread their clothes on the road.
SPEAKER_00: All of this would be an act of honoring royalty.
SPEAKER_00: So the crowd is keyed in.
SPEAKER_00: It isn't like hailing a taxi to go and grab a donkey.
SPEAKER_00: This is a significant moment that the disciples and the crowd recognize as a pointing towards royalty.
SPEAKER_00: Others are cutting down their branches from the trees and spreading them on the road.
SPEAKER_00: And then the crowds who went ahead of him and those who followed.
SPEAKER_00: So imagine just a giant crowd in front and in back.
SPEAKER_00: So he's like surrounded by this crowd.
SPEAKER_00: They're shouting, Hosanna to the son of David.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So Hosanna is this cry of save now.
SPEAKER_00: Save now.
SPEAKER_00: And then Son of David is a reference to like the Genesis passage and the messianic line that this individual here, David, is of a royal lineage.
SPEAKER_00: So they're keyed in on some stuff.
SPEAKER_00: And then we have Psalm 118.
SPEAKER_00: Marvin read, let us in the reading of Psalm 118, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And then we have Hosanna again, Hosanna in the highest heaven.
SPEAKER_00: So the crowd is participating now.
SPEAKER_00: But interestingly enough, they're asked as they get into Jerusalem who this guy is.
SPEAKER_00: Who is this?
SPEAKER_00: And the crowds were saying, This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: See, he's not the Messiah, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: To the crowd, he's the prophet Jesus, but they get the his origin story right.
SPEAKER_00: He's from the Galilee region.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot of people in this crowd who don't know Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: They're like not keyed in on what's going on, and they're asking.
SPEAKER_00: This is the same crowd that will participate in just five days in crying, crucify him, crucify him.
SPEAKER_00: And so there's a fickleness about the crowd, but maybe because they're anticipating and longing for a political revolution.
SPEAKER_00: They're longing for a king that would liberate them from Rome.
SPEAKER_00: And they have this inability to see the role of the Messiah in his first coming.
SPEAKER_00: And so we get the privilege of having this text before us.
SPEAKER_00: After this, the next step is we're going to go into the temple, and Jesus is going to cleanse the temple.
SPEAKER_00: We'll see some other stuff that takes place.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew kind of mingles Monday and Sunday together in his narrative.
SPEAKER_00: But this takes place on the Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: What I want to encourage you with, especially if you're new to church or you're thinking about your own spiritual capacity and who God might be.
SPEAKER_00: It's written for us so that you know who Jesus is, and that Jesus is a historic figure, not just a prophet, but he came into the world as the Messiah to Hosanna, you, to save you now, to rescue.
SPEAKER_00: You may say, Well, Josh, what do I need to be saved from?
SPEAKER_00: You know, I know I've got issues in my life.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the Bible teaches really clearly that humanity has fallen from the way that God originally designed for us to be.
SPEAKER_00: He designed for us to be these people that are fruitful and multiplying, subduing, and ruling in the garden, in our own garden.
SPEAKER_00: He designed us to be in perfect fellowship, totally dependent upon him as our source of wisdom and life.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, the Bible says that you're created as a shell to house the presence of God, to be the temple where God dwells.
SPEAKER_00: And yet there is this rebellion in humanity against the purposes of God.
SPEAKER_00: Our forefathers, Adam and Eve, they were the first to rebel, to take and hear a clear instruction to say, God, I want to do it my own way.
SPEAKER_00: And God said, Listen, when you do that, in the moment you turn from me, you're going to introduce death into the world.
SPEAKER_00: And we see immediately upon the rebellion of Adam and Eve that they felt a sense of their own nakedness and shame.
SPEAKER_00: There was a psychological death that they experienced in feeling shame for the first time.
SPEAKER_00: They began to blame each other for what was occurring.
SPEAKER_00: And they hid from God.
SPEAKER_00: Rather than enjoying this perfect friendship with God, they were running away, hiding from the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: And at that point, God begins this Hosanna mission to save now, to bring humanity back to their original design.
SPEAKER_00: And he promises them there in Genesis 3 that the seed of the woman, a descendant of the woman, would crush the head of the serpent.
SPEAKER_00: The serpent was the one there that tempted Eve and lied to her, manipulated her and got her to give in to temptation, participated in this fully.
SPEAKER_00: And yet God is promising that moment of rebellion, the ongoing rebellion and the fallout, the devastating fallout that humanity has experienced is going to be overturned.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is sent by the Father into the world, his only begotten Son.
SPEAKER_00: So to die, to rise from the dead, his death was a payment for the guilt of humanity.
SPEAKER_00: All that rebellion had to be reconciled within the perfect justice of God.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus died on the cross so that humanity's guilt could be paid for.
SPEAKER_00: And so that you and I could have this opportunity to enter back into this friendship with God.
SPEAKER_00: And you may have a spiritual thing going on in your life where you're like, I know there's a God.
SPEAKER_00: That's undeniable.
SPEAKER_00: You may have had your own spiritual experiences.
SPEAKER_00: But you need to know that Jesus said to his disciples in John 13 that no one comes to the Father but by him, that he is the way, the truth, and the life.
SPEAKER_00: No one can get to God and be a friend with God without Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: There are not multiple paths to get to God.
SPEAKER_00: There's no way for multiple religions to be right and to all end up in the same place because they all make claims of exclusivity.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot come and say, Well, I like Jesus and I also like the Buddha and I like Confucius and I like Muhammad.
SPEAKER_00: Each religion makes its own exclusive claim.
SPEAKER_00: You can appreciate the things of Jesus, but that will not secure your eternal destiny, and it will not reconcile you back with the God who made you.
SPEAKER_00: The only way to be reconciled to God is through his son, Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And the invitation that this book, Matthew, that we're studying, makes to you is it proclaims to you the new society, the new kingdom that Jesus inaugurated and brought in.
SPEAKER_00: It proclaims to you a new covenant that God has made between heaven and earth to all who would accept it.
SPEAKER_00: And it proclaims to you Jesus as the Messiah, the one who came to be the king, who's gentle.
SPEAKER_00: He came to be the gentle king in your life.
SPEAKER_00: But you can choose to reject him.
SPEAKER_00: The beautiful thing about the God of the Bible is he gives you full permission to reject.
SPEAKER_00: He does the work, he's gonna go to the cross, he's gonna do the work of the cross, the resurrection, he's gonna suffer on your behalf, but he's not gonna force you.
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna do the work and he's gonna say, the door is open.
SPEAKER_00: Will you receive that work?
SPEAKER_00: And so if you're still in that place where you're considering how to am I a friend of God, you you need to boil it down to the question of your relationship with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Have you done what Jesus asked the crowds, which was to repent?
SPEAKER_00: That's that's this word that means turn the orientation of your life towards Him.
SPEAKER_00: Turn away from serving yourself, repent in the direction of Jesus, and then place your faith in him, believe in him.
SPEAKER_00: It means this internal surrender, and it means an absolute acceptance and trust that what Jesus has done on the cross is sufficient for your salvation, for your Hosanna moment.
SPEAKER_00: And so I invite you that today would be your Hosanna now.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just save, but it's it's save now.
SPEAKER_00: And my hope for you, my prayer for you as your pastor is that you would experience Hosanna in your life.
SPEAKER_00: That you would experience the salvation of God on your behalf.
SPEAKER_00: He died on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: We'll see it in in a matter of a couple months.
SPEAKER_00: We'll be looking at the cross and that part of the story.
SPEAKER_00: But before we're even there, you just need to know he did that part of the story so that you can be reconciled to him.
SPEAKER_00: So, Hosanna, while the crowd didn't understand it, we can look back with the clarity of Matthew and be like, hey, it might have been obscure to that crowd, but it's very clear to us now what this what the stakes are, what the offer on the table is.
SPEAKER_00: It's for you and I to decide.
SPEAKER_00: What do we want to do?
SPEAKER_00: So if if that's you, if if this morning you're like, yeah, you know what, I've I have never really prayed to God and told him that I want to repent and I want to believe in Jesus, if that's where you're at, there's you know how to talk.
SPEAKER_00: I've talked with most of you.
SPEAKER_00: You know how to talk, you can talk to God.
SPEAKER_00: And you put it in your language.
SPEAKER_00: You you talk to him and just tell him, God, I'm ready to receive your son, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I'm ready to turn from my way of doing life.
SPEAKER_00: I'm ready to turn it over to you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm open.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we prayed at the beginning.
SPEAKER_00: When I prayed, I said, I prayed that we would have open hearts.
SPEAKER_00: And I've laid it out for you who Jesus is, but it's on you to have that sense of openness.
SPEAKER_00: I know some of you know of our church because you come to just get free food after church.
SPEAKER_00: And I love that.
SPEAKER_00: I'm glad I get to feed you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm glad our team gets to feed you.
SPEAKER_00: I really love that.
SPEAKER_00: But but I would be so devastated if you die with a full belly and an empty heart.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to know, I want you to know how God designed you for so much more.
SPEAKER_00: So much more.
SPEAKER_00: And love you so much.
SPEAKER_00: We love you so much.
SPEAKER_00: And I know that there's things going on, there may be questions that you still have, but God's able to answer those questions.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we love you and we thank you for being our Hosanna.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for saving us in the moment.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for continuing to save us.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for the future salvation, the ultimate rescue from all of the calamity.
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus, we are so grateful for what you accomplished.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray for those that are still wrestling with, they're having a relationship with you, and they're thinking through their own spiritual, their own spiritual journey and their destiny.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, you've got to be the one that opens up.
SPEAKER_00: It says in 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 4, that you cause light to shine out of darkness.
SPEAKER_00: You cause light to shine in our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: And I pray for each person here that's that's wrestling with what is true.
SPEAKER_00: And that you would flip that switch on in their life and they would know you.
SPEAKER_00: That you would be very clearly the light of the world.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, thank you for our salvation, and you would pray as we go this week that you would continue that saving work, that rescuing work.
SPEAKER_00: I pray this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.