Christ's Final Journey to Jerusalem

In your Bible, if you join me in the book of Matthew, I'm not sure if you remembered where the book of Matthew was. It's been a while since we've been there, and so Matthew chapter 21 this morning, we return and we've spent a couple months on just the focus of the mission and vision of Lighthouse and our eternal impact initiative, and so excited to see the giving that's going toward that, and as the giving continues to be invested there, the influence of the gospel through Lighthouse's ministries continue to expand, and so we're so excited. Through that giving, we're also able to expand our missions as well, and we have a church planter, A.J. York, going up to Michigan that's going to be starting a church up there, and boy, they need a church up in Michigan, don't they?

And excited for Braden going out this fall. Matthew 21, we're going to read verse 1 down to 11. Very important portions of Scripture that we begin to enter into here. It says, And when they drew nigh into Jerusalem, and were come to Bethphage, and to the Mount of Olives, then sent Jesus to disciples, saying unto them, Go into the village over against you, and straightway you shall find, and as tied in a colt with her, loose them and bring them unto me.

If any man say anything unto you, you shall say, The Lord has need of them, and straightway he will send them. All of this that was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, Tell ye the daughter of Zion. Behold thy king cometh unto the meek, and sitting upon an ass and a colt, the foal of an ass, and the disciples went and did as Jesus commanded them, and brought the ass and the colt, and put on them their clothes, and they set him thereon.

And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way, others cut down branches from the trees, and strawed them in the way. And the multitude that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the son of David. Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest. And when he was coming to Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, Who is this? And the multitude said, This is Jesus the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee. Father, we rejoice in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. He is the son of David, the great king of Israel. But he is the greater David. He is the one who would redeem his people from their sins. And as we come to this portion of Scripture, let our hearts rest upon your word.

Let our minds be attentive. Let the busyness and the Martha mentality of a world that is distracting, Lord, let it be put aside and may we be like Mary that we would sit at your feet and hear your word and and made the soil be soft and made the word be planted and may fruit abound that it would bring glory to you. I pray that if anyone today doesn't know Christ, that today would be the day that you would open their eyes, that they would understand Christ for who he is so that they might understand their desperate need of salvation and be saved. Lord sanctify us through the washing of the water of your word.

And we ask this for your own namesake. And all God's people said, man, you may be seated this morning. Well, this passage of Scripture in Matthew 21 is Jesus's final journey to Jerusalem. He began his final journey to Jerusalem back in chapter 19.

He left Galilee. So Israel is broken up in three major sections. Galilee in the north, that's where Capernaum, the Sea of Galilee is. The middle section is where Samaria is, the woman at the well, all of that happened. And the southern region is called Judea. And that's where Jerusalem is the Dead Sea.

And those kind of markers are. And what we read in Matthew 21 through chapter 26 are the events that happened in the last week of Jesus's earthly life. This is his Passion Week. And how important it is for us to be here for all of these verses and passages if we're going to be studying in depth the final week of the life of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Such important, such focus the Scriptures give to this. Matthew 27 goes into the death of our Lord Jesus Christ and in Matthew 28, his resurrection and commission to go and preach the gospel. By chapter 21, Jesus is now publicly ministered for three years, preaching the gospel, healing the sick, even raising the dead, which he had raised Lazarus about a week, two weeks before this situation here. He ascends up to Jerusalem one final time. He is not oblivious to what's awaiting him.

He knows exactly what's going to happen. John 12 verse 27, John's gospel records when he's ascending to Jerusalem, he says, Now is my soul troubled, but what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour. But for this cause came I unto this hour. Jesus was the king who was born to die. For us to have spiritual life, Jesus had to take physical death and even spiritual separation from the Father and that he took our sin upon himself and he was for a time separated from the Father. That's why he said, My God, why has thou forsaken me? The sinless one had to die in the place of this sinner.

Christ would take our sin that we might be able to take his righteousness. And so he says, What shall I say? Father, save me from this hour. The worst thing that will ever happen.

Do I ask that you would keep me from this? No, this was the actual reason I was even born. He was born to die. Did you imagine having a child that the purpose he was born with so that he might die, so that all the sin of the world could be placed upon him? Jesus had been foretelling his death and resurrection since back in chapter 16, after he had proclaimed that he would build his church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it. After he declares he will build the church and that the gates of hell would not be victorious against it, the Bible says in Matthew 16 21, from that time forth began Jesus to show in his disciples how that he must go into Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and the chief priests and the scribes.

These are the religious leaders and be killed and be raised again the third day. We understand that as the gospel. But what they did not understand was the spiritual work that Jesus came to do.

This was beyond difficult for them. This is why Peter begins to rebuke Jesus for the idea that he would die. They were looking for a physical deliverer, but Jesus came to do much more than deliver them from Rome. He came to deliver them from sin. At his birth, the angel declared, His name shall be called Yeshua or Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins. He was born to be our sacrifice.

Matthew 17 22 says, while they abode in Galilee, Jesus said unto them, the Son of Man shall be betrayed into the hands of men and they shall kill him and the third day he shall be raised again and they were exceeding sorry. Have you ever been through something in your life and you said something like this, I just wish I could talk to someone who understood where I was. I just wish I could pour my heart out to someone who understood where I was coming from. And maybe you were in a very difficult situation that when you tried to tell someone, they just couldn't understand it. Maybe they were insensitive about what you were sharing with them.

Maybe they couldn't understand the gravity of it. But some of you have been through things that the only other people in life that really get it are other people who've been through similar situations because you carry things that can be so heavy sometimes. And here our Lord is carrying the heaviest load that has ever been born. And those that were closest to him still couldn't get it.

And it seems as though he keeps sharing it and sharing it and sharing it. At least five or six different times he tells them, I'm going up to Jerusalem and I'm going to suffer many things. Even in the upper room when he was with Judas who was going to betray him, the disciples, his heart was so grieved the Bible says.

In the Garden of Gethsemane he says, can you praise that I am so heavy to the point of death and he goes and he falls down on the ground and begins to perspire blood. That's the kind of weight he was carrying. And no one could understand it. And no one could grasp the weightiness of it.

They rejected the idea of what even weight he was going to do. And so he tells them again in Matthew 17 verse 22 and 3, Matthew 20 17 through 19, and again and again he's revealing this. Jesus knew that he was born to die. This was no surprise to him. I found it, I don't know, disturbing and sad when I heard Ben Shapiro who is a Jewish man and he says a lot of good things, but he rejects Christ and he said the reason that Jesus died was he tried to create a revolt against Rome and the uprising failed and so they put him to death.

What a foolish statement and I'm saying very kind words about it. There is no evidence of that. Jesus in fact leading up to his death said render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's. Submit yourself to every ordinance for the Lord's sake, Romans 13. Jesus was living according to the eternal divine plan of God. His life was not by accident. He said no one takes my life.

I lay it down. This is sovereignty at work. And that's what makes God's love so much more incredible. He wasn't submitting to the wishes of men, he was submitting to his own desires to save those who were sinners. The song rightly says how great the Father's love for us, how vast beyond all measure, that he would give his only son to make a wretch his treasure. Now Jesus had just come through Jericho in the previous chapter at the end of chapter 20 where he had saved a little rich tax collector who climbed up in a sycamore tree for the Lord he wanted to see.

You guys know this song. And that little rich tax collector who owned one of the great tax franchises was named Zacchaeus. It's an amazing thing that little Zacchaeus gets saved and Jericho, Jesus comes out of Jericho and two blind men hail him as son of David and Jesus heals these two blind men. The crowd journeying up to Jerusalem during Passover would have been massive as he's taking his journey from Jericho. He's now coming to a little village called Bethany and there's another sister village about a mile away closer to Jerusalem. Bethany's about two miles outside of Jerusalem on the eastern slopes of the Mount of Olives. Bethany is two miles out, then you have Bethphage. Matthew only mentions Bethphage here in chapter 21 verse 1, but Luke's Gospel tells us he came close to Bethany and Bethphage.

This is the only time Bethphage is actually mentioned, it literally means house of unripe figs, but it's only mentioned here because it was a location where they retrieved a pair of donkeys. Bethany was a more significant town, it's where Jesus stayed when he was journeying to Jerusalem. He stayed there because he was loved and welcomed by Lazarus and he had two sisters, Mary and Martha.

Lazarus, if you remember, John 11 records that had been sick and Jesus had raised him from the dead. Mary would end up anointing Jesus with that alabaster box of ointment this week, would have been on Saturday. According to John 12 verse 1, this was six days before Passover when he came here. That means this was on a Saturday before the coming Passover the next week. Passover would have been on Nisan 14, the 14th of Nisan, which is... Nisan was their first, according to the Jewish calendar, that's like their January, the first month of their year, which would accord with our March-April dates. And the Jewish Passover was the most holy day in the Jewish calendar. It commemorated God's deliverance of the Jewish people out of Egypt. And during the Israelite captivity in Egypt, you remember that God sent Moses to deliver the people out of bondage. Pharaoh's heart was very hardened and he said, who is this God?

I will not deliver the people out. And so God sent nine plagues upon them and he still was hard-hearted about it. And then there was one final plague that would kill all the firstborn in every home. To be protected from the death that would come upon every home, you had to put blood upon the doorpost and upon the lentil. And if you did not take the blood of a lamb and do that, then death would come. And so those who believed God's Word and feared Him applied the blood, and those who did not, did not apply the blood. And you know the story, the death angel came and killed all the firstborn in every home that did not believe God, and those who did apply the blood were saved. What a picture. And according to the New Testament, there were now three Passovers mentioned in Jesus's life.

This is the last one. And the Bible teaches the only way that sins can be forgiven, that judgment would pass over us, would be if blood would be applied to our life. God is a holy God. He cannot overlook sin. Hebrews 9 22 says, without shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness or remission. Sin must be paid for, justice must be fulfilled. And instead of man dying for their own sins, God made a sacrificial system where a lamb would die in the place of the guilty sinner.

This was a substitutionary death. Every family would bring a lamb. This was known as a Pascal lamb or a Passover lamb.

And so at Passover, massive numbers of animals were killed. The chief Jewish historian in Israel was a man named Josephus. Josephus has written great tomes on the history. He was not a believer in Jesus. He wrote about Jesus. He was not a believer in Jesus. He was a Pharisee.

And he lived during the time of Jesus. And according to the works of first century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, he wrote that there were at least 256,500 lambs killed in the temple for Passover in one year between the years of 66 and 70 AD. Because one lamb was allowed to be offered for up to 10 people, the estimates of the people coming into Jerusalem would have been two to three million people. The lamb was offered and eaten by those 10 worshipers. They didn't just kill the animal and throw it away. That was the meal for them. It was a Paschal meal as well. Although that year over 200,000 lambs were taken and killed, the Bible teaches those sacrifices could never take away the sins of man.

They were only a temporary covering. Hebrews 10 4 says it is not possible that the blood of goats should take away sins. That year Jesus entered Jerusalem to fulfill what John the Baptist said in John 1 29 that Jesus Christ is the lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world. First Corinthians 5 7 says Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.

The Passover that year would not be a lamb offered by the people, but it would be a lamb offered by God. Now just to give you an idea of location here, I have a couple pictures if we have those. And I always like to give you some idea. Do we have the—yeah, there we go. So this is Bethany. This is Bethphage. This is about two miles from Jerusalem. This is Bethphage about a mile away. This is the Mount of Olives, that hillside there.

It's about 2,700 feet in elevation. This is what's known as the Kidron Valley, the Brook Kidron. Do you remember when Jesus left the upper room? He crossed over, he went through the city by the temple, he went down this ravine, crossed over the Brook Kidron, and at the base of that is the Garden of Gethsemane. That's that Garden of Gethsemane that Jesus prayed in that night, that he was taken that night.

After they took him, they would have taken him up here. There's a house of Caiaphas, and this region right there would have been where they would have taken him that night. And this is the Eastern Gate. What's interesting, according to Zacharias' prophecy, is that Jesus Christ will descend the second time at his second coming, set his feet on the Mount of Olives, and come through that Eastern Gate. They call it the Golden Gate. What is also interesting is that on this side of the Temple Mount—I've been there, and you can look this up, don't do it now—but the Muslims have built a cemetery on the Eastern Gate because they know the prophecy that Jesus Christ will come back and enter through that gate, but they also know that a prophet is not allowed to touch a dead body and some of these things, and so they built this cemetery because they think that that's going to keep John the Baptist from coming through, and Jesus Christ from coming, and that will keep him from reclaiming the Temple, but that's not going to happen.

Jesus Christ will step over that. So if we go to the next picture here, this is a visual from that. This is a picture that I took back when I was in Israel in 2011. This is the city of Jerusalem. This is looking down. This is that Garden of Gethsemane there at the bottom.

Maybe one more picture that lets you know. This is your standing. So as we go through this story, and it says that he was entering and the people were shouting and he was riding on the donkey, this is the setting. This is the setting where he probably was surrounded by upwards of a hundred to two hundred thousand people singing in chorus as a massive entourage is entering into a city where millions of worshippers are going to descend upon a 13-acre temple mount where all these sacrifices are being brought.

This is a massive display, and so you can pull that picture down, but that just gives you an idea. That Dome of the Rock, again, won't be there when Jesus comes back. He's going to get rid of that Muslim discrepancy. Now Christians have historically called Sunday prior to Jesus's resurrection Palm Sunday because they laid down palm branches as they were cut down in his triumphal entry, and those scholars debate this. I don't want to get super technical and lose you on this, but I believe that the events were not held on Palm Sunday, the entering of Jesus into Jerusalem. I believe it happened on Monday.

There's a couple reasons for that. If you take the traditional chronology of that, it would say that there's nothing that happened on Wednesday, and I believe every day was filled with things as you go through the New Testament. I'll talk more about this in the coming weeks.

It's probably confusing right now to even discuss. But one reason that I believe was also on Monday was Monday was the day that they picked out the Paschal Lamb, the Lamb that would be chosen. And Jesus entered in Jerusalem on that day, on the tenth of Nisan, and presented himself as the Lamb of God as well as the King of Israel. And that Friday he was sacrificed, he was crucified on the cross, and in the exact same time that the priests would be killing the Passover Lamb, Jesus was hanging on the cross. This all was according to God's divine plan. So this happened on Monday. Next week we're going to look at the events that happened on Tuesday, so you want to make sure you're here for each one of these.

And so, that's the setting. Let's look at what happens on this final entry of Jesus as he journeys into Jerusalem. Now the preparation of the coming of Jesus in verse 1 through 3. As Jesus nears Jerusalem, he sends two of his disciples ahead of him to get a couple donkeys, a donkey and its colt, to bring them to him. Verse 1, it says, saying unto them, Go into the village over against you, and straightway you'll find a ass or a donkey tied, and a colt with her, loose them and bring them unto me. Now we're not told who these two disciples are. Very likely it was Peter and John, because Jesus sent them on errands like that, such as in Luke 22, 80, sent Peter and John saying, Go prepare us the Passover that we may eat.

So they were typically sent. It is interesting the instructions the Lord gives. Think about this.

Go into the village, you're going to find a donkey with its colt, unloose them and bring them. Sounds like stealing. But can you imagine Jesus giving you those instructions?

Lord, I got a couple questions on that. And why doesn't Jesus say, first go tell the owner the master has need of them, but that's secondary. Why does he just say go get them? You know why? Because Jesus is the owner. He is the owner.

We think that because we forget that. You know what Psalm 50 says in verse 10? For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all the fowls of the mountain and the wild beasts of the field are mine. If I were hungry, God said, I would not tell you, for the world is mine in the fullness thereof.

I don't need to ask. It belongs to me. Let us not forget such a thing, right? And the Lord knows that objections will come by the human owner of the animal, so he says, if anybody asks you anything just say the Lord has need and he'll let him go. And the man's response, so there was an objection according to the other gospel records, and so when they told him the master has need of them, the man sent him gladly, reveals he must have been a believer or must have been a disciple, and he gladly yields his animal to the service of the Lord. I just want to remind us again, all that we have belongs to the Lord. When you became a Christian and you committed your life of the Christ, as 1 Corinthians 6 says, you are no longer your own, you are bought with the price. It is not your time. It is not your money. It is not your health. It is not your children.

It is not your family. God owns your car, your watch, your house. Everything we have belongs to him. When you get saved, you essentially become an owner of nothing. You become a steward. You know what a steward is? A steward is not an owner, it's a manager of someone else's possessions. We become an owner of nothing and a steward of everything. I steward my kids, I steward my marriage, I steward my home, my car, my house. Everything is steward.

We steward that. We take care of God's possessions. And so that is what happens to the man's donkey. It did not belong to the man, it belonged to the Lord. Also, this was a display of the Lord's omniscience. He knew that the donkey and its colt were there. Jesus knew that when they walked in, he didn't say, hey, go three blocks down, turn left, and you're going to find it, you know. He says it's going to be there, and he knew exactly where it was, he knew exactly what objection would come, and he knew exactly what to say in case an objection came, and he knew that that would allow the man to let the animals go.

This was divine omniscience. Another side note, Jesus sends them to get the donkey to ride to Jerusalem. This reminds us Jesus is walking everywhere.

Do you understand that? We don't walk a whole lot like they did back in the day. He wearied himself. His life was physically tasking.

Everything he did was, in essence, very difficult. If you've been to Jerusalem, it's not an easy walk. It's all rocky. It's hilly. I mean, it's like crags of rocks. If you think about, like, if you've gone somewhere, like, we're so flat in Ohio, like, we're like, we don't know what a mountain is. We have hills. But you go where it's just, there's rocks laying around, it's difficult terrain, it's just not easy to, like a 10-mile walk there would be like a 20-mile walk on a flat ground.

It was not easy. And by the way, a day's journey in the Bible was an 18-mile journey on foot. John gives us a glimpse of this in John 4.6. It says, when Jesus had wearied himself with his journey, he sat with the woman at the well.

This was tough. He walked for us. How incredible his daily sacrifices to bring us the Word of God and salvation. I wonder how little it would take for us to miss hearing the Word of God or being at church today. How far would you be willing to walk to church? What would happen if you got up today and you had a five-minute walk and your car didn't start?

Would you say, ah, too tough. Many of us would very likely walk to work for money, but we would not walk to church for the Word. Sadly, usually the lowest attended Sunday of the year across the nation and at Lighthouse, it's Time Chain Sunday. What does that tell us? That tells us it doesn't take any more than an hour change in the schedule for many Christians to say it's not worth it.

It's not worth it. See, that's a little bit heavy, is it? If one hour can keep me from coming to church, that lets me know where Jesus is on my priority scale. It's kind of quiet in here this morning.

I wasn't here last week. I was in church preaching last Sunday, morning and night, okay. But I think it's a sad thing, isn't it? It's a commentary on the convenient Christianity that we now live in. Praise God that Jesus didn't come to serve us out of convenience.

Jesus rose from the dead for us and many cannot rise out of bed for Him. So that's the preparation of the Lord's coming. Secondly, the prophetic plan of the Lord's coming. Look at verse 4. All this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet saying, that's a powerful statement. The entire life of the Lord was directed by two things. Number one, doing the will of the Father and fulfilling Scripture. John 434, Jesus said, my meat is to do the will of Him that sent me in to finish His work.

When they're like, hey, you're wearied, let's get you some food. He said, I don't even need food. My food is to do the will of my Father. I would rather go without physical nourishment so that I can make sure I fulfill His plan. John 530, I seek not my own will but the will of my Father which sent me in the garden in Matthew 26, 39, and in verse 42.

He said, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will but Thine be done. Doing the will of the Father. Secondly, fulfilling Scripture. At His birth after it said, His name shall be called Jesus for He shall save His people from their sins. Verse 22 says, but all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken.

Notice what it says, of the Lord by the prophet. When the prophet spoke, it was in essence the Lord speaking because His word was coming through their mouth. When His family fled to Egypt from Herod, Matthew 2 15 says, and He was there until the death of Herod that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet saying, out of Egypt I've called my son. When they come out of Egypt after Herod dies, they go to Nazareth.

And He came and dwelt in the city of Nazareth, Matthew 2 verse 23 says, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, He shall be called a Nazarene. This just goes on and on and on and on through the New Testament. Matthew 5 17, Jesus said, think not that I've come to destroy the law of the prophets, I did not come to destroy them, I've come to fulfill them.

At His triumphal entry once again, His life is defined by sovereign will. Scripture being fulfilled, Scripture being fulfilled. Let me remind you, not tradition being fulfilled, not man's tradition being fulfilled, but Scripture as it is written by the prophets, not by the rabbis in the Mishnah or the Gomorrah, but by the prophets of God in holy text. That's why at Lighthouse we don't build a church based on tradition of the church, we base our belief systems on the written Word of God.

That's a big deal. That separates us from Orthodox churches and Catholic churches. We believe in the supremacy of Scripture.

If you want to know one of the defining points of Lighthouse, it's that. When you come here, we ask the question, what safe is Scripture? I'm not looking for what Rabbi So-and-so said or Church Father from the 4th century Augustine said, I'm looking for what did God's Word say. It's a big deal. It's a very big deal. The Reformers died for that truth.

We need to live for it. Jesus said in John 5, 39, search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life. They are they which testify of me. Matthew 21, verse 5, says, tell ye the daughter of Zion. Behold, and now he's quoting the prophecy from Zechariah. Tell ye the daughter of Zion, could be spelled Z, the old English says S, behold, thy king cometh unto thee meek and sitting on an ass or a donkey a colt the full of an ass.

The phrase daughter of Zion is reference to the Jewish people, God's people, because Zion was the highest mountain in Jerusalem. This is a prophecy from the book of Zechariah. Five hundred years prior to what we are reading, the prophet Zechariah prophesied the people of Israel would hail Messiah as their king as he came into Jerusalem riding on a donkey in such a humble manner. Listen to what Zechariah 9, 9 said.

This was written 500 years before what we just read. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your king is coming to you. He is just and having salvation lowly riding on a donkey a colt the full of a donkey.

I use the New King James there because I prefer donkey over the word ass. He is just and having salvation, it says. The Hebrew of Zechariah 9, 9 means he came being salvation. Zechariah 9, 9, he is just and having salvation. You could also translate he came being salvation.

Not only did he bring salvation, but he was the salvation himself. Lowly and riding on a donkey a colt the full of a donkey. Why a donkey? I mean, when we think about a donkey, this is like a humbled animal, isn't it? But to the Jews, it had some nobility to it. It was not just an animal to carry burdens, but more significant, they used it by kings.

This is interesting. When they came or their emissaries came, they would enter a city in peace riding on a donkey. The opposite of that would be riding on a stallion, like a steed. When you did that, it was showing strength, it was showing that you came to conquer a city. But he didn't come to conquer in judgment, rather he came to bring peace.

He could easily have conquered. When the soldiers came out to apprehend him that night, what did he say to Peter? Peter, put up your sword. Do you think I need your defense? I could call twelve legions of angels.

This would be vaporized. This is nothing. Do you think I need help? It's like David saying, I'll build you a house. God's like, no, I'll build you a house, David. The earth is my footstool.

I appreciate the thought. He kind of chides David for it, if you read back in the book of Samuel. He's like, you're going to build me a house. Have I ever asked to build me a house?

Do I need that? Revelation 19, he does come on a white horse. There is no donkey in Revelation. Revelation is the conqueror. Revelation 19, 11, I saw heaven open to behold a white horse and he that sat on him is called Faithful and True. I can tell you that image of Christ is terrifying. Also, this cult was never ridden on. That was a sign of sacredness among the Jews, according to Numbers 10, Deuteronomy 21, 1 Samuel 6. Among the Jews, an animal could be used for a sacred or religious purpose if it was not used or had ever been set upon. According to John's Gospel, it specifically notes the disciples did not actually realize the significance of the moment.

I want you to get this. All this fulfilled prophecy is going on, and it goes right over the disciples' heads. Listen to John 12, 15.

It says, Fear not, daughter of Zion, behold thy King cometh, sitting on an ass's colt. Verse 16, These things understood not his disciples at the first, but when Jesus was glorified, when he had risen from the dead. Then remembered they that these things were written of him, and that they had done these things unto him.

Now, I want you to get this. If the disciples miss the reality of fulfilled prophecy in their day, that Christ was working according to the eternal plan that transcended their understanding, do you think that's true of us in life? Do you think Christ can be working in ways that are so amazing, so perfect, so according to God's perfect plan in our life that we miss how incredible the events are? If we would have known it, we'd have been like, whoa, that was incredible, the significance of that.

But we're like, sunny out today, isn't it? We just go on through life, and there could be an eternal thing that God just did last week. It was only later did they realize the full weight of what Jesus did. Again, if the twelve disciples miss the divine plan in real time, do you think we'll miss the significance of God's divine plan in the real time in our life? But we can rest assured that God is at work even when life is hard, when it's difficult, humbling, and when we misunderstand things, we can trust God, and we can trust the hand of the unseen one. Romans 8 28 is true, that he is working all things together for good to them that love him. Joseph told his brothers, what you meant for good, God meant, what you meant for evil, God meant for good. When Paul's like, God, I need to get this thorn removed, God says, no, you don't understand.

It's better that it's there. I wonder how much praise we rob God of because we do not understand the divine perspective. We get so limited. How much we need to live out of Proverbs 3, 5, and 6 life, to trust him with all of our heart, not to lean on our understanding. God, why are you doing this? We find ourselves like Peter rebuking Jesus from going to the cross. Peter, you foolish person, he is your salvation.

If you stop him, you go to hell. We see a third truth here in verse 6 and 7, the prompt obedience of the disciples. It is interesting that they don't say, Jesus, you want us to go into a town and like, scrap a couple donkeys, and like come back. Sometimes Jesus may ask you to do something uncomfortable that may create some level of tension and controversy in your life. In that case, it would be expected that the owners would object to what these guys would do, but they don't ask Jesus any questions. I love what verse 6 says, and the disciples went and did as Jesus commanded them, and brought the ass in the cold and put on them their clothes.

They didn't know which one Jesus was going to ride on, they didn't have a saddle for him, so they're just like, let's put our coats on this so Jesus can sit on them, I don't know which one he's going to ride. Again, they could have questioned him, but they simply trusted him and obeyed him. Trust and obey, that simple song. What in your life do you need to trust God for and obey him in?

What are you not obeying him in? Also, this may have seemed like a minimal task to go get a donkey. If it was Peter and John, they could have said, could somebody else go get them? I mean, we've got to walk all the way down there another mile or so and bring these donkeys back. I mean, let the donkey job be given to Judas or somebody. But going and getting a donkey and its colt was literally part of fulfilling the divine word of the living God. Holy prophecy was being fulfilled and walking to a town, unloosing some donkeys and bringing them back.

What seemed to be so minimal, what seemed to be so small. And I wonder how many times people in churches are like, you know what, the things I do just aren't that big of a deal. You know, Christ is the head of the church and the church is the body of Christ. And every member of the body is essential to the functioning work of the body. I may be a mouth on Sunday morning, but all of us are the body that lives out the ministry on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and all the other teachers and everybody else and all the other workers. A body needs hands and feet.

We need every part of our body to be able to function effectively. Your service to the Lord is huge. Your greeting is a massive part of the function of the body. Your help in the nursery, cleaning the building. I'm so thankful for those who come in and clean. I had a couple new people that just joined the church and I see them here yesterday morning helping clean the church.

What a blessing. Being on a missions care team, being faithful at 242 or Life Groups, to be in a Juana to serve, to pick up kids on our bus ministry or help with our teens, faithfully praying every week, faithfully giving, faithfully inviting others. We all work together so that in all things Christ may be glorified in His church. It is a collective effort. Jesus wasn't going to ride in on a donkey unless somebody did the donkey work of getting it.

Never minimize your tasks. Jesus was the one who exemplified humble service, didn't He? Washing the disciples' feet. I think about Daniel's testimony just a few months ago, how he is an employee out at the base, and he said just a lot of things were almost hard, and God was really working in his life, and he was just seeking God. He said one day at the base he did something he never did. He walked down a hall. He never goes down, went to a room. He never goes in to sit down and spend a moment just dwelling on God in prayer. Right in front of him is one of those little blue cards that somebody just so happened, because obviously God is not sovereign, and God did not orchestrate that He would call somebody to leave one of these right in front of the guy in a room where God stirred his heart enough to walk down a hallway, sit down right in front of where he would pick one of these up, research it, come here, give his life to Christ, get baptized, bring other people who've also—at least one other person—got saved and baptized and he's brought multiple other people.

Because somebody didn't feel like this was too minimal of a task. And what could God do this week if every one of us said, I'm going to invite a family or friend, and maybe God could begin working in their life as He's working in my life to do one small part of carrying out the mission of making Christ known. Are you going to be a part of it?

Are you going to be a part of it? And you can say, hey, I want God to use my life. Or we can say, ah, it's not a big deal what I do. If you treat God like a small God, you're going to see small things. But if you say, God, I believe you could use my life this week.

Give me an opportunity. I'll never forget, one of the families in our church are here now, faithful members, growing, just God's using their life because somebody at our church had a health situation where they went to the hospital and they were talking to them and they were out of church at the time and then somehow somebody else came and they're actually another person here today that sat down and talked to them about the Lord and about our church. And then I just happened to be the third person. I don't even remember why I was there. I think I had to, I forget what I was there for. I don't know if it was for somebody else or probably for myself or something, but I was there and I was talking to her. I said, hey, you got a church anywhere? And she kind of looked at me funny. I was like, I go to Lighthouse and she's like, you are the third person that has, and now she's here and faithfully coming now for the last year and a half or two years or so.

Isn't that awesome? But God prompts me and other people to do that and you to do that. I'm just, I'm trying to tell you, it's not insignificant. And so let's look at the fourth truth here. The praise of the crowds in verse eight. And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way and others cut down branches from the trees and strawed them in the way. And the multitude that went before and that followed cried saying, Hosanna to the son of David blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.

Incredible. This beautiful scene is of a multitude of people from all nations. They're descending down upon Jerusalem. This is such a picture of Revelation seven, nine through 10. After this I beheld and lo a great multitude, which no man could number of all nations and kindred and people in tongue stood before the throne and before the lamb clothed with white robes and poems in their hands. And they cried with a loud voice saying, salvation to our God, which sitteth upon the throne and under the Lamb. The word Hosanna just means save now.

That's what they were saying. Hosanna is the Hebrew word for save now English. Up to this time in the Lord's ministry, he avoided public promotion. He would tell people, don't tell them the miracle. He would always decompress the situation. He would always keep the temperature down, but now he doesn't. This is the only time that Jesus Christ is like, make me known.

Make me in his earthly ministry. And the reason he did that was because he did not want to cause his death premature, because there would be such an uprising if the promotion went on. But now it's the last week.

He's like, this is the last week. The Pharisees, scribes, they wanted to kill him after the Passover, but because this promotion of him, it forced their hand to crucify him that week. It's interesting that a great multitude spreads their garments in the way. This was an ancient custom, as 2 Kings 9 13 does of Jehu. I like what Matthew Henry said, we must not thank the clothes on our back too dear to part with for the service of Christ.

Matthew adds, they were cutting palm branches and laying them in the way. This is how kings and princes who won battles would honor them with flowers and garland and evergreen, signifying triumph and joy. Verse 9 said, the multitude were saying Hosanna means save now Hosanna to the Son of David. Son of David was the most significant messianic title. The Messiah is just the word for Christ. Messiah, Hebrew, Messiah, Christ, Christos, Greek, that's the same title.

So Jesus Christ is being declared as the Son of David. And they said Hosanna in the highest, that's calling for angels to now join in to the worship. That's Psalms 103 20, bless the Lord ye his angels. Psalm 141 8, praise the Lord, praise the Lord from the heavens.

So when you say Hosanna in the highest, what it's saying, if you ever sing a song or say that, it's saying Hosanna in the highest, up in the heavens, let the heavens join in on this chorus. Let heaven resound in the praise of God. Now the crowds were actually quoting Psalm 118, this is part of the Hillel, the praise chorus of the Psalms. Psalm 118, sometimes called the conquerors Psalm, they were chanting for Christ to save them now.

Psalm 118 25, save now, it's Hebrew, Hosanna, I beseech thee, oh Lord, translated better, Yahweh, oh Yahweh, oh Yahweh, I beseech thee, send now prosperity. Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord. That phrase, blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord.

We've sung these things and we've said these things. What that's saying is every pilgrim that's coming to Jerusalem to worship, bless them who comes in his name. All that are entering to Jerusalem, bless those who are coming in the name of the Lord. And then they said, we have blessed you out of the house of the Lord. The picture is one of great celebration and excitement from the crowds.

Imagine a crowd of over a hundred thousand people, some have estimated upwards of 200,000, shouting in unison, praise to God, how incredible. I remember the first Buckeye game I ever went to. I was in my 20s and me and my wife, somebody gave us tickets and we went and it was alumni day there where they had all these, I mean like 1,500 extra band members there. I mean the field was covered in band members. They were playing and then it was time for the Buckeyes to enter the field. Who's been to a Buckeye game?

So you understand some what I'm talking about. Very few of us are in a setting where there's a hundred thousand people. It's the only time I'm like in a setting where there's a hundred thousand people in unison.

There's like what, 50 other people that are not Buckeye fans in the stadium they allow to come in. But I can tell you, when they came out of that, when they exited that tunnel, you could literally feel the energy in the place. The roar of the crowd, it was electrifying. And all I could think of, and I'm not trying to be like overly spiritual, but I just thought, man, they're doing this for these guys. All I could think of is, what's it going to be like before Christ one day? And that setting would be somewhat similar to a hundred plus thousand people in this, singing and shouting in unison.

The excitement and the energy would have been extremely powerful. Also to raise the scene a little bit, according to scholar Ralph Harris, the people going up the opposite hill to Jerusalem would often chant Psalm 24. Psalm 24 is the Psalm that says, who shall ascend to the hill of the Lord? Who shall stand in his holy place?

He who has clean hands and a pure heart. Then they would begin to chant verse seven through 10, lift up your heads, O ye gates, lift them up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. On the other side on the Mount of Olives was coming this massive crowd saying, rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. Shout, behold your King cometh. While they're singing Psalm 24 on the other hill, they're chanting Psalm 118 on this hill, and the King is entering.

The scene would have been incredibly powerful, and Jesus would have wanted them to make the connection. Matthew 21, 10, and when he was coming to Jerusalem, it says all the city was seismos. It's a word where we get seismology from, where we get earthquake from. The whole city was like shaken like an earthquake had hit it. And that brings me to a final point that I'm going to wrap this up very quickly, the perplexity after the ride.

Look what happens. Verse 10, and when he was coming to Jerusalem, all the city was moved like an earthquake happening to it, saying, who is this? And the multitude said, this is Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee. How disturbing. Some thoughts here. First of all, the ignorance of the people.

Who is this? As one man said, not knowing Jesus is the worst kind of ignorance. You can be ignorant of any other knowledge and not be imperiled, but if you do not know Jesus, that is an eternal error.

Do you know him today? Secondly, notice the place of ignorance, all the city saying, who is this? If there was ever a city that should know who Jesus was, it should have been the city of the great King.

Israel should have known the temple was there. They ended up rejecting their Messiah. Thirdly, the lack of clarifying Jesus. The multitude came into Jerusalem saying, he's the son of David, in essence. He's the Messiah.

He's the Savior. And then they're like, when they get to the city, who is this? Now, when you enter the city, the religious leader said, if anybody make him known, we're going to find out where Jesus is and put him to death.

And they had warned all the people about this already. So when the crowd gets to Jerusalem, they're like, who is this? So instead of saying, this is Jesus, the son of David, claiming him as the Messiah, they said, oh, this is the prophet of Nazareth. Not that the prophet of Nazareth was a, it's not that the information was wrong, it was just not complete.

And isn't that what happens to people? They get loud about Jesus on Sunday and quiet on Monday. I believe in Jesus. Praise the Lord. Praise the King. Are you a Christian? You pray before your meals? Well, my peers around me, I don't know how they feel about that.

Sure. Yeah, most people do get quiet in public. Jesus said, if you're ashamed of me in this life, I'll be ashamed of you in that one. The crowds that hailed Jesus on Monday would end up rejecting him on Friday. They call out for his death.

You know why they called out for his death? Because Jesus didn't deliver on what they thought. We want a human deliver. We want us to, we want you to save us from Rome. You're not giving us our physical needs.

You're not meeting our demands. And therefore they reject him. What they didn't realize, he was saving them from a much greater eternal enemy, sin and death and hell. And how many people today become fickle in their faith because Jesus in their minds doesn't deliver the health, the wealth, the prosperity, the ease of life, the comforts and all of that stuff. And so they reject him because they define Jesus based on what they think he should be instead of based on what he said he is. Jesus is not the creation of my mind. He's the creation of scriptures. He's the fulfillment in essence, I should say, of scripture. What is interesting, as they quote Psalm 118 here, later in chapter 21, he quotes back to them Psalm 118 22 and 23, just a couple verses after what they were singing.

Psalm 118 says this, the stone which the builders refused is to become the head of the stone of the corner and this is the Lord's doing and it's marvelous in our eyes. Isn't that incredible? Wow. The significance is incredible. I feel like I rob you every week because there's so much more I want to tell you. Time does not permit me.

Sometimes people say you talk fast, I talk slow based upon what I would like to say. There is so much here. The significance of God's work in our life is beyond what we will ever understand until we get this other side of heaven.

And we look back and say, wow, I never knew. If Jesus died for you, are you willing to live for him today? As we look at his humility and sacrifice, are you willing to humble yourself for him? Are you obedient to the Lord? Are you willing to share him with others? Let us be faithful, amen. As we leave here, as we've come to know Christ, let us leave here to make him known. Let's all stand this morning.