Sermon Notes

April 2, 2023

The King is Coming!

Matthew 21:1-11

¹ As Jesus and the disciples approached Jerusalem, they came to the town of Bethphage on the Mount of Olives. Jesus sent two of them on ahead. ² “Go into the village over there,” he said. “As soon as you enter it, you will see a donkey tied there, with its colt beside it. Untie them and bring them to me. ³ If anyone asks what you are doing, just say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and he will immediately let you take them.”
⁴ This took place to fulfill the prophecy that said,
⁵ “Tell the people of Jerusalem,
    ‘Look, your King is coming to you.
He is humble, riding on a donkey—
    riding on a donkey’s colt.’”
⁶ The two disciples did as Jesus commanded. ⁷ They brought the donkey and the colt to him and threw their garments over the colt, and he sat on it. ⁸ Most of the crowd spread their garments on the road ahead of him, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. ⁹ Jesus was in the center of the procession, and the people all around him were shouting,
“Praise God for the Son of David!
    Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
    Praise God in highest heaven!”
¹⁰ The entire city of Jerusalem was in an uproar as he entered. “Who is this?” they asked. ¹¹ And the crowds replied, “It’s Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”

It was an exciting time in Israel as the Passover feast was about to occur. Millions of people were making their way into the capital city of Jerusalem for this annual celebration, but that wasn’t the only exciting thing that was happening that week. Unbeknownst to those in Jerusalem, they were about to be a part of the most important week in all of human history. The week started with a Sunday we celebrate every year as Palm Sunday.

As we talked about last week in the chapter before our text this morning, Jesus had a very large crowd following Him into Jerusalem. They have seen Him raise Lazarus from the dead, recently saw Him heal two blind men on the roadside and heard of all He had done in his few years of ministry. Now they are there following Him into Jerusalem to see what else Jesus had planned. Usually, Jesus would rebuke people in situations like this. He had done so all throughout his ministry, (He even rebuked demons who were revealing who He truly was, you can read more about all these times of rebuke in Mark 1:25; 1:34; 1:44; 3:12; 5:43; 7:36; 8:30; 9:9). However, the time had finally come for Jesus to bring attention to Himself. It’s the only time in the Gospels that we see Jesus make a spectacle of Himself. Our text begins with Jesus telling His disciples to go and get a donkey’s colt for Him to ride on into Jerusalem. Jesus was doing so to fulfill a prophecy that is recorded in Zechariah 9:9.

⁹ Rejoice, O people of Zion!
    Shout in triumph, O people of Jerusalem!
Look, your king is coming to you.
    He is righteous and victorious,
yet he is humble, riding on a donkey—
    riding on a donkey’s colt.

The fact that this act of riding the donkey into Jerusalem was fulfilling a prophecy of the coming Messiah was not lost to those who were traveling with Jesus because they started to treat Jesus like the coming King. They started laying their robes and palm branches down in front of Jesus while they shouted Hosanna, or save us! These were acts we read about in the Old Testament that were only used for the King of Israel, but now they were being done for Jesus. The King was coming and no doubt those exact words were being shouted by the crowd as they approached Jerusalem. The phrase that was written in Zechariah 9:9 and echoed in the crowd that day meant some very different things to the different people who were witnessing Jesus’ triumphal entry in Jerusalem, and that’s what I want to look at briefly this morning. I want to examine three different groups and their different understandings of the phrase, “The King is coming!”. If you were to misunderstand the message being proclaimed that Palm Sunday, you are going to miss way more than you would imagine.

The King is coming!!

Those who knew

Ever since Peter declared Jesus to be the Son of God (Matthew 16:21), Jesus had been sharing with His disciples what was going to happen once they returned to Jerusalem. From what was recorded in scripture, we are told that Jesus flat out told His disciples about His coming death at least 3 times. In the gospel of John, there are even more subtle predictions Jesus gave of His impending death. Not only did His disciples have the spoken words of Jesus (God incarnate), but all of those who were there that day had God’s written Word as well (God’s Word spoken through the prophets of the Old Testament). All of this was given to them to help them understand what it meant when it was proclaimed on that day that, "The King is Coming!". Isaiah 53 alone lays out what Jesus had come to do - to be pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our sins, and Jesus came to die for our sins! He had come to be the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. He was the promised Messiah and the Savior of the world. Despite all the evidence, it’s very possible Jesus was the only one who really knew what it meant when those that day said, “The King is coming!”. That's why being grounded in God's Word is so important to us, so we don't find ourselves in the same position as the majority of those present that day. God’s Word revealed exactly what it meant that the King was coming, and most people missed it.

Those who thought they knew

When a majority of those present heard that, “The King is coming”, their minds wouldn’t have thought about the King they so desperately needed (a Savior to free them from their sins), but rather the King they wanted (a King to free them from the Romans). This misunderstanding could have been through willful ignorance or wishful thinking. I think it's because of the lack of sound teaching the people were receiving. God had been silent for hundreds of years until the silence was broken with the announcement of the birth of Jesus. During those hundreds of silent years religion still went on and the Pharisees rose to power. These were the very people Jesus spent a large part of His earthly ministry confronting. As a matter of fact, in Luke 11:52, Jesus accuses the religious leaders of removing the key to knowledge from the people and leading them away from the Kingdom. I can’t help but wonder if that is what was happening here. These people were led astray. They had some knowledge, but not the key. The key is Jesus - who He is, what He did, and how we can partake in it. I think the most powerful evidence that the majority of this group just thought they knew what it meant for the King to be coming was in their response to the question, “Who is this?”. When asked this question, they said Jesus was a prophet. If Jesus was a mere prophet, everything we believe would be in vain. Jesus is fully man and fully God. He came to die for the sins of the world freeing us from the slavery of sin, not merely freeing the Jews from the persecution of the Romans. It’s this group of people who are the most sad in this entire account. They think they have the truth, but refuse to take what they believe and compare it to the truth of God's Word, but rather were led astray by false teachers. There is still one more group we need to examine.

Those who had no clue

This Palm Sunday must have been something else to behold. We are told the city was in an “uproar”. The Greek word we translate as uproar here is the word we get our word seismic from. While this wasn't a literal earth-moving event, it was a figurative earth-shaking event. It got people's attention and made them ask questions. The sad thing is that the answer they were given was not true. They were curious. They asked but they too were led astray by false teachers who had no clue that they were the wolf in sheep's clothing.
The response to the words, “The King is Coming!” by those walking with Jesus that day can challenge us in our own walks with Jesus as well. We are reminded that we must always stand upon God’s Word so we can be one who knows. We are reminded we must pay close attention to those we let teach and lead us so we are not to be found as those who only think they know. When we are approached by those who are clueless, we must be ready to give a truthful answer to them when they ask us, “Who is this?”. As a matter of fact, we must be ready even today because…

The King is Coming… Back!! - Revelation 19:11-16
¹¹ Then I saw heaven opened, and a white horse was standing there. Its rider was named Faithful and True, for he judges fairly and wages a righteous war. ¹² His eyes were like flames of fire, and on his head were many crowns. A name was written on him that no one understood except himself. ¹³ He wore a robe dipped in blood, and his title was the Word of God. ¹⁴ The armies of heaven, dressed in the finest of pure white linen, followed him on white horses. ¹⁵ From his mouth came a sharp sword to strike down the nations. He will rule them with an iron rod. He will release the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty, like juice flowing from a winepress. ¹⁶ On his robe at his thigh was written this title: King of all kings and Lord of all lords.

We find the same three groups are present anytime we proclaim, “The King is Coming… Again!” (and don’t be fooled, He is coming)

Those who know

We have the Word of God. We have the Holy Spirit. We have no excuse not to know that Jesus is coming. The King is coming! Our King is coming! The day and the hour are not known to us. The fact that He will return and His return is getting closer and closer every day should spur us into action. This morning we are talking about the message of the Gospel to the other groups.

Those who think they know

We talk about this group a lot because we often interact with them in our lives. They have been led astray, thinking they have the truth, but have nothing. They don’t know the truth about sin, our need for redemption, or our Savior. We must share the truth of the Biblical Gospel at every chance we get, and do so with love. It takes time, but we must be persistent because when Jesus returns this time He will be coming not upon a colt as our Savior but rather upon a War Horse to be the judge.

Those who have no clue

It’s hard to believe in this day and time there are people who have never heard of Jesus, but we run into them each and every day. We must be just as diligent sharing with them as we are with the other group, making sure what we share is Biblical and true.
We are right upon Easter, it’s a time when people are thinking about and even asking “Who is this?” and we need to be ready to deliver the answer. This week I want to encourage you to find those who think they know and share the truth. Find those who have no clue and share the truth. Invite them to experience our Good Friday Service and learn about Jesus’ death on the cross and the meaning behind it. Invite them next Sunday as we celebrate the risen Savior!

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Sermon Notes

The King is Coming!

Matthew 21:1-11

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