2024-03-24 Palm Sunday

Well, today is / / Palm Sunday, so we are taking a break this week and next week in our walk through the Sermon on the Mount, but really, Easter is a similar situation, it’s a sermon on a mount, it’s just a different hillside, and the sermon is through action, not word.

Without words, God speaks the most meaningful thing to us, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Of course we’re not talking about that yet, that’s next week as we celebrate Easter Sunday. But this is a sermon to the whole world from a hillside.

And let me encourage you. Invite someone next week. Invite a neighbor. Invite family and friends. Make it an event for you and your family. Every Sunday is important, but Easter Sunday is the day we celebrate the entire reason we are Christians. If Jesus doesn’t come back to life, is there reason to believe? Sure, you might believe he said some good things, but let’s be honest, if someone says they are the savior of the world, and they die, and are never seen again, do we believe them? No, of course not. And then do we probably write off much of what they said? Yes. Why? Because they were obviously crazy. We don’t trust people who tell us one thing, and then are clearly not that thing.

So, invite people to join you next week. It’s going to be a good day as we celebrate Jesus.

Well, this morning is what we call Palm Sunday, or the day of the / / triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem.

And even though the Sermon on the Mount is a concise segment of Scripture, Matthew 5-7, the idea, or the theme, the Kingdom of God, really meets it’s pinnacle in what we call / / Holy Week, the week leading up to the crucifixion, death and resurrection of Jesus. This is the center of the story from the beginning. If you look at the Garden of Eden in Genesis, and you look at the Cross holding Jesus, what is the similarity in regards to the Kingdom of God? The tree of life is at the very center of it.

/ / The tree of life is the center of the Kingdom of God because Jesus is the tree of life.

Proverbs 11:30 says, vThe fruit of the righteous is a tree of life. Paul says clearly we are made righteous because of HIS righteousness.

Jesus says in John 15:5, / / “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.

And in Revelation 22:2, John sees the tree of life, and it’s leaves are for the healing of the nations.

Now, I’m not saying that Jesus was the literal tree of life in the Garden of Eden, but do you see how the story is woven through all of Scripture from beginning to end? That at the center of it all is Life, and not just living, but Life through the One we call Jesus Christ.

And so in this grand narrative, what’s at the very center of it, but the passion of Jesus, His death and resurrection. And that all starts with Palm Sunday.

Now, leading up to this moment there’s some interesting things to note. If you’ve been here for a while, you know my thoughts on the saying, / / “God is in control!” I do believe God is in control, of Himself, but I do NOT believe God takes control of us. He gave us free will. He honors that. And, in my opinion, that’s actually the highest respect and form of love you can give someone, is to allow THEM to make the decision about how they will treat you, rather than you trying to force in any way, shape or form how they are going to treat you, love you, hang out with you etc… That’s called kidnapping, or abuse, or worse. Right? If you were in a relationship, and you could only do what the other person said, when they said it, that would be an abusive relationship. God doesn’t do that with us.

To say that God is in control without limitations on that, and I don’t mean limits we put on him, but limits he puts on himself, would force us to believe that everything that happens is by divine providence. And that’s a very scary slope to walk the edge of because how do you answer things like, “What about Hitler killing millions of Jews?” “What about the war in Ukraine claiming thousands of lives?” “What about the atrocities we are seeing in Israel and Gaza at the moment?” Is God in control? If he is, he’s not using that control very well, it would seem.

However, what I truly believe is God is in control of Himself. 100%. God decides what he does, and when he does it based on his character. And if you want to know about the character of God, study the bible from front to back with the image of Christ as your filter. Hebrews 1:3 says, / / The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God… Jesus came to reveal the Father to us, Matthew 11:27, / / “My Father has entrusted everything to me. No one truly knows the Son except the Father, and no one truly knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” And last week we talked about the fact that Jesus also said it was better that he goes away so that the Holy Spirit would come. Jesus is involved in the revealing, the unveiling of God to us as the perfect representation of the Triune God. So read your bible with that in mind. That’s why we are studying through the Sermon on the Mount, this is the heart of God through the words of Jesus to humanity.

Why say all of that? Well, this story we are going to look at today is a perfect example of Jesus, as God, being in 100% control of his own actions and knowing when to do what he was supposed to do to fulfill all that he had come to do.

Two quick passages here to who the control of Jesus over his narrative.

In John 8 Jesus is teaching, and there’s a pretty famous part, it’s where he says, / / “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (vs 31), so that’s where we’re at, and he continues, and says a bunch of stuff that gets the pharisees and the religious leaders really upset. Probably because he calls them children of the devil. I’d probably get upset at that too. They go back and forth, talking about being children of Abraham, and then Jesus says that Abraham actually looked forward to the coming of Jesus - Now, what he’s really saying when he says that is, He is the Messiah. And the people there say, “What are you talking about, you’re not even fifty years old, how can you say you’ve seen Abraham?” And this is what Jesus says, / / “I tell you the truth, before Abraham was even born, I AM!”

That I AM is a direct signal to, “I am God…” It’s Exodus 3:13-14, When God tells Moses to go to Egypt and free Israel from slavery, Moses asks God, / / “If I go to the people of Israel and tell them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ they will ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what should I tell them?” God replied to Moses, “I AM who I AM. Say this to the people of Israel: I AM has sent me to you.”

That’s what Jesus is quoting. He’s saying, I AM who I AM, which is why I know Abraham, because I AM the God who gave him the promise.

Well, listen to how the people respond, and listen to how Jesus reacts. Again, this is all showing how Jesus is in control of himself and what He has come to do. John 8:59, / / At that point they picked up stones to throw at him…

They wanted to kill him. Listen to this awesomeness. / / But Jesus was hidden from them and left the Temple.

Jesus was hidden from them? Does he have Sauron’s one ring to rule them all? Is this magic? What’s going on here?

This is the point: It was not the right time. This is not how Jesus is going to die. Not now. Not here. Not like this. And he has control over that, regardless of what the people wanted to do in the moment.. No one can take the life of Jesus - He has to be willing to give it freely. This is why he says in the garden when they come to arrest him, in Matthew 26:53-54, / / “Don’t you realize I could ask my Father for thousands of angels to protect us, and he would send them instantly? But if I did, how would the Scriptures be fulfilled that describe what must happen now?”

Jesus is in control of himself.

So, leading up to Palm Sunday, this Triumphant Entry, Jesus is taking control of the narrative of his life. Luke 9:51 says this, / / As the time drew near for him to ascend to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jersualem. The ESV says that / / he set his face toward Jerusalem.

Picture if you will that old cartoon where the bulldog stands up on his hind legs and picks up his belly and starts marching forward. That’s kind of the feeling of this word, he resolutely, or he set his face toward Jerusalem. Jesus is leaning in to his march toward Jerusalem. He’s not timid. He’s not shy about it. He’s not afraid of it. He’s resolute, which means firmly determined, he was set in your purpose.

So, the book of Mark then describes a bit further, in this journey toward Jerusalem. Mark 10:32-34, which this is also found in Matthew and Luke, but in Mark he writes, / / They were now on the way up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them. The disciples were filled with awe, and the people following behind were overwhelmed with fear. Taking the twelve disciples aside, Jesus once more began to describe everything that was about to happen to him. “Listen,” he said, “we’re going up to Jerusalem, where the Son of Man will be betrayed to the leading priests and the teachers of religious law. They will sentence him to die and hand him over to the Romans. They will mock him, spit on him, flog him with a whip, and kill him, but after three days he will rise again.”

First of all that’s a very descriptive telling of what’s going to happen. Jesus knows full well what he’s up against. Second, if YOU knew all of that was going to happen to you, would you go anyway? Would you go to a city knowing all of that was going to happen? Especially knowing that if you really wanted you could just vanish from people’s vision and escape any time you wanted?

Jesus is so in control of the narrative, as God, as the I AM. You won’t kill him if he doesn’t want you to, yet he will completely lay down his life when he’s ready. And remember what we read during Advent season this past year, “In the fullness of time, God sent forth his Son.” At the right time.

So, he’s resolutely marching toward Jerusalem, because the time is quickly approaching that he is going to lay down his life. And here we come, walking into the city, we have the Triumphant Entry.

Something really unique about this story is that it’s found in all four gospel accounts in the New Testament. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are what we call the Synoptic Gospels, synoptic meaning that they form a general summary. and there are the most parallel scriptures between those three. John kind of stands on its own. It’s a different writing style, different emphasis, and very very few times do all four writings talk about the same events. Outside of the Easter story, there are only like four times I think that the gospels all tell of an event, and this is one of them.

/ / Matthew 21:1-11

Mark 11:1-11

Luke 19:28-40

John 12:12-19

They are all fairly similar, but I’ve put them together so we get a full understanding of the story as we look at it today. I love when this happens because we get a really great overview and more in depth story because we are getting it from different angles and perspectives.

Let’s read through the story of the Triumphant Entry:

/ / Jesus went on toward Jerusalem, walking ahead of his disciples. As Jesus and the disciples approached Jerusalem, they came to the towns of Bethpage and Bethany on the Mount of Olives. Jesus sent two of them on ahead. “Go into the village over there,” he said. “As soon as you enter it, you will see a donkey tied there, with its cold beside it. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone asks what you are doing, just say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and he will immediately let you take them.”

This took place to fulfill the prophecy that said,

“Tell the people of Jerusalem, ‘Don’t be afraid, people of Jerusalem. Look, your King is coming to you. He is humble, riding on a donkey - riding on a donkey’s colt.’”

His disciples didn’t understand at the time that this was a fulfillment of prophecy. But after Jesus entered into his glory, they remembered what had happened and realized that these things had been written about him.

The two disciples did as Jesus commanded. They left and found the colt standing in the street, tied outside the front door. And sure enough, as they were untying it, some bystanders demanded, “What are you doing, untying that colt?” They said what Jesus had told them to say, “The Lord needs it.” And they were permitted to take it.

So they brought the donkey and the colt to Jesus and threw their garments over the colt for him to ride on, and he sat on it.

…the news that Jesus was on the way to Jerusalem swept through the city. Many in the crowd had seen Jesus call Lazarus from the tomb, raising him from the dead, and they were telling others about it. That was the reason so many went out to meet him - because they had heard about this miraculous sign. Then the Pharisees said to each other, “There’s nothing we can do. Look, everyone has gone after him!”

As he rode along, Most of the crowd spread their garments on the road ahead of him, and a large crowd of Passover visitors took palm branches and went down the road to meet him. Others cut leafy branches from the trees and spread them on the road. Jesus was in the center of the procession, and when he reached the place where the road started down the Mount of Olives, all of his followers [and] the people all around him began to shout and sing as they walked along, praising God for all the wonderful miracles they had seen. [They] were shouting:

“Praise God for the Son of David! Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessings on the coming Kingdom of our ancestor David! Praise God in highest heaven!”

But some of the Pharisees among the crowd said, “Teacher, rebuke your followers for saying things like that!”

He replied, “If they kept quiet, the stones along the road would burst into cheers!”

The entire city of Jerusalem was in an uproar as he entered. “Who is this?” they asked.

And the crowds replied, “It’s Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”

So Jesus came to Jerusalem and went into the Temple. After looking around carefully at everything, he left because it was late in the afternoon. Then he returned to Bethany with the twelve disciples.

The story of Jesus is truly a unique twist and turn of events. There are times where the people seem to want to kill him right there and then, as we looked at. And there are times it seems they want to crown him king. Which is it? And what is this event that’s happening as he comes into the city?

This is very indicative of the way Jesus lived and did ministry. He always seemed to be somewhere between wanting people to know, and not wanting people to know. Declaring himself as the Son of Man, or the Son of God, which was essentially saying, “I’m the Messiah you’ve been waiting for for thousands of years!” and then telling people not to tell anyone who he was.

This is all part of the control narrative, as I’ll call it. And I don’t mean that in a negative way, but absolutely in the best way possible.

When it comes to the coming of a new kingdom, there MUST be a level of secrecy. Jesus isn’t leading a coup, he’s not leading a revolution. He’s doing something that’s never been done before, and no one is going to understand it as he’s doing it. He has to be so delicate and wise in his way of doing these things or the end result will not happen the way it should.

For Jesus to fulfill the prophecies of the old testament, certain things have to happen at certain times in certain ways. And someone might look at that and say, well, isn’t that manipulation? Isn’t he just manipulating the timeline to force people to think he’s the Messiah? And to that I say a resounding and loud proclaiming, YES! Exactly.

Because he IS the messiah. He IS the one they’ve been waiting for. And it’s not like you and me stumbling into prophecy. Jesus is the one who spoke the prophecy in the first place! Jesus is God. He’s not new on the scene. Jesus does not come into existence when he’s born. He comes into the flesh when he’s born. That’s a big difference. We call that the / / incarnation, God become flesh in the body of Jesus Christ

And Jesus Christ has always existed outside of time and space, and chooses, as an act of love, to step into time and space and fulfill something we never could, conquering death and the grave by giving up his own life to be hung on a cross.

I’ve said this before and I believe it the more I think about it, Jesus is able to do what he did because he is the only one who can do what he did. If you know how video games work, there’s this thing called a cheat code. And if you know the cheat code you can do more than you can without it, you get special powers. Jesus, although it’s a terrible analogy because I would never limit Jesus in any way, but, he literally is the cheat code to humanity. He is God who became flesh, who will not cease to exist when that flesh is killed, because God cannot die. If God can die, he’s not God. Jesus is God, which means he cannot die. He knows, even though it is going to hurt, because he’s married himself to this body of flesh, he’s taken on flesh that feels pain, he’s taken on a human heart that feels emotion, stress, he has to fight off anxiety. In the Garden of Gethsemane he is in anguish to the point of sweating drops as thick as blood. That’s how intensely and deeply he loves humanity that he would become what we are in every way, shape, and form, and go through the most excruciatingly painful, disgusting, horrific, murderous death…why? Because he knows that he is God, and he cannot die, and in offering up the flesh he has, he brings us into a covenant of eternal life.

This is what Hebrews 10:5-7, 10, 14, 17-18 says, / / That is why, when Christ came into the world, he said to God, “You did not want animal sacrifices or sin offerings. But you have given me a body to offer. You were not pleased with burnt offerings or other offerings for sin. Then I said, ‘Look, I have come to do your will, O God - as is written about me in the Scriptures.’” For God’s will was for us to be made holy by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all time. For by that one offering he forever made perfect those who are being made holy. Then he says, “I will never again remember their sins and lawless deeds.” And when sins have been forgiven, there is no need to offer any more sacrifices.

This is the work of Jesus Christ through the incarnation, becoming flesh, SO THAT he could offer that body he had been given for us to become holy in the sight of God. See, Jesus as spirit can’t die. But Jesus in created flesh was given a body to offer as a sacrifice.

He knew it. The whole time. The body was a gift. To live to show us how to, and to die, so that we don’t need to. And the most beautiful part of it all is that Jesus was willing to become everything we are. To suffer like us, suffer with us, suffer for us. Self giving, self sacrificing love. He chose to die. They did not win when they killed him. He chose that we should win by HIS laying down of his own life for us.

So, I want to look at three things this morning from this short story we’ve read about Jesus riding into Jerusalem to the cheers and praise of the people around him. And I hope and pray this is encouraging for you this morning:

/ / 1. Your King is Coming To You

As the people are shouting when Jesus rides by, they call out a prophecy from Zechariah 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.

/ / Your King is coming to you.

This is a powerful statement.

Now, we always need to read scripture in context, right? So we have to make this point. This is a prophecy to Israel about the coming Messiah of Israel. But as I’ve said before, when we read old testament prophecy, although it may not have been written directly to us, we are allowed to look at the character of God within the text and see if it ALSO relates to us.

A perfect example is Jeremiah 29:11, / / “For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” Christians LOVE this verse. But, to say God says this to you or to me, is false. This was directly written to the exiled people of Israel about their eventual return from exile. Not us. However! Does scripture talk about God having plans for us, and can we read this and say, “Just like God said to Israel, he would say to us…” Well, let’s see…

Proverbs 16:9, / / We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps.

Ephesians 2:10, / / For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

Philippians 1:6, / / And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.

And then we have things like Paul quoting old testament scripture on behalf of the church he was writing to that is a gentile church. 1 Corinthians 2:9-10, / / “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.” (Isaiah 64:4). But it was to us that God revealed these things by his Spirit…

So, when we read this passage from Zechariah 9:9, / / Behold your king is coming to you, we can ask if this is something that God, through the character we see expressed in scripture, would say to us? What do you think? Do you think there’s sufficient evidence in scripture that shows God wouldn’t leave us on our own, in our sin, in our humanity, but that he actually wants to and did and will again come for us?

Of course. John 3:16, Romans 6:23, the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ. Romans 5:8, God showed His great love, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Hebrews 9:28 says that Jesus came once to bear sins, and will come a second time for those who are eagerly awaiting for him.

Also, as you continue to read Zechariah 9, when you get to vs 16 it says, / / “On that day the Lord their God will rescue his people, just as a shepherd rescues his sheep.”

What does Jesus call himself in John 10:11, / / “I am the good shepherd.”

And who has he come for? Well, he is pretty clear, yes for the lost sheep of Israel, but also, vs 16 says, / / I have other sheep, too, that are not in this sheepfold. I must bring them also. They will listen to my voice, and there will be one flock with one shepherd.

I believe that I can say confidently to you this morning, whatever you are going through. Whatever situation you are in. Whatever pain or hurt you are dealing with, your king is coming to you!

What that looks like for your situation, I don’t know. What I do know is that it will be enough. It will be exactly what you need, if you are willing and open to seeing it for what it is. And we’ll get to that in a minute.

/ / 2. If He’s said it, It will be

Second thing I want to touch on this morning is that if Jesus has said it, you can bank on it.

Jesus said to two of the disciples, Go into the town and this is what you will see and this is what is going to happen.

What happened? They went into the town, they saw what Jesus said they would see, encountered what Jesus said they would encounter, exactly as He said it would happen.

I know I’m always harping on you to read the bible, but I simply cannot stress it enough. The word of God is an anchor to our souls, it’s a lamp to our feet, a light to our path, it’s the truth that makes our foundation unbreakable.

We’ll get to it in the coming months through our going through the Sermon on the Mount, but Jesus says in Matthew 7:24-25, / / “Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock.”

Does it need to be any more plain than that? Honestly, right?

2 Timothy 3:16 says, / / All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.

Paul says just a few verses later, the importance of why he is saying this, is because in 2 Timothy 4:3 he says, / / a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear.

Now, I can promise you that to the best of my ability I will always endeavor to preach to you the word of God as God has written it to be preached. But I am not perfect. Even in a good church with good teaching you must make it a priority for yourself to read the word of God for yourself. And not just parts, or little bits, but the whole thing, over and over again. It doesn’t have to be every year you go through it. But you must be reading the bible, and not just reading, but studying. Read to comprehend, not just read to read. It’s not a novel, it’s not always an attention grabber. It won’t always have you on the edge of your seat waiting for what will come next. But it has power to transform your life. When Paul talks about scripture in 2 Timothy he’s not talking about the letter he wrote. He’s not even talking about the gospels we have. He’s talking about the Old Testament scripture. Yes, that part of the bible. The bible is all good, and the fact that there are parts we have to wrestle through to understand is, in my opinion, part of God’s intention for it.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:23, / / So when we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended and the Gentiles say it’s all nonsense.

The ESV says it this way, / / but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles.

Sometimes Scripture is a stumbling block until the Holy Spirit reveals to us the meaning and intention of scripture. Don’t write off the hard bits of scripture, invite the presence of God, the truth and leading of the Holy Spirit, and wrestle with it. It’s good for you.

Why? Because if you don’t know what God has said in his word, you don’t know how you should be praying, how you should be believing, what you should be expecting for him to do in your life. If you don’t know what he WANTS to do, how are you going to believe for it to happen? If you don’t know the promises of God, it doesn’t matter how faithful he is to those promises, you won’t even know them when they come along, because you don’t know what to look for.

So, read the bible, pray the bible, believe the bible and trust that if God has said it, just like Jesus telling the disciples to go get a donkey and it all just turns out exactly as he said, the word of God is true and faithful. Another great prophecy, Jeremiah 1:12, / / And the Lord said, “That’s right, and it means that I am watching, and I will certainly carry out all my plans.” The ESV says, / / “I am watching over my word to perform it.”

Let’s believe that God is true to his word, and that as we read it, digest it, and believe for it, we will see, in our time, the fulfillment of his promises in our lives.

/ / 3. It Might Not Look Like You Expect

I know, I said I would get back to this. And this is a big one. But how God answers prayers, how he is faithful to his word, is not ours to decide. It’s Him and Him alone. God is faithful, but we don’t always see it as that because we were looking for something else. And I would suggest that might be one of the most difficult things for our humanity to grasp. As we learn more about who God is. As we dig into scripture more and are confronted with our own ideologies about God, that we realize were wrong.

When the two disciples were told to go get the donkey, John 12:16 says, / / His disciples didn’t understand at that time that this was a fulfillment of prophecy.

We’ve talked about this before, but Israel had an understanding that when their Messiah would come, he would be a military leader come to set the people free from Roman rule, and reestablish the kingdom of Israel as a physical nation on the earth. Of course we know, on this side of the crucifixion and resurrection, that wasn’t what Jesus intended. That was a very limiting view of what Jesus had come to do. Way too small. Jesus came with a much bigger purpose and scope in mind.

So I think maybe when John says they didn’t understand, it’s because Jesus said go get a donkey. I didn’t know this, but if a king rode into a city on a horse, it meant they were there for war, but if a king rode into a city on a donkey, it meant they were there for peace. So you could tell the intention of the king as they rode into the city by the very animal they were riding in on. Did the disciples want a victorious, horse riding, conquering, war ready king?

Is this why the Roman soldiers aren’t put off as the whole city is shouting, “See, O Jerusalem, your KING comes riding to you on a donkey.”

“Oh, it’s all good, he’s not here to fight. He’s riding a donkey”

There’s an additional portion of scripture in the book of Luke. Luke 19:41-44, first, it says that Jesus, as he was approaching Jerusalem begins to weep, and he said this, / / “How I wish today that you of all people would understand the way to peace. But now it is too late, and peace is hidden from your eyes. Before long your enemies will build ramparts against your walls and encircle you and close in on you from every side. They will crush you into the ground, and your children with you. Your enemies will not leave a single stone in place, because you did not recognize it when God visited you.”

Sure enough, 40 or so years later Jerusalem is ransacked. In about 66 AD the Jews revolt against Israel, and start a war that lasts for about 7 years, and in April of 70 AD three days before passover, the Roman army in all its force besieged Jerusalem. Over the next 6 months the Romans slowly took over the city, breaking down the first, second and third city walls, eventually burning the Temple and tearing the city to the ground.

And why was it that Jesus had said this? Because they did not recognize it when God had visited them. And he was talking about himself. The Messiah, come to rescue them, but in a way they couldn’t see, and they kept their militant notions that the physical Temple and the physically established Israel was the way the Messiah would come. They wanted a king on a horse, not a suffering servant on a donkey.

Have you ever wanted to demand justice, but God wants you to show mercy?

Have you ever wanted provision, yet God saw fit to let you learn to be content with what little you have?

Have you ever wanted God to deliver you, yet, he let you go through the trial and the sorrow so you would grow in character?

There are many reasons we can look at the situations of our lives and think, “That doesn’t feel like God is doing a good thing here.” And yet we have to look and see beyond what we think should happen. We need to learn to not dictate to God how He should be God, but allow God to be God in our lives as He sees fit.

“But I need a king on a horse!”

“Sorry, he’s on a donkey today…”

This is why Jesus starts the Sermon on the Mount with the Beatitudes, correcting the people’s understanding of what it truly means to be blessed. Not blessed like the Romans would say in having all the things, but blessed, happier, knowing that God is for us, not against us, and that He is faithful, and we can find contentment in Him.

I want to pray for you this morning.

If you are here, or if you are joining us online and you are really going through it. Maybe you feel like life is just not fair. Trust me, I know. I’ve been there. Or you’ve been dealing with pain, or heartache for too long and you don’t know why God hasn’t just taken it away. Or maybe it’s sickness, or depression, of financial issues, job issues, whatever it may be - I want to pray for you today that you would feel the encouragement of the Holy Spirit that:

/ / Your King is Coming To You

If He’s Said It, It Will Be

It Might Not Be As You Expect