The Arrival of the Promised King
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Intro:
- It is a blessing to be here with you all today, specially as we celebrate Palm Sunday. I am always blessed every time I get to come here to Real Life Calvary Chapel and dig into God’s word with you.
- Would you turn with me to Matt. 21. Would you join me in praying for today’s message. ………..PRAY……..
- A few months ago my wife, myself and a few friends decided to go see Phil Wickham in concert at the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles. This was a new venue and ….. it was our first time being at this venue.
- From what I knew, the venue had just opened a couple weeks before we came to see our concert. Now one of the things that makes this venue unique is the face recognition technology it has. The venue is trying this new, all technology based service.
- There is no cash or card usage….. all purchases have to be done over your phone, in a digital transaction. The concession stands are very similar to the Amazon stores, where you just pick up what you want and pay with your phone on the way out.
- Now what really threw me off was when I was downloading the tickets to my phone prior to arriving to the venue. One of the features was a face recognition feature that allowed you to save your ticket on your device with your face.
- Now most of us already have this feature on our iphones as security. But what made it different here, was that once you arrived, they had an entrance that was all facial recognition, in other words, once you downloaded the ticket to your device and linked it with your face, you could simply walk into the venue without a ticket, you were scanned as you walked in.
- This is a way of improving safety and efficiency…… now as long as the system is able to recognize face id’s , safety and efficiency were improved.
- The problem is when the system is not able to recognize the Face ID’s. See a week before we went to this concert, there was a problem with the systems ability to recognize faces on the first concrete they implemented this technology.
- Because of the system failures, they had huge delays and were not able to allow people into the venue, matter of fact the concrete started 2 hours late because of these system failures. There were huge lines and chaos outside of the stadium, of people trying to get in. All the people saying they were who they said they were, but the system unable to confirm that.
Transition
- The reason I am saying this is because of our story that we will be looking at today.
- See in the Gospel of Matthew, Matthew is attempting to prove the reality that Jesus is the promised coming King, the Promised Messiah. And from the very beginning of this Gospel, Matthew is making a point to show all of the different characteristics and confirmations of Jesus being the promised Messiah.
- Even in our passage today, you will see so many different characteristics and confirmations of Jesus being who God said HE was , and who Prophets prophecied about, yet because of a system failure in their understanding if you will…… the Jewish people were unable to see the reality of who Jesus was.
- See no matter how many characteristics confirm who you are, if the system in place is not properly registering those characteristics with your identity, we will not be identified as the person we say we are.
- And so today, as we look at Palm Sunday, we want to see the Importance of this day, and also to look at the Characteristics of who Jesus is, and we will look at why this is important to you and me today.
- So we are going to do this by looking at ……
I. God’s Sovereignty through His Word
II. God’s Sovereignty through His timing
III. God’s Sovereignty through His Methods
IV. The Response to God’s Sovereignty
- I broke it down this way to make it easier to remember and easier to track with the passage.
- Now that word “sovereignty” – speaks of the biblical teaching that all things are under God’s rule and control, and that nothing happens without His direction or permission.
- That is important to understand. With that said, lets dig in.
I. God’s Sovereignty through His Word ( Matt. 21:1-8)
Read. V. 1
A. Background of our story ( Mat. 21:1)
- Now we have to set the stage and gather information on the background of our story today in order to get the full picture. One of the neat things about this story is that it is recorded in all 4 Gospels. By looking at all 4 accounts, we get to see a full and complete picture of what happened.
- In Matt. 20 we see that Jesus was leaving Jericho and was making His was up to Jerusalem with His disciples.
- Now we need to understand that during this time of year, the time of Passover, the city of Jerusalem and the surrounding cities would be filled with people coming to celebrate the Passover.
- Now according to Jewish law, it was required for males from 20 years and older to travel to Jerusalem to celebrate 3 specific feast each year.
3 Feasts
1. The Feast of Unleavened Bread ( Passover)
- This started on the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Nisan. This will be important later.
2. The feast of Weeks ( Pentecost) took place 50 days after Passover
3. The feast of Tabernacles – which took place in sept/ oct.
- Now in our story, we are coming up to the Passover feast, and as part of the requirement, you would have Jewish families coming from all over the area to Jerusalem to celebrate this feast.
- Josephus a Jewish historian wrote that during this time of year, they would sacrifice up to 250,000 lambs.
- If each lamb, was able to atone 10 people, most estimate that during this time, you could have anywhere from 1.5 to 2.5 million people in Jerusalem and the surrounding cities.
- So, we see Jesus go from Jericho and make his way up to the city of Bethany where we would see Him stay at the house of His friends Marty, Martha and Lazarus. John 12:1-11 tells us this. He was more than likely staying here because all the cities were completely packed.
- Now in our story in Matt. 21, we see that as Jesus is making his way to Bethany, they came to Bethpage, which was at the mount of Olives. I have a picture here to help us get a better picture.
- SHOW PICTURE #1
- You see in this map that Bethpage is in the middle of Jerusalem and Bethany. Bethany is approximately 1 mile from Bethpage and Bethpage is another mile to Jerusalem. This is where our story today will be taking place.
Transition
- Now as we jump back into our story to look at The Sovereignty of God through His word, we want to look at 2 specific words that were fulfilled that reveal to us the Sovereignty of God, that reveal that God is in control of all things.
B. Jesus’ Prophetic words Fulfilled ( Mt. 21:1-7)
- As they are on there way to Bethany, they come to Bethpage and Jesus tells 2 of His disciples to go into the City opposite of them and there they would find a donkey tied up with a young colt with it.
- Jesus tells them to untie the donkey and the colt and to bring it to Him, and if anyone says anything, to simply say, “the Lord has need of it”.
- Now when you really think about it, it sounds like a crazy thing to ask. You mean go into a city and walk around until we find a donkey and a colt tied together at someone’s house and simply unite them and take them…..
- What if there is no donkey and colt ? What if there is a donkey but the owner comes out and calls us thieves? What if we get arrested or beaten or stoned?
- But it is interesting, that we don’t see the disciples question Jesus, we see in verse 6, it tells us that the disciples simply just went and did what Jesus told them to do.
- By now the disciples have possibly learned not to question Jesus when He tells them to do something out of their understanding. They had seen him take a little boys lunch and feed the multitude with it. They had seen Jesus calm the raging storms on the Sea of Galilee, seen Him walk on water, turn water into wine, raised Lazarus from the dead, healed the blind and crippled…… at this point, they simply go
- And we see that the disciples found the donkey and the colt just as Jesus had told them.
Transition
- Now some have speculated that Jesus must have prearranged this before hand which is why the disciples found the donkey with no problems.
- It is possible, but weather Jesus prearranged this meeting before hand naturallyor weather this was a supernatural act……. The result is the same….. Jesus’ words were accurate and true, and were fulfilled just as He said.
- Time and time again we see Jesus speak forth truth, and not only does he speak truth , He is truth.
John 14:6
“I am the way , the truth and the life”
- This signifies that Jesus is not just a teacher of truth, but the ultimate source and embodiment of truth. One of the important characteristics of Jesus we have to take note of.
- Now the 2nd word we want to look at is, the Prophetic word spoken of by the prophet of the Messiah fulfilled here.
C. Prophetic words of the Messiah Fulfilled ( MT. 21:4-5)
- Now one of the things that Jesus said to his disciples when he sent them to bring the donkey was that if they were asked about it, to say “the Lord has need of it”.
- This is an oxymoron when you think about it. The Lord over all, who has been sent by God the Father, who has been performing supernatural miracles, who has been walking all over Israel, needs a young donkey to ride on for 2 miles?
- See what He meant is seen in verse 4 & 5. He tells us the purpose to why He needed this young donkey. In order to fulfill what was spoken of by the prophet. Jesus here is quoting
“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 and riding on a donkey,
A colt, the foal of a donkey.
- Zechariah prophesied 500 years before this day came to be, about HOW the promised Messiah would enter into Jerusalem.
- Interesting that Zechariah spoke about the King coming humbly riding the foal of a donkey. During the days of Jesus, the Roman conquers would enter the cities victoriously riding a horse, displaying their strength…..
- This is a complete contrast of what both Zechariah spoke about and how Jesus entered Jerusalem here in our story. He entered with humility as the prince of peace.
- So the donkey and the colt were necessary in order for Jesus to fulfill the very words spoken of 500 years earlier.
Transition
- In both the words of Jesus and the words of Zechariah, you get the same picture…..
God’s word is true, it does not fail, it is from everlasting to everlasting … this is seen in the fulfillment of these words.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
But the word of our God stands forever.”
Forever, O Lord,
Your word is settled in heaven.
Gods word is perfect
As for God, His way is perfect;
The word of the Lord is proven;
He is a shield to all who trust in Him.
Every word of God is pure;
He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him.
- You and I can take great comfort in the reality that God’s word is everlasting and does not change because God doesn’t change. His promises to you and I don’t change. And the things that God says to you and I in His word are true and will come to pass…… He shows His sovereignty in our lives through His very words, the words that hold the universe together as Heb. 1:3
who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
- God not only gives us promises in His word, but HE holds us together by the power of His word. When you and I are falling apart due to our circumstances……. We can turn to His word, and be completely sustained in that moment. HE holds us together by the power of HIS word.
- And our confidence comes by seeing the very words God has spoken, come to pass even in our story.
- Matthew here is showing the Jewish readers how Jesus is a direct fulfillment of Zechariahs prophecy. Gods very words are fulfilled.
II. God’s Sovereignty through His timing
- In the gospels, you see multiple times the disciples try to elevate and reveal Jesus to the people as being the promised Messiah and King. Yet, time and time again specifically in the Gospel of John, you see Jesus make this comment….. “my time has not come”.
- Even Jesus’ mother in John 2 would rush Jesus to do a miracle at the Canan wedding feast. You remember that they ran out of wine, and Mary wanted Jesus to do something about it.
- John 2:4
And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.”
- In other words, the timing of the His revelation as the promised Messiah was important. It had to be at a specific time. He could not rush his revelation.
- The revelation would have to be at the exact time that the Lord had planned and had prophesied about hundreds of years earlier.
- The time was now.
Transition
- We not only see how the Messiah would enter into the City, but we are also given insight as to when the Messiah would reveal himself
- In Dan. 9:24-25, we see another prophecy concerning the coming of the Messiah.
“Seventy [a]weeks are determined
For your people and for your holy city,
To finish the transgression,
[b]To make an end of sins,
To make reconciliation for iniquity,
To bring in everlasting righteousness,
To seal up vision and prophecy,
And to anoint [c]the Most Holy.
25 “Know therefore and understand,
That from the going forth of the command
To restore and build Jerusalem
Until Messiah the Prince,
There shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks;
The [d]street shall be built again, and the [e]wall,
Even in troublesome times.
- Daniel gets this vision while in Babylon during the 70 years of captivity. The temple and the City of Jerusalem had been destroyed, the Nation of Israel had been taken into captivity first by the Assyrians, late by the Babylonians.
- One of the things that Daniel tells us is when the Messiah will be revealed to the Nation of Israel. Daniel tells us that from the date that the decree goes out to start rebuilding the city and the walls of Jerusalem until the coming of the Messiah, there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks.
- In other words, the timeframe would be 69 units of weeks, or 7 year periods. 69 periods of 7 years is 483 years. The timeframe is 483 years from the date that the decree would be given to rebuild Jerusalem and the walls until the Messiah would walk into Jerusalem
- Now, in Jewish history; there were 3 different decrees given by foreign kings to Israel to return to Israel and rebuild.
Decrees to rebuild
1. The Decree of King Cyrus- order to Ezra to go to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple
2. The Decree of King Darius – which was in line with Cyrus’ order.
3. The Decree of King Artaxerxes – to Nehemiah
- Only King Artaxerxes decree fits what Daniel saw,
- In Neh. 2, we see King Artaxerxes made a decree giving Nehemiah permission, safe passage and supplies to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the city and the walls in 445 B.C. (Nehemiah 2:1-8).
- Now a man by the name of Sir Robert Anderson did significant work in his book- The Coming Prince , followed this argument in great detail. He stated that 483 years were completed at the triumphal entry of Jesus (A.D. 32)..
- · Anderson, using a 360-day year Babylonian calendar (which Israel used in Daniel’s day), calculated 173,880 days from the decree to the triumphal entry, fulfilling the prophecy to the very day.
- The decree was given by Artaxertes in Neh 2:1 on March 14th 445 BC.
- Because the Calendar during Daniels time was a 360 days calendar, we would need to transpose the 483 years into days, in order to figure out the time of the coming of the Messiah. 483 years times 360 days would give you 173,880 days. And if you take those days and then work that out on our 365 day calendar, you find it comes out to the date April 6, 32 A.D
- On April 6, 32 AD, Jesus enters into Jerusalem fulfilling the exact timeframe that was prophesied by Daniel hundreds of years earlier.
- I find this amazing that God knew exactly when Jesus would enter Jerusalem to the very day. You see now, why Jesus would say, “my time has not come”. He was aware that there was a specific time that needed to be fulfilled in order for Him to be revealed as the promised king.
Transition
- I want you to think about your own life. Think about the things that you have been praying for, the things that haven’t come to pass yet. We can often get discouraged because these things don’t come to pass, yet I want you to understand, that just because God says no today…… does not mean that he is finished with your circumstance. Understand, that God is working your life out according to His perfect timing. He knows when you are supposed to get that spouse, he knows when you are supposed to get that job, when you are supposed to get that promotion, when you are supposed to have the next child, when your prodigal will come back to the Lord……..
- Just because we don’t have a yes today, does not mean that God does not see my needs or wants……. It simply means that His timing is not yet, He is in control of our lives and knows what is best for us today.
For the Lord God is a sun and shield;
The Lord will give grace and glory;
No good thing will He withhold
From those who walk uprightly.
- If the Lord is saying no to me today, it means it is not what is best for me today…… but in His timing, He will bring forth His promises.
- Take courage that God is working out every detail of your life to the very day and minute. God is in control of all things.
III. God’s Sovereignty through His Methods ( Mt. 21:6-9)
- Now we see that the disciples brought the donkey and the colt and laid their clothes on it and Jesus mounted the young colt. A colt was a young donkey that had not been ridden or broken in. Jesus rode a donkey that had never been ridden or that was not broken in.
- This itself is a miracle and a sign of God’s power and authority over nature. Imagine practically the scene with me, you have a colt that has never had anyone sit on his back, you have Jesus sitting on this colt, going down this road from the Mount of Olives down to the temple mount, with a large crowd pressing them and screaming praise…..
- A normal colt would be bucking and flipping out, yet here you see this miracle of the donkey allowing himself to be ridden.
- We see the crowd laying their clothes on the road. Johns account tells us that they were cutting palm branches and spreading them on the ground. Both the laying of the clothes and the palm branches were a sign of praise and victory . they would proclaim “Hosanna, Hosanna”, which means…. “save now, save now”.
- They were quoting ps. 118, which is a Messianic psalm.
- The people were under the assumption that the coming Messiah would come as a conquering king to overthrow the Roman empire, they wanted victory. They were crying out for salvation from Rome.
- They did not understand that the Messiah came to conquer death and sin that plaqued humanity, He would bring victory over death in a few days.
- The crowd was a mixture of His disciples who believed in Him, but did not understand How God would bring victory and people who just jumped on the band wagon and started to celebrate with an incorrect understanding of what was happening..
Transition
- In Mt. 20:17-19-, Jeus tried to explain to His disciples what was about to happen. He understood that this was the beginning of the end of His earthly ministry. At the end of this week, He would pay the ultimate price with His life.
Now Jesus, going up to Jerusalem, took the twelve disciples aside on the road and said to them, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death, and deliver Him to the Gentiles to mock and to scourge and to crucify. And the third day He will rise again.”
- Even with all that the disciples heard and saw in the last 3 years of being with Jesus, they still did not fully grasp what was happening.
John 12:16
“these things His disciples did not understand at the first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written of Him, and that they had done these things for Him”.
- So you see that even the disciples had a wrong understanding of how God was going to bring salvation through the Messiah.
- The Jewish people were even more lost to the situation. Even while Jesus was fulfilling all of these prophecies, they were still unable to see the true characteristics of who Jesus was, HE was the Messiah.
- In Lukes account as Jesus comes to Jerusalem we see that Jesus weeps over the city and says this….
saying, “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”
- Jesus weeps as HE sees that the people did not recognize that He was the Messiah and He was revealing himself to them, instead they rejected him. Many of the people who were in the bandwagon crowd crying out “hosanna”, would be among those crying out….”crucify Him” in a few days.
Transition
- God knew what the world needed was not to conquer the Roman empire, but to conquer death and the power of sin. And the only way to do that was by a perfect sacrifice. The sacrifice of His Son on the cross, that through His blood, the world would be saved, and we would be able to declare complete victory over death and sin.
- Now remember that i mentioned earlier that Passover was held on the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Nissan. That day was the day that they were saved from Egypt.
- Now according to Ex. 12:3, 5 days earlier from the Passover, the people were to select the lambs that they were sacrifice on Passover, that would be the 10th of Nissan.
- This day that Jesus is entering into Jerusalem is the 10th of Nissan, the day that the Lord has chosen His perfect blameless lamb that would be sacrificed for the world, and yet even with this understanding…… the Jewish people could not connect the dots. They had system failures and could not recognize Jesus for who He was.
Application
- The reality is that we may not always understand what God is doing or how He is working in our lives. But we must understand that while we do not see the entire picture, God see our entire lives from beginning to end, and sees all things.
- We must find confidence in the promise that He is working all things out for my good even when it doesn’t seem like it. as Rom. 8:28 says
- We must find confidence in the promise that He has good plans for me, even before I was born, He had ordained my steps. Jer. 1:5, 29:11 say
- God is in control of my life, he ordains my steps.
IV. The Response to God’s Sovereignty (Matt. 21:10-11)
- now as they entered the City we are told that all in the City were stirred, they were moved by what was happening.
- And they began to ask a question….. “who is this?”
- Think this through with me, after everything that we have looked at, there should have been no way that these Jewish people in the City did not recognize who this was. There is no way that they could have missed the characteristics that proved Jesus was the Messiah….. and yet , they had to ask who this was.
- The reality is that even today as in our story, we have all of the facts laid before us, we have all of the truth at our finger tips…… and we will all have to make a decision on who we think Jesus is.
- You see here in our story that they people said Jesus was a prophet from Nazareth, they missed the truth about who He was.
- You see this even with the religious leaders in Luke’s account.
And some of the Pharisees called to Him from the crowd, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.”
But He answered and said to them, “I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.”
- The religious leaders who understood the prophecies and scriptures more than the regular people and should have known and seen who Jesus was…. Yet, they missed it. They tell Him to stop His disciples from praising Him….
- This is the first time we see Jesus allow for His worship, even in this statement…. He is declaring Himself to be God and worthy of praise.
Question
-Who is Jesus to you in your life? Is He a good teacher, a good man, a religious figure? Is he someone that we remember on holidays once or twice a year?
- Or is HE the Lord of Lords, the Savior of the World, the one worthy to be praised…… the one whose words are true and everlasting, who does not change … the one who holds the universe together , the one who is working out all the details of my life…….
- The one who came to save me by giving his life……. If this is who Jesus is to you and I, then we enter this week with Gratitude for God’s love, Mercy, sacrifice and forgiveness..
