04 | Advent 2025 | Zechariah 9:9-11 | The Coming King Who Saves

READ Zechariah 9:9-11

PRAY

INTRODUCTION

Amos — Coming Kingdom

Micah — Strong Shepherd

Habakkuk — Living Faith

Zechariah — Peace on Earth

Zephaniah — Divine Presence

Zechariah is the prophecy that sets the state for the coming of Jesus the King.

This morning, this passage in Zechariah points us most clearly to its fulfillment in the gospels.

So, we will follow the scripture in Zechariah …

… but as we draw close to Christmas

… our focus this morning will be on Zechariah’s fulfillment with the coming of King Jesus.

PRAY

5:00

(Intro to first point)

Zechariah prophecies to a people in exile.

Amos, Micah and Habakkuk have all been prophets that speak of impending judgement.

This judgement would take the form of the destruction of Israel and Judah …

… and the exile and dispersion among the nations.

Zechariah is speaking to a people after the exile who are beginning to return to the land.

He is warning them because they are falling into the same patterns of sin that originally caused their exile.

Zechariah 1:4 ESV

Do not be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets cried out, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, Return from your evil ways and from your evil deeds.’

The issue is clear.

It is not that there was this bad generation of Israelites in the past who needed to be judged ...

… and now we are done with that because somehow people are different these days, after the exile.

Righteousness and salvation are not a matter of trading one generation for a new one.

THE HOPE OF A NEW GENERATION

7:00

During the course of my life there has always been talk about if there is hope for America in the younger generation.

But as the generations have come, one after another …

Generation X seemed cynical and hopeless. The Millenials seemed therapeutic and self-indulgent. Gen Z seems anxious and uncertain.

Maybe the answer is never a hope found in the next generation.

Maybe the answer is not found within a culture and its generations.

There is no righteous generation.

The people of every generation are a people in need of salvation.

The generations and its people are never the answer, but remain the problem.

What is needed is not someone from within the culture, but from without to come, to invade, interrupt and intervene.

What is needed is that a King would come and save the daughters of the people.

10:00

Read v9.

Rejoicing is a Response to Promise

Rejoice greatly! Shout aloud!

Joy is the clearly expected response to the long awaited coming of the Lord.

This is important because, as we will see with the coming of Jesus, it was not the rising up of a new generation.

The Lord God, the King of creation, stepped into the generation, taking on flesh as one of the people.

Yet, he does not become an example to be followed …

… to build a movement of righteousness.

He becomes a righteous substitute and sacrifice …

… making peace by the blood of his sacrifice.

This is the king who comes!

And the Lord, by his prophet, Zechariah, calls the people to rejoice at his coming!

13:00

“Behold, your king is coming to you!”

The story is the same for every generation and for every people.

Every generation is a pattern …

… perhaps of some measure of greatness.

We have seen it at times, whether King David or Solomon …

… or Josiah’s reforms.

But these were just shadows of the righteousness and peace that was yet to come.

We have echoes that appear even in more recent generations.

Consider the theological recoveries of the Reformation.

The political innovations of the American founding.

Or, the brave sacrifices of the Greatest Generation.

But no generation is the righteous generation.

And no generation is able to save itself.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

It is the error that goes all the way back to Babel.

There is no people that will build the eternal city.

There is no generation that will rise to the heights of glory.

What is needed is that this very glory of God would come and visit us.

That he would come and dwell among us.

That he would rule over us.

Zechariah is serving to give a right and true orientation to the people’s hope and longing.

Their longing and expectation is right.

They ought to be on the edge of our seat—waiting to spring into rejoicing and shouting …

… when the King comes!

17:00

APPLY

Is this good news to you?

This is Advent, a season of longing for the final coming of the King.

But this week is Christmas.

It is right that we rejoice and shout with joy.

Jesus is the lone and singular righteous generation.

18:00

Rejoice, the king is coming! But …

THE VICTORY OF THE KING

Okay, let’s say we humble ourselves enough to admit that no generation will rise up to save themselves.

But, when the king comes, he will surely assert the people’s dominance over all the other peoples.

He’s going to come and show the world just how great we really are.

1 Samuel 8:19–20 ESV

“No! But there shall be a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.”

Won’t it be great when the king mounts up on his horse to carry the people into victorious battle!

Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

21:00

The King is Humble

Horse = coming to make or having made war

Donkey = coming to make or having made peace

What is humble about the donkey?

He comes in peace.

He will not be a warrior to lead the people in battle, but a peacemaker.

He will not need the warhorse because he and his people are at peace.

The image is one of peace and not conquest.

When Jesus self-consciously fulfills this scripture by riding into Jerusalem on a donkey …

… he was not merely demonstrating a Messianic fulfillment.

He was making a prophetic statement about the nature of his kingship.

His is the kingdom spoken about by Zechariah.

His is the kingdom, not of a conquering nation …

… but of a people for whom peace has been secured.

24:00

Given the Roman subjugation of the people …

… it would seem that Jesus was the wrong king for the moment

… unless his kingdom, which was at hand, is not a kingdom of this world.

Unless, the peace that was most needed was not secured by a victory over subjugating nations.

Jesus knows that the greatest issue facing the people is not their relationship to Assyria or Babylon, Greece or Rome …

… but their covenant relationship with God.

25:00

APPLY

When Jesus, the King, comes, he does not set himself up as the figurehead for the greatness of a people.

His coming does not reveal some preexistent power and righteousness among the people.

He is not a flexing of the people’s victorious might.

When Jesus comes, having taken on human flesh among the people …

… he enters the capital city in humility.

The work he is to do there is not the flexing of power among the nations …

… but the humble obedience of his substitutionary sacrifice before God.

Yes, he rises up for the people …

… as he is lifted up on a Roman cross.

Jesus is not the capstone for the rising of a righteous and victorious people.

He is the cornerstone, the founding righteousness of a repentant people.

28:00

Zechariah is fulfilled at the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem.

When the people proclaim, “Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”

So, how is the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem triumphal?

What is his triumph?

Jesus is clear in speaking to his disciples, just before Mark 11 and the triumphal entry, as to the nature of his kingship.

Mark 10:45 For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

The triumph of Jesus at his first coming is the giving of his own life to purchase a people for his kingdom.

30:00

THE KING ENTERS HIS HOUSE

Mark 11:11 ESV

And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple. And when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

Jesus went straight to the temple, his house. But he did not stay there because his time was not yet come.

It is anticlimactic.

He enters the temple, but it seems like nothing happens.

Jesus would not be confessed again as Messiah in Mark until the centurion at the cross (Mark 15:39).

The Lord and King comes to conquer.

But he conquers not by war, but in humble sacrifice secures the final peace.

Read Zechariah 9:11.

First he would secure, by the blood of the covenant, the right to the kingdom for all who were exiled because of sin.

Before he takes up residence in his house, he will secure a people to dwell there with him forever.

In his first coming, the Lord secures peace with God …

… before he finalizes peace on earth when he comes again.

34:00

APPLY

Zechariah proclaims the joy of the King’s coming.

He rejoices in the hope of righteousness and the salvation which brings peace.

But Zechariah, as with all the prophets, holds the reality of judgement before our eyes.

Brothers and sisters, as sinners we are right to consider judgement.

Before a holy God, all people of every generation, are justly condemned.

We would do well to cry, Hosanna! Save, we pray!

And when the King, the Lord comes, he takes the place of sinners.

All of his life has been the righteous life that we ourselves have failed to live.

And when judgement falls in Jerusalem it falls upon his own back.

It falls with the Roman whips and the Roman nails.

The glory of the Lord, descending from the Mount of Olives into the city of Jerusalem …

… then climbs upon onto a cross and bears our guilt and shame.

Hosanna! Save, we pray!

37:00

Again Zechariah 9:11.

God himself fulfills the covenant by passing through the judgement guaranteed for the breaking of the covenant.

By his own blood he has made peace.

At the Lord’s supper, after triumphal entry …

Jesus again places himself at the center of both covenant judgement and covenant salvation.

Matthew 26:28 ESV

for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

Ian Duguid The blood that would be shed to bring us peace was his blood. The righteous King had to die in place of his unrighteous followers, the Good Shepherd in place of his unfaithful flock, so that God could accomplish his eternal purposes.

39:00

Jesus goes to war against his enemies by the sacrifice he performed on the cross.

He is mighty in victory, but he needs no warhorse.

He comes, riding a donkey and taking up a cross.

And all who follow him by faith, confess that that cross, with its guilt and shame …

… belonged to us, but was taken by Jesus in our place.

His blood, was the blood of the covenant, shed for the forgiveness of our sin.

By his blood he has secured peace with God.

40:00

Jesus, the King, came riding on a donkey.

But even Zechariah points to another coming.

Read Zechariah 9:14.

THE DAY OF CONQUEST IS COMING

Revelation also has this image.

Revelation 19:11–16 ESV

Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.

The Lord, in his first coming, has set the cornerstone of our faith …

… the foundation of all righteousness and peace.

But on that cornerstone of grace, he will establish the whole of his house.

He has conquered sin and death …

… and his second coming he will establish his rule over all the nations.

He will put down every rebellion and … (v10)

his rule shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.

44:00

APPLY

Behold, your king is coming to you

Jesus was self-conscious about fulfilling this passage.

He is the one for whom we shout at his coming.

There are only two ways to receive the King.

Rejoice at the King who comes:

righteous and having salvation

humble and mounted on a donkey.

Or, tremble before the King who comes:

righteous and making war

faithful and true upon a white horse.

45:00

APPLY

Brothers and sisters, we put no hope in ourselves.

Our rejoicing does not await any generation to save us.

We cannot save ourselves.

The King has come and he is coming again.

Joy stands upon the reality of the coming of the King.

The Lord has secured the most precious ground of peace …

… which is peace with God.

Faith in God rejoices at his coming.

48:00