Hosanna

Introduction

[READING - Matthew 21:1-11]

Matthew 21:1–11 NASB95

1 When they had approached Jerusalem and had come to Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied there and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to Me. 3 “If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord has need of them,’ and immediately he will send them.” 4 This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet: 5 “Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold your King is coming to you, Gentle, and mounted on a donkey, Even on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’ ” 6 The disciples went and did just as Jesus had instructed them, 7 and brought the donkey and the colt, and laid their coats on them; and He sat on the coats. 8 Most of the crowd spread their coats in the road, and others were cutting branches from the trees and spreading them in the road. 9 The crowds going ahead of Him, and those who followed, were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David; Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest!” 10 When He had entered Jerusalem, all the city was stirred, saying, “Who is this?” 11 And the crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth in Galilee.”

[PRAYER]

[CONTEXT] In Matthew 21:1-11, only days from His crucifixion on Passover, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a young, never-before-ridden donkey as His disciples and others hailed Him as Israel’s Messiah.

[CIT] By intentionally fulfilling messianic prophecy, Jesus not only claimed to be the Messiah but also demonstrated the sort of Messiah He was, which was very different from the sort of Messiah that the people of that day expected.

That’s one thing about Jesus as Messiah, He will not be defined by the misguided expectations of others—not the misguided expectations of the crowds, of His own disciples, or of anyone else.

It seems that most people think of Jesus as a Messiah they can personalize. They think they can take all the parts of Jesus they don’t like and get rid of them. They think they can take all the stuff they like in the secular world and add it to Jesus.

But just as Jesus won’t be defined by anyone’s expectations, Jesus won’t be personalized to suit anyone’s tastes—even when they say and do nice things like we see in Matthew 21:8-9…

Matthew 21:8–9 NASB95

8 Most of the crowd spread their coats in the road, and others were cutting branches from the trees and spreading them in the road. 9 The crowds going ahead of Him, and those who followed, were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David; Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest!”

The spreading of the cloaks on the road before Jesus represented their submission to Him.

But most in the crowd wouldn’t submit to Jesus as Messiah when they saw—really saw—the kind of Messiah He really was.

The palm branches were a symbol of Jewish national victory.

But most in the crowd wouldn’t recognize the victory that Jesus won for the true people of God when they saw the kind of Messiah He came to be.

‘Hosanna’ was a Hebrew expression meaning ‘O save.’

But most in this crowd wouldn’t truly call on Jesus as Savior when they saw the way this salvation was won.

‘Son of David’ means that these people recognized Jesus as King, the fulfillment of 2 Samuel 7, the promised king from the line of David who would sit on the throne of Israel forever.

But most in this crowd would ultimately deny Jesus as King especially when He had a sign above His head that read, “This is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.”

It was right and fitting for these people to worship Jesus as Messiah, Savior, and King for He was and is Messiah, Savior, and King!

But for most who did so, it was as Jesus said in Matthew 15:8, “This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far away from Me.”

And why was this the case? It was because they had misguided wants and expectations of the Messiah and refused to believe the true Messiah who rode before them as King in Matthew 21 and would soon die for them as Savior on Good Friday.

[PROP] If we want to be true disciples of Jesus then we must understand Jesus truly and believe Him as He is.

[INTER] So, who is Jesus?

[TS] Let’s notice two answers from Matthew 21:1-11…

Major Ideas

Jesus is Messiah (Matthew 21:1-5)

Matthew 21:1–5 NASB95

1 When they had approached Jerusalem and had come to Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied there and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to Me. 3 “If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord has need of them,’ and immediately he will send them.” 4 This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet: 5 “Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold your King is coming to you, Gentle, and mounted on a donkey, Even on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’ ”

[EXP] In his gospel, Matthew often uses the fulfillment formula to point out OT prophecies concerning the Messiah that Jesus fulfilled. It’s the formula we see in v. 4, which says, “This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet...” Matthew uses this formula to prove that Jesus is actually the Messiah promised in the OT, the promised deliverer who brings salvation and redemption.

What’s interesting in Matthew 21 is that we see Jesu intentionally fulfilling the messianic prophecy from Zechariah 9:9, which says…

Zechariah 9:9 ESV

9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! 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.

Other times when Jesus fulfilled messianic prophecy, we aren’t told whether He intentionally did so or if was just coincidence. Now, we know that it wasn’t coincidence, but some have taken that approach and concluded that Jesus was just caught up in the want for the Messiah in that day. The emotionalism of the crowd essentially forced Him into the Messiah-role and that emotionalism eventually got Him killed.

But Matthew 21 destroys that line of thinking, because here Jesus intentionally fulfilled the prophecy of Zechariah 9:9. He wasn’t caught up in anything. He led the way on this just like He did everything else.

Jesus intentionally fulfilled this prophecy by…

…sending His disciples to get the colt, the foal of a donkey just as Zechariah 9:9 says.

…mounting and riding this colt into Jerusalem just as Zechariah 9:9 says.

There was no mistake. This didn’t happen by coincidence. Jesus didn’t just prefer to ride on young, never-before-ridden donkeys. He had Zechariah 9:9 in mind when He rode into Jerusalem at the beginning of Passover week and thus declared Himself to be the Promised Messiah.

[ILLUS] My two friends Matt and John decided that they would switch name tags at a camp we went to as teenagers. It wasn’t just a name tag; it also had a photo of the person beside his name.

Matt and John look nothing alike, but it didn’t matter. People looked down at the name, never glanced at the picture, and spent the week calling John ‘Matt’ and Matt ‘John’.

Because they didn’t look closely at the picture, they didn’t make the right identification.

But as Jesus rode in Jerusalem on a donkey, the people looked at the picture they saw in Zechariah 9:9 and they made the right identification!

The proclaimed Jesus as Messiah!

Despite their misguided expectation of Him as Messiah, they still recognized Him (at least to this point) as Messiah, the Son of David, the One who is righteousness and brings salvation.

[APP] We must understand and believe that Jesus is the Messiah for only He is righteous and only He brings salvation. This is why we should all care that Jesus is Messiah.

We all have sinned against God who is holy, holy, holy; and because we have sinned against Him, we deserve His wrath as a result.

His wrath is just and will mean an eternity in Hell unless we trust the Messiah who is righteousness and brings salvation.

We cannot be righteous before God.

We cannot save ourselves.

We need a Messiah to be our righteousness.

We need a Messiah to take God’s wrath in our place.

We need a Messiah to save us from our sins.

Jesus is that Messiah!

First Corinthians 1:30 says that Jesus became to us wisdom from God, righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.

Titus 2:13 and 2 Peter 1:1 declare Jesus to be our great God and Savior.

There’s no righteousness apart from Jesus. There’s no salvation apart from Him. Second Corinthians 5:21 says…

2 Corinthians 5:21 NASB95

21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

There can be no doubt that Scripture proclaims Jesus as Messiah. There can be no doubt that Jesus Himself claims to be the Messiah. There can be no doubt that Jesus is the true Messiah.

The only question is, do we believe it?

[TS] Jesus is Messiah. Notice, also that this passage says that Jesus is peace…

Jesus is Peace (Matthew 21:6-11)

Matthew 21:6–11 NASB95

6 The disciples went and did just as Jesus had instructed them, 7 and brought the donkey and the colt, and laid their coats on them; and He sat on the coats. 8 Most of the crowd spread their coats in the road, and others were cutting branches from the trees and spreading them in the road. 9 The crowds going ahead of Him, and those who followed, were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David; Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest!” 10 When He had entered Jerusalem, all the city was stirred, saying, “Who is this?” 11 And the crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth in Galilee.”

[EXP] The crowds were hailing jesus as conquering king whom they thought would overthrow the Roman government, but typically a conquering king would ride a mighty horse into a conquered city rather than a young donkey.

Jesus, however, rode this young donkey into Jerusalem in intentional fulfillment on Zechariah 9:9 to show the peaceful nature of His coming.

He didn’t come with military might because His kingdom would not be established by force.

He came with humility because His kingdom would be established by sacrifice in order to bring peace.

In Luke’s account of the triumphal entry, it says the people were shouting…

Luke 19:38 NASB95

38 shouting: “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord; Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

A few verses later Jesus laments the prideful rebellion of Jerusalem saying…

Luke 19:42 NASB95

42 saying, “If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes.

Even in the OT, we see that rulers sometimes rode donkeys in times of peace, so they should’ve recognized that Jesus came to bring peace as He rode in on this donkey.

In Judges 5, during a time of peace, the powerful rode on donkeys.

In 1 Kings 1, during a time of peace, David placed Solomon on his own donkey as he was anointed king.

There could be no mistaking Jesus as Messiah, and there could be no mistaking the kind of Messiah Jesus was.

He was and is a Messiah, Savior, and King of peace.

[ILLUS] Riding up here to the church building yesterday, I saw a decal on a car’s back glass that said, “Until Valhalla.” Then it had a picture of a face or skull in a Spartan warrior’s helmet that was painted like the American flag. Then underneath that it said, “Mama Bear. I got your six.”

So here you had this American-Viking-Spartan-warrior-mother-bear who was watching someone’s back as she drives her teal-colored family SUV with flowers hanging from the rear view mirror. It was confusing.

Was this lady ready for war or was she ready to take the kids to the park? Maybe the answer is YES!

But the picture here in Matthew is not confusing. Jesus doesn’t ride in on a donkey because He’s ready for war—at least not the kind of war the people were thinking about.

He rides in in this way because He brings peace.

[APP] Just as we must understand and believe that Jesus is Messiah because there is no righteousness and salvation apart from Him, so we must believe that Jesus is the Prince of Peace and there is no peace apart from Him.

Romans 5:1 says…

Romans 5:1 NASB95

1 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

Do you have faith in Jesus as Messiah?

Do you have faith that He has saved you from your sins by dying for you on the cross?

Jesus the Messiah rode into Jerusalem to bring us peace by dying for us on the cross.

If you believe that, you have peace with God.

[TS] Jesus is Messiah. Jesus is Peace.

[INTER] But why should you believe Him?

[TS] For at least three REASONS…

Reason #1: You should believe Jesus because of lineage.

Remember that Jesus is called the Son of David here in Matthew 21. He is the promised descendant of David in 2 Samuel 7 who reigns as King of Israel forever.

If you’ve ever wondered what the genealogical records of Jesus in Matthew 1 and Luke 3 were about—THAT is what they are all about!

Jesus is King forever and of His kingdom there will be no end.

Reason #2: You should believe Jesus because of prophecy.

Not only did Jesus fulfill Zechariah 9:9 but He fulfilled all prophecies concerning the Messiah. The odds of any one person fulfilling all the OT prophecies concerning the Messiah are astronomical.

The OT contains over three hundred references to the Messiah that were fulfilled in Jesus.

He would be born of a virgin. He would be the Son of God. He would be of the lineage of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He would be from the tribe of Judah. He would be from the line of Jesse, David’s father. He would be from the line of David, as we’ve discussed. He would be born in Bethlehem. He would be presented with gifts. He would be called Lord and be Immanuel, God with us. He would be Prophet, Priest, Judge, and King. He would be anointed with the Holy Spirit. He would have great zeal for God. He would be preceded a messenger. He would begin His ministry in Galilee. He would have a ministry of miracles. He would teach parables. He would arrive suddenly in the temple. He would enter Jersualem riding on a donkey and more.

You might say, “Rocky, I know what Jesus did. I’ve read the NT,” but all of that and much more was foretold in the OT and perfectly fulfilled by Jesus.

That’s why Acts 3:18 says…

Acts 3:18 NASB95

18 “But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled.

Reason #3: You should believe Jesus because of resurrection.

You’ll notice that in Matthew 21:10 it says the whole city was stirred when Jesus entered Jerusalem. The word used there is same wore used for earthquake in other placing. The place was shaking with excitement over Jesus.

Because it was Passover week, Jerusalem would’ve been bursting with people, people that had heard about something Jesus did just before making His arrival in Jerusalem. Listen to John 12:17-18…

John 12:17–18 NASB95

17 So the people, who were with Him when He called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead, continued to testify about Him. 18 For this reason also the people went and met Him, because they heard that He had performed this sign.

The crowd that met and praised Jesus as Messiah as He rode into Jerusalem were people who had witnessed or at least heard about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead after Lazarus had been dead for four days!

They figured that anyone who could do that had to be the Messiah!

But there was a greater resurrection still to come, a greater sign still to be performed by Jesus.

Crucified and buried on Friday, Jesus would be raised from the dead on that Sunday forever—proof positive that He has forever defeated sin and death!

Surely He is Messiah!

Surely He is Savior!

Surely He is King!

Surely He is Peace!

Surely He is Joy!

Do we believe Him?

Conclusion

They ask in reference to Jesus in Matthew 21:10, “Who is this?” and that is life’s most important question.

Is He just a prophet?

Is He crazy?

Was He just a con-artist?

Or is He the real Messiah, the One with righteousness and salvation, the One who bring us peace?

What do you believe?