back to index2021-03-28 Why Did Jesus Ride The Donkey
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If we can turn your Bibles with me to Luke chapter 19. 00:00:16.120 |
I want to read Luke chapter 19, verse 28 through 44. 00:00:20.600 |
And then I'm not going to read it, but the text that we're going to be in this morning 00:00:39.280 |
After he had said these things, he was going on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. 00:00:43.200 |
When he approached Bethphage and Bethany near the mount that is called Olivet, he sent two 00:00:48.920 |
of the disciples saying, "Go into the village ahead of you. 00:00:52.680 |
There as you enter, you will find a coat tied on which no one yet has ever sat. 00:01:00.120 |
If anyone asks you, 'Why are you untying it?' 00:01:04.400 |
So those who were sent went away and found it just as he had told them. 00:01:08.540 |
As they were untying the coat, its owner said to them, 'Why are you untying the coat?' 00:01:14.880 |
They brought it to Jesus and they threw their coats on the coat and put Jesus on it. 00:01:20.120 |
As he was going, they were spreading their coats on the road. 00:01:22.780 |
As soon as he was approaching near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of 00:01:26.760 |
the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles which 00:01:31.140 |
they had seen, shouting, 'Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord. 00:01:37.920 |
Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, 'Teacher, rebuke your disciples.' 00:01:42.120 |
But Jesus answered, 'I tell you, if these become silent, the stones will cry out.' 00:01:46.740 |
When he approached Jerusalem, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, 'If you had known 00:01:50.680 |
in this day, even you, the things which make for peace, but now they have been hidden from 00:01:56.200 |
For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw a barricade against you 00:02:00.440 |
and wrestle around you and hem you in every side. 00:02:04.560 |
And they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not 00:02:08.320 |
leave in you one stone upon another because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.'" 00:02:19.300 |
We pray for your Holy Spirit to convict and lead us. 00:02:25.540 |
It would cause us, Lord God, to see the depth of your grace and love for us. 00:02:30.140 |
Lord, as we begin this Passion Week with Palm Sunday, help us to understand what you were 00:02:36.180 |
doing, what you are doing, that our hearts may be surrendered to you. 00:02:46.260 |
As I've already said, this is a very busy week, probably the busiest week out of the 00:02:50.380 |
whole year for us as a church because every single day we have something filled. 00:02:55.540 |
And so at the end of it, usually Sunday night, especially the pastoral staff and the leaders 00:03:04.300 |
Sunday morning, we wake up early in the morning, give our devotion, and then there's a lot 00:03:12.260 |
And the reason why we do this every year is because our natural tendency is to drift. 00:03:19.620 |
You know, the whole thing that we've been talking about in Hebrews is because our natural 00:03:24.220 |
tendency is we get caught up and tangled with, you know, everyday things and raising children, 00:03:29.220 |
paying bills, concerned about what's going on, whether it's political, economical. 00:03:34.340 |
And so our natural tendency is to just kind of drift from God. 00:03:37.820 |
So God tells the nation of Israel all these things that he plays, all these rituals and 00:03:44.340 |
sacrifices and festivals in order to cause them to stop, break into their normal routine, 00:03:51.220 |
and for them to remember what God has done because their natural tendency is to forget, 00:03:58.900 |
Because the pandemic, you know, when we survey the church, when we survey what's going on 00:04:03.220 |
outside the church, we hear a lot of people saying that they're fatigued, they're tired, 00:04:09.220 |
And I'm sure most of you are sick and tired of being on the Zoom. 00:04:12.540 |
You know, we're just waiting for us to get to, what is it, orange and then hopefully 00:04:15.900 |
yellow soon, you know, and then whatever normal is to get back to normal so we don't have 00:04:21.140 |
to be wearing these silly masks, you know, that we'd be done away with. 00:04:26.380 |
But in the midst of all that's been going on, and it's not just because of the pandemic, 00:04:32.180 |
our natural tendency is when we are not striving after God, we don't drift toward God. 00:04:38.460 |
We don't sit there and get entangled and get busy and take care of our children and then 00:04:42.220 |
wake up six months later, it's like, "Oh, I feel this passion for Christ." 00:04:49.540 |
So if we're not deliberate about keeping our heart focused on Christ, if we're not deliberate 00:04:53.960 |
about anchoring ourselves to Christ, we naturally have a tendency to drift. 00:04:59.840 |
And so these times are very important for us in order for us to renew our first love. 00:05:04.480 |
We can go through the rituals, like, "Yeah, I've been coming up to Bible study. 00:05:06.940 |
I haven't missed church, and I haven't missed this, and I haven't missed that." 00:05:11.240 |
But again, our natural tendency is to the minimum. 00:05:17.680 |
We check out the box, but at the end, we find our hearts so hardened away from God, and 00:05:23.160 |
sometimes we get so hardened that we even question, "Do I even believe this?" 00:05:28.580 |
So we want to take this time this week, Monday through Friday, going over each day, and I 00:05:35.720 |
hope that what you get out of it this week is not simply logically, "Oh, this is what 00:05:42.940 |
This is what he did in the first day, second day, third day." 00:05:45.660 |
Hopefully through each of these events that you recognize that Christ was deliberately 00:05:50.060 |
walking toward the cross and how each one of these events led him to that point. 00:05:56.020 |
So that when we come and have communion on Friday, that communion, that we really have 00:06:00.260 |
a rich understanding of what it is that we're participating, and we're hoping that by next 00:06:04.700 |
Sunday when we come to celebrate Easter, that our singing would be louder than normal, right? 00:06:10.400 |
That our praising will be louder than our usual way of singing, that hopefully it'll 00:06:14.920 |
kind of cause us to be focused and to renew our first love toward Christ. 00:06:22.700 |
Palm Sunday is the kickoff of the day where Jesus is deliberately riding on his donkey 00:06:29.620 |
And the reason why this is so significant is up to this point, Jesus was very, very 00:06:37.260 |
Even though the crescendo of excitement toward him has been growing and it's headed toward 00:06:44.580 |
that place, his riding on the donkey was a very deliberate act where he's going to start 00:06:52.700 |
the, you know, knock the first domino, and then each domino that, again, that's going 00:06:58.340 |
to fall is going to ultimately lead him toward that cross. 00:07:03.060 |
You know, in the Bible, in the four Gospels, there's maybe about 10 to 12 major events 00:07:12.040 |
So we know that every one of these events are extremely important because as you guys 00:07:16.660 |
know, each one of these Gospels are different eyewitnesses, different testimonies, where 00:07:22.420 |
you have Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John giving different, a Jewish angle, a Gentile angle, 00:07:26.940 |
you know, Jesus's humanity angle, his deity angle. 00:07:30.100 |
And so each one of these angles highlight different aspects of Jesus's identity and 00:07:35.460 |
That's why even though they're talking about the same life of Jesus, that you're going 00:07:40.720 |
So when something is repeated, you know it's important. 00:07:44.340 |
It was important enough that they all highlighted it. 00:07:47.740 |
The triumphal entry is one of those events, one of those dozen events that are highlighted. 00:07:52.640 |
But among, even among the same events, if you look at the four Gospels, you will notice 00:07:57.100 |
that there are certain things that one person emphasizes and certain things that another 00:08:03.420 |
This triumphal entry, even though they have, they talk about different angles, there's 00:08:07.500 |
one event in the triumphal entry that is mentioned in detail in all four Gospels. 00:08:14.120 |
And that detail is Jesus getting the donkey and riding that donkey into Jerusalem. 00:08:20.440 |
So all the things that could have been highlighted in him coming into Jerusalem, telling his 00:08:25.400 |
disciples to go get the donkey, and then to tell them, they're going to say, "Why are 00:08:37.280 |
So what is the significance of this donkey that is highlighted in this detail in all 00:08:43.420 |
So what I want to go over this morning is to go over the three aspects that Jesus was 00:08:49.820 |
declaring and he was fulfilling in the riding of the donkey. 00:08:53.660 |
There is, it is not some random event that takes place. 00:09:00.540 |
No, there's something about this riding of the donkey that was highlighted for us that 00:09:03.460 |
we are to take some time to examine carefully what is its significance. 00:09:11.980 |
Number one, Jesus rode the donkey to fulfill biblical prophecy. 00:09:17.540 |
In Zechariah 9, verse 9, it says, "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. 00:09:25.380 |
He is just and endowed with salvation, humble and mounted on a donkey, even on a colt, the 00:09:36.320 |
He was declaring to all the people who have gathered together, "I am that guy. 00:09:42.180 |
Up to this point, Jesus was very hush-hush about his identity. 00:09:45.860 |
Remember, every time he would fulfill some sort of miracle, he would tell his disciples 00:09:52.420 |
Remember the very first miracle of turning water into wine? 00:09:55.620 |
Jesus tells his mother, "Why do you involve me? 00:10:00.380 |
So up to this point, he would perform these miracles and people would say, "He must be. 00:10:06.260 |
But he never clearly said publicly to everybody that this is who he is. 00:10:10.300 |
He kind of kept it quiet because he knew once his identity came out, that the first domino 00:10:16.820 |
falls that it's going to lead him directly to the cross. 00:10:21.060 |
But this prophecy of him riding on a donkey was not just in Zechariah. 00:10:24.540 |
In fact, even before that, all the way up to Genesis 49, verse 10 through 11, Jacob 00:10:31.700 |
at the end of his life is giving blessing to his 12 children. 00:10:35.860 |
And in his blessing, he gets to Judah and he says this, "The scepter shall not depart 00:10:42.100 |
In other words, you're going to be a kingly line. 00:10:44.020 |
"Nor the ruler's staff between his feet until Shiloh comes." 00:10:51.060 |
"And to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. 00:10:54.020 |
He ties his fold to the vine and his donkey's coat to the choice vine. 00:10:58.460 |
He washes his garments in wine and his robes in the blood of grapes." 00:11:03.740 |
Even as early as his blessing to Judah, it's clearly spelled out that when the Messiah 00:11:12.100 |
He's going to, again, talking about the vine and the wine, meaning his blood being spilled, 00:11:17.600 |
that he's going to come and to take his place. 00:11:25.900 |
They've been saying, "How are you going to recognize the Messiah?" 00:11:32.180 |
But when you see a man coming into Jerusalem riding on a donkey, you know that that is 00:11:39.140 |
So Jesus, for the first time in ministry, is publicly declaring to everybody there, 00:11:57.340 |
It wasn't that he made some poor choices and maybe he shouldn't have cleansed the temple 00:12:01.660 |
and he got the leaders angry and that's why they did that. 00:12:05.580 |
Maybe he shouldn't have chosen Judas and betrayed him. 00:12:08.980 |
Maybe he shouldn't have been praying out there at night. 00:12:12.940 |
Jesus says, by his own words, "No one takes my life. 00:12:16.620 |
I lay it down on my own accord and I take it up." 00:12:22.540 |
In fact, the Bible has over 300 different prophecies about Jesus' life, his disciples, 00:12:29.380 |
his birth, the place of birth, betrayal, crucifixion, how he's going to be crucified, his resurrection, 00:12:34.980 |
over 300 prophecies that were given in the Old Testament that Jesus fulfilled in his 00:12:40.340 |
birth, life, ministry, death, and resurrection. 00:12:44.940 |
Meaning every part of what Jesus was doing was planned and was very deliberate. 00:12:52.820 |
In Numbers 23, verse 19, it says, "God is not man that he should lie, nor the son of 00:13:00.020 |
Has he said and will he not do it, or has he spoken and will he not make it good?" 00:13:06.420 |
Whenever you go on a job interview, you want to know, is he faithful? 00:13:14.740 |
Or maybe you have friends or maybe you have people in your community who say, "If he says 00:13:22.020 |
So this statement in and of itself is a beautiful statement that God does what he says he's 00:13:29.820 |
So without any context, that statement alone is a very honorable, respectable character 00:13:36.500 |
But when you put that in the context of Israel's history, when you put that in the context 00:13:43.140 |
of our own history, that because God said he will do it, think about how many times 00:13:49.980 |
in Israel's history that God would have had every right to revoke his promise. 00:13:58.260 |
Every single king in Israel's history, almost every single king, was evil and they led them 00:14:08.520 |
Any part of Israel's history during the kings, he could have just stepped in and said, "That's 00:14:13.940 |
The book of Judges, any one of those times, was that, "Oh, maybe through the desert they 00:14:22.540 |
If you look at Israel's history from the moment that they are conceived until the end of the 00:14:29.220 |
Old Testament, every part of it is a list of every curse that they deserve. 00:14:36.020 |
So before they go in, God said, "If you live righteously, here's a blessing. 00:14:42.460 |
And so if you look at the history from that point on, it's curse after curse after curse 00:14:49.280 |
So when you look at the statement, Numbers 23 verse 19, in the context of Israel's history, 00:14:54.460 |
not even when they were in Egypt were they faithful. 00:14:58.820 |
Even the patriarchs, if we study them carefully, they weren't necessarily great men. 00:15:05.060 |
And yet God says, "Because I made my promise, I will fulfill it." 00:15:10.380 |
We don't even have to look at the Israelites. 00:15:15.620 |
Not only before we met Christ, after we met Christ. 00:15:20.560 |
When you look at your life carefully, how many events in your life can you examine and 00:15:32.940 |
How many times in our lives could we stand before God saying, "You know what? 00:15:41.580 |
If we're honest with ourselves, we're no different than the Israelites. 00:15:45.300 |
And the only reason why we celebrate this week is because God said He would be faithful 00:15:52.380 |
And so everything that takes place in this week is God's intentional plan to go to the 00:16:00.500 |
See, this Palm Sunday is the first domino that falls. 00:16:05.100 |
You know, it's kind of like the cat's out of the bag, right? 00:16:08.180 |
When we have DTR, the determining the relationship, those of you who are young and cool and hip, 00:16:15.180 |
okay, DTR, when you have feelings for somebody and you contemplate, "Should I tell her? 00:16:25.700 |
And so you contemplate all of that and you weigh the pros and cons and, you know, you 00:16:29.620 |
gear up and then, because you know once it comes out of your mouth, you can't take it 00:16:34.060 |
So again, I've shared before about how I approached Esther. 00:16:38.780 |
And so I waited a year and a half of praying, "Is it the right time? 00:16:43.060 |
Resisting, and then finally she's going to go to Boston to go to some dumb college. 00:16:46.960 |
And so I thought maybe this is the right time. 00:16:51.020 |
And thinking that maybe we're on the same page, maybe she's dropping hints. 00:16:56.740 |
And then I asked her, "What are you thinking about me?" 00:17:07.080 |
But I remember when she said that, my heart just dropped because I prepared for so long. 00:17:15.540 |
And it's like, man, if I knew that this was the answer that was going to come, I probably 00:17:19.500 |
wouldn't have gone through the trouble to say this. 00:17:29.060 |
He used to always say, "If a guy takes out a sword, he should at least cut his toenails." 00:17:36.220 |
In other words, if you're ready for battle, you should at least cut your toenails. 00:17:44.140 |
Anyway, if you don't understand what that means, I remember him saying that and saying, 00:17:55.060 |
And I just told her, "Well, it's too late now. 00:17:56.860 |
So this is how I feel, and I want to marry you." 00:18:01.540 |
So I went forward, and that's how we got here, by the grace of God. 00:18:08.000 |
So this Palm Sunday is God deliberately knocking down the first domino. 00:18:15.480 |
And this is going to cause the crowds to be stirred, the leaders to pay attention, because 00:18:21.580 |
they've been trying to get to Him for a long time. 00:18:26.260 |
And there's a reason why He goes to the temple as soon as He goes to Jerusalem, because He's 00:18:29.900 |
challenging the leaders and publicly saying, "I'm here. 00:18:39.420 |
Jesus deliberately and willfully walking into danger because He knows that this is going 00:18:46.940 |
He's riding on His donkey to fulfill that promise, that prophecy, to let people know 00:18:56.580 |
Secondly, Jesus rode the donkey to establish His kingdom. 00:19:02.380 |
You know, people often think like Jesus is the humble servant, right? 00:19:07.180 |
But in Zechariah 9, verse 9 and 10, it says, "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! 00:19:18.900 |
He is just and endowed with salvation, humble and mounted on a donkey, even on a colt, the 00:19:23.700 |
"I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem, and the bow 00:19:27.980 |
of war will be cut off, and He will speak peace to the nations, and His dominion will 00:19:33.180 |
be from sea to sea and from the river to ends of the earth." 00:19:36.580 |
See, during times of war, typically the King would be riding on His horse to exemplify 00:19:47.300 |
But in times of peace, the King would be riding on a donkey. 00:19:50.800 |
So it wasn't unusual for a King to be on a donkey. 00:19:54.960 |
In fact, in 1 Kings 1.33-34, when David is anointing his son Solomon to be king, he puts 00:20:04.540 |
In 1 Kings 1.33, it says, "The king said to them, 'David said to them, "Take with 00:20:08.800 |
you the servants of your Lord, and have my son Solomon ride on my own mule, and bring 00:20:15.840 |
Let Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anoint him there as king over Israel, and 00:20:20.440 |
blow the trumpet and say, 'Long live King Solomon.'" 00:20:23.880 |
So it was a very common practice in Israel to have the kings riding on the donkey to 00:20:30.880 |
So when Jesus came on a donkey, He wasn't simply refusing His kingdom. 00:20:34.980 |
He was actually declaring the King has arrived. 00:20:39.660 |
He was making it very clear that that's who He is. 00:20:43.300 |
You have to understand that the people were very eager to make Him king. 00:20:48.960 |
See, they weren't resisting Him as a king because they wanted Him to be king. 00:20:55.600 |
They're so enamored with Him, they wanted to forcefully make Him king. 00:21:01.440 |
So they didn't have a problem with making Him king because they thought if they made 00:21:05.160 |
Him king, I mean, He's opening the eyes of blind people. 00:21:10.320 |
Women who are hemorrhaging for years get healed. 00:21:14.000 |
Lepers who couldn't join their families were walking back into their homes and able to 00:21:20.560 |
Anybody who's hungry, He just breaks the bread and just give it to them, and they eat. 00:21:37.920 |
In fact, when Jesus came in and He was under the trial with Pontius Pilate, He said, "They 00:21:43.880 |
are saying that you are the king of the Jews. 00:21:55.160 |
Jesus is actually publicly declaring, "I am the king." 00:22:01.480 |
But the problem is what they wanted from their king was to come and fight for them because 00:22:09.160 |
they thought that if their king came, just like Moses delivered the Israelites from the 00:22:16.040 |
Egyptians, that our Messiah and our king is going to come, and He's going to fight for 00:22:19.840 |
us, and He's going to put us in this right place. 00:22:23.080 |
But Jesus says in John 18.36, "Jesus answered, 'My kingdom is not of this world. 00:22:28.960 |
If my kingdom were of this world, then my servants would be fighting so that I would 00:22:32.560 |
not be handed over to the Jews, but as it is, my kingdom is not of this world.'" 00:22:39.600 |
Think about how much energy is being poured right now to make this kingdom, this earthly 00:22:47.920 |
Because we think if we love Jesus, we need to unite and fight for these causes because 00:22:53.200 |
we want this kingdom to be the place that we want to live. 00:22:56.840 |
See, that's exactly what the Jews were wanting and begging. 00:23:01.280 |
Because they thought that when Jesus came, whatever oppression that they felt, whatever 00:23:06.400 |
disenfranchisement that they felt, because they were being treated as second, third, 00:23:13.160 |
So if Messiah comes, He's going to deliver us from that so that we can have the same 00:23:20.880 |
We can have our children go to the schools that they want to go. 00:23:28.680 |
In fact, the book of Matthew says the excitement was so great, there was a seismic stir, where 00:23:37.840 |
In fact, they said there, many historians think that there were probably close to 2 00:23:45.320 |
And the way that they calculate that is they have a record of how many lambs were killed 00:23:53.200 |
Usually you would need one lamb for every 10 person. 00:23:55.660 |
And so they calculated all of that, and they said it could have been as many as 2 million 00:24:01.920 |
The lowest number I've seen is somewhere around 250 to 500,000 people. 00:24:06.720 |
Whether you believe it's 250,000 or 2 million people, there was a tremendous number of people 00:24:12.980 |
And on top of that, Jesus just healed Lazarus, a very prominent person. 00:24:24.700 |
He actually even raised somebody from the dead. 00:24:27.020 |
So all these people came into town thinking, finally, our king is coming, and He's going 00:24:34.640 |
to overthrow the Romans and put us in the right place. 00:24:38.940 |
See, Jesus came, and He wasn't resisting His kingship. 00:24:43.260 |
But the problem was His kingdom is not of this world. 00:24:53.980 |
When the guards of the temple came, remember Peter? 00:25:06.620 |
So he swings, and he misses, and he cuts the ear. 00:25:13.620 |
And all it says is Jesus picked it up and put it back on. 00:25:18.260 |
Peter was ready to fight, because that's what all the Jews were thinking. 00:25:26.900 |
And Jesus said something weird that they didn't understand. 00:25:29.340 |
"He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword." 00:25:46.240 |
And when Jesus said, "If this was my kingdom, I don't need you." 00:25:57.260 |
I will bring angels of my own and wipe them out. 00:26:01.100 |
I don't need a tiny sword that can't even hit the middle of the head and cut off people's 00:26:06.420 |
He said, "But this is not my kingdom that I came to fight for." 00:26:13.020 |
Colossians 1.13, "For he rescued us from the domain of darkness, transferred us to the 00:26:23.700 |
See, this kingdom that we are a part of is already perfect because we have the perfect 00:26:32.100 |
This kingdom is already economically perfect because he's our ruler. 00:26:37.140 |
The only problem that we have is we keep reaching back to the old kingdom. 00:26:44.700 |
But Jesus says, "I have come to establish my kingdom." 00:26:46.780 |
Hebrews 4.16, it says, "Therefore, let us draw near with the confidence to the throne 00:26:50.660 |
of grace so that we may receive mercy and find grace and help of need." 00:26:57.820 |
To the throne of grace, to the kingdom where our Lord reigns." 00:27:06.740 |
We get into so much trouble because we think that the greatest need of our generation, 00:27:14.700 |
greatest need for us, for our children, for our future, is to make the right decision, 00:27:18.940 |
have the right leaders, have the right people, have the right family. 00:27:26.660 |
You remember in 1 Samuel 8, verse 7, where the Israelites are demanding a king for themselves? 00:27:32.500 |
And Samuel is offended by that because God was ruling through his prophets. 00:27:37.780 |
But he said, "No, all of our problem is because we don't have a king like they do. 00:27:43.740 |
If we had the king that they had, we wouldn't have this problem." 00:27:47.140 |
So they demanded to have a king of their own. 00:27:49.380 |
And God says to Samuel in verse 7, the Lord said to Samuel, "Listen to the voice of people 00:27:53.500 |
in regard to all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have 00:28:06.860 |
Because the kingdom that they were thinking about, and they thought the solution was that 00:28:11.060 |
somehow God helped us to get the king that we want. 00:28:16.380 |
Sometimes we think of lordship as, these are the things, this is what I think is going 00:28:21.060 |
And then we come to Jesus like, "Please help me. 00:28:29.260 |
And Jesus becomes nothing more than a cosmic bellhop that comes and is just waiting to 00:28:46.860 |
And that's what the riding of the donkey was. 00:28:50.540 |
See, if we're not careful, we embrace Jesus as our savior, but we reject him as our king. 00:29:02.460 |
Because a savior doesn't demand undivided loyalty, because he saves us. 00:29:14.580 |
A savior does not judge your spending habits, but the king does. 00:29:20.940 |
A savior does not ask for obedience, but the king does. 00:29:27.160 |
If you do not know King Jesus, you may not know the Savior Jesus, because they are the 00:29:37.100 |
You don't embrace the cross and then reject his kingdom. 00:29:42.620 |
You don't embrace Jesus as my servant, and he serves me, and he loves me, cares for me, 00:29:47.660 |
and then you know nothing about the kingship of Christ. 00:29:50.620 |
See, the donkey represented his kingship to establish his throne. 00:29:57.820 |
Third and finally, Jesus rode the donkey to ultimately bring peace. 00:30:05.020 |
In Zechariah 9.10, it says, "I will cut off the chariots from Ephraim and the horse from 00:30:08.740 |
Jerusalem, and the bow of war will be cut off, and he will speak peace to the nations." 00:30:15.900 |
He's going to come as a king, humbled on a donkey, but the purpose of all of this, he 00:30:22.620 |
In fact, remember when I read Genesis 49.10, this prophecy of the coming Messiah, he says, 00:30:28.940 |
"The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the rulers shall be between his feet, 00:30:33.820 |
The word Shiloh in Hebrew means tranquility, peace. 00:30:39.880 |
In Isaiah, Jesus is called the Prince of Peace. 00:30:45.080 |
The irony of all of this is that that's exactly what the Jews wanted. 00:30:53.000 |
In fact, they wanted it so much that every time they greeted each other, they would say 00:30:59.740 |
"Shalom to you," and then the person receiving that will say again, "Shalom to you." 00:31:05.300 |
And so for generations after generations, they would say, "Peace, peace." 00:31:08.660 |
But the word Shalom means more than simple peace. 00:31:13.380 |
It was understood that when God brings peace, when He gives you peace, that there's going 00:31:22.900 |
Whatever has gone wrong is going to be fixed. 00:31:31.100 |
Is that the Muslim world, they greet each other in similar fashion. 00:31:34.700 |
If you have any Muslim friends, the way they greet you is "Maleka As-salam," right? 00:31:44.180 |
"As-salam maleko" basically means, "Peace be unto you." 00:31:48.060 |
And then the person receiving that will say, "Maleko as-salam," meaning, "Unto you, 00:31:55.980 |
So that's the way that the Muslim world greets each other. 00:31:58.760 |
So the Jews would greet each other, say, "Shalom," and the Muslims will greet each other by saying, 00:32:05.700 |
And the irony of all of this is that even though we, you and I, may not say, "Peace unto you," 00:32:10.500 |
when we say, "Happy New Year," or "Happy Birthday," right? 00:32:25.780 |
If you're having financial problems, hopefully in the new year, God will bless you with money. 00:32:34.660 |
And so that's what we mean, "Shalom," and that's what they mean when they say, "Shalom." 00:32:39.140 |
And the irony of all of this is that as they were desperately waiting for the king, and 00:32:44.740 |
as they were desperately waiting for peace, in Luke chapter 19, 41 to 42, as Jesus is 00:32:51.660 |
riding on the donkey with the seismic stir of possibly up to two million people waving 00:32:57.100 |
the palm branches, receiving their king, we find Jesus weeping in verse 41. 00:33:04.660 |
When he approached Jerusalem, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, "If you had known 00:33:09.920 |
in this day, even you, the things which make for peace, but now they have been hidden from 00:33:18.300 |
What they have desperately so wanted, they completely missed, and they ended up crucifying 00:33:32.180 |
If you came from a poor family, you think, "Man, if I could just make money, and I don't 00:33:37.940 |
want to have the turmoil that my parents went through, so if I can just have a successful 00:33:46.580 |
If my children go to the right school, under the right politicians, I would have peace. 00:33:55.200 |
If I just had the right friends, right environment, and right neighborhood, and the right house, 00:34:03.260 |
And so we strive from place to place, and there's so much talk right now about going 00:34:11.380 |
And if we're not careful, if we're not careful, we will fall under the same delusion as the 00:34:17.620 |
Jews as they were waiting for the king and wanting so much to have peace, thinking that 00:34:22.340 |
somehow if they changed, if they moved the puzzles around and bought the house in the 00:34:27.500 |
right place and went to the right area, our children would have peace, I would have peace, 00:34:31.780 |
I would be able to worship God in peace, I would raise our children in peace, retire 00:34:39.060 |
In the middle of seeking peace, they completely missed the prince of peace. 00:34:48.460 |
You remember in Genesis chapter 22, where Isaiah is called, or Abraham is called to 00:34:58.900 |
sacrifice Isaiah, and we know this whole event is a fulfillment of that promise. 00:35:04.780 |
As Abraham takes up the knife to strike him down, just as God told him to, God says, "Stop," 00:35:16.300 |
And that's exactly what he's doing this week. 00:35:18.420 |
He's fulfilling that promise that he made, and he will take the place of Isaac to be 00:35:28.020 |
In Genesis chapter 22 verse 3, it says this, "So Abraham rose early in the morning and 00:35:32.220 |
saddled his donkey and took two of his young men with him and Isaac, his son." 00:35:44.140 |
So him being on that donkey not only represented his public and specific fulfillment of his 00:35:53.460 |
will, it wasn't just simply to him to declare his kingship, it was to bring peace that only 00:36:00.900 |
In Ephesians 2, 17, it says, "And he came and preached peace to you who were far away 00:36:09.340 |
Again in Ephesians 6, 15, talking about the gospel, "Your feet will be preparation for 00:36:18.340 |
In the last year or two years, we've been hearing that phrase, "No justice, no peace." 00:36:27.060 |
And we are hearing it, we're reading it, declaring it. 00:36:34.760 |
But be careful, because that's exactly what the Jews were doing. 00:36:41.860 |
Because they thought that if their king came, that he was going to fix the government. 00:36:58.820 |
Yet in the midst of all of that, they completely missed him. 00:37:02.780 |
Jesus says in John 14, 27, "Peace I leave with you. 00:37:11.260 |
Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful." 00:37:16.500 |
You cannot have the peace of God without the peace with God. 00:37:22.580 |
So this week is to get us to be recalibrated. 00:37:27.900 |
Recalibrate our hearts, because our natural tendency, my bet is, there's not a single 00:37:32.260 |
person in here who doesn't have some sort of turmoil in your heart. 00:37:37.580 |
There's not a single person in here that doesn't have something to grieve over. 00:37:40.740 |
There's not a single person in here that doesn't have something to pray desperately over, whether 00:37:56.060 |
Do you believe that Jesus is the Prince of Peace? 00:38:00.300 |
So we pray that this week, as we go over the details of what happened every day, that we 00:38:10.100 |
We don't hold hands and say, "You know, we're going to finally get the justice that we deserve." 00:38:15.380 |
Because the only person who can actually declare desire or demand justice is Jesus Christ. 00:38:24.180 |
A sinner who demands justice is demanding punishment. 00:38:33.420 |
And that's exactly what Jesus came to do, to give us mercy. 00:38:41.660 |
And I want to read a portion of this hymn that you guys all know very well. 00:38:49.940 |
You know the story behind Horatio Spafford, who was a famous and very successful attorney 00:38:56.540 |
who made a lot of money, and he turned that money into more money by purchasing all this 00:39:02.180 |
But there was a huge fire that broke out in Chicago, and he lost everything overnight. 00:39:07.500 |
Feeling distraught, he sent his family, his four girls and his wife, over to England so 00:39:11.980 |
that possibly he could start over over there. 00:39:14.700 |
But on this journey, the ship has a shipwreck, and all four of his girls died, and only his 00:39:24.100 |
She ends up going to England and sends him a wire saying, "All is lost. 00:39:32.020 |
In his bereavement, he gets on the boat to go join his wife to comfort her. 00:39:37.700 |
And on his journey, riding the boat, they were crossing exactly the same place where 00:39:44.940 |
And on the intercom, the captain of the boat said, "This is where that other boat sank." 00:39:50.940 |
And as he was looking upon the waters, he wrote this hymn. 00:39:55.780 |
And in this hymn, he says, "When peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like 00:40:00.620 |
sea billows roll, whatever my lot thou hast taught me to say, it is well with my soul. 00:40:10.900 |
Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, let this best assurance control 00:40:17.480 |
that Christ has regarded my helpless estate and has shed his own blood for my soul. 00:40:26.960 |
My sin, O the bliss of this glorious thought, my sin not in part but the whole, is nailed 00:40:47.340 |
In the situation that he was in, watching over the very waters where his four beloved 00:40:54.380 |
daughters drowned, to say, "It is well with my soul. 00:41:04.540 |
Only a man who has found peace in Christ can write these words. 00:41:11.580 |
These aren't words that a natural man can write in the situation that he is in. 00:41:26.540 |
What are you pursuing because you want peace? 00:41:29.660 |
I pray that each one of us would take this week deliberately to walk through the steps 00:41:36.380 |
as he goes to the cross and recognize that this is why he came.