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Good morning. Once again, it
is my honor and my privilege to read scripture. I will be
reading from the Old Testament this morning and the New Testament
out of the ESV. The Old Testament is a prophecy
and the New Testament will be the fulfillment of that prophecy. And I'll be reading from Zechariah
9, verses 9 and 10 in the Old Testament. 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, a colt, a foal of a donkey. And I will cut off the chariot
from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem. and the battle
bow will be cut off. He shall speak peace to the nations. His rule shall be from sea to
sea, from river to the ends of the earth. And then from Matthew
chapter 21, one through 11, the fulfillment of that prophecy.
Now, when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, the Mount
of Olives, Then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, go
into the village in front of you, and immediately you will
find a donkey tied and a coat with her. Untie them and bring
them to me. If anyone says anything to you,
you shall say, the Lord has need of them, and he will send them
at once. And this took place to fulfill
what was spoken by the prophets saying, say to the daughter of
Zion, behold, your king is coming to you, humble and mounted on
a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden. The disciples
went and did as Jesus had directed them. They brought the donkey
and the colt and put their cloaks on him and spread and he sat
on them. Now most of the crowds spread
their cloaks on the road and others cut branches and trees
and spread them on the road. And when the crowds went before
him and those that followed him, they were shouting, Hosanna to
the son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the
name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. And when
he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up saying, who
is this? And the crowd said, this is the
prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee. This is the inerrant
and infallible word of almighty God. You may be seated. Good morning, church. Think of those words from the
New Testament that we just heard echoed from your Old Testament. Behold, your king is coming to
you. Behold, your king is coming to
you. We have the privilege of living
between two presentations of King Jesus. Actually, all people
on the earth right now are living between two presentations of
King Jesus, whether in awareness or not. And it's those who are
grounded in the realities of his first presentation that we
read of here in Matthew 21 that enable us to live rightly toward
His second. This morning in Matthew's gospel
we read of the first presentation of God's Messiah to his people. It's very familiar to us. Some
of you are thinking already it's not very Christmassy, it's more
Easter-y. Let me just say this is where
we are in our study of Matthew's gospel. But I think you will
agree with me that there are some similarities and responses
to Jesus that we can relate to today. Matthew shows us Christ
riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, and he is celebrated enthusiastically
by multitudes. Not unlike today. To some, he
is a curiosity, a vaguely known celebrity. Such that people get
caught up in a moment about Jesus, but that moment is just that. A moment. Fizzles. Parallels to today's attitudes
towards Jesus are easy to spot in the text. You know, we've
entered that time of year, Advent season. Do you realize Christmas
is really close now? Some of you are in denial about
this, aren't you? And we see these same responses to Jesus
in our community, but also all around the world and in every
language. Short-lived enthusiasm, curiosity,
wonder that fades quickly into disregard. But here's the thing,
I don't want to focus on that this morning. I want to focus
on the responses of God's people to the King who has come and
is coming again. Among God's believing people,
I'm speaking of Christians now, There is a joy that comes to
us in this record of our King's first presentation. Because this
same Jesus is coming again to reign over an everlasting kingdom. And so we live, Christians, in
this reality of what the prophet declared. Behold, your King is
coming to you. Christ has in his first unveiling
accomplished a great victory for his people. He has done all
that is required for us to participate in his future eternal reign. Do you ever think about that? His eternal reign. Your participation
in this eternal reign. He set us free so that one day
we will live an unhindered, uninhibited, unending life as his image bearers,
and we who know Christ as King will live this life together.
And it's in responding rightly to Jesus now, today, in light
of what is revealed in his first presentation, that we find assurance
of our share in Christ's victory. And church, this is what sets
the Christian in our community apart from those with fleeting
enthusiasm for Jesus this time of year. It's what sets us apart
from those for whom Jesus is a historic celebrity, remembered
warmly and yet ultimately set aside as not relevant. And so I urge you to pay close
attention to Christ as he is presented to us in scripture.
Do you recognize this king who is coming again in such a way
that he'll remember you when he comes favorably? Well, that's a bit of a windup,
isn't it? Look at verse one. And when they had approached
Jerusalem and came to Bethphage at the Mount of Olives, Then
Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, go into the village
opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied there
in a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to
me. I want you to just notice with
me the commands. Jesus says to the two disciples,
go, untie them, the donkey in its full, bring them to me. Go,
untie, bring them. But what kind of king Is this
Jesus? Well, as with any king, Jesus
has authority. I ask you this morning, is Jesus,
for you, an authority? Do you know Jesus this way? He
says things to his subjects, and those things are meant to
be carried out by his subjects. He says, go. And the two unnamed
disciples go. And so Matthew is showing us
then, Jesus is the king who commands. He has the right of command.
He has the authority of command. And what we've seen throughout
Matthew's gospel is that our Jesus, our King, has an authority
that is unlike any other authority that mankind has ever seen. Jesus
commands not only a band of true followers at this point in Matthew
21, disciples. Jesus commands creation itself. Matthew has shown us this. One
day, says Matthew, Jesus' disciples got into a boat with him and
there was a storm at sea. Remember reading about this?
Right. And the storm raged on the Sea of Galilee, and certain
death in the depths of that sea was just around the corner for
those disciples, were it not for Jesus commanding the storm
to cease, commanding the wind, commanding the waves. And I remember
when we were looking at that passage in Matthew's gospel,
asking ourselves, well, how long do you suppose it would take
the sea, a big lake, really, in northern Israel, to calm down
once the wind stopped? Well, it would take a while,
wouldn't it? And yet, that's not what the scripture tells
us happened. Every molecule in that sea just
ceased its agitation. It was instantly calm at the
command of Jesus. This king commands his people.
And this king commands creation. And this king, Matthew has also
told us, commands disease and even demons. Be cleansed. Jesus had commanded and a leper
was cleansed. Go, the king commanded. And two men who had been possessed
by demons were set free from those demons. The king ordered
those demons into a herd of pigs and off they went down into the
sea. Who commands people and creation
and disease and demons but God himself? And so Matthew has been
very deliberately, you're still listening, very deliberately
showing us in his gospel that this Jesus is the King who commands
all things, all things. Is this your Jesus? Now there's one thing for a king
to give orders to people, but to command the demonic, to command
in such a way that sin's curse evidence in creation itself is
stilled, brought into submission. This requires not only authority,
but it also requires the power to control. It requires ability. And so here is Matthew showing
us Jesus is not only the king who commands all things, Jesus
is the king who controls all things. What do I mean by all
things? I simply mean all things. There
is nothing that happens in our world that is circumstantial. It's all providential. There's
nothing random. It is all ordered and ordained
by the King who holds all things in his hands. And so I just ask
you again, is this your Jesus? Controlling the very circumstances,
or I should say providences, you're experiencing at present. Even the unwanted stuff. So I urge you not to pay too
much attention to those who will say to you, well, you know, Jesus
must have, I'm looking at verses two and three, Jesus must have,
you know, made arrangements ahead of time to have this donkey thing
work out the way that it did. Maybe some money was exchanged,
that sort of thing. I don't think you need to go
into that kind of thinking about this at all because, you know,
Verse 4 says what? This took place in order that
what was spoken through the prophet would be fulfilled. That was
our key verse leading up to this Sunday because it's the key to
this whole account of what Jesus is doing here as he enters Jerusalem. Jesus is the king who commands
and controls all things. God's people have a sovereign
who is truly sovereign. This has never happened before. I was reading in the news over
the weekend what's going on in Syria. It's sad, really, what's
going on in Syria. The country, as you know, or
maybe you don't know this, the country is actually run by a
dictator named Al-Assad. And he inherited the dictatorship
from his daddy, who was also a creep, as it turns out. And I imagine when this fellow says
he wants something done, it gets done. But if you've been reading
in the news lately, you realize he doesn't even control his own
country. It's been overrun by all sorts of different interest
groups. He's not much of a sovereign. maybe except in his own mind.
And this is common in the world today, but it was common in Jesus'
day too. Think of King Herod. And there would have been those
who related to King Herod as something of a sovereign, but
what was the deal with Herod? He was just a puppet who moved
according to the whims of Rome's Caesar. Our king, Jesus, is not like
that at all. Our king, our Jesus, commands
and controls all things. And so here he is shown directing
all things in such a way that God's long-anticipated promises
regarding a king who would deliver his people from sin's curse are
being fulfilled in real time. carried out precisely as promised. This took place, verse four,
in order that what was spoken through the prophet would be
fulfilled. What was spoken through the prophet?
Well, our elder Dave Coldy just read this to us from Zechariah
9. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. Make a loud shout, O
daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your king is coming to
you. He is righteous and endowed with
salvation, lowly and mounted on a donkey, even a colt, the
foal of a pack animal. And Christian, listen, you are
privileged to live your life right now under the security
and confidence of your King's command and control over all
things. You have no need to doubt that
whatsoever. What God has promised in his word concerning your king,
you can and must bank on and live in, in the nitty gritty
details of life. You have a king who makes promises,
and he always keeps his promises. And so you can, and you and I
must, take him at his word. You experience the best life,
the most productive life God has for you when you live on
his promises. Let me just give you a few examples
here. He's promised to be with you always, and he is. He's promised never to leave
you nor forsake you, and he has not and he will not. He's promised
to prepare a place for you And in the meantime, prepare you
for that place. We'll come back to that. But
he's keeping this promise. So that the perplexities and
difficulties and even tragedies, what we call tragedies in this
life, are all tools in your king's preparatory hands. He's preparing
you to live and reign with him. and all of God's people forever. And this eternal home for all
of us who know Christ is just around the corner. That's not
morbid. It's just that the Bible says,
what is your life? It's a vapor. And Christ is even now fulfilling
his promises as he prepares us for this home. And you look at
what happens here in Matthew's account of how these disciples
responded to the command and control of Jesus. And you start
to get the impression that they're beginning to believe. Look at
verse 6. The disciples went and did just
as Jesus had instructed them. Well, I'm just spitballing here.
But I'm thinking that this is the sensible response to actually
believing that Jesus is a king who commands and controls all
things. And so often we focus on the
first disciples' failures, and we like to do that, Peter in
particular, because in Peter we see hope for ourselves, right? So we kind of focus on Peter's
hollow bravado, you know, I'll never deny you, Lord. Or we focus
on Thomas' doubt. I think you could say fatalism.
You know, Thomas was the one who said, We might as well all
go to Jerusalem then and die. You know, that's not the guy
you want at your party, is it? I mean, or the Sons of Thunder. Remember them more recently in
our time in Matthew. James and John jockeying for
preeminence in the kingdom right after the king had spoken to
them about what? His coming to serve them in humility
and calling them to serve in humility. Disciples then, just
like disciples today, get it wrong sometimes. Colossally wrong
sometimes, speaking from my own personal experience. And we,
like them, tend to have too much confidence in ourselves. We tend
to be self-reliant. We tend to be pessimistic, maybe
even fatalistic, rather than living with hope. in the promises
of our King. But these first disciples get
it right in this instance, and I think we're meant to not miss
that. We're meant to take note of that. Because this whole text
really begs a question of you, and me too. How do you respond
rightly to the King who commands and controls all things? You go as He says. You do what
He commands, just as He's instructed you. These are not complex things. And I wonder, Christian, is this
the nature of your relationship to Christ as King? And I'm speaking
in generalities. Let me move to some things that
are more practical. Those of you who name Christ,
He's commanded you to be baptized. Have you obeyed this command
to profess Him publicly as your Savior and your King? Your king
commands you to go and make disciples, whether you go next door or to
your children or to the next county or the next country, maybe
it's Tanzania, and he instructs you in his word how to go about
doing this so it's not a mystery. Are you heeding your king's command
as he's instructed you? Is there anyone in your life
at present whose relationship with them could be described
as disciple-making? The king commands his people
not to forsake gathering together as is the manner of some. We're
not to view physical attachment to the body of Christ as optional
or seasonal or therapeutic in a time of felt need. We're referred
to as members of his body. And yet it is very common in
our culture for those to assemble on a Lord's Day morning who are
not members of any local body, let alone this one. And yet you
just have to ask yourself, why? If we are the people who would
nod our heads and say, yep, Jesus is king. He has authority to
command. He has ability to control. The king commands you to flee
sexual immorality, to avoid so much as the appearance of evil.
He commands us to not live primarily for material things, the things
of this world. He commands us to be set apart
from the world and its ideas and its ways and its beliefs
and its practices. Be holy, for I am holy, says
the king. So how do you respond rightly
to the king who commands and controls all things? Well you
go as he says and you do what he commands just as he's instructed. And so we're meant to just stop
here at verse four and just ask ourselves is this my relationship
to King Jesus? And I simply ask this because
I think the text begs this question, but this is one of the major
differences between a true disciple and the Jesus enthusiasts so
commonly seen and heard this time of year. It isn't just in
ancient Jerusalem that there was a big party thrown by a bunch
of people who later discarded Jesus. This happens every year. about this time of year. And
it lasts until, say, the 26th of December. Something important we wanna
take note of here, you still with me? Matthew tells us that
both the donkey and its colt are taken by the disciples as
Jesus instructed them. And I got stuck on that, so you're
stuck on it too. for just a little bit. Verse
two makes this clear, so does verse seven. The disciples brought
the donkey and the colt and laid their garments on them and he
sat on the garments. Why do we need to know a little
detail like that? Why? That the foal's mom was
taken too. One reason seems to me To be
very simple, this little creature would more likely be at ease
with its mother by its side as it carried out the purpose for
which the king called it to. Behold your king, says Matthew. What is he like? This king commands
all things. This king controls all things.
But commanded control is a cold thing. In fact, it might even
be a terrifying thing. But not as exercised by our King,
Jesus. Here is the King who cares. His authority and power are exercised
with compassion. Jesus is the King who cares,
who acts with compassion. No matter how life seems to you
in any moment of time, this is always true. And if you're worried that, well,
I think the pastor's spent too much time with turkey because
he's preaching now on donkeys. No, I'm not gonna go there. I
just don't want us to miss the nature of Jesus that comes out
in this text. He cares and therefore shows
compassion for this little creature that would otherwise have been
yanked from its mother to be ridden for the first time. That
says something of the nature of our king. Our king, who cares
for all of his creatures, I'm saying Jesus is God who created
all things and sustains, cares infinitely more so for God's
image bearers, the people he's come to save. Matthew has already
told us this. In Matthew 6, Jesus said, Look
at the birds of the air. They do not sow, nor reap, nor
gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are
you not worth much more than they? You see, it's the King's
care for his people. It's the King's compassion for
his people, let alone this little donkey. that compels him to make
his way into the city of David as we see here in Matthew 21.
It is for us, we who are his people, that Jesus fulfills this
prophecy of arriving in Jerusalem in such an unlikely way. Listen, to belong to a king who
has authority to command and power to control still would
be a terrifying thing if that king did not care deeply for
you and exercise compassion for you according to his infinite
wisdom. And this is precisely what Jesus
has come to display at Calvary. And this is precisely the nature
of your king that you're meant to see here in Matthew 21. Jesus
is the king who wields his divine authority and his sovereign control
only to the benefit of his people. You mean in all things? They're working? in the wisdom and power of Jesus
for your benefit? Absolutely, absolutely. Even
the stuff in your life right now that you don't really like,
yep, he's using that too for your ultimate benefit. And he's
got complete control over it. Do you believe this? How do you
relate to such a king? We've seen this care and compassion
of Jesus time and time again in Matthew's Gospel. Two blind
guys, remember that? Blind Bart and his friend cry
out to Jesus. They are as blind physically
as the people cheering Jesus on in this moment in Matthew
21 are blind spiritually. And what do they say to him?
Lord, have mercy on us, son of David. They believe who Jesus
is. They believe Jesus has the authority
and the power to give them sight. They trust that he will wield
this power and authority for their benefit, and Jesus heals
them. And then Matthew has repeatedly
been showing this, this compassion of Jesus. This is how the Messiah,
the always King, relates to his people, mercifully, with compassion. In fact, says Matthew, Jesus
commanded his disciples this very disposition in their own
ministry. Because that is his manner with
his people. Matthew 20, 28, as you know,
Jesus said, the son of man did not come to be served, but to
serve and to give his life a ransom for many. Behold your king. And it's this giving his life
a ransom for many that necessitated his going up to Jerusalem at
this time we're reading of this morning. The Son of Man, says
Jesus, will be betrayed to the chief priests and scribes, and
they will condemn him to death and will deliver him over to
the Gentiles to mock and flog and crucify him. And on the third
day, he will be raised up. This prophecy Jesus gave to his
disciples three times before the events we're reading about
this morning. It is the backdrop then for this
journey into Jerusalem on a donkey. He's to be a crucified king before
he is to be a conquering king. And it's a great irony. In fact,
it's the irony of this that we so often focus on when we're
looking at these gospel accounts of what we call Palm Sunday. The people fawning over Jesus
as he rides into Jerusalem. The crowd streaming out of the
city to welcome him. They all longed for a king who
would command this and control that in such a way that he would
accomplish what they most wanted. You don't have to look far at
all to find those who relate to Jesus in this way still today. And they remembered something
of Zechariah's prophecy. You can say that for them at
least. So they're picturing in their minds the coming of a great
king as they see Jesus on this donkey. They saw and even unwittingly
contributed to a spectacle that seemed to be congruent with their
preconceived notions of who Jesus is. Look at verse 8. Most of the crowd spread their
garments in the road. Others were cutting branches
from the trees and spreading them in the road. And the crowds
going ahead of him and those who followed were crying out,
saying, Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is he who comes
in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. Their
words are a fulfillment of Psalm 118. One of the Psalms of Ascent. But here's the thing, Hosanna,
which means save now, or Lord save, can also be, for these
people, a sort of nationalistic cheer. Kind of like people might
say, God bless America, and actually give very little thought to God.
Or God save the king, you know, that sort of thing. Or just say,
for example, having in your purse or your wallet some currency
upon which is written, in God we trust. So we know what it's
like for people to use religious language, even write religious
language in a way that doesn't really mean what it seems to
mean. There's a bit of that going on here in Matthew 21. We know
that these crowds really want from Jesus. They want to see
him use his power and his authority to fulfill their wants, to fulfill
their own expectations. And by the way, this is why I
thought to call this message, Taking God at His Word. Disciples
must learn by experience, walking by faith, to live on what God
has promised, not our preconceived notions of what we hope God will
do. There's a big case of that here
in Matthew 21. We're meant to live on this reality
that the Jesus who controls all things, who commands all things,
and is compassionate to meet our greatest needs according
to his infinite wisdom, does this his way. How do you respond rightly? to
this king who commands and controls all things only for the benefit
of his people. Only for the benefit of his people. What is our greatest need? Our
greatest need is to be restored to God. Our greatest need is
to be saved from sin's penalty, the eternal wrath of Almighty
God that awaits sinners. We need to be rescued from that. We cannot rescue ourselves. We need to be saved from sin's
power to be the dominant influence in our lives. So that we're not image bearers
who live by base instincts and feelings and the spirit of the
age and all of that sort of thing, but are led to live more and
more under the influence of the spirit of God. We need to be
saved from sin's very presence. Do you realize, Christian, that
there is a day coming in which that will be true of you? Saved
from sin's very presence, sin in you, sin around you, all of
it gone. So our King's command. And our
king's control and his compassion all are aimed in the direction
of him going to that cross outside of Jerusalem to accomplish this
great task for which he came. And yet it was not what the masses
wanted. He didn't fit their preconceived
expectations. And I'll skip the history lesson
about the Maccabeans and all of that sort of thing. You're
familiar with that. Why the people would have expected
yet another zealot to come and make another run at throwing
off the yoke of bondage to Rome this time. It was Greece before. And they imagine that this Jesus
is the one who's gonna foot their bill for that kind of military
deliverer, and they could not have been more wrong. And the
thing of it is, is if they had only remembered rightly the rest
of Zachariah's prophecy, rather than just the parts they wanted
to remember, I beg you to pay attention to this, because there's
a tendency among God's people still today to remember the stuff
we wanna remember and forget the rest. What would they have remembered?
God says what? I will cut off the chariot from
Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem and the bow of war will be cut
off. This king has come to establish
peace, not to make war. And this explains why Luke records
for us in his gospel Jesus weeping over Jerusalem as he looks upon
the city. Listen to what Jesus said about
all of this. And as he approached Jerusalem
and saw the city, he cried over it, saying, if you knew this
day, even you, the things which make for your peace, but now
they have been hidden from your eyes. Don't miss this. People like you and me, we have
limited time to accept Jesus as he truly is. Not as we imagine
him to be. Not according to the preconceived
notions we have. But as he truly is. We have limited
time to embrace what he has come to accomplish for us. We have
limited time to cooperate with him, to live in and live out
the works that he's prepared in advance for us to do. If we
delay, I mean, just consider the text this morning, if we
delay, we do so with the danger that we may not see him rightly
again. This time, for some here in this room, is
a time of visitation in that sense. Meeting in scripture the
Christ, the King, who's come to save. How do you respond to such a
King? There's a hint of this truth
being hidden, I think, here in the text, look at verse 10. And
when he had entered Jerusalem, all the city was stirred, saying,
who is this? And the crowds were saying, this
is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee. Notice what happens
when people are pressed on this matter of who is Jesus to you. Do they say he is the Messiah?
Do they say he is Yahweh's anointed king? The son whom you must kiss,
lest his wrath be kindled just a little. The son in whose shelter
you are safe. According to Psalm 2, they don't
say any of that. Do they say that he's the promised
king who commands and controls all things with compassion only
for his people's benefit? No. They say he's that prophet
from Nazareth. And let me just remind you, something
you already know, calling him that prophet was honorable for
sure, but pointing out that he's from Nazareth was a bit of a
jab. Because people on that day would
point toward Nazareth and say, you know, can anything good come
from Nazareth? They see Jesus as a great man,
come hopefully to do their bidding, but nothing more. And so they
honor him superficially. And I want to end with this as
a caution. but also as an encouragement.
And I'll start with the caution. A superficial response to Jesus
is eternally consequential. And you say, well, that sounds
like something a pastor would say. Well, it's not my material. And I urge you to be attentive
to this. Misguided enthusiasm for Jesus
will lead to everlasting ruin. I'll show you this in scripture
in a moment. Listen to Zechariah's prophecy once more first. His
reign will be from sea to sea and from the river to the ends
of the earth. The Euphrates River sometimes
as a waypoint is given in scripture. But the point is what? That there
will be no part of this earth over which King Jesus does not
reign one day. We're reading of his first presentation
as king He's coming again. And in his second presentation,
if you will, his second coming, nobody's going to miss the memo.
Nobody's going to misunderstand what is going on. You say, well, that hasn't happened
yet. No, it hasn't. But Christians, we live, do we
not, according to the promises of God's Word. Our King is coming
again. And he's coming to rule. And
he's coming to reign and he's coming to rid all evidences,
all traces of the curse of sin. And he'll not be riding a donkey.
this next time around. Listen to the language of John's
Apocalypse, the book of Revelation. And in righteousness he judges
and wages war. His eyes are a flame of fire,
and on his head are many diadems, having a name written on him
which no one knows except himself, and being clothed with a garment
dipped in blood. His name is also called the Word
of God. And the armies which are in heaven,
clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following him
on white horses. And from his mouth comes a sharp
sword, so that with it he may strike down the nations, and
he will rule them with a rod of iron. And he treads the winepress
of the wrath of the rage of God, the Almighty. And he has on his
garment and on his thigh a name written, King of kings and Lord
of lords. So how different will this second
presentation of the King, King Jesus, be? Christ comes at first
to bring peace between God and sinful man. Are you at peace
with God? How do you respond to a king? who commands and controls all
things and yet with compassion calls to you this day to repent
of your sinful ways and turn to Him and live in allegiance to Him.
What compassion we see in our King. because he's coming again to
judge sinners who have rejected the peace he paid for on that
cross with his own blood. Jesus is the king who completes
God's promises to rid his world and his people of sin. That's
the caution. But Christian, that's also the
encouragement, don't you think? You and I, think about what we
just sang. Come thou long expected Jesus. Oh, that's wonderful, that's
a Christmas song. Well, it's a second coming song
too, isn't it? In fact, you really can't sing
that hymn without thinking deep thoughts. This sounds like it's
talking about something that's yet to happen. It's because it
is. We live between two presentations
of King Jesus. He commands all now to repent
and believe in Him. He controls all things, and He
does so for your benefit, Christian. He cares for you. His compassion
is infinite. It's immeasurable, and it's inexhaustible. And be sure of this, he will
complete the mission he came to fulfill. He's ridding his
world and his people of sin. Isn't it interesting to think
that there is a day coming in our future, believers, there's
a day coming in our future when it will be said of all that Christ
has done from today forward, all this took place in order
that what God has spoken would be fulfilled. All right, let's
pray. Father, we thank you so much
for this wonderful record of you coming humbly into your city, where you accomplished your work
for your people and your world. And Lord, I pray that you would
stir our hearts to faith in you as our sovereign,
our compassionate sovereign. Lord, will you find those who
belong to you faithful so that as you instruct us to go, we
go. As you instruct us to do, we do for love's sake. for gratitude
for all that you have done for us in our doing now and have
promised to do for all eternity. And Lord, I pray if there's anyone
here this morning who came through the doors alienated from you
that you would, Lord, do that work of softening a rebel heart
to turn to you as Savior, to run to you as our compassionate
King. And Jesus, we ask you this ultimately
for your namesake. We ask you this for your glory,
let alone our benefit. Amen.
Taking God at His Word
Series The King and His Kingdom
| Sermon ID | 121242018436389 |
| Duration | 51:12 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Matthew 21:1-11 |
| Language | English |
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