When Welcoming the King

When Welcoming the King

 

Matthew 21:1-17     

 

Illus. Welcome.

As we turn to Matthew 21 this morning, we will see Jesus heading to Jerusalem for the Passover celebration and as He does, He will fulfill a prophesy that displays Him as the promised king, and large crowds begin shouting praises while joyfully welcoming Him into the city. They roll out the royal welcome mat and welcome Him in, but by the weeks end, things would change. Their shouts of praise to Him would turn to shouts to crucify Him because He would not work in their situation according to their own expectations.

The specific setting is the Passover celebration which was a yearly celebration of the day God saved the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. The origin of Passover comes from the book of Exodus when the Lord had promised to redeem His people from slavery in Egypt  Exodus (6:6). The Lord sent Moses to the Egyptian king, Pharaoh with the words of the Lord to  “let my people go” (Exodus 8:1) Pharaoh refused and the plagues were sent on the land of Egypt, the tenth plague was when God had told the Israelites to sacrifice a spotless lamb on and mark the top and sides of their doorframes with the blood of the lamb. This would ensure that their household would be spared from death or “passed-over.” Those who did not, would lose their first born. It was this that ultimately compelled Pharaoh to let God’s people go, and the Israelites were to remember this day each year with a feast and celebration.

From history, we know that Jerusalem swelled for this celebration, we understand from historians that it would swell up to about five times its normal population. People would travel from all over the known world to Jerusalem for this celebration. Therefore, not only would the city of Jerusalem be packed, but also the roads and paths to get there.

As Jesus travels to the city the scene unfolds in Matthew 21. What we will see is a beautiful picture. Jesus presents Himself to the people as the promised Messiah, Savior, and King by fulfilling an Old Testament prophesy. The people recognized what He was doing and begin praising Him, welcoming Him into the city as King, but things would change over the week, and they would change quickly.

Their shouts of praise would turn to doubt, because Jesus was going to save differently than the people expected or desired. The people were looking forward to a savior, but they had specific ways they desired that savior to save, places they wanted the savior to go, and a particular foe they wanted the savior to overthrow.      

In Jesus’ day, many were looking forward to the Savior who would come as their messianic deliverer, and the predominant thought was that this deliverer would lead them in a revolt against Rome. Jesus was truly the One who would save, but the cross would come before the crown. His focus was on a greater foe than the fight against Rome. Jesus had come to make a way to permanently save people from their sins, and what takes place in these verses gives us important principles to acknowledge and apply to our own situation.

 

1. Allow Him All Access

 

Matthew 21:1-3, When they had approached Jerusalem and had come to Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus then sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied there and a colt with it. Untie them and bring them to Me. And if anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and he will send them on immediately.”

 

• As they approach Jerusalem and stop near the Mt. of Olives, Jesus sends two of His disciples into a nearby village to retrieve the colt of a donkey that He knows is tied there.

 

• It was a colt that no one had ever sat on or ridden (Mk 11:2; Lk 19:30). His two disciples were to untie it and bring it to Him.

 

• If anyone were to ask why they were taking the colt, they were to respond by saying, ‘the Lord has need of it,’ and that it would be sent back to them after Jesus used it.

 

• Jesus’ disciples were willing to walk over to the village and start untying the donkey.

 

Luke 19:33-34, And as they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, “Why are you untying the colt?” They said, “The Lord has need of it.”

 

Mark 11:6, And they told them just as Jesus had said, and they gave them permission.

 

• They told them, the Lord has need of it! In response, the owners were willing to allow it for Jesus’ use.

 

• All of them were open to what Jesus asked of them.

 

• The disciples, being asked to go get the colt; as well as, the owner learning that the Lord needed their colt.

 

• That the colt had never been ridden seems a gesture of respect and honor to offer such an animal to someone.

 

• Two things are important to see, that the Lord had need of something, and that the people were willing to allow Him to direct their steps and access to their things.

 

2 Corinthians 8:9, For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich.

 

Illus. Borrowed things. 

Luke 12:48(b), “…From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more..”

 

• We would not be speaking of the items on the list of items Jesus “borrowed” had they not been offered to and used by Him.

 

• Matthew wrote in verses 4 and 5, that it was done specifically to fulfill a prophecy. The prophecy was one that pointed to the promised Messiah, the Savior, and what He would do.

Zechariah 9:9, Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; He is righteous and endowed with salvation, humble, and mounted on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

• This colt of a donkey, would be remembered for generations to come…Spoken of 2,000 years later…why? Because Jesus had need of it and the people who had it, allowed Him to “borrow” it, for His good and His glory.

 

• The story continues on until somebody makes themselves or something unavailable. This understanding should help us to understand the importance of offering Jesus all access.

 

Psalm 24:1, The earth is the Lord’s, and all it contains, the world, and those who live in it.

 

Romans 11:36, For from Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.

 

1 Corinthians 6:19-20, Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought for a price: therefore glorify God in your body.

 

Psalm 50:10-11, For every animal of the forest is Mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird of the mountains, and everything that moves in the field is Mine.

 

Haggai 2:8, The silver is Mine and the gold is Mine, declares the Lord of armies.

Proverbs 3:9-10, Honor the Lord from your wealth, and from the first of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty…

 

Illus. The Lords?

 

Illus. Access.

 

Matthew 16:25, For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. (NIV)

 

1. Accept His Ways as Higher

 

Matthew 21:6-8, The disciples went and did just as Jesus had instructed them, and brought the donkey and the colt, and laid their cloaks on them; and He sat on the cloaks. Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others were cutting branches from the trees and spreading them on the road.  

• After bringing the donkey and colt to Jesus, the disciples put their cloaks on them, and we know from Luke 19:35 and Mark 11:7 that it was the colt specifically that Jesus sat on.

 

• In taking His seat and heading to Jerusalem, He was offering Himself as King to the people. The people knew the prophecy, they knew the message Jesus was saying, He is the king…

 

• Making a statement or suggestion in this way to the crowds at large was something Jesus had previously avoided many times over.

Illus. What happened?

 

• This time it was different.

 

• Jesus was now at the height of His ministry, and everyone wanted Him to ascend to His throne. Again, they were heading to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover which commemorated God’s deliverance of Israel from slavery to Egypt.

 

• And it was at this time, in remembrance of deliverance that hopes for their own deliverance from Roman oppression ran high.

 

• They were looking for their leader, one who would lead them in victory and here was Jesus, He was offering Himself as King, He was fulfilling Scripture, He was the Messiah.

 

• Some in the crowd laid down their coats and we know from John 12, the people were laying down palm branches on the road, it was their way of creating a “royal carpet” of sorts, a welcome to the king.

Matthew 21:9, Now the crowds going ahead of Him, and those who followed, were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David; Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest!”

• Hosanna is of Hebrew origin and the result ofyasha (“deliver, save”) and anna (“beg, beseech”) combine to form the word that, in English, is “hosanna”.

 

• Literally, hosanna means “I beg you to save!” or “please deliver us!”

 

Psalm 118:25, O Lord, do save, we beseech You.

 

• This was a song the people would sing, set apart for the Messiah, and now, they are welcoming Jesus to Jerusalem, singing it about Him.

 

• They wanted Him to save them out of their situation, they wanted to be saved on their own terms and in a specific way, but Jesus was there to save in a higher way.

 

• Hosanna in the highest, would “I beg you to save to the uttermost,” “I beg you to save until there is nothing left to save.”

 

• Here at the beginning of the week, when hopes are high surrounding what they hope Jesus will do, they shout out praising and glorifying Him…Then when it is clear that He is not going to overthrow Rome that week, He will be hung on the cross after shouts of “crucify Him.”

 

Isaiah 55:8-11

 

• His ways are higher, His will accomplish what is best, He will work all things for good, His purpose, His plans, will prevail.

 

Illus. Preferences.   

 

Proverbs 19:21, Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.

 

Matthew 21:10-12(a), When He had entered Jerusalem, all the city was stirred, saying, “Who is this?” And the crowds were saying, “This is Jesus the prophet, from Nazareth in Galilee.” And Jesus entered the temple area…

 

• From Luke 19, we learn that after the people were shouting out Hosanna to Jesus, the Pharisees in the crowd who had already rejected Him as their king, told Jesus to rebuke His disciples. Jesus responded, “I tell you, if these stop speaking, the stones will cry out!”

 

• Jesus then approached Jerusalem, saw the city and wept over it. He said, “if you had known the conditions for peace, but not they have been hidden from your eyes.” He continues Luke 19:43-44, to describe how the Romans would come and destroy Jerusalem, and at the end of verse 44 He said, “because you did not recognize the day of your visitation.”

 

• There was a day, a time of visitation to them, and they were supposed to recognize it, but they didn’t.

 

Illus. Higher ways on display.

 

Romans 8:28, And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

 

III.   Align with What He Defines as Good

 

• From the book of Mark, we get an additional glimpse into the timeline and what took place upon Jesus’ arrival to Jerusalem.

 

• Mark says that Jesus went immediately into the temple, looked around at everything, and then went to Bethany which was just about 2 miles outside of Jerusalem and the place Jesus would stay for the night.

 

• Jesus entered the city and looked around the temple to perform an inspection. I find it quite comforting where His attention was drawn. No doubt there was a lot wrong in their world and society, but Jesus made His priority the place that was set apart for the Lord, where He was supposed to have all authority.

 

• Jesus’ supreme issue was not Rome’s army, but God’s temple. He had not come as a military, economic, political, or social savior from injustice and oppression but as a spiritual Savior who came to save people from death and sin.

 

Matthew 21:12-13, And Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all those who were selling and buying on the temple grounds, and He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves. And He said to them, “It is written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a den of robbers.”

 

• There were major problems in the temple, and the problem Jesus pointedly pursued was that they had turned it into a den or robbers.

 

Illus. What was taking place.

 

• Jesus saw it all, drove out those buying and selling, overturned the tables of money changers and the seats of those selling doves.

 

• After Jesus drove out what needed to be driven out, the temple became a place where Jesus was ministering. Jesus was healing those in need of healing, Matthew calls it a wonderful scene.

 

Matthew 21:14-17, And those who were blind and those who limped came to Him in the temple area, and He healed them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that He had done, and the children who were shouting in the temple area, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they became indignant, and they said to Him, “Do You hear what these children are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes. Have you never read, ‘From the mouths of infants and nursing babies You have prepared praise for Yourself’?” And He left them and went out of the city to Bethany and spent the night there.

• The final scene is striking to me.

 

• Jesus went into the temple and cleared out what needed to go.

 

• Jesus right then and there begins ministering, healing the blind and those who came to Him limping.

 

• There were children there who saw Jesus, and they are praising Him, the shouts of Hosanna they had heard the day before, were still on their lips, “Hosanna!” they were shouting.

 

• In verse 15, we read that the things the Lord was doing there were “wonderful things.”

 

• The word there is as it reads, Jesus was working “wonders,” He was doing “marvelous and wonderful things.”

 

• Though the scribes and chief priests saw the same wonderful things Jesus had done, they did not see things the same way.

 

• In the very same verse that we read about Jesus wonderful things Jesus had done, we read about those who were “indignant” when they saw the same things.

 

• They were “indignant” which is defined as sore displeasure.
• The scribes and chief priests saw what the Bible describes as “the wonderful things” Jesus had done…and they were indignant, they were upset, they were displeased.

 

Illus. Couldn’t see it.

Matthew 21:1-17