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Matthew 21:1-16 | Kingdom Now: The Coronation of the King

Flipside Christian Church

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  1. Matthew 21 is the coronation of the King.

  2. Matthew 21

  3. is when Jesus

  4. rode into Jerusalem.

  5. To forever settle

  6. the issue of his kingship.

  7. It was his coronation.

  8. It was unlike any coronation the world's ever seen.

  9. It was not full of the pomp and circumstance of rulers

  10. and royalties of the world.

  11. It was a coronation, but it was a coronation of a king who came

  12. on a baby donkey.

  13. It was a coronation of a king

  14. who came riding on.

  15. Date. Palm branches.

  16. Signs of worship and praise, no doubt.

  17. It was a king who came trotting on the clothes,

  18. the used clothes of people who threw down their robes

  19. in symbolic gesture.

  20. That you have authority over all of my life.

  21. It was a coronation, but it was not a coronation of military power.

  22. It was not a coronation of governmental authority.

  23. It was the coronation of the day that had been proclaimed

  24. to pronounce from generations long before.

  25. In Psalm chapter 18, verse 24.

    Psalms 18:24

  26. The Bible says, this is the day that the Lord has made.

  27. Let us rejoice and be glad in it that Psalm is about this day.

  28. That Psalm is not a proclamation that every day the Lord has made,

  29. which is in fact the truth.

  30. But that Psalm is a proclamation of this day, that the day Jesus rode

  31. into Jerusalem at coronation as King is the day that the Lord had made.

  32. And because this is that day, let us rejoice

  33. and be glad in that day the coronation of the King.

  34. It was seven days before or a week before his crucifixion and resurrection.

  35. He was going into Jerusalem for this one purpose, to give his

  36. who set the stage to set the dominoes begin falling

  37. that would lead to his crucifixion, that would result in his resurrection.

  38. It was this day.

  39. It was the same day that the angel

  40. Gabriel spoke to the prophet Daniel,

  41. as recorded for us in Daniel chapter nine, that this day would come.

  42. On this exact day,

  43. one of the greatest, most profound prophecies in all of Scripture

  44. is in Daniel chapter nine, I think verses 24 through 27.

  45. And in Daniel's worship, the angel Gabriel came to him and said, Daniel.

  46. On a day, though, one day the king will come into Jerusalem.

  47. This was the day. And here was the prophecy.

  48. This is what it sounded like.

  49. No. Understand this.

  50. This is Gabriel speaking to Daniel.

  51. From the time that the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem

  52. until the Anointed One, the king who rules comes.

  53. There will be seven sevens and 62 sevens.

  54. Let me explain to you what that prophecy means.

  55. That means there will be 69 sets of seven, 69 sets of seven years.

  56. And so if

  57. you take the Babylonian calendar, which was a 360 day year,

  58. and you multiply 69 seven times 360,

  59. you come up with 1000 173,880 days.

  60. The prophecy in Daniel nine said that in essence,

  61. after 173,880 days

  62. from the time King ATA sees gives permission for the Hebrews

  63. to leave Babylon and rebuild Jerusalem, count forward

  64. 173,880 days will be the day

  65. that the Anointed one, the one who rules, will

  66. right into the city of Jerusalem.

  67. And through many different scholars,

  68. it has been proven that, in fact, this happened historically.

  69. We know when King Arthur

  70. gave permission to the Jews to leave Babylon and rebuild the city.

  71. You count forward 170,880 days.

  72. It is this day

  73. that Jesus came into Jerusalem.

  74. This was a coronation unlike any other.

  75. This exact

  76. day have been prophesied for generations.

  77. They knew it was coming.

  78. They were anxiously waiting for this day and it finally came.

  79. This was Matthew 21 is the high point.

  80. It's the high point of.

  81. This was the culmination of 33 years of Jesus life,

  82. 30 years in obscurity and anonymity.

  83. Three years of public ministry culminates now on this day

  84. leading to this week, to the crucifixion and the resurrection.

  85. This is the day that the Lord had made.

  86. Will rejoice

  87. and be glad because of what this day means.

  88. This was the day.

  89. This was the day that the King was coronation, and this was the day

  90. that humanity was put on notice.

  91. I go into great detail on this prophecy

  92. in Daniel nine, in my Wednesday night Bible study called The Forge.

  93. And if you're interested in that, there's resources out there.

  94. You can research that, but I've done a lot of teaching on that.

  95. You can follow that up on our website and on our app to get more teaching

  96. of the details of this day.

  97. But for

  98. now, going through Matthew 21, I want to give you the big idea.

  99. This is the day.

  100. And here's the big idea for this day.

  101. Because Jesus is King, he's going to be correlated as the king

  102. because he is the king.

  103. He fulfills God's mission.

  104. He exercises God's authority.

  105. He restores God's worship according to God's Word.

  106. And as the King, he sings God's compassion.

  107. Matthew 21.

  108. The week before the crucifixion, the Passover, Jerusalem has swelled

  109. with millions of people.

  110. We don't know how many people exactly came to Jerusalem for this Passover.

  111. We know we can guess it was probably over 2 million.

  112. The reason why we know that a few years after this very day,

  113. there was another Passover, as it was yearly the custom in Israel.

  114. And during that day, records show

  115. that some 260,000 lambs were slaughtered as sacrifice.

  116. And we know by Jewish law that they only allowed 1 or 10 people per one lamb.

  117. So there could have been 2.6 million people in Jerusalem at this day.

  118. It was so large that the city boundaries could not contain all the people.

  119. And the law in Israel at the time was that only those in the city

  120. could celebrate Passover.

  121. So they temporarily extended the boundaries of the city of Jerusalem

  122. to incorporate all these 200 or 2 million

  123. plus people that had come to Jerusalem on this day.

  124. There was no small day.

  125. Passover commemorated the freeing

  126. of God's people from Egyptian rule.

  127. It was the high point of their calendar that they remembered God's hand

  128. extending on their behalf to free them from oppression to free them from death.

  129. And so every Passover

  130. was the expectation that God, would you do it again in our day?

  131. Would you finally send the Messiah?

  132. What are you prefigured in in the in Moses and out of Egypt?

  133. Would you do it in our day and free us finally, from the oppression

  134. of this world?

  135. There was great anticipation.

  136. This day might be the day that the King would come.

  137. They looked for freedom from Rome as their oppressor.

  138. Would this day be the day that the King would come and free us, as he,

  139. as Moses did from the oppressors in Egypt?

  140. Would you allow the King to come to free us

  141. from the oppression of Rome and finally give us life?

  142. This was the day

  143. they had something

  144. different in mind than what Jesus came to do.

  145. But they were looking for him.

  146. They wanted Jesus to come and free them

  147. from all the earthly ills that they were suffering.

  148. Jesus came to set them free

  149. from the ills of sin.

  150. One of the things I know as I look at this day is

  151. you and I have to accept Jesus for who he is.

  152. We want Jesus to come and free us from all our ills.

  153. Jesus must first come and set us right with God.

  154. We have to accept him

  155. on his terms as the King.

  156. Let's lung pack this.

  157. Let's unpack this first part of Matthew 21.

  158. As the King, Jesus fulfills God's mission.

  159. He was on a mission.

  160. I want to read to you the first 11 verses

  161. of what is known in the church world as the Triumphal entry.

  162. Now when they

  163. drew near to Jerusalem and came to Beth

  164. to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples,

  165. saying to them, go into the village in front of you, and immediately

  166. you will find a donkey tied and a colt with her.

  167. Untie them and bring them to me.

  168. If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, the Lord needs them,

  169. and he will send them at once under underline this part.

  170. This took place to fulfill. That's important.

  171. We're talking about in

  172. just a minute that took place to fulfill what was spoken of by the prophet, saying,

  173. say to the daughter of Zion, behold, your King is coming to you, humble

  174. and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the fall of a beast of burden.

  175. Then the disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them.

  176. They brought the donkey and the colt, and put them put on them their cloaks,

  177. and he sat on them.

  178. Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road,

  179. and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.

  180. And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting,

  181. Hosanna to the Son of David!

  182. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!

  183. Hosanna in the highest!

  184. And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying,

  185. who is this?

  186. And the crowd said, this is the prophet

  187. Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee.

  188. In John

  189. 18, verse four of this same account,

  190. it says, knowing all that would happen to him.

  191. What was being orchestrated

  192. here was not a surprise.

  193. It wasn't a swell of emotion that propelled Jesus into this moment.

  194. This was God's four ordained, planned

  195. coronation.

  196. And Jesus knew full well what he was walking into

  197. and what he was walking towards.

  198. In acts chapter two, verse 23,

  199. this man, Jesus, was handed

  200. over to you by what?

  201. God's deliberate plan and foreknowledge.

  202. This was not a surprise.

  203. This was nothing forced.

  204. He was not a victim.

  205. He was not subjugated to the hands or whim of man.

  206. This was God's for ordained, planned.

  207. And you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death

  208. by knowing him to the cross.

  209. But it wasn't a surprise.

  210. In revelation 13 he.

  211. The lamb who was slain

  212. from when not

  213. not a few days before the resurrection,

  214. was slain, when

  215. from the creation of the world.

  216. This was God's plan.

  217. Jesus was on God's mission

  218. and he set the entire stage to complete it.

  219. The entire stage.

  220. He orchestrated this whole thing.

  221. None of this was by accident.

  222. This was by his choice, by his plan.

  223. He wanted to create a spectacle.

  224. He had to because he had to set in motion the dominoes that would fall,

  225. that would lead to his crucifixion, so that his resurrection could happen

  226. here, to this entire event.

  227. Verse four is important.

  228. This took place to fulfill.

  229. All this took place to fulfill what God had planned.

  230. None of it was by accident.

  231. Matthew draws a direct line from.

  232. Isaiah and Zechariah to Jesus.

  233. What?

  234. Matthew draws the line.

  235. All of this took place to fulfill.

  236. And then he quotes say to the daughter of Zion, behold your King.

  237. If you have a Bible and your following on, circle that word king.

  238. Behold, your king is coming to you,

  239. humble and mountain on donkey, on a cold, the fall of a donkey.

  240. What Matthew is doing, and drawing this line

  241. from the Old Testament prophecy down to this day.

  242. This King is he saying this.

  243. He draws on Isaiah 6211

  244. and he quotes Zechariah nine nine and when he says,

  245. your king is coming to you, he uses the word yes,

  246. which is another rendering of Yeshua,

  247. which is Jesus's name, way back

  248. in Isaiah, way back in Zechariah,

  249. the Holy Spirit through those men

  250. said, Yeshua is coming to you

  251. on a colt the full of a donkey.

  252. Jesus is coming to you.

  253. They knew it.

  254. They were looking forward to it, but they missed it.

  255. But Matthew says, look, there is a direct line from the promise

  256. of God to this man on this day,

  257. Yeshua, Yeshua Jesus.

  258. It's foretold in scriptures from long ago.

  259. This is the day that the Lord has made for this King

  260. to enter the city of Jerusalem.

  261. And they missed it.

  262. Riding

  263. on the full occult, the full of the beast of burden.

  264. Why on a baby donkey?

  265. Kings did not were not correlated on donkeys.

  266. When King Solomon took the throne, he initiated the

  267. the practice that kings rode horses.

  268. That all happened under King Solomon.

  269. So for generations, when kings

  270. either from from

  271. from Israel or from around the world, they were all right on horses.

  272. So this king comes not on a horse, but on a donkey.

  273. Why not even on a donkey, but a baby donkey? Why?

  274. Because it was the lowest form he could take

  275. to tell the people I am the king.

  276. But I come at humility.

  277. And I come a great gentleness.

  278. He couldn't get lower.

  279. Oh, he'll come again on a horse.

  280. There will be another inauguration.

  281. There'll be another coronation

  282. when he comes in his glory with his angels on a white horse.

  283. As the conquering warrior.

  284. That day will come.

  285. But this day

  286. is his coronation as the king.

  287. That comes from a very different purpose than his next inauguration.

  288. This is the day.

  289. And he orchestrated orchestrates

  290. this entire event.

  291. There could be upwards of 2.5

  292. million people in Jerusalem.

  293. And the Bible says here in verse nine,

  294. the crowds that went before him and that followed him,

  295. there were this, this swell, this tidal

  296. wave of humanity that was surrounding Jesus as the inner Jerusalem.

  297. All those who are traveling with him see, he had come from Jericho, and in Jericho

  298. he had an interaction with a little short man named Zacchaeus.

  299. And Zacchaeus followed him with his whole entourage.

  300. And he goes through Beth and Bethany, and he heals to blinding along the way.

  301. One of them is named Timaeus.

  302. We talked about him last week,

  303. and he stops at Mary and Martha, Martha's and Lazarus house.

  304. Along the way, everybody knew Lazarus.

  305. He was the one who was raised from the grave, from the dead,

  306. had this whole entourage that were following him.

  307. They were realizing who he was.

  308. And he's walking into Jerusalem through this tidal wave of humanity,

  309. and he orchestrates it at this very time so that people will proclaim

  310. with their mouths, Hosanna to the Son of David!

  311. Hosanna means save us, save us now!

  312. And they use this title, Son of David

  313. that's only used in preparation and looking forward to the Messiah.

  314. So they're saying,

  315. we believe that you are the Messiah and you have come to save us.

  316. Do it now.

  317. That's the proclamation.

  318. That's the setting.

  319. That's the tidal wave of humanity that is proclaiming

  320. Jesus to be the King at his coronation.

  321. This is not by accident.

  322. They knew what they were saying.

  323. They knew that Jesus has

  324. the power and the authority to save.

  325. They were crying out for him to say, And Jesus orchestrates

  326. this groundswell of humanity and proclamation for his coronation

  327. for one reason, so that they would hold their very condemnation

  328. or salvation in their own mouth.

  329. They knew who he was.

  330. They proclaimed who he was, and if they rejected him

  331. now, their condemnation came from their own lips.

  332. Do you understand?

  333. And he does the same to us today.

  334. You know who I am, he says.

  335. And if you choose to live in unrepentant

  336. and denial of me, your condemnation comes from your own mouth.

  337. This is why I say this was the day of his coronation,

  338. and this was the day he put humanity on notice.

  339. You know,

  340. we use Romans ten nine to talk about becoming a Christian,

  341. and it's a great verse.

  342. I've used it a ton, and most of us have heard what it says

  343. at some form or another.

  344. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, unbelieving

  345. your heart, that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

  346. And most people believe that.

  347. That means that I can say this little private prayer and it's,

  348. you know, I believe in my heart, and Jesus come into my life and make me Christian.

  349. I accept you, and then we're good.

  350. That's not what this scripture means.

  351. That's not why Paul wrote it.

  352. This is the king.

  353. And when Paul wrote those words, he wrote them.

  354. They wrote it to the church in Rome.

  355. And the church in Rome was under severe persecution

  356. by seized the Caesar of Rome.

  357. Every year all the people of Rome

  358. had to pay a tax to Caesar and make proclamation with their mouth.

  359. Caesar is Lord.

  360. Caesar is curious.

  361. And that was the proclamation.

  362. It had to be me.

  363. So when Paul says, if you confess with your mouth that what?

  364. Yes, you.

  365. What is Kyrios?

  366. Jesus is Lord.

  367. It's not a private thing.

  368. And it is a very costly thing, because here's why.

  369. The teaching in Romans

  370. that Caesar was the Lord,

  371. there was no one higher.

  372. There was no greater God than Caesar.

  373. To proclaim with your mouth

  374. that Caesar is Lord is to say, you are above all.

  375. So for a person to say Jesus is Lord

  376. puts him in complete conflict with Caesar,

  377. and as a result,

  378. at best imprisonment, at worst death.

  379. To confess with your mouth that Jesus is

  380. Lord was no small thing.

  381. It was a public proclamation

  382. that says, my faith will cost

  383. me and I will pay it.

  384. Do you understand?

  385. And it's worth paying because Jesus is the King.

  386. If you confess with your mouth is not a private thing,

  387. it's it's it's not a thing to enrich your earthly life.

  388. It's a public proclamation that I am willing

  389. to suffer for the proclamation that Jesus is the King of my life.

  390. And the reason Paul says, and believe in God.

  391. God raised him from the dead, because in Rome, once

  392. you made that confess with your mouth, you may actually experience eternity.

  393. So you better believe in the resurrection.

  394. Jesus is coming in this coronation.

  395. Say I am the King.

  396. And if you follow me,

  397. it's going to require a commitment.

  398. It's all confession of faith

  399. is always preceded by and followed

  400. by remorse for sin and repentance of sin.

  401. I cannot make confession of faith biblically and remain

  402. unchanged, unrepentant, and in the sin that has always dogged my life,

  403. the two do not coexist.

  404. When I have given myself to be a disciple of Christ,

  405. the Holy Spirit gives me the power and the desire to repent of sin

  406. and walk away from the sin that has always dogged me.

  407. And if that has not been the case of your life,

  408. I want to, in gentleness, ask you to question your salvation.

  409. Light and darkness cannot coexist.

  410. There has to be a hatred and

  411. a remorse over sin and a repentance of it,

  412. because this king

  413. will not share a room with anything.

  414. This king.

  415. See, Christianity means that we get to choose death.

  416. For the Christian, it means we choose death daily.

  417. Die to yourself, daily, the Bible says.

  418. And some it will mean physical death.

  419. But Christianity also means that those who don't choose

  420. Christ choose death eternally.

  421. This is the King

  422. and this is what really happened on Palm Sunday.

  423. This was the statement of all.

  424. It's so much more than a little Happy Sunday with the children's choir singing.

  425. It's so much more.

  426. It's the coronation, it's a proclamation and it's a confrontation

  427. all rolled into one.

  428. Was thinking about this this week and I thought, well,

  429. Jesus, this was your mission.

  430. This isn't our mission, right? And I thought of this.

  431. None of us carry Christ's mission, but all of us carry the mission of Christ

  432. to be on mission in this

  433. world, on God's mission in this world, regardless of the cost.

  434. John Wesley said this you must be willing to preach, pray,

  435. or die at any moment

  436. for this King.

  437. Any of us who are to consider ourselves

  438. disciples of Jesus, subjects of this King.

  439. We must be willing to preach prayer, die at any moment.

  440. We don't carry his mission, but we carry

  441. his mission.

  442. He's the King.

  443. And because he's the King, he is on mission and he will complete it.

  444. And because he's the King, he exercises

  445. God's authority.

  446. Matthew 2112

  447. And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all

  448. who sold him, bought in the temple, and overturned the tables

  449. and of the money changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons,

  450. they had just shouted, Hosanna!

  451. Save us!

  452. They were looking for salvation.

  453. They were looking for his intervention.

  454. And so as he enters, they think, here he comes.

  455. He's going to save us and rid the world of all the ills that have oppressed us.

  456. And the first place Jesus goes is to where?

  457. Say it where your mouth open.

  458. The first place he goes is the temple.

  459. They wanted him to go to the Antonio

  460. fortress and overthrow the Roman oppression.

  461. They want him to go to the seats of power.

  462. They want him to go to the Capitol, or to Congress,

  463. or to the Senate or to the white House.

  464. They wanted he should have gone to Hollywood, right?

  465. Or to Wall Street or the Supreme Court.

  466. They want him to go to the Republican National Convention or the Democratic

  467. National Convention of the Democratic Democratic Socialists of America.

  468. God, that's where we need you go there.

  469. Fix that.

  470. Save us from all those evil things.

  471. All those evil people.

  472. And Jesus didn't go to any of those places.

  473. He went to the temple.

  474. He went to church.

  475. Jesus

  476. didn't come to set things right with Rome.

  477. He came to set things right with his father on people's behalf.

  478. First Peter 417 for

  479. it is time for judgment to begin where

  480. the household of God.

  481. And it begins with us.

  482. See here.

  483. Here we follow the same problem they did.

  484. We want Jesus to change the world around us.

  485. While he intends to change the worship within us.

  486. That's who this king is.

  487. That's who this king is.

  488. Jesus comes as the king

  489. to fulfill God's mission, and he comes to exercise God's authority.

  490. And he also comes to uphold God's Word and restore proper worship.

  491. This is why he came.

  492. This is why he went to the temple.

  493. Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought,

  494. bought in the temple and overturned the tables of the money

  495. changers of the seats of those.

  496. This whole pigeons, he said to them, it is written, you know, underline

  497. that in your Bible my house shall be called the house of prayer.

  498. But you make it a den of robbers. Verse 15.

  499. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did,

  500. and the children crying out in the temple, Hosanna to the son! David!

  501. They were indignant.

  502. They were bitter, they were jealous, they were enraged.

  503. And they said, do you hear what these are saying?

  504. That Jesus said, yeah. Have you never read your Bible

  505. out of the mouths of

  506. incense and infants and nursing babies,

  507. you've prepared praise.

  508. He restores by the authority God's Word.

  509. What proper worship is just goes to the temple to proclaim God's word,

  510. to overturn and overthrow the tables, and to address

  511. what proper worship is.

  512. See, their church and their worship have become something

  513. that God never intended it to be.

  514. It was about all things other than God, and other than his kingdom.

  515. It was a business.

  516. They had stopped praying and they started conducting business.

  517. And in the culture of that day, as people would make their way to Jerusalem on this

  518. yearly pilgrimage for the Passover, they would come from other lands.

  519. And as they came to Jerusalem, they had to offer an offering to temple tax.

  520. And so their money had to be exchanged.

  521. And so the money changers exorbitantly

  522. raise the exchange rate for them so they can make money off their worship.

  523. Those who sold pigeons and doves, the offering of the poor

  524. as an animal sacrificed at the temple, charged four times

  525. what they would normally charge

  526. because they knew that the people were desperate

  527. and desperate people would give their money,

  528. and the church became something

  529. very different than what God intended.

  530. As a while back, I visited a church

  531. and they had a beautiful coffee shop.

  532. And they felt called by God to charge

  533. Starbucks prices at their coffee shop.

  534. I don't want to talk about coffee shops, but I always end up going there.

  535. This in this sin,

  536. the world doesn't need Christian coffee

  537. and the world doesn't need

  538. another church coffee shop.

  539. It's time to start overturning some stuff.

  540. And if Jesus is king, has the right to overturn tables, even in my life as well,

  541. because he's the king.

  542. So he goes to the temple first.

  543. They want him to go fix all the problems in this world.

  544. He said, listen, I want to start fixing you and how you worship my father.

  545. Yeah, judgment will

  546. come, but it's going to start in the house of God,

  547. because you've come to this house for many different reasons and purposes,

  548. and very few of them have to do with the honor of my father.

  549. Do you want me to go to Congress, or you want me to go to your government?

  550. And you want me to go to your economics?

  551. I'm not going to any of those places.

  552. I'm going to go to your heart.

  553. I did not come to fix America.

  554. I came so your heart would be right with my father.

  555. I didn't come to fix your politics.

  556. I didn't come to fix your neighborhoods.

  557. I came to fix your heart.

  558. Because Jesus knows

  559. that if the people of the temple, if his.

  560. The people who claim his name, would simply worship the father

  561. rightly, there would be no need for judicial, civil,

  562. or political reform because there would be no injustice and corruption

  563. if the world just worshiped his father.

  564. So Jesus did not target Caesar's house.

  565. He targeted his father's house.

  566. You know how the church becomes

  567. a house of prayer?

  568. Was that Billy?

  569. By praying we don't become a house of prayer.

  570. By believing in prayer,

  571. we become a house of prayer, by praying

  572. one with another.

  573. And Jesus's authority resides as he upholds Scripture.

  574. I want you to understand what he says it is written.

  575. Who goes right back to the Bible?

  576. The authority of Christ

  577. resides in the authority of Scripture because he is God and this is His Word.

  578. And as we stand on the foundation of the Word of God, we stand in

  579. great authority.

  580. What the Bible says will always be our foundation.

  581. I've said it many times are we stand under the word.

  582. We don't stand over it.

  583. One of the greatest prayers we can pray over our lives and over this church

  584. is this old.

  585. My God, bend us under the authority of your word.

  586. Bend me under the authority of your word.

  587. The foundation

  588. of this whole thing, this worship that Jesus came to restore

  589. the propriety of has to do with two things Scripture and prayer.

  590. He starts with, it is written and he says, you will pray.

  591. That's worship.

  592. When we hear the Word of God,

  593. our response is to pray.

  594. That's worship.

  595. When you come to flip side

  596. every week, you will hear not opinion.

  597. You will hear not thoughts and ideas.

  598. You will not hear other peoples.

  599. You will hear the Word of God.

  600. It is the foundation of all we believe is the foundation of all we do.

  601. And we stand on the authority of it.

  602. And our proper response after hearing the Word of God is to respond in prayer.

  603. Just as Jesus said,

  604. prayer is worship.

  605. And then this Matthew, there's this quote here of Psalm

  606. eight to through the praise of children and inference, you have established

  607. stronghold against your enemies to silence the foe and the avenger.

  608. He says, my house will be your browser prayer.

  609. Haven't you heard that through children,

  610. praise and prayer will go up to me?

  611. The interesting thing about this verse right here is it's preceded by verse one

  612. and but verse one says, O Lord, our Lord,

  613. how majestic is your name, and all the earth.

  614. Through the praise of children and infants, you've established

  615. a stronghold, O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name

  616. and all the earth.

  617. Our response and worship is to say,

  618. oh Lord, our Lord, your name is great.

  619. You are the King, and we will praise you, because you are.

  620. And it's it's a child like faith.

  621. It's a child like exuberance as a childlike expression.

  622. Because with children there's no pretense,

  623. there's no pretending, there's no show, there's no smoking mirrors.

  624. It's not about their emotion in the moment.

  625. It's about who God is.

  626. Old Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name.

  627. Like a child, I praise you with that much expectation,

  628. unconcerned about who's around.

  629. Because I confess with my mouth that you are Lord.

  630. Band, you need to come up here

  631. because I'm just going to keep going as long as you stand in the back.

  632. And I love this whole

  633. you see what's going on here on this Palm Sunday?

  634. Yes, yes, sometimes.

  635. Seriously, I love you, but sometimes I preach a lot

  636. better than what you listen.

  637. Do you understand the power

  638. and what's going on here on this Palm Sunday?

  639. And what I love about this is, though, the authority of Almighty

  640. God is on display through the person of Christ, the Messiah, the King.

  641. He doesn't leave his people without compassion.

  642. And it may seem as though a king is royal

  643. as he is with all this authority would just say just balance.

  644. Submit right now. And he doesn't do that.

  645. There's one piece here,

  646. and the blind and the lame came to him in the temple and he healed him.

  647. He casts out the money changers.

  648. He casts out all these religious people.

  649. All these animals are fleeing.

  650. It had been just complete and utter chaos.

  651. He was ruining their whole system.

  652. And yet there was a few who remained.

  653. Who were they?

  654. They didn't leave. Who were they?

  655. The blind.

  656. Well, the lame couldn't go anywhere, right?

  657. I mean.

  658. Everybody ran away

  659. because this king came with such a confront them.

  660. And they were convicted and they fled.

  661. Except those who were in need.

  662. The blind and the lame.

  663. They said, oh, no, we know who you are,

  664. and we need your compassion.

  665. And I love the fact.

  666. Please understand this,

  667. my friends, that Jesus, in the extension of God's compassion,

  668. this is the truth we have to understand that lies behind that.

  669. God's authority is never detached from his compassion, ever.

  670. His authority is never detached from his compassion.

  671. So you may be hearing today that he is the King.

  672. He deserves all submission. Absolutely.

  673. But that doesn't come detached from the compassion

  674. that he wants to bestow upon you.

  675. In your blindness.

  676. Inability to have compassion.

  677. Here's why Jesus heals not to display his power.

  678. Jesus heals to display his compassion,

  679. his powers never in question,

  680. even for us.

  681. I believe in the power of God, but sometimes I doubt his compassion

  682. for my need.

  683. Jesus heals not to display his power, but to display his compassion,

  684. and it is available for all of us, lame and blind, who would seek him?

  685. Every one of us.

  686. He is the King, and he has the authority of a king.

  687. And although he came with the authority of heaven

  688. to chase out corruption,

  689. and those who claimed his name,

  690. he also came with the authority of heaven to administer compassion.

  691. If you need the compassion of God.

  692. If you and I are willing to admit God,

  693. I am blind, I am lame, I cannot save myself.

  694. There are things in my life that have victory over me

  695. that I need to be released from.

  696. If you need the compassion of God,

  697. he is available.

  698. You just must first admit

  699. you are blind and lame.

  700. And this king who came to be coroner

  701. will have compassion because that's who this king is.

  702. Acknowledge his authority over your life

  703. without apology, without compromise, and according to the truth of Scripture.

  704. Repent.

  705. There ought to be remorse

  706. over your sin and repentance and the turning away from it,

  707. and then worship him as the king

  708. and receive the compassion to Christ.

  709. Father, thank you for this day.

  710. Thank you that you are the King, Lord Jesus.

  711. Thank you that all authority resides in you and yet you don't lord it over us.

  712. You come to us humble writing on a baby donkey.

  713. You demand to be worshiped, but you offer also offer compassion.

  714. So in this moment, father, hear and see and acknowledge those of us

  715. who worship you as King,

  716. and then touch us with your compassion.

  717. Heal our blindness, heal our brokenness.

  718. There are things that we need in our lives

  719. from your compassion and that only you are capable of.

  720. Oh God, would you cause these people?

  721. Would you cause us in this moment to worship you in response,

  722. in prayer, seeking the hand of the compassion of God?

  723. Who is the King?

  724. As we seek you in prayer, would you move?

  725. Do it if you don't move.

  726. God, this is a waste of time.

  727. If you don't do something,

  728. this is a waste of energy.

  729. God, you have to.

  730. We implore you by the name of Jesus that those who would come

  731. and would seek you, that you would move on their behalf

  732. as they acknowledge you as King and your neighbor.

  733. Pray. Amen.

  734. Francis, what we're going to do, I'm going to invite you to stand

  735. up, and I have some of my prayer people who are going to be down front here.

  736. And if this is one of those times where you said, I need to acknowledge

  737. who he is, and I need his compassion on my life in

  738. whatever area that is, would it the prayers will be down there.

  739. Would you just approach it even while we're seeing it?

  740. You can do it after you. But even while we're seeing it,

  741. and go to

  742. God with somebody and receive the compassion of God.

  743. Let's see.