3/29/26 - Matthew 21:4-9: Our Song in the Already - Steve Gee

Yeah, this Palm Sunday, and we're talking about songs and singing.

So there's two types of, well, not two types, but so think about this the two types of a song, right?

So you have uh, let's say you're in your car and you you listen to a song on the radio or whatever, you're streaming a song, and that song uh leads you, so so you're just you're having a normal day, you listen to this song and it leads you to some type of emotion.

You get emotional about the song, happy, sad, whatever it may be, or whatever, and so the the song leads you, so feeling one way, a song comes on because of the beat, melody line, whatever, leads you to emotion, right?

And then you feel emotional after it.

So compare that response uh to the song and to the to the emotion of the song to uh let's say you're uh you know at some event or whatever and you sing the national anthem.

Okay?

Now I'm not saying the national anthem doesn't have a great beat or great melody, but it's not about that, right?

It is because you are singing a truth, a thing, something that, you know, that you know, because we we we we we're just so thankful for for all that's gone before us here in this country that has allowed us to gather like this.

We you sing it, you're singing a a reality, a truth, uh uh that that that that drives you to some type of emotion.

So one is you're driven by some sort of emotionalism of a song versus standing and gathering with a group of people and singing something that you're just thankful for, right?

So that's what we're gonna be looking at today.

Because a good song might change your mood, but good news can change your life.

And again, aren't we glad that we live in a country that was built on the truth of so many who've gone before us and fought for, you know, this.

Aren't we glad that it's not we've we're living in a country that was built on that and not just a good mood?

This is the season in which we as the church are gathered by the good news of Jesus Christ, and so we sing.

This is what we're singing tonight.

Again, we'll gather to sing.

And we're not gathering in hopes of being stirred, we are gathering in response to our salvation.

Does that make sense?

So I my hope and prayer is that you didn't show up today, and we're not gonna show up next Sunday, or you're not gonna show up tonight saying, Well, let me go and see what happens.

Let me go and see if I can be stirred up to something.

No, that go to a concert if that's what you want.

Like tonight we gather, we gather as the church this morning and next Sunday, every Sunday, we go there to be stirred by the message, by the response, as a response to our salvation.

Right?

We're not trying to drill up some sort of emotional thing here.

But also, no, there's nothing wrong with emotions.

This is how we've been made.

But they don't lead us.

Emotions are a response.

Okay.

Let me read here.

Let's look at our passage.

Uh um, Mallory actually read some of it.

Matthew, uh, Matthew 21, 4 through 9.

Matthew 21, 4 through 9.

This will be our kind of our focal text, and we'll look at the prophecy that precedes this.

But Matthew 21, 4 through 9.

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 full of a beast of burden.

The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them.

They brought the donkey and the colt and put on uh put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them.

Most of the crowds spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.

And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, Hosanna to the Son of David, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Hosanna in the highest, just as we sung.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, thank you for this day.

Father God, as we read your word, as we think about your word, as we consider your word, may we behold, may we treasure the person of Jesus Christ.

May this time not be a moment in which we are stirred by emotions, but may we be stirred by truth.

That does indeed, in fact, lead us to an emotional response.

Father, that is our hope and our desire.

May we be led by truth.

May we enjoy it and we rejoice in it.

It is in the name of your Son Jesus Christ, and in his work and name that we pray this in all things.

Amen.

So let me give you a purpose statement.

Jesus is the Messiah who came to who came to us in humility by becoming our peace with God, and to whom we sing Hosanna.

Jesus is the Messiah who came to us in humility by becoming our peace with God and to whom we sing Hosanna.

So let's look at three parts of that from this passage.

Today we're gonna look at the following the prophecy, the person, and the praise.

Not even gonna talk about it.

It's three P's, I get it.

The prophecy, the person and the praise.

So, first of all, the prophecy.

Let's jump back to Zechariah.

It's a minor prophet, it's right before Malachi.

So right towards the end of the New Testament, not our Old Testament, not far from where we're at in Matthew, just 50 pages in my Bible.

Matthew, or Zechariah chapter 9, verses 9 and 10.

Zechariah 9:9

So just the two verses.

It's on your screen there.

If you happen to come with just the New Testament alone, you can see it on the screen.

Zechariah 9, 9 and 10.

Here's what it says: Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion.

Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem.

Behold, your king is coming to you.

Righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem, and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall speak peace to the nations.

His rule shall be from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth.

Okay?

That was not three weeks before what we see here in Jerusalem happening with Christ.

That was like 450 years before.

It's a long time.

Like this country's not been around that long.

So over 400 years before what we just read in Matthew, is being played out in Matthew, we get this prophecy from Zechariah, Zechariah 9, 9 and 10.

So what do we see?

Rejoice greatly.

This is Zachariah 9:10.

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion, shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem.

Again, to expand maybe the illustration of the sum of the song.

If you've ever been to summer camp, kids going to summer camp this summer, uh, or an event that ends with a bonfire, and people gather around the fire, the bonfire, and you know, there's just something about bonfires at the end of a long week of camp that people become emotional.

You know, like it who knows?

And so you become emotional.

Just like the song, there's something about people getting, again, getting around that fire at the end of the week that can stir something in us.

And just like the song, there's nothing wrong with bonfires in the life of a Christian.

But it is important to make sure that the ultimate thing that draws us in is the gospel.

This is important.

Listen, this I know it's Easter, it's Easter season, and it's it's very easy to be sucked in and drawn in by the bonfire.

Or let's say the emotional uh uh the emotional charge that is Easter, right?

It's easy.

Family comes, and you know, and maybe that's good or bad, but like, and so there's just this this very easy for us to have an emotional response to to Easter.

Listen, I'm not saying emotion is wrong, but again, let it be guided by the good news, the truth, right?

Let that be the fire that gathers us, not a sense of nostalgia and sentimentality for the season, right?

We're gathered, and that's why that's why we're in church.

That's why we're here this morning, to read God's word, to remember what the fire is, so to speak, to remember what the melody of the song is in truth.

Okay.

In Zechariah 9, the Israelites are told, are being told to rejoice.

Let's be clear.

That is an emotional response.

Rejoicing is an emotional response.

But the question becomes: is this a rejoicing and shouting that's meant to lead them to feeling?

Is this about a catchy emotional song or a Friday evening bonfire?

Or is it a rejoicing and shouting that's born out of a response to something?

And we see in our passage, it is a response.

See in our passage uh in Zechariah 9, 9 through 10.

This is not the emotional response to a good tune, it's a joyous response to good news.

So why should they rejoice?

What then is the cause the cause of their shouting?

Okay, so here the passage.

The the prophecy is not rejoice, people of God, rejoice, rejoice, rejoice, full stop, close the book.

That's not what it says.

Right?

Zachariah is not a pop star trying to make people emotional so that you stream more songs.

Zachariah is declaring the true good news of the coming Messiah.

That's his goal.

So look, why, how do we know that?

Look what he puts next.

Look what God breathed out through his prophet.

What's next?

So, rejoice.

Why?

Behold, we know the word behold means gaze, take hold of, look, stare at, you know, really treasure.

Behold, Yorki.

The Israelites are being told, behold, take notice again, consider deeply, look.

Now, a preposition, sorry, I don't want to, I didn't want to have to go here, but I'm gonna go here for a second.

A preposition is a small word in a sentence that shows a relationship between an object and another word.

And so to begin with, don't overlook the preposition of their salvation.

Don't overlook the preposition of their rejoicing, we could say.

It's important.

Their rejoicing is tied to a preposition.

What is the preposition that they're supposed to rejoice over?

The word to.

You see it?

See it in the verse?

Again, the announcement of your king is exciting.

But what makes this great news is the preposition that follows it.

Do they go to him?

No.

The good news that leads them to joy is that the anointed king has come to them.

This is the melody and fire of their praise.

They don't celebrate their ascension, they don't sing out of what they have done.

This is not a song of accomplishment.

Israel, shout aloud, your salvation has come to you.

The prophecy then reveals the details of their king's arrival.

He is humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the full of a donkey.

So their king will come in humility and riding a donkey.

And this was not an ordinary king, this was the king, the anointed one of God, the Messiah.

You talk about this in Sunday school, the Christ.

We know that Christ is not the last name of Jesus.

Christ is a title, Messiah, anointed one of God, right?

So Jesus the Christ.

And look what comes next.

Verse 10.

I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem, and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall speak peace to the nations.

His rule shall be from sea to sea and from river and from the river to the ends of the earth.

And so what will the ultimate result be of the king who comes to them on a donkey?

He shall speak peace.

So this king, here's what we're learning about the king.

This king is a preacher of a word.

And that word is peace.

And because this king, because this king comes to them from God, his word is effective.

When God said, Let there be light, what was there?

Light.

So then, when the Messiah comes and he speaks peace, the anointed one of God, when he speaks peace, what is there?

Peace.

Because God's word accomplishes its purpose.

Does that make sense?

He speaks peace, which gives us confidence.

Because we know when God speaks, he does.

He fulfills, he accomplishes.

We know that when God speaks, what comes out of his mouth accomplishes what it intends.

The word that this king will declare is peace, which is shalom.

And I think it is necessary to continually, I need this.

And maybe you're thinking, I already got it, I already hold that word in my working memory, this word of shalom, but I need it.

I think it's continually necessary to point out, uh, because when we think peace, that English word peace, we think of just absence of conflict.

And in a time like this, what that means, and when there's a lot of conversations and hopes for peace, what that means is we hope that there is an end to the aggression.

But no one, I don't think if you're watching the news right now, no one is naive.

When they talk of I hope, you know, I hope we can just have peace, you know, with the aggression.

I don't think anyone, I've not heard anyone say on the news or any pundit say this.

I hope that, like my hope for the Middle East is not just end of aggression.

I'm hoping I'm hoping there's shalom.

Biblical peace, shalom, is the presence of fullness.

It is complete well-being.

It is the blessings and purposes of our God and creator, creator on his creatures in totality.

It is the consummation of our salvation, it is the wholeness of our nature.

That is something to be emotional about.

The God who accomplishes things through his word has sent his son.

Well, we'll just call him the Messiah right now because we don't have a name yet, not for another 400 years.

Uh he sent uh his his his Messiah, his Christ, to speak peace, which is not just, okay, Rome's no longer gonna bother you, they're gonna mind their own business.

Oh, he speaks peace, which is that what they would have heard is he will speak fullness on his people, completion.

So then, what we can understand here is that ever since, again, if that's what peace is, is that's what shalom is, complete well-being, what we can understand here is that ever since the Garden of Eden, there's never truly been peace on earth.

There's never been peace.

The sin of humanity has fractured shalom.

We live in the continual frustration of peace.

We are always, I'm not just talking about what's happening over there.

We are always striving, even in the suburbs.

The subdivisions do not have peace.

Always balancing, always longing, always searching, always a war raging within, always anxious, always toiling, always an appetite that hungers for something beyond.

Does your subdivision have peace?

Does your address have peace?

Does the person in the mirror have shalom?

Not in its totality.

And what we hear, we have a we sing a song of rejoicing because a king will come to us from God who will speak that, and it will be that.

We say, Come, Lord Jesus, come.

Skipping to the end.

And it is not just humanity.

In the tornadoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, and wildfires, we see that all of creation is raging and groaning for something that has been lost.

That is what the king on the donkey has come to set right.

That is the prophecy and promise of Zechariah 9.

Their joy, our joy, is not a temporary ceasefire in which we all hold our breath to see if it lasts.

This is the good news that God has made a way through a king who will allow us to fully exhale and let our guard down in a forever celebration.

This salvation is the arrival of restoration to all of creation and us.

And it is the ultimate and unimaginable event that gathers us and leads us to song.

That's what we're going to celebrate tonight.

Secondly, the person.

And so, with all of that expectation, the people of Israel went about their lives.

Again, Zachariah is writing about 450 years before Jesus, before the arrival of the Christ, waiting for the arrival of their salvation, the anointed one of God who would bring Shalom to not just them, but again, as Zachariah says, and they would have known it, to all the earth.

And then we have this in Matthew 21, 4 through 9, which we read.

It's on your screens there, should still be in your Bible.

We read that we see this play out, right?

And that we have the king who is coming to us, humble and mounted on a donkey on a colt, the full of the beast of the burden.

And again, the disciples went and they got the full.

That's what we see there in verse 6.

And they brought the donkey and the colt and put it put on the cloaks, put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them.

And then most of the crowd spread their cloaks and they sang out.

They rejoiced and they shouted, just like Zechariah 9 said they would.

The prophecy of Zechariah would have been well known there at the time when Matthew, when this happened in the life of Christ.

And they would have also known the Davidic covenant, that God would send a king who would reign forever from the line of David.

And so we picture the scene described here in Matthew, and we read in 21.

Okay.

Just bear with me.

One more moment of language.

The word Hosanna is not simply a generic word of praise.

This is not like some trendy brain rot during the time, like, yay, this is not that.

The word Hosanna carried weight.

Hosanna is a loaded word.

It is a praise word of identification, right?

So it was a praise used for, meant for a certain person.

So it was not just a generic.

They weren't just walking around all day saying, hey, Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna, my team one.

They were not saying it.

It was meant in Psalm, uh, we didn't get to all the way to 25 and 26, but in Psalm 118, we see this, the Hebrew word that this word Hosanna is derived from.

Psalm 118, 25 and 26.

I know I'm doing a lot here.

If you have a pen, you could scribble this passage down if you want to look at it.

Psalm 118, 25 through 26.

Here's what it says: Save us, we pray, O Lord.

O Lord, we pray, give us success.

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

We bless you from the house of the Lord.

So 118.25 says, Save us, we pray, O Lord.

The phrase, save us, in Psalm 118, 25, it begins in verse 25, is the Hebrew word that the Greek word Hosanna is derived from.

And in that context, save us is talking about the one who's gonna come from the Lord.

So this is a messianic.

Psalm 118, it has a has messianic overtones or undertones, really overtones.

I guess explicit.

We're talking about the Messiah here, the line of David, who would be talked about in Zechariah 9.

So save us is the word, I'm not gonna pronounce it in Hebrew because you don't need that.

Is the word that Hosanna is derived from.

Here's why that's important.

It's so important.

If you want to understand the response of the Pharisees, this is important.

Hosanna is literally a cry, save us, help us, Christ.

The one who comes in the name of the Lord.

Which means, when the people cry, which means the people are crying out for help, salvation from God.

So the one they are crying for is an anointed one of God who will come to them in order to save them.

So, so far from being mere praise, when the people cried out, they're in Matthew 21, 9, and what we just sang, when the people cried out, Hosanna at the arrival of Christ, they were saying, He is the anointed one of God.

He is the one who has come to save us, help us.

He has come in the name of God and will bring salvation in their great need.

For some, this was a moment of great exaltation and expectation.

For others, it was utter blasphemy.

To play out the messianic prophecy of the king from the line of David riding on the donkey into Jerusalem, it would have sent the Pharisees into a frenzy.

It was pretty specific.

I mean, when I read Zechariah 9, 9, and 10, then I read Matthew 21, like that's exactly what happened.

It would have been blasphemy to the Pharisees.

So if you've ever read the New Testament and the trial of Christ, you're like, why are they so upset?

All he did was this.

All he did was say this.

All they did was this.

They said, Hoseannah.

What's the big deal?

The big deal is it was blasphemy to them.

They were pointing to Christ, they're saying, He is the one.

The one.

To call Jesus a great teacher, prophet, or miracle worker was one thing, but to label him as the Messiah would have been too much for them.

It's important to understand that the whole scene of the triumphal entry is meant to reveal the fulfillment of scriptures.

But also, the scene in details are not without meaning.

For example, if you sell something online to somebody, if you sell something online and you you tell that somebody, you know, hey, I'll be in the um, I'll be at the Kroger, I'll be at the Kroger parking lot.

And uh and uh at this time of the day, so 5 o'clock p.m., I'll be at the Kroger, and I'll be driving the white SUV, me and every other person in the subdivision.

All right?

So you'll know who I am.

Uh so I'll be in the white SUV at time of day, you know, the location, all of those things are arbitrary.

Those are meant to identify you, but they are just completely arbitrary.

They have nothing to do with what you're selling.

Does that make sense?

Like nobody's like, oh, I would have bought that from you, but you said you were coming in a white SUV, no thanks.

Like, they're just ways to say that's me.

Right?

Jesus' decision in the prophecy to ride into Jerusalem on a donkey is not an arbitrary detail to ensure they knew it was him.

It was not like, hey, before I come, Zechariah, why don't you say this so that they know that's me in the white SUV?

They know that's me on the.

Let's just do something that nobody's expecting.

I've come on a donkey.

I'm gonna wear a purple tie.

So they'll know that's me.

Now, there is a there is a part that's identification, but there's also a part of revealing his character.

So it's both and.

And listen, we don't need to make a division.

I've heard, like, you know, online people like, it is not this.

It is not, it's both.

It's both.

It's both.

It reveals his character and it also identifies who he is as the Messiah.

Typically, a triumphal king riding into a city would have been done on a war horse and a chariot.

And those details would have declared not only his nature.

Again, if you if if Christ would have come on a war horse and a chariot, it would have declared not only his nature, but also how he planned on accomplishing his conquest.

So for Christ to ride in on a donkey, and this was not even a donkey that was trained and used for riding, it was a beast of burden, an animal of lowly estate, meek and unexpected and unassuming transport for a king, and he's being hailed as Messiah, for him to ride in on that donkey would have been very confusing for onlookers, but again, it was not about just about his identification, it was about nature of what he came to do.

This is the one who would overthrow the great Roman Empire in their minds, who would bring peace, shalom, fullness to the land.

How would he do that from the back of a borrowed farm animal?

And I wonder about what Christ thought about as he rode, or what he thought about as he rode that donkey amidst the praise of the people.

As they shouted, Hosanna, save us, help, you are the Messiah.

What they did not know was that the captivity he came to secure for them was not from Rome, it was from their own sin.

For him to overthrow those who are against him would condemn them all to eternal captivity.

You hear the irony there?

He's writing in, they're saying, save us.

One from the Lord, give us salvation, please.

They think Rome.

He knows it's not from Rome, he knows it's from their captivity of sin.

He's like, they're there singing, overthrow our enemy.

And Christ is thinking, you're the enemy.

You're who I came to say.

From your sin, from your insurrection.

Right?

And I just think about Christ writing.

And listen, Christ is not me.

Because it would have been hard for me to say.

Are you kidding me right now?

But this does not mean that God overlooks the hostility toward him and his kingdom, quite the opposite.

This means that Christ, the Son of God, the King of Kings, would address our hostility by taking it upon himself.

That's where he was going.

He arrived on a donkey because he was not a king going to his throne, at least not yet.

Because if he were, if he did arrive going to his throne, the kingdom would have been empty.

If Christ, on his first arrival, if he would have come going to a throne, there would have been nobody in his kingdom.

Rather, the donkey declares that he came to us to empty himself so that he could build a kingdom of all those who saw their need for his salvation from their insurrection.

He rode an animal of humility because the only way he could be victorious was to deny himself.

He says in the Garden of Gethsemane, if there's any any other way, and there was not.

He must drink the full cup of God's wrath in our place.

Thirdly and finally, our praise.

So, with all of that, what about today?

How will we find this salvation?

How will we find peace?

To ask that question is to forget the preposition.

Remember the preposition of our salvation.

It is something that arrives.

It is something we, it is not something we manufacture.

And we remember that our song is one of captivity, and it is a captivity of our own creation.

We are the hostile kingdom, but salvation has come to us in the form and in the person of Jesus Christ.

And remember how our Messiah secured our peace.

On the night when his captors interrupted his time before the face of the Father, Jesus could have defeated the Roman soldiers.

And much more, he could have gone on to overthrow all of Rome with the word, his effective word of his power.

He could have simply removed his common grace upon them and expedited their return to dust.

Does that make sense?

So when Christ came, he didn't even need a sword to accomplish what he's going to do.

All he had to do was speak a word of power, and all of Rome would have been overthrown.

And the Jews and his disciples would have in that moment proclaimed the good news of their political salvation and would have held a wonderful parade full of temporary rejoicing, driven by an emotion of something they thought was the most important thing.

Against the enemy they thought was their greatest enemy.

But that was not the will of God, and we thank him for that.

The victory that Christ sought looked like a defeat in the temporary.

Even those who were closest to him thought he had fallen short.

They thought he had been defeated and they ran and they abandoned him.

And those who were bent on his destruction mocked him as he hung on the cross, declaring that he was, in fact, not the Messiah.

He was not worthy of the palm branches.

He could not even Hosanna save himself from the captivity of the cross, let alone rescue the nation of God's people.

So hear the story.

See how this plays out on Holy Week.

Christ's triumphal entry, they're crying, save us, save us, save us.

You are another, we have identified you.

You are the Messiah, the Holy One of God, who will bring peace to all of the world.

And then on Friday, the Pharisees do the exact opposite of the disciples and the worshipers on Sunday.

It's the exact opposite.

They cry, Hosanna, you are the Messiah, save us.

On Friday, on the cross, they mock him, saying, You are not the Messiah because you can't even save yourself.

How are you going to save us?

And it just took a week.

But the forever victory was just three days away.

The temple that they destroyed on the cross would be rebuilt on the morning of the third day.

The vindication of victory did not begin with the sound of the unsheathing of a sword.

Rather, it began with the sound of an inhale in a dark tomb sealed by a great stone and guarded by a squad of Roman soldiers.

And death was defeated in the breath of our king.

The futility that our flesh had been subjected to found its Hosanna in the expansion of the lungs of our crucified Messiah.

True life is not the result of some inevitable Big Bang in the cosmos.

Life eternal is the consequence of the love of our Messiah who emptied himself so that our lungs could be made full, so that we could exhale in shouts of joy and rejoicing, Hosanna to our King.

But we must be careful, because just as Christ entered into the flesh and humbled himself in this age, we should not think that we are greater than him.

He did not come in humility in this age, so that we could walk in arrogance in this age.

So then, by faith, we are united with this king who humbled himself unto death.

And we remember what he told his disciples.

He told them that they too would live lives that look like defeat.

He told Peter after the resurrection, he told Peter that his body, Peter's body, would also be torn apart.

Paul said that they were called to a life that the world would see as foolish, as pitiable because it looked like lambs to a slaughter.

It looks nothing like what the world calls winning.

It looks like a people who followed the king who rode on a donkey and then went to a cross.

The Bible tells us that the only way any of us can find peace, fullness, and rejoicing is by following our Christ.

And so do we understand the implications that the only way we can find satisfaction in this life and forevermore is by emptying ourselves for the sake of Christ.

And maybe now you have alarm bells going off in your head.

You're saying, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

I thought it was by faith in Christ.

And it is.

And that faith, just like, and I said and, not but.

And, that faith, just like any belief, has outworkings.

Every belief we hold leads us to action.

And understand clearly, salvation has come to us in and through Jesus, each of us personally.

Not only did we not decide for him to enter the city of decay, but we also did not decide for him to enter our hearts of rebellion.

The Messiah is the one who comes to us in from God.

And then we see that our following him, our belief and faith, is actually the consequence of his already work present in the city of our hearts.

How do we make this happen today?

And you know the Intertestamental period is a story of that.

How do we make that this happen today?

Let's force it.

They did not manufacture, they did not control the arrival of Jesus Christ in the manger, and they did not manufacture or raise up Jesus to then enter into the city on the donkey.

It was not their thing to do.

Jesus, God, came to them.

And so also we need to understand we cannot, even by our works, but certainly by our works, manufacture the Messiah who comes to us.

He comes to us.

What we do, like we do with anything good that comes to us, we respond.

We believe.

It's a work of God.

Jesus said, My disciples follow me, not to a throne here in the already, but to a cross.

And to be clear, Christ is not calling us to die to the truth.

He is not saying we should not be firm in what God has said.

Children of God, children of God, holding your palm branches and bumper stickers of praise for King Jesus.

Awake, O sleeper, from the cultural definitions of what it means and looks like to be a recipient of the grace of God in Christ Jesus.

It is more, it is more than a post.

It is more than even a song.

It is a life that declares the goodness of Jesus Christ.

A life that seeks flourishing in our decrease as we increase his name.

We I don't know if there's anything more anti.

I don't like the word I was gonna say there.

Hold on.

It's not in my notes, so let me be careful.

One of my elders asked about my reading.

Why I read is because I want to be careful.

I want to be so careful.

I don't know if there's anything I've said, maybe, it's more anti-R culture in this county, country, nation, than this.

We gain by losing.

That's what Christ said.

We gain by losing.

I know we want to say we gain by winning.

We're Americans.

That's what we do.

Look at us.

Here's what the truth of the gospel says, and that's what the beatitudes say.

You can go back and look at the beatitudes as well.

We become rich through generosity, we become satisfied through sacrifice.

This is the upside-down heavenly kingdom contradiction of our king who invaded our hearts, came to us.

It is the blessing of the Beatitudes.

Check out Matthew chapter 5.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

And this is the strange, peculiar, confident, expectant hope of all those who are his.

In 1 Peter, why do they ask him?

Why do they ask?

About the hope that is in them?

Is it because it looks, they look the same as everybody else, or is it because they have some sort of gain by losing hope, some sort of confidence in persecution that feels so strange that somebody says, I don't understand that.

Why are you on a donkey, so to speak?

In the light of the mercies of God, we give ourselves as living sacrifices.

We are those who find joy in the endurance of the cross set before us for the sake of his eternal glory that brings us peace.

And it's all by grace alone.

We're not manufacturing any of this.

It is the Tuesday song that is joyfully declared by our empty hands.

You're generous.

Alright, in conclusion.

The prophecy of Zachariah, again, if I can get technical just for one more second.

Or a minute.

It could be two minutes.

Not a prophet.

The prophecy of Zechariah is what is known as a near and far prophecy.

So you think of it as a mountain range.

When you look at a mountain range from a distance, they all, not in Mississippi, we don't have mountain ranges.

Okay, I get it.

I know we talked about this a couple uh months ago.

Uh but if you go to like an actual mountain range, uh uh uh if you look at an actual mountain range, you'll you'll see in the distance, they all look, all the mountains look bunched up.

And you can only see the peaks, but the closer you get to them, the more you see and realize that there are valleys between the mountains.

Right?

You all know how mountain ranges work.

Nobody's like, oh, okay.

We should have been a church today.

Steve explained mountain ranges.

It's such a good church.

We all wear black, it's Palm Stadium, it's so neat.

In the single vision of the mountain range, there are near peaks and far peaks.

Zachariah's prophecy has two peaks.

The near peak is the Messiah on the donkey.

The far peak is the complete cutting off and removal of the enemies and the arrival, the fullness of the arrival of Shalom, peace from sea to sea.

Does that make sense?

But in between those two, in between that mountain range prophecy, there's a valley.

You understand?

Christ on a donkey.

Christ and the bringing, the fulfillment of shalom.

There's a valley.

The fuller prophecy of this far peak was given to the apostle John, not to Zachariah.

Revelation 19, 11 through 16.

What do you know?

Revelation 19, 11 through 16.

This is what it says.

Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, not a donkey this time, not a donkey.

Then I saw heaven open, and behold, a white horse.

The one sitting on it is called faithful and true, and capitalized faithful and true.

And in righteousness he judges and makes war.

His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has the name written that no one knows but himself.

He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is the word of God.

And the armies of heaven arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses.

Verse 15.

From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron.

He will tread the winepress of fury of the wrath of the God Almighty, of God Almighty.

On his robe and on his thigh, his name is written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

That's the clarity of the far peak that Zechariah talks about in Zechariah 99 to 10.

So then, not a donkey, on a war horse.

And he's still a preacher.

That is, he still speaks.

It's still his word that accomplishes his purpose.

So if you get this picture of Christ coming, and he's just, you know, some marvel superhero swinging his sword.

It's not what we see.

It's his word.

He's the word of God, capital W.

Right?

That's what John 1 calls him too, right?

He is the word made flesh.

This is what he speaks, and it is accomplished.

So this is the already and not yet we find ourselves in today.

We are in the valley between the Christ on a donkey and the Christ on his war horse.

And see it in Revelation 19, 15.

Our king is indeed a preacher.

Shalom is from sharp sword with which he shall strike down the nations who are against him.

And as the now, as the new forever dawn breaks through the judgment of fire, there is new, and there is fullness.

And we know that creation and humanity can only find shalom, total completion in the presence of her king.

So, yes, there will be no more striving and decay, but that is a consequence of the presence and restored perfect fellowship of the Creator with his creation.

Just brief.

Our deepest longings and anxieties cannot be satisfied by the removal of tears, sickness, and death.

So then, when we talk about shalom, if you think shalom is the removal of sickness, the removal of tears, the removal of death.

If you think that's what shalom is, that's not it.

Those are consequences of shalom.

Those are the things that we'll enjoy because of something that is shalom, that is fullness.

So the absence of that conflict, sickness, death, worry, anxiety, the absence of that conflict is because the presence of our fullness.

And class.

The presence of our fullness has a name, and it is Jesus.

All those things, our shalom can only be satisfied by the presence of Christ.

It is only then that we as His creation can find true deep soul rest.

Here's where my heart is exposed.

And I heard a preacher once uh say this recently I saw it, but I I think he said it a while ago.

Like, how many of us would say, Oh, like my hope for heaven is that I won't be sick anymore?

My hope for heaven is that my hope for new creation is that things will be great.

I can pet a line, I don't know.

Like that that my kids won't get sick anymore.

Yes, yes, yes, and yes, and yes, and yes, no tears.

Yes, yes, no more wars, yes, yes.

I want the absence of all that conflict.

Yes, yes, yes.

That would be great.

And and I think some of us in our in our in our in our finitude, in our short-sightedness, we think that's all I want.

What would it be like to live in that?

And the world is trying to get that, right?

So get more money, do these things, accomplish this, and maybe we can get that.

Great, get it all, but you'll never have what you actually need.

Because what you actually need is the presence of your king.

The fullness of shalom is only found in the in the in the restored relationship with your God.

All those things are consequences as everything is restored.

Here's the truth we will see his face, we will see our king, he will be our God, and we will be his people.

The king on the donkey, and then the war horse is the plan of redemption and restoration of all things in which he will dwell among us.

That is the destination.

And so, in the already, in the valley between two peaks, we as God's people sing loud to our Christ.

Hosanna.

That's right.

Heavenly Father, thank you for this day.

Father God, may we sing, may we sing out not because of a clever melody line or an eloquent message.

Father, we sing out in praise because salvation has come to us in the form of sinful flesh, has taken on our sin upon himself, and has given us his righteousness, Father God, that we can then hold and receive by responding in faith.

And so, Father God, I pray that we would respond in faith, we would believe these things, and then Father God, that we there's nothing we can do but sing out rejoice loudly.

Not out of emotion, but out of truth.

That is the fire of our song.

Father, thank you for your son Jesus Christ.

May we continually behold him, gaze at him, treasure him, long for him, look for him, look towards him.

It is in his name that we stand before you and pray this and ask all these things in his name alone.

Amen.