Who Wears the Crown? - John 12:12-19 - August 16, 2026

Matthew Poole: Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we come to your word, we come humbled because we cannot make it do what we want it to do. Therefore we bow in prayer. And in prayer we are not exerting our self sufficiency this morning. No, we are declaring by our act of prayer that we cannot do what we need to do this morning. We cannot make your scriptures come to life this morning. We cannot make Jesus, your son, look more beautiful, more glorious to our hearts. We cannot make our minds comprehend his wonder. We cannot stir our own hearts to have affections for Christ and to see him as our treasure. We ask for you to do that now in this time. For your eternal glory and for our eternal joy. And it's in your name that we pray. Amen. My freshman year in college at Granville Towers at UNC, I was reading a devotional book, and the devotion book asked a piercing question: Is there a branch in your life not bearing fruit that needs to be pruned so that your life can bear more fruit? And I knew clear as day, yes, there was a branch in my life not bearing fruit. It was the branch of substance abuse. In that moment, God met me. He came to me. He was asking me a question, which way do I want to go? Matthew, do you want to wear the crown? Or would you like me to wear the crown? And in that moment I tragically said, I'll take the crown. And it was as if God said, Okay, I will let you experience what life is like when you're wearing the crown. What followed were the worst two years of my life. God was incredibly, incredibly gracious, how He brought me back to Himself. And I wish I could say that I learned my lesson fully. I still struggle today. I struggle today still wanting, desiring to wear the crown. I think we all struggle. We don't like Jesus having the crown. We want to call the shots, we want the glory, we want to choose the direction that we're going. Humanity's been struggling with this since day one, when Adam and Eve exerted their independence against God. And we have nothing but death to show for it. Here's our problem this morning. We reject King Jesus because we want to wear. Can you identify with that this morning? Making the same mistakes over and over again. Maybe you've made a train wreck of your life. Maybe you realize you have no desire for King Jesus. Over and over again, we try to put the crown on our heads, manipulate, control life so that we get the praise, we get the glory. This is a problem because it doesn't lead to life, it leads to death. Is there hope? Is there hope for such self-centered, glory-seeking, troubled, confused, distorted hearts like ourselves? Is there hope for us? Let's turn to John chapter. The first thing that we see here is that Jesus claims his title as king. He claims his title. Verse 12 of chapter 12. The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast, Passover, heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and they went out to meet him, crying out, Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel. So Passover is here, it's the greatest feast. It's happening, annual feast. Jesus is coming, and by this point, Jesus has gone absolutely viral. He's breaking the internet. Why? Two things. Because there is an expectation for a political, revolutionary Messiah to come. And liberate the Jews from Roman oppression. That's their context. And secondly, Jesus has just raised Lazarus from the dead. Surely, this is the guy we're looking for, we're waiting for. So word spreads. It goes viral. They want to welcome him appropriately. So they go outside the city, they roll the red carpet out to Jesus to welcome him in. They're welcoming in. It's a welcoming procession to welcome the king into Jerusalem. And they bring palm branches, which is a sign of authority or victory. Victory secured, power to the king, authority and blessing to the king. But there's this celebration aspect to the victory. It's like they are already anticipating the victory that's to come. It'd be as if much of Carolina Hurricane fans, maybe in this room, if they all went outside of the arena, found the hockey players preseason, and were waving Stanley Cups. Like we know where this thing is headed. And they welcome, they welcome King Jesus into the city. So they're doing that. They're waving these branches, but they're also singing. They're chanting Psalm 118. This is this is Psalm 118. Hosanna, save us. They're crying out, save us. Believing Jesus to be the fulfillment of this, blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Jesus, you're the Messiah. You are the glorious one. You're the honorable one. You are the happy, joyful, anointed one to come and to save us. Praise God. You've come to do that very thing, the king of Israel highlighting their nationalistic desires here. You've come to be king of Israel and to put Israel back on the map. We're tired of being oppressed by Rome. We're tired of being a nothing burger on the world stage. It's time for you to exert your reign here for us. How does Jesus respond? Verse 14. And Jesus found a young donkey and he saddled. Just as it is written, Fear not, daughter of Zion, behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey's colt. Jesus, by sitting on the donkey, accepts the title as king. He accepts it. The donkey is a symbol of authority and royalty. By Jesus sitting on this donkey, he's fulfilling this scripture, and it's like he's taking the first step on the royal carpet that they have laid out for him. So you've got to imagine that this scene is like pandemonium. The king is here, as if the Stanley Cup has one. I mean, people are going nuts. They're on both sides of Jesus. He's on this donkey and they're coming into Jerusalem. But is the crowd's expectation of Jesus the same expectation that Jesus has of Jesus? Where we go next. Second point this morning. Jesus has exerted his claim, he's accepted his claim, his title is king. Now we see Jesus clarifies his mission as king. Verse 16. His disciples did not understand these things at first. But when Jesus was glorified, When he was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him. So Jesus accepts the title of king. They come out, they want him to be king. Jesus accepts that. They are getting something very right. They are also getting something very wrong. Very wrong. Jesus clarifies the type of king and the type of mission he's on by pointing to Zechariah 9 by his by his physical being. He's living this out. He is pointing to Zechariah and acting this thing out. Nobody is connecting the dots with what he's doing. So nobody sees it. John is inserting that here. Jesus knows what he's doing. None of the crowds get it. None of the disciples get it. So what is Jesus doing here? Or how do the dots get connected for the disciples? It's when Jesus is glorified. It's when Jesus is glorified. And for John, the glorification of Jesus happens on the cross in his exaltation. And the glory of the resurrection. The whole thing is the glorification of Jesus. His death, his resurrection, his ascension. The glory of Jesus. It's at that point the disciples are now like, whoa, wait a second. Wait a second. You remember these scriptures? So they start reinterpreting or seeing everything through the right interpretive lens. I don't know if you've seen that movie, National Treasure. It says hunt for treasure. treasure, they got this treasure map towards the end of the movie. They find Ben Franklin's bifocals, his glasses that have all these colors that you different lens. And you have to have these these glasses to be able to see what's actually on the map. It is as if the cross and the resurrection is our interpretive lens by which we see all the scriptures. We see the treasures of Jesus and the treasure and the truth of Jesus through the lens of his cross and resurrection. That's what they're doing here. So they're looking back, or we're challenged to look back and see Zechariah 9. So what can be seen about King Jesus? After the cross and resurrection, his glorification, that they did not perceive as he was coming into Jerusalem. First is this. Jesus is a sin battling king. Jesus is a sin battling king. He's here to do war. But he's not warring against the enemy, we might think. He's not here to do war against Rome. He's not here to liberate the Jews from Roman oppression. He's here to liberate humanity from sin and slavery to the devil. This is the war Jesus came here to fight. Matthew 121. Call him Jesus, for he shall save my people from their sins. This is why he came. To do battle against sin. Jesus is a sin battling king. Secondly, he is a sin bearing. He's a sin-bearing king. How does he come to make war against sin? He comes, as Zechariah would say, humble and riding on a donkey. Humility here. Humility is not weakness. Humility in the scriptures is God dependence. A trust of God. The reason why Jesus can be humble is because he's got trust of God. Not weakness. Not weakness at all. We know it's strength. His strength is not in himself, it's in God. And he's riding on a donkey. The donkey, yes, is a symbol of kingship and royalty, but it's not an animal suited for war. You don't get on a donkey to go into war. You get on a war horse to go into war. Grab the war horse if you're going to fight. What we then see is Jesus has no confidence in the war horse because it's not there. And he's got no confidence in the donkey because it's a donkey. Where's his confidence? It's in God. He is the God trusting savior, and what's his weapon of choice? Zechariah would say, Because verse nine, verse eleven of chapter nine, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. Because of my blood covenant, I'm coming to rescue you from your sin. The wonder is that God spills his blood to save us. That's the wonder. He's not fighting with worldly power. He's fighting through spiritual sacrifice. Sacrifice to himself. This is the new covenant that we have in Christ's blood, the forgiveness of sins. Him bearing our sin in our place. So he's a sin-battling king, a sin-bearing king, and finally, a sin-conquered. He is a sin-conquering king. Praise God. Nobody can defeat sin, but he can. He can defeat sin. His throne is a cross. It's not a palace. That's where he goes to do war. And he is victorious, exalted upon that cross. It is finished. The payment for sin, done. Forgiveness, finished. For sins offered. Free pardon to all who would believe. He is victorious up on that cross, triumphant. John would say, Behold him, behold the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. Look up to him. See him on the cross. See him dying for your sin. Behold him there, victorious. And dying for sin, he's not dying just for Israel. He's dying for the whole world. He takes away the sins of the world. This conquering, the sin-conquering king is a cosmic king with a cosmic reign. He's not just king of Israel, he's king of the world. He's king of the universe. He he gets raised from the dead. He's ascended. He ascends to heaven, exalted above every name that can be named, above every authority and power and rule. That's where he is. High As the sin conquering king, the king of kings and the lord of lords. There's no one around him. He is in a category and a stratosphere all on his own. All on his nose, high and lifted up. Zechariah nine ten says, He shall have his reign from sea to sea and to the ends of the earth. King Jesus reigns over the whole earth, over every nation. He has it all. And his kingdom is eternal. Jesus is a sin battling, sin-bearing, sin-conquering King, whose reign is cosmic and whose kingdom is eternal. Jesus knows all of this as he's coming into Jerusalem. He knows it all. And he's the only one that knows it. No one else gets it. No one else sees it. And that brings us to the third point here. Jesus is rejected as king. First seventeen. Crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness. The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard that he had done this sign. So the Pharisees said to one another, You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone out after him. So this frenzy. And this excitement for Jesus is real. And it puts the Pharisees in a spiral, a panic. What are we going to do? Everybody's going after him. We're trying to kill him. But now we got this problem. The crowds want him. They're all upset with the crowds, but soon the crowds would join their team against Jesus. As soon as the crowd realizes that Jesus is not the type of savior they want him to be, as soon as they realize he's not a political revolutionary, they're chanting. They're chanting of Psalm 118. Turns to crucify him. Crucify him. It's the same crowd. We have no king but Caesar they will soon cry out. We don't want this type of Jesus. So you see the crowds and the Pharisees, they're now all against Jesus. He is being rejected. No matter what angle you come at it from. They want a king to fit their agenda and to affirm their idolatry. Not call them to repentance and worship. The crowd and the Pharisees both want to wear the crown, not crown him. But they need to. know what we are not that We're not that much different. It's easy to read a story like this. I would never. How could they not see it? We do the same stuff as well. We reject Jesus and His kingship in all kinds of ways. We struggle constantly to give Him the crown. We're always wanting to put the crown back on our head, not wanting to repent. We want our sin. We want our glory. We don't want to give Him the worship. We don't want to trust Him. We want to trust ourselves. We often throw a tantrum, do we not? Well, we don't get what we want. We throw Dantrum. We like Jesus up to a point. when he costs us something. We like him when he serves our idols, not calling us to repentance. We are a sin sick, self-centered, glory seeking, rebellious, depraved, wicked people. Outside of Christ, that is what we are. Who can save us? Who can save us from a holy cosmic king that will bring judgment? Who can save depraved, rebellious sinners from God? God can. King Jesus can. The Pharisees might have a plan to kill Jesus, but King Jesus has his own plan. He's got a plan to save sinners. He's got his own plan to die as a sacrificial lamb for the sins of his people. This is why he came. We just went over that. This is why he's here. This is the battle he's here to fight. It's not coincidence that this is Passover. Perceptive readers might have seen back in chapter six when Jesus feeds the five thousand and the and the crowds want him to be king. What happens? Jesus scoots out of there. He's not ready for that. Well, why is he now being welcomed in? Why does he accept kingship here? Because it's Passover. His hour of kingship. His hour of battle. He accepts the title as king because at this hour the king is becoming the land. And the lamb is becoming the crowd king. Listen to how John Start are John Stott articulates the nature of sin and our salvation. For the essence of sin. Is man substituting himself for God? While the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man. Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be up on the throne. God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be. That's where you and I deserve to be. Jesus. He does not deserve to be on a cross. He deserves to be in glory with his father, enjoying the presence of his father that he has for all eternity. That's where he deserves to be. And it deserved to be on the cross. He's not there because he deserves it. He's there because he loves us. He's there because he is being glorified there. He's being revealed to us in all of his glory. He's there because of mercy. He's there because of grace. That's why Jesus is there. Dies. Therefore, God has raised him up and given him the name that is above every name. He is high and lifted up this morning, far above our sin, and above every name that can be named. This is our King, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. Who is a king like him? Who is a king like King Jesus, the cosmic king who will be crucified for rebellious sinners like you and I? Who does that? Who does that? I don't know anyone who does that. Kings grab at more power. They want more and more and more at everyone else's expense. King Jesus uses his supreme authority to serve as the supreme servant and sacrifice at his expense to give you and I all the blessing. All the blessing. All of it. He goes into the depths of darkness, into the absence of of the felt reality of the joy of his father, so that you and I who deserve to be cast out into darkness and death can enjoy the smiling face of God forever. Jesus has done that for you now. Who is a king like him? Then we might ask, okay, so if he is the king and this is the type of king that he is, how do I honour him? How do I take the crown off of my head and I give it to him? We believe in him, church and unbeliever, this morning. You want Jesus to have the honor that he deserves as the victorious sin-bearing sacrifice? Let him wear the crown by believing in his sacrifice. Believe in his sacrifice. Give him your sin. Give him your shame. Give him your complete depravity. Don't withhold any of it. When we give him all of this, we make him look glorious. We make him look glorious. We magnify the glory of his grace. We don't sin that grace may abound. However, where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. Where grace abounds, the glory of Jesus Christ abounds. More grace, more glory. Praise God, that's the way He's designed it. So this morning, don't we're not wallowing in our shame. We're not hiding our sin. Giving it to the sin battling, sin bearing, sin conquering Savior. Honor him by letting him have his mission. I came. Let him accomplish that for you by believing in him. That's the first part. The second part is this: trust that he's got it and that he paid a sufficient debt and move forward. And live in the new life that he has given you as a son and daughter of God. Live into his righteousness that he has now given you by his spirit. Live into that. So With his spirit, we now exalt him. We honor him. We have affections for him. And we obey him. We obey him. King Jesus is to be worshipped and obeyed. Not checking off a box that we just believe in some thing that he did 2,000 years ago. That is part of it. But that's an insufficient grasp of what King Jesus is doing. He is winning hearts that obey him, that really obey him, that flourish in righteousness. The kingdom that he is bringing it, bringing is through us as we live as his righteous people. According to his law, law of love, law of righteousness, fulfilling all the commands, empowered by grace. Of course, we can't do this on our own. But we can't short circuit what he's trying to get us to. We are a people prepared for good works. We are a people called out of darkness to proclaim his excellencies, to live as his holy and chosen and beloved people on the earth. We're not waiting to heaven to do that, we're doing it now. We are as holy people called and set apart. We are not asking how little can I do in service to fulfill my duty. We are asking, how much can I do to magnify my Savior? Where can I serve? Where can I serve? We're asking that question. We're not checking the off the box that we have served. We want to give our lives more and more fully to King Jesus. We are not asking what can the church do for me? We are asking what can I do for you? That's our posture. To honor King Jesus. And we're living on mission. Who are we intentionally investing in that they might take one more step closer to Jesus? It honors King Jesus when you try to help someone else love him. When you try to help somebody else treasure Jesus, when you tell someone about how amazing Jesus is, and you tell about his great work that he's done, his redemption on the cross, the new life that he gives, the inheritance that we have, the eternal hope that we have. When we tell people about what Jesus has done, it honors him. And when we help other people be conformed into his image, it honors him. It makes much of him. How are we living our lives? There are opportunities everywhere. We just need a heart change. We need a heart posture change that's now open and it's seeking out how can I serve. Some clear opportunities we have in our church. We have a youth or a kids director need. We have a kids director need. Maybe God would be calling you. To invest in these little hearts that need to see Jesus exalted, that need to understand and comprehend the gospel and grow their hearts to love Jesus. Or, as Ethan mentioned, we need youth leaders. Investing and these children that are growing up entering a confusing world, a broken world. Would you say, okay, I'll give up some time? I'll give up a slice of my Calendar and schedule and relational currency to give to these children. They're trying to figure out life. They need role models. They're not gonna make it without role models. Would you step up to be one? Or we need community group leaders. We need new community groups to step out to say, okay, I'll open up my home, I'll open up my schedule, I'll sacrifice a very nice community group that I'm in for the glory of King Jesus. So that can welcome other people into something? I'll consider that. I'll pray about that. Your neighbors, the nations, they're all hungry for someone to bear witness about King Jesus. To testify to his goodness and his grace. Will you receive King Jesus this morning? We receive him. As he calls us to this, we must receive his strength. But maybe you're an unbeliever this morning and you've just never received. You must receive him first for you and for your sin, before we ever have any hope to be empowered to live on mission for him. This morning, would all of us be willing to repent? Take the crown off of our heads, put the crown on Jesus. Follow him as king. Let's receive him this morning. Let's honor him as king. He's not a genie to serve our needs. He's a king to be worshipped. We are going to bow now in glad worship of this king that has come on a donkey in peace, or we will bow in terror. When he comes again, the skies will rip apart, and he will come like lightning on a white horse with judgment. You will bow then. I'm pleading with you to bow now. Bow now and enjoy life and enjoy having Him as your king. Before it's too late, you will be bowing, but you will be barred from his kingdom, and you will be cast away from. The cross might be foolishness and weakness. It might be a stumbling block and folly to the Gentiles, but to us who know the cross is the wisdom and the power and the glory. You know what my little freshman self needed to understand? The king is good. He can be trusted. Taste and see that him wearing the crown is for your eternal good and eternal joy. Have it no other way. Church, may that be us this morning. Would we see it is good for our king to wear the crown? And may we fall in glad submission and in worship to honor him. I'm going to close with the hymn writer who says this. I think he puts this well. Crown him with many crowns, the lamb upon his throne. Hark how the heavenly anthems drown all music but its own. Awake my soul and sing of him who died for thee and hail him as thy matchless king through all eternity. Heavenly Father, we thank you that we have a king who has come into our world. We did not initiate your arrival. You came out of your own goodness and grace. I ask now, Lord, in this time of prayer and response, that we would welcome you in. We welcome you, King Jesus. Even now is resistance. may be present, distraction may be present, fear may be present. Help us to know, Lord Jesus, you come. You don't come to judge. You didn't come into the world that the world might be judged. You came into the world that you might save it. Mm. Zechariah here is John quotes that says, Fear not. Fear not. Your king come. Lord, I ask for all the fears in this room, all the fears present in every heart, would those fears bow before? A sufficient king. A king who battles sin, a king who bears the penalty of sin, and a king who conquers sin, coming out of the grave to give us new life. God, I pray for every fear right now to bow before you. I pray for every wayward way to bow before you, every thought that exerts itself against you and against your kingship, God, to bow before you. That we might see you, King Jesus, lifted high, exalted to the highest place. Thank you, God, for coming and doing for us what we cannot do ourselves. When we could not rip the crown off of our own heads, you took it. You took it yourself by bearing the penalty that we deserve. Thank you. God, we ask, having received forgiveness, having received the Spirit of God, would we live as your people, making much of In acts of service, in acts of conformity to your will, in forgiving one another, in loving our enemies, and being patient with all, in rejoicing always, being kind to one another, and washing one another's feet, caring for one another. Bearing glad witness in this world. Jesus, use Harvest Church for your glory. Lord, we want to be humble. We want to be like those that don't trust in the war horse, but merely trust in our God. We aren't victorious through war horse and chariot. We are victorious in the name of our God. Lord, as we face every battle and obstacle ahead of us, may we know the victory is ours in Christ Jesus. You have won it for us. Give us the strength and the grace to head towards eternity, God, where we will be with you in your forever kingdom, where you are at the center of all things, crowned, Lord of all. It's in your name we pray. Amen.