Easter Week 1 • Matthew 21:1-17

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Good morning, everyone, and happy Palm Sunday.

If you've got your Bibles, go ahead and open up to Matthew 21.

In just a moment, we're going to start reading in verse 1.

As we enter into this Easter season, the passage of Scripture that we're going to look at,

I want us to look at it in a way that maybe you've never looked at it before.

You know, when we study Scripture, what we try to do is we try to hear what the author wants

us to hear as we read it.

So, like, we've been in Galatians, and so when Paul communicates to the church at Galatia,

what we hear is the freedom that we have in Christ and the challenge to live in that.

When you look at Jesus, when he says the Sermon on the Mount, what we begin to understand is

we hear his words of what it means to be blessed.

When we read Revelation, when we hear the account of John, what we hear about is the rule and

reign of Christ in that moment.

And so in Matthew 21, we are going to hear the words of Christ.

We're going to look at the words of Christ.

But I also want us to look at and to visualize and see what Jesus does in these instances.

Because, you know, when you think about it, you can learn a lot from a person simply by

watching them.

So imagine you're going to spend an entire day with someone who you don't know.

And the rule is that you can't speak to each other.

You can just watch each other and learn from each other.

So if you think about it on surface level, things that you can learn about a person.

You can learn what they like to eat and what they don't like to eat.

You can learn if they're hot-natured or cold-natured, what kind of driver they are, their sense of

humor as they respond to certain things.

You can even learn just by watching someone what makes them happy and what makes them sad.

And so as we look at Matthew 21, as we look at what Jesus does, Jesus is going to reveal

some great truths about who he is.

And he's going to proclaim that not only is he king, but through looking at what he does

in Matthew 21, we also learn what type of king he is.

And so this morning, I want to just challenge you as you listen to me, maybe don't listen

to me as much.

Don't focus in on the words that I'm saying through listening, but try to picture and try

to visualize what Jesus is as he does these.

So let's begin reading in verse 1.

It says this,

Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethpage, to the Mount of Olives, then

Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, Go into the village in front of you, and immediately

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

Untie them and bring them to me.

If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, The Lord needs them, and he will send them

at once, and this took place to what was spoken by the prophet, saying, Say to the daughter

of Zion, Behold, your king is coming to you, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the

foal of a beast of burden.

And the disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them.

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

And most of the crowd 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.

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

Hosanna in the highest.

And when he had entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, Who is this?

And the crowd said, This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee.

And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he

overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons.

And he said to them, It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you make

it a den of robbers.

And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them.

But when the chief priest and scribe saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children

crying out in the temple, Hosanna to the son of David, they were indignant.

And they said to him, Do you hear what these are saying?

And Jesus said to them, Yes, have you never read?

Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise.

And leaving them, he went out of the city to Bethany and lodged there.

And so we see these interactions with Jesus, stories that we've heard before.

But what we see in them is so powerful and so strong in what Jesus is communicating.

His entrance into Jerusalem is proclaiming that he is king.

But what he does as he enters in proclaims what type of king he is.

And the first thing that we're going to see and that we're going to understand is that Jesus

is a humble king.

Scripture tells us that Jesus sent two disciples into the village to get a donkey.

Now, why would he do this?

Why not a chariot?

Why not a parade?

Why not a powerful, mighty stallion that's going to bring him in?

Instead, he goes with a donkey.

Well, Matthew tells us that Jesus is quoting and fulfilling Zechariah 9.9, where he says,

Jesus wants them to know that he's not like any other king.

He's not like a king like David.

He's not a king like Saul.

He's not a king in what they've experienced with Rome.

That Jesus is different in who he is.

You see, Jesus is not entering in as the warrior king that comes to slay you and defeat you.

But he is instead coming as the king who is sent to save you.

Now, there's an interesting dynamic that is going on here.

Later on in Revelation, we'll see a different picture of Jesus in Revelation 19.

I want to read starting in verse 11.

John writes, he says,

Then I saw heaven open, and behold, a white horse, the one sitting on it called Faithful and True.

And in righteousness, get this, 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 a 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.

And 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 on the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.

On his robe and on his thigh he has written,

The King of kings, the Lord of lords.

You see, church, there is a time coming where this warrior king of what we see in Christ coming to defeat sin is going to happen and take place.

But as Jesus is entering into Jerusalem, as he has taken his journey from the roads of Jerusalem to the cross of Calvary,

the picture that he wants to paint for us is that he has come, as Zechariah has said,

as a savior king, humble and on a donkey in the spirit that comes to save.

And so Jesus wants us to see that he's the humble king.

But there's also another part that we begin to see as it continues to unfold.

And it's that Jesus is an all nations king.

You know, when we think of a king, we think that the king rules his nation.

But Jesus is a king that rules the nations.

That through the power and through the work of the cross,

that salvation is going to be for every tribe and every tongue.

That the proclamation of the gospel will know no borders.

And so we begin to see Jesus in a different light.

And this is when he enters into the temple.

So Jesus enters into the temple and he chases those who are selling animals.

They're selling birds.

They're selling them for sacrifice.

And he turns over the tables of those that are exchanging money.

So let me explain what's happening here in this moment.

You see, people from all over the world would come to Jerusalem.

And they would come to Jerusalem and they would come to the temple.

The very temple that Jesus enters into.

The very temple that Jesus clears out.

And they would want to bring an acceptable sacrifice.

They would want to bring an acceptable offering that would be pleasing to God.

And so in order for this to happen, they would have to buy the goods that were being sold in the temple.

You know, in order to bring an offering, it was required during that time the rulers had put in place that your offering be in Tyrrhenian currency.

So instead of a fair currency exchange rate, so imagine you got somebody coming from a different country with a different currency.

And so instead of coming in and finding an exchange rate that is fair, instead they would scam the foreigners who came in.

They would give them less value than what is correct because this is the money that they had to have.

And then also if they had brought their sacrifice with them, they weren't allowed to bring their sacrifice in.

And instead they had to buy their sacrifice before they made it.

Not what they had brought.

Not what they wanted to sacrifice.

But was forced on them.

And so when Christ walks into this moment and he sees what is taking place,

Jesus sees what was supposed to be a place of prayer for all nations.

A place of prayer for all people.

Instead, it was turned into a money-making venue and it greatly angered him.

You see, it wasn't just that a scam was taking place.

But it was where it was happening that mattered so much to Jesus.

So let me explain to you how the temple was built.

On the very inside of the temple was the most inner court called the Holy of Holies.

And then you begin to work out from the Holy of Holies to the other parts of the temple.

And then the next part was the section where the priest would come.

And then outside of that was the section where the Jewish men could worship.

And then outside of that would be the section where the Jewish women could come to worship.

And then even farther outside of that, in the very last temple court,

was the place where the Gentiles, where the non-Jews, could come into worship.

And so Jesus went into that temple where the Gentiles had come to pray,

where the Gentiles had come to worship God.

And they could not do the things that their heart longed for and desire because of the trade that was taking place.

And so Jesus walks in and establishes that this is not acceptable.

That salvation is not just for the Jews, but it is for the Jews and the Gentiles.

And in doing this, Jesus is again fulfilling the scripture of the prophets that was promised.

And Jesus even speaks to and references one of these in Isaiah 56, starting in verse 6.

And the foreigners who joined themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants.

Everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it and holds fast my covenant.

These I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer.

Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar.

For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.

The Lord God who gathers the outcast of Israel declares,

I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered.

Do we see all the way back from the prophet Isaiah?

God says, I want not yours that you give them.

Not what they trade for you.

I want their offerings.

I want their sacrifices.

I want the nations to come to me.

And so Jesus walks into that tomb and he breaks down every moment of sin

as people are trying to keep the others out as God draws them to himself.

And so we've seen that Jesus is the humble king.

We see that Jesus is the all nations king.

But the next thing that we're going to see is that Jesus is the healing king.

It says that when Jesus, after all of these,

it says that the blind and the paralyzed came to him and he healed them.

He healed them.

I mean, can you imagine the desperation of these individuals?

Those because of things in their life that have been social outcast.

Those who had been considered dirty and unworthy.

Those who hadn't been allowed to approach into the temple are now being brought to Christ

so that he can heal them, so that he can place his hand on them and take away that which they cannot force off of themselves.

And we see Jesus in that moment displaying something about himself for everyone who is there to see.

In this moment, Jesus has come in on a donkey.

Jesus has entered into the temple and clears it out.

And now in the power of God himself, Jesus Christ, fully God, fully man, begins to heal those who are brought to him.

You see, Jesus isn't adjusting what they're struggling with.

He's not coming to manipulate, but he's coming to do more.

He's coming not to simply fix, but Jesus is coming to restore that which was broken.

I want to ask you some questions with obvious answers.

Could the blind man heal himself?

No.

Could the paralyzed man get up and walk again in his own power?

No.

It had to come from Christ and Christ alone.

That which made them broken could only be restored through Jesus, and it's what he does.

If they would have done it for themselves, if they could have done it for themselves, then they would have.

They would have already healed themselves, but they had to come to the one and the one only who could heal them.

And Jesus continues to fulfill the scripture.

Jesus continues to show who he is as the healing king.

Isaiah 35, starting in verse 4, says this.

Say to those who have an anxious heart, be strong, fear not.

Behold, your God will come with vengeance.

With recompense of God, he will come and he will save you.

Get this, he will save you.

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped.

Then the lame man will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute will sing for joy.

Do you see what is connected as the prophet Isaiah explains what is happening when Jesus heals?

He says that's the foretelling of the one who can save.

That's the prophecy being fulfilled of the one and the only one who can bring salvation.

The one who heals is the one who saves.

And when you are saved in the gospel, we are made, spiritually speaking, whole again.

You see, in our life, what we do is we know that we have the brokenness that's in our life.

And what we try to run toward and what we try to do in and of ourselves is we try to fix.

But what we try to fix is we try to fix symptoms.

We try to fix the cough.

We try to fix the rash.

We try to fix the headache.

But what Jesus comes in to do is to not fix the symptom, but he cures the cause of sin.

And so when the blind comes, Jesus fully heals.

When the lame comes, Jesus fully heals.

And in doing so, what he communicates, in doing so, what he shows is that when we come to him, he fully heals us of our brokenness.

He fully heals us of our sin.

And so we see that Jesus is the humble king riding in on the donkey.

We see that Jesus is the all-nations king, clearing the temple out so that every tribe and every tongue can approach their God.

We see that Jesus is the healing king who comes to restore the broken.

But the last that we'll see is Jesus is the accessible king, the king that we can come to.

So the Bible tells us that the religious leaders, they see what's happening.

They see what's taking place.

You see, these are trained men in the word.

They would have read Zechariah.

They would have read Isaiah.

They would have known what is taking place before them.

They would have known what Jesus is doing.

But then they also begin to hear something.

And they hear the people, and especially the children at this point, crying out to him,

Hosanna to the son of David.

And what they're proclaiming is Jesus had first entered into Jerusalem.

And what they're still proclaiming now is this.

The king is here.

The king is here.

The man who rode in on the donkey.

The man who cleared the temple.

The man who touched the dirty, sick people.

He is the king.

And so the leaders, they go to Jesus and they say,

Do you hear what they are saying?

And Jesus says, yes.

Yes, I hear what they're saying.

And Jesus doesn't correct the people who proclaim him to be king.

But instead, he looks at the religious leaders.

And he references them back to the Psalms.

In Psalm 8, verse 1 and 2.

Psalms 8:1

Where he says,

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.

You have set your glory above the heavens.

Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes.

To the enemy and the avenger.

And so Jesus comes in this moment.

And churches, he is establishing of who he is.

And the reason why next Sunday we will celebrate that our Savior King died on the cross for our sins and is resurrected from the grave.

We'll celebrate that Jesus is the humble king who was sent here to bring salvation to save us.

Jesus did not come to punish, but Jesus came to save and set free.

We will celebrate that Jesus is the all-nations king that is here for every tribe, every nation, and every tongue.

Spreading the gospel across the globe.

We will see that Jesus is the healing king that seeks in the middle of the depth of your depravity and your sin to restore you and to set you free.

And we see that Jesus is the accessible king.

The one we can come to.

Because it says in Romans 10, 13, very simply,

For everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Church, have you called upon the name of the Lord?

Is he your king?

If so, today, would you allow him to be your king?

Would you allow him to be your savior?

So you can celebrate his reign in your life.

Let's pray.

God, we thank you so much for this morning that we could gather here together.

Lord, as we wrestle with your word, Lord, as we see what you've done,

Lord, we pray that you would do what only you can do in our lives.

Jesus, save those who need to be saved.

Strengthen those who need to be strengthened.

Lord, and we'll praise you for it.

And it's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

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