Jeremiah 31

Good morning. Welcome to Grace. My name is Nate. If I haven't gotten the chance to meet you, I would love to do that in the lobby after the service. Happy Christmas Sweater Sunday. I was definitely aware of the theme when I got up and got dressed this morning. That's 100% why I chose the sweater. It's not random. I actually showed up and the band was wearing Christmas sweaters and I said, is today Christmas Sweater Sunday? And they said yes. And I was like, oh, okay. That's nice to know. I also would like to just offer this disclaimer. If this sermon isn't good, it's Keck's fault. Keck. Hey, Jacob. Jacob. Hey, come here, buddy. Come stand right here. This is the single ugliest thing I've ever seen in my life. I hate it so much. I'm a Falcons fan. This is terrible. And you're sitting on the front row. The front row. My gosh. All right, thanks, buddy. I just wanted everybody to see that online so you know what I'm dealing with. You win the day, Keck. Well done. And go Bucs, because that's who you're playing today. This is the first part in our Christmas series. The series this year is called Foretold. We are going to be looking at prophecies from the Old Testament that tell us about the Messiah that is to come. And so this morning we are looking at kind of the apex prophecy, kind of the big overarching prophecy that dictates the rest of them. It's this promise in Jeremiah 31 of a new covenant. And so this morning we're going to be focusing on the difference between the old covenant and the new covenant. To do that, we need to have a working understanding of what covenant is and what it means and how we define it. I'm sure that's a word that you've heard before. Most of us are church people. And for those of you who are here with family, thanks for being here. Thanks for entrusting your morning to us. We're going to try to be good stewards of that. But I'm sure that most of us in the room have heard this word covenant before. And all of us, if I said, what is a covenant? You would probably give me a pretty well-reasoned definition of it. But so that we're on the same page this morning, and if you have notes, it's a great morning to take notes. I've got a lot of them for you. This is a little bit more of a professorial sermon. So for those of you that like the nitty gritty details, this one's for you. So we're on the same page. Let's define covenant this morning. A biblical covenant is a binding agreement between God and man. When I say that we're going to examine the old covenant, the new covenant, a covenant is a binding agreement between God and man. And what's expressed in covenants is God says, if you do blank, I will do blank. If you do this, I will do this. If you offer me this obedience, this sacrifice, whatever it might be, I will offer you this blessing, whatever it might be. And you may not know this, but the Old Testament is actually divided into five different covenants. I'm not sure if you're aware of them or you know what the covenants are. I'm positive that most of you have heard of all of these, and none of this will come as a surprise to you, but just so we're on the same page, and for those of you who are interested in things like this, these are the five covenants of the Old Testament. Let me see if I can do them from memory. The first one is the Noahic covenant, the covenant that God made with Noah, where he said, I will not flood the earth again until the end of days. I will never do this again. And the seal and the sign of that covenant is the rainbow. After the Noahic covenant comes the Abrahamic covenant. In Genesis chapter 12,osaic covenant, where God gives Moses the law. And he says, if you follow these laws and you teach your people to follow these laws, I will bless you in these ways. It's the Old Testament covenant of law, the binding agreement between God and man. After that, in 2 Samuel chapter 17 comes the Davidic covenant, where God reminds the people of Israel of his promise to Abraham. And he says, not only will one of your descendants bless the whole earth, but David, that descendant will come from you and will sit on your throne. And we see that come to fruition in Matthew chapter 1 in the genealogies of Christ where we can track Obed and Jesse and then King David in the genealogies of Christ. That's the Davidic covenant. And then the fifth and final covenant in the Old Testament is Jeremiah 31, the Jeremiac covenant, where God promises in Jeremiah to make a new covenant. We're going to walk through bits and pieces of this covenant together this morning so we can understand it well. But simply in chapter 31, verse 31, he introduces it like this. The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. So that's just a little teaser that just lets us know what's going to happen. There's a discourse here from 31 to 37 in that chapter. And he opens it up by saying, the days are coming when I will make a new covenant. The days are coming when there's going to be something new, something different. And so he's introducing this idea that with Jesus, he's going to usher in a new covenant, a new and final binding agreement between God and man. So what I want to do this morning is spend a bulk of our time comparing and contrasting the old covenant of the Old Testament, all those covenants combined, the Noahic and Abrahamic and Mosaic and Davidic and Jeremiac, all those combined with the new covenant that we have in Christ, the covenant that's promised in Jeremiah 31, and that's fulfilled in the coming Christ in the New Testament that we celebrate at Christmas. So I want to show you five ways in which the new covenant is superior to the old covenant. The first way requires us to maybe learn or be reunited with some vocabulary words that I will explain to you. The old covenant was centripetal. The new covenant is centrifugal. Old covenant, centripetal. New covenant, centrifugal. Shane has never heard these words in his life. I'm going to tell you what these mean, okay? He got a look on his face like his head was about to explode. Here's what I mean. Okay, I was at Thanksgiving. We were hanging out with our family in Dothan. It was a wonderful, wonderful time. I hope and pray that you guys had as rich of a time with your family as we did with ours. I was talking with one of Jen's cousins and they had recently gone to Huntsville with their daughters to, I believe it's the Kennedy Space Center there. If not the Kennedy Space Center, there's a space center there. And growing up in Atlanta, it was a rite of passage. Eventually you're going to go on a field trip to the space center in Huntsville. And when you go, does anybody know when you go to the Space Center and then you go to the gift shop, what do you have to eat? What do you have to try? Does anybody know? Dry ice cream. That's right. Astronaut's dry ice cream. It's the best thing on the whole planet. It's also the best thing in the space station. All right. It's universally the best, the dry ice cream. And I asked my friend, I said, or I asked my cousin, do they still have that ride? There's a ride that demonstrates the power of centrifugal force where you get into this circular room, there's a rail in the middle and the wall kind of tilts and so you lean back against the wall and you hold your hands like this and the room starts to spin. And it starts to spin and the faster, eventually it gets fast enough that the floor drops out of the bottom of it. You've done this Elaine. It drops out of the bottom and you stay pressed against the wall with the centrifugal force. It's to demonstrate to you what that force does. Centrifugal force pushes out. It goes outward. Centripetal force sucks everything in. It brings everything to the center. And so the way to think about the Old Testament and the New Testament is that the evangelism plan of God in the Old Testament, the idea of spreading the good news of who he was, was centrepital. Everyone come to Israel. Everyone look at Israel. Everyone look at my people. They're going to obey me so well and be so holy that they will stand out like a beacon amongst the nations and people will flock to them to pursue their God. That's the idea. Follow the rules well enough, live holy enough, and you will exert this centripetal force in the regions around you and they will be so attracted to your God that they will flock to you. That was the idea. Because we're human, it didn't work. So the new covenant ushers in this idea of evangelism as centrifugal. Now we go outward from the church. Now we go outward from Jerusalem. Jesus institutes this in his ascension when he gives us the great commission. And he says, go therefore into Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, even to the ends of the earth, making disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Go through the whole world and spread my name. With the new covenant with Christ, instead of just staying in our bubble and living holy and expecting people to flock to God because of how we behave, now it is our job. Peter calls us in his letters, the living stones. We are told that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. In the new covenant under Christ, this new binding agreement with God, it is now our job to go out and to spread the news of Jesus amongst the nations. This is why I'm always telling you that the only reason you exist after becoming a Christian, why when you become a Christian, the very second that you believe in Christ, does God not suck you up right to heaven so you can begin to experience eternity now? Why does he not do that? Because he loves you so much. The only reason he does not snap you up into heaven the very second you become a Christian is so that you can bring as many souls with you to heaven on your way there. It's centrifugal force. That's the new covenant. We look outward. We evangelize. We see him articulate this, Jeremiah, in verse 34. No longer will they teach their neighbor or say to one another, know the Lord, because they will all know me from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord, for I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more. So this first difference in the covenant that Jeremiah is speaking of is that we now go out. We now bear responsibility for evangelism. It's centrifugal force. We push out and reach the world. The second difference is this, and I like this one. The old covenant had this picture of God above us. The new covenant, God is with us. Emmanuel. At some point this Christmas season, you'll hear that song, Handel's Messiah. You'll hear, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, his name shall be called Emmanuel. You'll hear that. And when you hear that, Emmanuel means God with us. In the Old Testament, God existed above us. God existed as this sort of, it would be easy to have mistaken God for this divine constable overseeing our lives and making sure we're following the rules well. It would have been easy to see God as a divine judge or a divine parent looking into our lives, making sure that we're doing right and not doing wrong. It would be easy to have this picture of God over us or lording over us or above us judging our behaviors. But in the New Testament, we see Jesus himself condescend from his divine nature to take on human form and be God with us, to walk amongst us, to exist in the squalor and in the day-to-day drama that is humanity, to experience tragedy and loss and sadness. And I do think it's worth noting as we talk about this idea of Jesus being God with us, it's worth noting that where he chose to show up is remarkably bad in the scheme of human history. If you gave me all of human history and you said, hey, you need to make an appearance somewhere in here, when would you like to do it? I'd be like, I mean, I don't know, like suburban Raleigh 2024. That's pretty great. That's pretty cush. That feels nice. Here's what I wouldn't choose. You know where I'd like to go. I'd like to go to a third world country at the height of the Roman empire and be a far flung province that doesn't matter. And that lives in squalor where a vast majority of the people live day to day and don't know where their next meal is going to come from. And I'd like to come from a backwater town in that backwater province in an empire that doesn't care about me. That sounds fun. Jesus had the entire scope of human history and decided that he was going to show up in Nazareth at 0 BC, however that date works out. And exist in this far-flung province of an empire that didn't care about him. And take on human form there. And then, at the end of his life, we focused on this back in the spring when we looked at the upper room discourse. Some of the most profound words in all of Scripture, John 14 to John 17. I love those chapters. Those chapters are dear to us and to me, and they should be. In those chapters, as he's leaving, he tells the disciples, it's better for you that I'm leaving, which seems absurd. If you're living life in the presence of Jesus, and he says it's good for you that I'm leaving, which seems absurd. If you're living life in the presence of Jesus and he says, it's good for you that I'm leaving, that doesn't make any sense. But he says, it's better for you that I'm leaving because since I'm leaving, I'm going to leave behind for you the Holy Spirit who will dwell in you and walk with you every day. And in this new covenant, this didn't happen in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, God was above us. He was distant from us. He was other. He was out. But in the New Testament, in the new covenant, God is with us through the spirit. He walks with us daily. The spirit, the Greek name is paraclete, which means to walk alongside. He is with us, convicting us, directing us, helping us decide, giving us wisdom, giving us insight into scripture, helping you discern what's important about what I'm saying and what's not. The Holy Spirit walks with us every day in the new covenant. We have God with us. And I think we very often fail to realize the power of that, that God is with us. Another way in which the new covenant is superior to the old covenant is that the old covenant was focused on rules. The new covenant is focused on love. Old covenant focused on rules, new covenant focused on love. We see this in verse 32 of the discourse. It will not be like the old covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them, declares the Lord. And then in verse 33, this is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people. So in the old covenant, when God makes that Mosaic covenant with his children, he gives them 630 some odd laws. There's disagreement on exactly how many there are. About 300 and change thou shouts and a few less thou shalt nots. And in the old covenant, there was a one-to-one exchange on your spirituality and your ability to follow the rules. The better you followed the rules, the closer to God you were. The more things you did right and didn't do wrong, the more spiritual you were. And this begat the hypocrisy of Pharisaical spirituality that we see in the New Testament. When we read our Gospels, who is enemy number one of Jesus in the Gospels? It's not Satan. It's the Pharisees. Who's he always arguing with? Who's he always putting down? Who is he always correcting? The religious leaders. The ones that should have known better. And I am firmly convinced that these men that Jesus is putting down throughout his life, that he's quarreling with throughout his life, that he's debating with throughout his life, that he's constantly showing up and showing out because of, I am convinced that those Pharisees did not mean to be sinful. They were not intentionally wrong. They were not intentionally vile. They were not intentionally hypocritical. I believe the Pharisees meant well. I believe the Pharisees, the vast majority of them, actually believed that they were living out the will of God and that they were living holy lives and that this upstart Jesus of Nazareth was actually a bad actor. I think that they actually believed that and they believed that because they had allowed the Old Testament covenant to skew their spirituality in such a way that it was performance based. The better you follow the rules, the more spiritual you are. And so Jesus comes on the scene and he offers this incredible teaching when he's talking with a young ruler, a young lawyer, and he says, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. Amen. And love your neighbor as yourself. And the rest of that verse, you guys know, on these hangs the whole law and the prophets. What Jesus teaches in those verses is, if you will simply focus on loving God and loving others, then the rest of the rules will fall into place. You don't have to worry about those. Don't focus on the rules. Focus on love. That's the new covenant. And can I tell you, honestly, who's taught me the most about the beauty of this new covenant? It's you. It's grace. I grew up in a Southern Baptist tradition in suburban Atlanta. This is no critique of that tradition, although it is a little bit. It's no critique of my parents. Let's say that. They did the best they could with the information they had. They chose the best church for us. Everybody makes mistakes. This was not a great environment. It's just the environment that I grew up in. And in, some of you guys know this. I don't know your traditions and where you came from and what they hold, but if you have my tradition, you'll understand this. Southern Baptist evangelical 80s, I actually heard a comedian, Nate Bargatze, who's fantastic. He said, there's never been anyone more spiritual than evangelical parents in the 80s and 90s. That even Jesus looks at those parents and is like, y'all should have a little fun. Like you should loosen up a little bit. That was my childhood, okay? And my childhood was very much Old Covenant. The better you follow the rules, the more spiritual you are. We were all teetotalers. Nobody had an ounce of alcohol ever. There was no dancing. I went to a private school that had a junior-senior dinner. We did not dance. It was not prom. Not allowed. Junior-senior banquet is what it was called. We did not watch rated R movies. We did not have secular music in our house. My mom hid it in her car and listened to Dirty Dancing and her sunbird, but that was foreboding. Dad did not know about those tapes. We lived under the rule of law. And the better you followed the rules, the more spiritual you were. The problem with this for me was, I saw, and it was mostly men in that time leading the church, I saw men leading the church who were jerks. They were jerks. By any stretch, they were not people you'd want to spend time with. But they were the most spiritual. And to me, this didn't make sense. Then I come to Grace. And when I come to Grace, Grace is a different kind of church than I've been a part of before. And there are people at Grace who do not follow the rules very well. I mean, some of y'all, if y'all went to my church, you would be subject to church discipline very quickly for your language and for your consumption habits. You are not, you do not follow the rules well. But I watched those same people who would really stink at following the rules in the 1980 Southern Baptist Church love on their neighbors because they love their God incredibly well. And I've watched some of the leaders of this church love consistently over the years in unmistakably holy ways. He's grinning at me back there. Doug Funk's one of them. Doug Funk would be a terrible rule follower. You're terrible at the rules, Doug. But watching Doug live out his faith has shown me the efficacy and truth of this new covenant. Hey, you worry about loving the people around you and the important parts of the rules will fall into place. Grace has taught me the truth of that teaching. You're good at that. Keep being good at that. It's part of what makes grace, grace. But that's a feature. That's a benefit of the new covenant. That we don't focus on the rules. We focus on loving one another well. And we focus on loving our God well. And we trust the rest of it to fall into place. These last two are my favorite features of this new covenant in which we live. The old covenant was breakable. This new be broken by their behavior. I will bless you if you follow my rules. I will bless you if you behave the way you're supposed to behave. He made it conditional on their behavior. This new covenant is remarkable in that it is not conditional on our behavior. And if you can't appreciate that about this new covenant, then you're in the wrong spot. Paul articulates this in Romans chapter 8. At the end of the chapter, I think Romans chapter eight is the greatest chapter in theestined. Those who are predestined are justified. Those who are justified are sanctified. Those who are sanctified are glorified. It's already been done. Once you place your faith in Christ, your part of the covenant is over. All that God asks of you is that you believe in Jesus and who he says he is, that we believe that Jesus is who he says he is, did what he said he did, is going to do what he says he's going to do. That's your part of the covenant. Believe in Christ. And once you believe in Christ, God does the rest. There is nothing that can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Do you understand that your salvation and God holding you in his hand and God ushering you into eternity is not contingent upon your behavior? You cannot behave your way into heaven. Listen to this. You cannot behave your way into a deeper love from God. Your heavenly father will never ever love you more than he does in this moment right now. No matter what you did yesterday, no matter what you carry into this room, he will never love you more than he does now because he's not capable of a greater love than he offers you. And all he asks is that you trust in that love and that you believe in him. We exist in an unbreakable covenant that is protected by the very blood of our Savior. Because of that, this last part is true. The old covenant is dependent on our performance. The new covenant is dependent on his performance. We see this in verses 35 through 37. This is what the Lord says. Let me break that down for you. Declares the Lord, the day hell freezes over will be the day that I break my promise to you. The day there is another God who understands the universe, who is better than me and more capable than me and understands what I can understand, that day when pigs fly is when I will break my promise to you. N.T. Wright is one of the world's foremost theologians. He's absolutely the foremost theologian on Paul. And N.T. Wright defines God's righteousness as his commitment to keeping his promises to us. When we think about the righteousness, the holiness, the unblemished nature of God, N.T. Wright says that very nature is crafted by his commitment to keeping his promises to us. And here in Jeremiah 31, verses 35 through 37, God says, when hell freezes over will be the day that I break my promise to you. But I've got you and I will keep you. This new covenant is not based on your performance. It is not based on your behavior. It is simply based on your belief and God does everything else. It's not based on our performance and what we do and how we behave. It's based on his performance here. Do you understand? That's why this is here. To remind us that this is the performance on which we base our faith. This is the performance by which we claim eternity. This is where we place our hope. This is where we get our faith. Not in ourselves. So some of us need to quit trying so hard to behave and start working harder to love and exist in this new covenant where Jesus says, come to me, all ye who are weary and heavy laden, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. I think that we have this habit of reverting back to the old covenant. See, the things that I've told you this morning, for many of you, for most of you, are not news. You may not have walked in here able to divide the Old Testament into five separate covenants. You may not have, if you thought about the difference between the Old Covenant that God had with his people and the New Covenant that we exist in, you may not have articulated the five things I did, but you know them. I don't think I taught, I hope you learned something, but I don't think this information was brand new to everyone. So the question becomes, if this is true, if we exist in this new covenant that's based on his performance, not mine, that's unbreakable, that I just need to focus on love and go out and reach people, why don't we live in this new covenant? Why don't we live in this reality? Why do we struggle so much? I think our problem is an unconscious, habitual regression towards the old. I would even say it's very American of us to prefer the old covenant. We can perform our way into it. It's on us. I'll do it my way. I'll earn it. It's the reason why if you're someone worthy of respecting, it's hard to buy you dinner. Because you want to buy your own dinner. Because you want to pay for it. Because you want to do it. Because you want to earn it. It's the American way. I'm independent. I can handle it. And so in our subconscious, we default to this Old Testament, Old Covenant performance where it's based on my performance, not someone else's. And we revert and we regress. This is why Christmas is such a blessing for us in so many ways. Christmas is our annual reminder of our existence in the new covenant. Christmas, those dumb sweaters you're wearing, especially that one. And all the festivities and all the lights. Yesterday I was in Home Depot and I was looking for command hooks because I was hanging wreaths and I heard a lady tell her son that she was also looking for command hooks. And when the employee told me where the command hooks were, I hollered down the aisle to the lady and I said, ma'am, I hear you're looking for command hooks. I am too. They're in the next aisle over at the end. And so we met at the command hooks, her and her two sons. And she said, thank you so much. And I said, I said, thank you. It's National Wreath Hanging Day. And she laughed and she goes, it is, isn't it? That's what we're all doing. And some of you hung your wreaths yesterday because it's the first Saturday in December. That's what we're doing as we do those things. And we celebrate Christmas and we look forward to family and we buy the gifts and we sing the carols and we play the music in our car and we do all the things. Here's why this sermon is the first one of the month, is the first one of the series, because I want Christmas to be a reminder to you that you exist in this new covenant. I want Christmas to be a reminder to you that your spirituality is not based on your behavior. It's not based on your devotion. It's not based on your personal holiness. Your spirituality was one for you on the cross. You've already entered into the new covenant. It's not based on your performance anymore. Exist in this place where you are loved as much as you ever will be. Quit trying to earn your father's love and exist in the fact that he loves you, that he adores you, and that from his fullness we receive grace upon grace. Let Christmas be a reminder to you of all the ways in which the new covenant in which you live is superior to the old. Walk with freedom and grace and goodness and mercy as you go throughout the season, and love your God and love others well as we celebrate this Christmas. And let Christmas be a reminder to you about the covenant in which you exist. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the promise of Jeremiah 31. We thank you for this new covenant in which we exist. We don't deserve it, God. We can't comprehend it. This deal that you've made with us is unfathomable. God, help the reality of your promise and your commitment to keeping your word. Help that wash over us anew. Help us more deeply appreciate this promise you've made to us. Help us more deeply appreciate your commitment to it in spite of us sometimes. God, as we go through Christmas and we do all the Christmas things, let us not lose sight of who you are and what it represents. Let us not lose sight of what it means for the coming Messiah to have arrived and ushered in these new promises. Father, I pray for our Decembers. I pray that they would be sweet times with friends and family, that we would reflect on the riches that you've offered us. And God, for those of us for whom this season is sad or hard, give us the strength, Father, to turn the sadness into gratitude because at least someone or something existed in our life that we love so much that we miss it. Be with us as we go throughout this December as we celebrate the coming of your Son. In Jesus' name, amen.

My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. Thanks for being here this Sunday. I am acutely aware that for many of you, you were not here for this, you were here for that. And so we're so glad that you are here. And if you're a grandparent, thank you for trusting us with your babies and your grandbabies. It's an honor and a privilege to do that. I've been talking a lot about how our children's ministry is growing and burgeoning, and I thought it would be, we thought it would be really good to highlight that on a Sunday and for you guys to be able to see physically all that God is doing and bringing, and that was great. If you're wondering who the pastor's kid was in the first, in the preschool one, it was the boy in the white sweater and red pants that looked like he hated everything in the world. So he's got somebody leaned over to me here and said he's got a real future. Yeah, I think so. I think so. This morning we are in the third part of our series called Foretold, where we are looking at prophecies from the Old Testament, messianic prophecies. And a messianic prophecy is simply a prophecy that tells about the coming Christ, the coming Messiah, who we know of as Jesus. And so in the first week, we looked at Jeremiah 31, where it said this coming Messiah will bring a new covenant. And so we talked about what that new covenant was. Last week we looked at Isaiah chapter 9, the most famous Christmas prophecy that his name will be called, that he will be called Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. And we talked about what those names mean. And it's right and good to focus on these prophecies about the coming Messiah at Christmastime because Christmas is when we celebrate the arrival of the Messiah and the fulfillment of these prophecies. So this morning, we arrive at a prophecy in the book of Zechariah. Zechariah chapter 9, verse 9. So if you have a Bible, go ahead and start trying to zero in on Zechariah. It's a tough one. It's a minor prophet towards the end of the Old Testament. If you need to use your table of contents for this, please do. I'd also like to just point out, because I can do this and they are friends, Tom and Linda Sartorius and their daughter Kristen thought that this week was Family Jammy Sunday. So make sure you say hey to them in the lobby. They are a delight this morning. I've been told to blame this on Kristen, but at this point it really doesn't matter. It's just fun all the way around. Steven and Maddie, they avoided it. They're another part of the family, son and daughter-in-law. but the rest of them look like suckers, and it's great. It's great. In Zechariah chapter 9, what we have is not a prophecy about the first arrival of Christ. It's a prophecy about the arrival of Christ as king, and it's a profoundly important one, and I think it's worth reflecting on this morning. So I'm going to read you the prophecy from Zechariah. We're going to talk about the context of that. And then we're going to look at its fulfillment in Matthew chapter 21. So read with me, if you will, Zechariah chapter 9, verse 9. Rejoice greatly, daughter Zion. Shout, daughter Jerusalem. See your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. This is the prophecy from Zechariah. And we're going to turn to Matthew 21, but if you're following along in your Bible, keep something noted in Zechariah because we're going to come back to verse 10, and I don't want you to have to find it again. But to understand what happens in Matthew 21 and the fulfillment of this prophecy, we need to understand the context of what this one implies. In ancient times, and even in the times of Christ, really up until World War I, we figured out we should kind of knock this off. Kings went out and conquered. That's what they did. The only major nation that hasn't figured out that we should knock it off on trying to conquer other nations is Russia. They keep dabbling in it since World War I. But everyone else has figured out not to do that. But in this time, it was very regular for kings to go out and conquer. It's what they did. If you were a king, this is what you did. And we know this because when David sins with Bathsheba, that story begins in Samuel. It was spring at the time when kings went off to war. So this is what they did. And when a king would enter a city to assume control of that city, there was two ways that he entered. One was on a war horse, symbolizing that he had conquered the city. He was coming in as the conquering hero to his people and the conquering king to these people. That he had conquered this city. He would ride in on his war horse once everything, all the dust had settled from the battle. The other way for a king to enter a city that was less, less, uh, it didn't happen as often, but it did happen. And it did mean something was for a king to come in on a donkey. When a king would come into a city on a donkey, he was symbolizing peace. He was symbolizing. I did not have to conquer this city. This city willfully gave itself over to me. And because of that, I'm not coming in to kill. I'm not coming in to conquer. I'm not coming in to hurt or to subdue. I am coming into this city in peace and I intend to peacefully take over this city. And then the prophecy of Zechariah takes it a step further because not only is he entering as a peaceful King on a donkey, but on the cult, the foal of a donkey on a bay, on a little baby donkey to be humble, to communicate in every way. And it says humble and lowly to communicate in every way that Jesus doesn't come as a conquering King for the city. He comes as a king who's already conquered and is now entering into the city peacefully. So there's great, it's not just random that he's entering into a donkey and that this is how Zechariah prophesies that he's going to become the king of Jerusalem. Because to become a king of the city, you basically got to go take it over. And Zechariah says, no, he's not going to do it like that. Jerusalem is going to welcome him with open arms. He will enter on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey, gentle, humble, and lowly. That's the context that we need to understand what's happening in Matthew chapter 21 when he fulfills it. So, if you don't mind, turn over to Matthew chapter 21. In the preceding verses, Matthew has said, I'm not going to read, there's a whole passage here, I'm just going to read a portion of it. I'm going to begin in verse 7 and go through 11. But in the preceding verses, Jesus has told the disciples on their way to Jerusalem, beginning the last week of his life, Holy Week. This is Palm Sunday. This is the story where we get Palm Sunday. He tells the disciples, I want you to go into town and I want you to get a donkey. I want you to get a colt, the foal of a donkey, and I'm going to ride that into Jerusalem. And then Matthew says, this is to fulfill what was said by the prophet Zechariah. And he quotes Zechariah. A wonderful aside about the gospel of Matthew is that the gospel of Matthew was written in the first century A.D. to convince skeptical Jewish people that Jesus was the actual Messiah that you learned about for all those generations. And so very often throughout the Gospel of Matthew, you'll see the narrative stop. There'll be a bracket in it, and it will say this is to fulfill the prophecy of, and then there's a bracket, and then it's the prophecy to show how Jesus really was the Messiah that the Old Testament talked about. So, for us New Testament believers, reading the book of Matthew is a great way to begin to tether the Old and New Testaments together to bring us to a greater depth of understanding. So, Jesus says, go get this. This is to go get this donkey. This is to fulfill this prophecy. And then this happens. Verse 7, they brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, Hosanna to the son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest heaven. When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, who is this? Who is this? So Jesus shows up at Jerusalem. At this point in his ministry, he's been doing ministry for three years. He knows that when he goes into Jerusalem, he's going to stir up a hornet's nest of conflict that's going to ultimately lead to his crucifixion. But he also knows that he's entering Jerusalem as a conquering king, as a king who has conquered. And so he enters in as king on a donkey. And I think about the crowds in this story because I think those are who we relate to the most. And I think in this story, there are really kind of three crowds that we see. The first crowd is the most obvious crowd is the crowd that welcomed him. The crowd that showed up, that heard about it. I don't know exactly how word spreads in Jerusalem in zero AD or whenever 33 AD, whenever this was. But it was word of mouth. It was people seeing, there was stirring up, there was a commotion and everybody just kind of goes to see what's going on. And these people were so excited at who Jesus is. They believe that he was the king that Zechariah had prophesied about. Now they believe, full disclosure, they believe that Jesus was showing up in Jerusalem to overthrow Herod, to overthrow Roman rule, to take over the kingdom of Israel, to make it independent and to make it an international superpower and rise it to prominence. That's what they're expecting Jesus to do. They don't yet know that that's far too small a goal for our Jesus and that he came to establish an eternal and universal kingdom that makes an international power like the Roman Empire at the time look like peanuts. He's not interested in that. But they came because they believed that Jesus was coming in to be the king. And so when the king arrives, they take off their cloaks, they throw it on the ground as a sign of respect and celebration and adoration and worship. And then they go and they cut off the palm leaves or the palm branches and they place those on the ground, a sign of respect and adoration and worship. And they sing to him, Hosanna, the son of David, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest heaven. They're praising him as he enters into the city. This crowd welcomes Jesus into their kingdom, welcomes Jesus into their life. And here's the implication here. And I'm going to talk more about this in a minute. Jesus came, he did not come to conquer, but he did come to rule. He did not come to take anything over, but his expectation is absolutely that he's going to be in charge. His expectation is absolutely that I'm going to reign and you are going to submit. And the people celebrating in this crowd, they know that. They're gleefully, gladly, and gratefully accepting the incoming king. Yes, we will serve you. Yes, we will submit to you. Yes, not only will we submit to your reign, but we desire your reign. That's why we're laying our cloaks down on the ground because we want to follow you and serve you and submit to you. That's the first crowd. We'll call them the Sunday crowd because that's Palm Sunday. Five days later, there's another crowd. We'll call them the Friday crowd. This is the crowd of people that gathered around the fortress that Pilate, the Roman governor, was in, who yelled at Pilate, give us Barabbas and crucify Christ. And Pilate says, I find no fault in the man. He's done nothing wrong. There's no reason to crucify him. He might be a little delusional, but he has done absolutely nothing worthy of capital punishment. And they said, the crowd said back, kill him, his blood be on our hands and on the hands of our children. And they were so adamantly against Jesus that they crucified him. That's the Friday crowd. No, we do not accept that king. No, we do not accept his rule. We will fight back with our lives to not have to accept that rule. As a matter of fact, let's kill him. Completely anti-Jesus. But I think that there's a third crowd that's not mentioned anywhere in the Bible explicitly. But if you'll allow me this license, I think we can all admit that they've existed in every generation. I'm going to call this the Wednesday crowd. This is the crowd that's apathetic towards the whole thing. This is the crowd of people that went, hey, on Sunday, they went, what's that commotion? And they went, this is Jesus. He's the coming king. And they're like, maybe for you. I've got things to do today. I have cabinets to make and bread to deliver. I got stuff to do. So not super interested. He can be your king, not going to be my king. I got to get along with my day. And didn't go over to the commotion and just kept going about their lives as if Jesus didn't exist. And then on Friday, the Wednesday crowd sees the Friday crowd getting all worked up and says, what are you doing? They're like, this Jesus is full of crud. We don't like him. We're going to kill him. He's like, all right, seems like a waste of time to me, but go ahead. I have things to do. I don't care that much. And I think we would tend, I think we would tend to say in the way we do our moral judgments that the Friday crowd, the anti-Jesus crowd, was worse than the Wednesday crowd. Obviously, Sunday crowd's the best crowd. We know that. But Friday crowd, worse than Wednesday crowd, because Friday crowd killed Jesus. Wednesday just decided they didn't care. But I heard someone really smart one time say that the opposite of love is not hate. It's apathy. Because in hatred and in love, there are a lot of the same emotions just poured out differently. But in apathy, there's none. And I would argue that the apathetic crowd is just as guilty of what happened on Friday as the Friday crowd. And that that may be the most dangerous one. So I think as we walk through those crowds, that there's one question that becomes really obvious for everyone, and hopefully you started asking yourself this question already. What crowd are you in? Which one is it? Are you in the Sunday crowd when Jesus shows up in your life? Are you in the Sunday crowd that lays down your cloak and gladly and gleefully and willingly accepts his rule in your life? Yes. Not only will I allow you to rule, I desire it. Come in. Are you the Friday crowd? And I doubt on a Sunday morning we have very many, if any, people at all who will admit to being in the Friday crowd and radically anti-Jesus. You're in church on Sunday. But because we've got a bunch of visitors here, maybe that is you. And if it is, thank you for coming and putting up with us. I will try to go faster. You're being very nice. But I bet there's some people in the Wednesday crowd. I bet there's some people who treat the arrival of Christ in their life with apathy. Like it doesn't have anything to do with us. And so as I ask, which crowd are you in? I think most Christian minds go to the idea of salvation. How did I respond to Jesus when he showed up in my life? I'm a Christian. I've accepted Christ as my savior. I've prayed to ask him into my heart. I am a believer. Whatever your nomenclature is, you would call yourself a follower of Jesus and believe that you are saved. I'm not here to negate that belief. But I think our Christian mind, when we ask, how do we receive Jesus when he shows up in our life? We go, well, I'm a Christian. So clearly Sunday crowd laid down my cloak. Come in. I'll gleefully follow you. I think that's where we go. But I would argue with you that Jesus doesn't just show up once in our life. That there's more to this question than simply, have you accepted Christ as your Savior or not? And I think to actually answer this question, what crowd are you in? That we first have to decide what it looks like when Jesus shows up in your life. So let's talk about that for a second. What does it look like when I say when Jesus shows up in your life, what do I mean? What does that look like? And I was trying to think through a succinct description of this to help us grab onto it. But the reality of it is that Jesus shows up in myriad ways. Yes, of course he shows up as our savior and he invites us to repent and to follow him. And the fundamental repentance of all Christianity is to repent of whoever you thought Jesus was before you believed in him as your savior. We, all of us in here have different ideas about Christ. And if you're here this morning and you're not a believer, you, you also have an idea about Christ. He's somebody that somebody made up. He was a good teacher, but he's not a savior. He was a good man, but we're going overboard with the God thing. He existed, but he doesn't matter. You have an opinion about Jesus. And to become a Christian, the fundamental repentance is to say, I was wrong about what I thought about Christ, and I now agree with him about who he says he is, what he said he did, and what he said he's going to do. I now have aligned my thoughts and actions by agreeing with Jesus about who he says he is. That's what it is to become a Christian. So when we think about what crowd we're in, we've got to think about how he shows up. And I don't think he just shows up at that moment of salvation. I think that Jesus shows up every day, every hour, and sometimes moment to moment, depending on the circumstances. Jesus can show up. I thought about how does he show up? When does he arrive? When does he make himself known? He shows up in sermons. You've come to church this morning. I'm saying his name a lot. He's come up. He's shown up. He's here. How will you respond to what you hear today? Jesus is showing up. How will you respond to what you sing when you sing a worship song riding down the road? And it's about Christ. How will you respond to that? Jesus is showing up. You could be riding down the road innocuously listening to Christmas music, not expecting to have a Jesus moment. And all of a sudden, no holy night comes on. And if you're paying attention, the words are about Christ. And so Jesus has shown up. You can be in a conversation with a friend that you're just talking to about life. And then they'll start to reference scripture or point towards prayer or point towards something that God has been teaching them. Jesus is now showing up in this conversation. You can be doing something that you know you have no business doing. That you could be somewhere where you should never be. And there will be this prick of conviction, this realization in the moment, I don't need to be here. This isn't good. This isn't what's best for me. That's Jesus showing up through the Holy Spirit of conviction. He can show up in the midst of sin. He can show up on a billboard that you see that flashes a memory and makes you think of something. He can show up in a terrible circumstance where you've just received terrible news. Someone is very sick, someone is very hurt, something that's very sad has happened and the right friend or the right person puts their arm around you and shows up for you and is the presence of God in that moment for you, Jesus is showing up. And so when I tried to answer the question, what does it look like when Jesus shows up? I think the only real practical answer is Jesus shows up whenever you let him. Jesus shows up whenever you let him. Whenever you're willing to pay attention and acknowledge that he's trying to get your attention, that's when he shows up. Whenever you're willing to stop all the other things going on in your day and in your head and acknowledge that he's just arrived. And what does he want me to do with this? We don't have to ask if Jesus is going to show up in our life. We just have to pay attention and realize that he is. And because that's how Jesus shows up every hour of every day, inviting you into his presence and under his lordship, inviting you to allow him to be the Lord of that moment or that role or that conversation or that habit or that discipline or that decision. Because that's how Jesus shows up, I will ask you again. When Jesus shows up in your life, which crowd are you in? Because I think this is a daily decision, Christians. It's a daily decision to decide today, this morning, at work, with my children, with my spouse, with my friends, with my habits, with my disciplines, with what I consume. I am going to be a part of the Sunday crowd. I'm going to lay down my cloak and I'm going to gladly, gleefully, and gratefully usher Jesus into my life and receive him today. I'm going to willingly submit to his lordship and his rule today. When Jesus shows up in a conversation, do we allow the conversation to go there and engage or do we steer away because it makes us uncomfortable? When he comes up in a worship song, are we going to stop and welcome him in and praise him in our car or are we going to turn it down and focus on something else? When the conviction stirs and our hearts are pricked, are we going to respond to that by allowing Jesus to come into our life and become Lord over that and move away from that sin and repent of it in that moment? How do we respond to Jesus when he shows up in our life? Maybe, hopefully, we can all claim from time to time to be part of the Sunday crowd. I said earlier, I don't think in a church service on a Sunday morning there's going to be very many of us that are part of the Friday crowd. No, Jesus, get out of here. I'd rather kill you. No thanks. But I do think that there are plenty of us in this room who are regularly a part of that Wednesday crowd. I do think there are plenty of us in this room and on this stage, and I don't have any company up here, who regularly are part of the Wednesday crowd. When Jesus shows up in our life and says, are you going to give me lordship over that? We go, listen, you're my savior. Okay, I'd like to go to heaven, but I'd also like to do this thing. So not today. I've got bread to deliver. Not today. I've got things to do. Am I your savior? Yes, absolutely. Am I your king? No, I got the crown. And we respond to Jesus, not with acceptance, not with rejection, but with apathy, as if he doesn't show up. And when we do this, when we respond, when we join the Wednesday crowd at the arrival of Christ and we decide not to care, do you know what that stops us from doing? Noticing the other times that he's shown up. If I asked, hey, how does Jesus show up in your life? And you're like, I don't know. Is that because you've been a part of the Wednesday crowd for a while? Because when you get in the habit of going, yeah, Jesus, I'm not giving you that thing today. I'm not giving you that relationship today. I'm not accepting your lordship in that action or in that sin today. I'm going to do my own thing. It gets a lot easier to be a part of the Wednesday crowd the next day. It gets a lot easier to choose apathy the next day. And then eventually, I know this from experience, you choose to be apathetic enough days in a row, and you're going to say things like, you know what, you're not going to say it out loud. You're never going to admit this. But you're going to take on a mindset of, yeah, not this week. We don't have to do the daily check-ins. Not this week. Not this month. Not this season. And we become deeply apathetic Christians who are part of the Wednesday crowd, neither accepting nor rejecting Christ, just going about our lives as if he doesn't exist. And if it's true that hate is not the opposite of love, but apathy is, then there is no greater sin that we could commit and no greater offense that we could offer to our Savior Jesus, to our King who offers us His Lordship. There is no greater offense to Him than an apathetic response towards His arrival. And I think, if I'm being honest, I know that I could just stop the sermon right there and send us home, and we would have enough to think about. Because I think apathy might be the most pernicious and sinister sin in the American church now. Yeah, I'm good. I've accepted you as Savior. But I don't really want you to be king every day. And I don't want to feel bad like I've rejected you. So I'm just going to pretend like I don't notice. I'm going to go about my life. But here's the thing. Here's the thing that tells us that not only is it wrong to choose apathy, but we literally can't. We cannot continue to choose to be apathetic Christians because those phrases are oxymoronic. They do not go together. They are impossible together. The Bible does not make space for apathetic Christians because make no mistake about it. When Jesus shows up, when he arrives, when he tells us, I stand at the door and knock. When we open the door and we let Jesus into our life, he fully, listen to me, he fully expects to take charge. Jesus' expectations when he shows up somewhere is, yeah, I'm going to show up on a donkey, but when you let me in, I'm the boss. I'm going to show up humble. But when you let me in, I'm the ruler. I'm in charge. You submit to me and you do what I say. And Jesus will settle for nothing less. This is why I said we're going to turn back to Zechariah chapter 9. After he says I'm going to show up humble and lowly, this is what he says after that in verse 10. I will take away the chariots from Ephraim and the war horses from Jerusalem and the battle bow will be broken. He will proclaim peace to the nations. His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth. When Jesus shows up, he's not doing it to be your vice president. He's not doing it to only be your savior. He's doing it to be your king. Those words do not sound like the words of someone who intends to do nothing. I'm going to break the battle bows. I'm going to get rid of the chariots. I'm going to get rid of the war horses. And my empire will extend from end to end and from sea to sea. I'm going to be in charge. So here's the thing that I think is profoundly important for us to understand about the arrival of Christ in our life. Jesus insists on ruling, but refuses to conquer. He insists on ruling you. He will not conquer you. Do you understand why that's so important? He will not force you into being a Christian. He will not force you into being a believer. He will not force you into submission. I think of the story of Joshua wrestling with Jesus, Jacob wrestling with Jesus. And it teaches us that if you want to wrestle with Jesus, you're going to win. If you want to defy his will, he's not going to force it on you. He will not conquer you. And I know this to be true because in the young zeal of my faith in my twenties, I prayed on multiple occasions. This is true. On multiple occasions, I got on my knees and I said, God, I want to be an automaton. I do not want my free will. It does not serve me. I have no use for it. I know that without it, I cannot offer you a greater love, but I no longer want my free will. It doesn't serve me. I just want to do whatever you want me to do every day. Please take it from me. And I can tell you at 43, he did not answer that prayer. I still very much have it. Much to my chagrin. Oh, wretched man that I am who will deliver me from this body of death. Jesus insists on ruling you. He will not conquer you. He will not make you do it. He only comes into your life through invitation. He only comes into those moments when you let him. He does not force his way in. And what's even better about this, listen, when he comes to Israel and he takes over as king, it's not that he's never conquered anything. It's just he's already conquered what he wants to conquer. And now, listen, he wants to come into your life and share with you the spoils of his wars that he's already won. Do you understand? He doesn't want what you have. He wants to come into your life and give you the victories that he's already won. He wanted to come into Israel, not to conquer Jerusalem, but to offer them the kingdom that he won outside of Jerusalem. How profound is that? That when Jesus says, hey, would you invite me in? He's not trying to conquer you. Listen, he'll pursue you. We're told that Jesus leaves the 99 who have let him in and is pursuing the hundredth that won't. So even if you're here this morning and you would not call yourself a believer, I want you to know that Jesus is still with you and following you every minute of every day. And I hope and pray, if I'm speaking to you right now, that you feel him hot on your heels. You can turn around and let him in anytime you want. And when you do, he's not going to conquer you. He's going to offer you the spoils of the wars and the battles that he's already fought. I love this song, this old hymn called See the Conqueror. Nobody's heard of it. It's nerdy, but I really like it. And in that song, there's lyrics. It talks about see the conqueror mounted in triumph and how Jesus ushers into heaven. But it was like here, it says, he has vanquished sin and Satan. He by death has spoiled his foes. He's conquered sin and death for us. Oh, sin, where are your shackles? Oh, death, where is your sting? He's conquered death and disease for us already. He's conquered that sin for you already. He's conquered that anxiety already. He's conquered that relationship already. He's conquered that life issue already. He's conquered the temporary nature of life already. He's conquered the loss of people already. Do you understand? He's already conquered it and he's not looking to conquer you. He's looking to be invited into your life to rule as king and to offer you the spoils of the wars that he's already fought. That's what it means when he arrives in your life on a donkey. He just wants to offer you the victories that he's already won. So at Grace, we talk a lot about the fact that we are step-takers. To be a step-taker is to simply acknowledge that God has a step of obedience for everyone to take, and it's your job to figure out what's my step of obedience and how do I take it. And so this morning, I think we have in front of us an opportunity to be a step-taker. And I think it comes in this form. Let me ask it this way. What would it look like to hand over lordship in a place where Jesus is showing up? The idea of, for those of us who have grown apathetic, and we're not even really paying attention to when Jesus shows up, the idea of handing over every moment of every day to him is something that seems so far off that it's almost so impossible that maybe we won't even start the journey. But I think if we can just look at the journey as one step of obedience, just one thing, not all the things, just one thing. Where is Jesus showing up in your life where you can be a part of the Sunday crowd and usher him in and submit to his lordship and experience the spoils of the victory that he's already won over that thing? Is it in a relationship? A marriage that you haven't focused on in a while and you know you need to? Is it in the way you parent? Not that I know this from experience, but maybe as a parent you've fallen into parenting the children towards just not being annoying to you instead of towards Jesus himself and loving him? Is it in the way that you go about work forgetting that it's your ministry, not your profession? Is Jesus convicting you in the way that you talk to others, treat other people? Is he convicting you to worship more? Is he convicting you to acknowledge him? Is he inviting you into his presence in times when you're refusing it? In response to this sermon, if you'll intellectually acknowledge with me that Jesus is showing up in our lives daily, hourly, maybe even momentarily, then where is he pressing on you the most? At what door is he standing and knocking, saying, are you going to let me in now? I'm going to pray. And as I pray, the band's going to come up and they're going to sing. And as they sing, they're going to offer you the opportunity to just continue to sit as they sing over us. I would invite you to use the next few minutes to spend time in prayer and go before God and say, Jesus, where are you pressing? Where are you showing up? Help me to see you and give me the strength to lay my cloak on the ground and invite you in as Lord and allow you to rule me there. Can we do that together? Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this morning. We thank you for the kiddos, the joy that they bring, the laughter that they cause, and the blessings that they represent. God, we pray that we would be good parents and grandparents to them. We pray that we would be good spiritual parents and grandparents to them. I pray that they would be good friends to one another. Jesus, we thank you for showing up on a donkey. We thank you that you don't conquer us. That for some reason, unique in world history and in the span of all religions, you simply wait for us to let you in. And you do not insist, and you do not force. So God, I pray this morning that we would let you in. And that when we did, we would know that you do that to rule us, not to partner with us. Not to simply usher us into heaven, but to share with us the spoils of the victories that you've already won. Jesus, we love you. We thank you for winning those victories and we thank you for being a good king that we can celebrate this Christmas. In Jesus' name, amen.

My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. Thanks for being here this Sunday. I am acutely aware that for many of you, you were not here for this, you were here for that. And so we're so glad that you are here. And if you're a grandparent, thank you for trusting us with your babies and your grandbabies. It's an honor and a privilege to do that. I've been talking a lot about how our children's ministry is growing and burgeoning, and I thought it would be, we thought it would be really good to highlight that on a Sunday and for you guys to be able to see physically all that God is doing and bringing, and that was great. If you're wondering who the pastor's kid was in the first, in the preschool one, it was the boy in the white sweater and red pants that looked like he hated everything in the world. So he's got somebody leaned over to me here and said he's got a real future. Yeah, I think so. I think so. This morning we are in the third part of our series called Foretold, where we are looking at prophecies from the Old Testament, messianic prophecies. And a messianic prophecy is simply a prophecy that tells about the coming Christ, the coming Messiah, who we know of as Jesus. And so in the first week, we looked at Jeremiah 31, where it said this coming Messiah will bring a new covenant. And so we talked about what that new covenant was. Last week we looked at Isaiah chapter 9, the most famous Christmas prophecy that his name will be called, that he will be called Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. And we talked about what those names mean. And it's right and good to focus on these prophecies about the coming Messiah at Christmastime because Christmas is when we celebrate the arrival of the Messiah and the fulfillment of these prophecies. So this morning, we arrive at a prophecy in the book of Zechariah. Zechariah chapter 9, verse 9. So if you have a Bible, go ahead and start trying to zero in on Zechariah. It's a tough one. It's a minor prophet towards the end of the Old Testament. If you need to use your table of contents for this, please do. I'd also like to just point out, because I can do this and they are friends, Tom and Linda Sartorius and their daughter Kristen thought that this week was Family Jammy Sunday. So make sure you say hey to them in the lobby. They are a delight this morning. I've been told to blame this on Kristen, but at this point it really doesn't matter. It's just fun all the way around. Steven and Maddie, they avoided it. They're another part of the family, son and daughter-in-law. but the rest of them look like suckers, and it's great. It's great. In Zechariah chapter 9, what we have is not a prophecy about the first arrival of Christ. It's a prophecy about the arrival of Christ as king, and it's a profoundly important one, and I think it's worth reflecting on this morning. So I'm going to read you the prophecy from Zechariah. We're going to talk about the context of that. And then we're going to look at its fulfillment in Matthew chapter 21. So read with me, if you will, Zechariah chapter 9, verse 9. Rejoice greatly, daughter Zion. Shout, daughter Jerusalem. See your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. This is the prophecy from Zechariah. And we're going to turn to Matthew 21, but if you're following along in your Bible, keep something noted in Zechariah because we're going to come back to verse 10, and I don't want you to have to find it again. But to understand what happens in Matthew 21 and the fulfillment of this prophecy, we need to understand the context of what this one implies. In ancient times, and even in the times of Christ, really up until World War I, we figured out we should kind of knock this off. Kings went out and conquered. That's what they did. The only major nation that hasn't figured out that we should knock it off on trying to conquer other nations is Russia. They keep dabbling in it since World War I. But everyone else has figured out not to do that. But in this time, it was very regular for kings to go out and conquer. It's what they did. If you were a king, this is what you did. And we know this because when David sins with Bathsheba, that story begins in Samuel. It was spring at the time when kings went off to war. So this is what they did. And when a king would enter a city to assume control of that city, there was two ways that he entered. One was on a war horse, symbolizing that he had conquered the city. He was coming in as the conquering hero to his people and the conquering king to these people. That he had conquered this city. He would ride in on his war horse once everything, all the dust had settled from the battle. The other way for a king to enter a city that was less, less, uh, it didn't happen as often, but it did happen. And it did mean something was for a king to come in on a donkey. When a king would come into a city on a donkey, he was symbolizing peace. He was symbolizing. I did not have to conquer this city. This city willfully gave itself over to me. And because of that, I'm not coming in to kill. I'm not coming in to conquer. I'm not coming in to hurt or to subdue. I am coming into this city in peace and I intend to peacefully take over this city. And then the prophecy of Zechariah takes it a step further because not only is he entering as a peaceful King on a donkey, but on the cult, the foal of a donkey on a bay, on a little baby donkey to be humble, to communicate in every way. And it says humble and lowly to communicate in every way that Jesus doesn't come as a conquering King for the city. He comes as a king who's already conquered and is now entering into the city peacefully. So there's great, it's not just random that he's entering into a donkey and that this is how Zechariah prophesies that he's going to become the king of Jerusalem. Because to become a king of the city, you basically got to go take it over. And Zechariah says, no, he's not going to do it like that. Jerusalem is going to welcome him with open arms. He will enter on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey, gentle, humble, and lowly. That's the context that we need to understand what's happening in Matthew chapter 21 when he fulfills it. So, if you don't mind, turn over to Matthew chapter 21. In the preceding verses, Matthew has said, I'm not going to read, there's a whole passage here, I'm just going to read a portion of it. I'm going to begin in verse 7 and go through 11. But in the preceding verses, Jesus has told the disciples on their way to Jerusalem, beginning the last week of his life, Holy Week. This is Palm Sunday. This is the story where we get Palm Sunday. He tells the disciples, I want you to go into town and I want you to get a donkey. I want you to get a colt, the foal of a donkey, and I'm going to ride that into Jerusalem. And then Matthew says, this is to fulfill what was said by the prophet Zechariah. And he quotes Zechariah. A wonderful aside about the gospel of Matthew is that the gospel of Matthew was written in the first century A.D. to convince skeptical Jewish people that Jesus was the actual Messiah that you learned about for all those generations. And so very often throughout the Gospel of Matthew, you'll see the narrative stop. There'll be a bracket in it, and it will say this is to fulfill the prophecy of, and then there's a bracket, and then it's the prophecy to show how Jesus really was the Messiah that the Old Testament talked about. So, for us New Testament believers, reading the book of Matthew is a great way to begin to tether the Old and New Testaments together to bring us to a greater depth of understanding. So, Jesus says, go get this. This is to go get this donkey. This is to fulfill this prophecy. And then this happens. Verse 7, they brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, Hosanna to the son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest heaven. When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, who is this? Who is this? So Jesus shows up at Jerusalem. At this point in his ministry, he's been doing ministry for three years. He knows that when he goes into Jerusalem, he's going to stir up a hornet's nest of conflict that's going to ultimately lead to his crucifixion. But he also knows that he's entering Jerusalem as a conquering king, as a king who has conquered. And so he enters in as king on a donkey. And I think about the crowds in this story because I think those are who we relate to the most. And I think in this story, there are really kind of three crowds that we see. The first crowd is the most obvious crowd is the crowd that welcomed him. The crowd that showed up, that heard about it. I don't know exactly how word spreads in Jerusalem in zero AD or whenever 33 AD, whenever this was. But it was word of mouth. It was people seeing, there was stirring up, there was a commotion and everybody just kind of goes to see what's going on. And these people were so excited at who Jesus is. They believe that he was the king that Zechariah had prophesied about. Now they believe, full disclosure, they believe that Jesus was showing up in Jerusalem to overthrow Herod, to overthrow Roman rule, to take over the kingdom of Israel, to make it independent and to make it an international superpower and rise it to prominence. That's what they're expecting Jesus to do. They don't yet know that that's far too small a goal for our Jesus and that he came to establish an eternal and universal kingdom that makes an international power like the Roman Empire at the time look like peanuts. He's not interested in that. But they came because they believed that Jesus was coming in to be the king. And so when the king arrives, they take off their cloaks, they throw it on the ground as a sign of respect and celebration and adoration and worship. And then they go and they cut off the palm leaves or the palm branches and they place those on the ground, a sign of respect and adoration and worship. And they sing to him, Hosanna, the son of David, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest heaven. They're praising him as he enters into the city. This crowd welcomes Jesus into their kingdom, welcomes Jesus into their life. And here's the implication here. And I'm going to talk more about this in a minute. Jesus came, he did not come to conquer, but he did come to rule. He did not come to take anything over, but his expectation is absolutely that he's going to be in charge. His expectation is absolutely that I'm going to reign and you are going to submit. And the people celebrating in this crowd, they know that. They're gleefully, gladly, and gratefully accepting the incoming king. Yes, we will serve you. Yes, we will submit to you. Yes, not only will we submit to your reign, but we desire your reign. That's why we're laying our cloaks down on the ground because we want to follow you and serve you and submit to you. That's the first crowd. We'll call them the Sunday crowd because that's Palm Sunday. Five days later, there's another crowd. We'll call them the Friday crowd. This is the crowd of people that gathered around the fortress that Pilate, the Roman governor, was in, who yelled at Pilate, give us Barabbas and crucify Christ. And Pilate says, I find no fault in the man. He's done nothing wrong. There's no reason to crucify him. He might be a little delusional, but he has done absolutely nothing worthy of capital punishment. And they said, the crowd said back, kill him, his blood be on our hands and on the hands of our children. And they were so adamantly against Jesus that they crucified him. That's the Friday crowd. No, we do not accept that king. No, we do not accept his rule. We will fight back with our lives to not have to accept that rule. As a matter of fact, let's kill him. Completely anti-Jesus. But I think that there's a third crowd that's not mentioned anywhere in the Bible explicitly. But if you'll allow me this license, I think we can all admit that they've existed in every generation. I'm going to call this the Wednesday crowd. This is the crowd that's apathetic towards the whole thing. This is the crowd of people that went, hey, on Sunday, they went, what's that commotion? And they went, this is Jesus. He's the coming king. And they're like, maybe for you. I've got things to do today. I have cabinets to make and bread to deliver. I got stuff to do. So not super interested. He can be your king, not going to be my king. I got to get along with my day. And didn't go over to the commotion and just kept going about their lives as if Jesus didn't exist. And then on Friday, the Wednesday crowd sees the Friday crowd getting all worked up and says, what are you doing? They're like, this Jesus is full of crud. We don't like him. We're going to kill him. He's like, all right, seems like a waste of time to me, but go ahead. I have things to do. I don't care that much. And I think we would tend, I think we would tend to say in the way we do our moral judgments that the Friday crowd, the anti-Jesus crowd, was worse than the Wednesday crowd. Obviously, Sunday crowd's the best crowd. We know that. But Friday crowd, worse than Wednesday crowd, because Friday crowd killed Jesus. Wednesday just decided they didn't care. But I heard someone really smart one time say that the opposite of love is not hate. It's apathy. Because in hatred and in love, there are a lot of the same emotions just poured out differently. But in apathy, there's none. And I would argue that the apathetic crowd is just as guilty of what happened on Friday as the Friday crowd. And that that may be the most dangerous one. So I think as we walk through those crowds, that there's one question that becomes really obvious for everyone, and hopefully you started asking yourself this question already. What crowd are you in? Which one is it? Are you in the Sunday crowd when Jesus shows up in your life? Are you in the Sunday crowd that lays down your cloak and gladly and gleefully and willingly accepts his rule in your life? Yes. Not only will I allow you to rule, I desire it. Come in. Are you the Friday crowd? And I doubt on a Sunday morning we have very many, if any, people at all who will admit to being in the Friday crowd and radically anti-Jesus. You're in church on Sunday. But because we've got a bunch of visitors here, maybe that is you. And if it is, thank you for coming and putting up with us. I will try to go faster. You're being very nice. But I bet there's some people in the Wednesday crowd. I bet there's some people who treat the arrival of Christ in their life with apathy. Like it doesn't have anything to do with us. And so as I ask, which crowd are you in? I think most Christian minds go to the idea of salvation. How did I respond to Jesus when he showed up in my life? I'm a Christian. I've accepted Christ as my savior. I've prayed to ask him into my heart. I am a believer. Whatever your nomenclature is, you would call yourself a follower of Jesus and believe that you are saved. I'm not here to negate that belief. But I think our Christian mind, when we ask, how do we receive Jesus when he shows up in our life? We go, well, I'm a Christian. So clearly Sunday crowd laid down my cloak. Come in. I'll gleefully follow you. I think that's where we go. But I would argue with you that Jesus doesn't just show up once in our life. That there's more to this question than simply, have you accepted Christ as your Savior or not? And I think to actually answer this question, what crowd are you in? That we first have to decide what it looks like when Jesus shows up in your life. So let's talk about that for a second. What does it look like when I say when Jesus shows up in your life, what do I mean? What does that look like? And I was trying to think through a succinct description of this to help us grab onto it. But the reality of it is that Jesus shows up in myriad ways. Yes, of course he shows up as our savior and he invites us to repent and to follow him. And the fundamental repentance of all Christianity is to repent of whoever you thought Jesus was before you believed in him as your savior. We, all of us in here have different ideas about Christ. And if you're here this morning and you're not a believer, you, you also have an idea about Christ. He's somebody that somebody made up. He was a good teacher, but he's not a savior. He was a good man, but we're going overboard with the God thing. He existed, but he doesn't matter. You have an opinion about Jesus. And to become a Christian, the fundamental repentance is to say, I was wrong about what I thought about Christ, and I now agree with him about who he says he is, what he said he did, and what he said he's going to do. I now have aligned my thoughts and actions by agreeing with Jesus about who he says he is. That's what it is to become a Christian. So when we think about what crowd we're in, we've got to think about how he shows up. And I don't think he just shows up at that moment of salvation. I think that Jesus shows up every day, every hour, and sometimes moment to moment, depending on the circumstances. Jesus can show up. I thought about how does he show up? When does he arrive? When does he make himself known? He shows up in sermons. You've come to church this morning. I'm saying his name a lot. He's come up. He's shown up. He's here. How will you respond to what you hear today? Jesus is showing up. How will you respond to what you sing when you sing a worship song riding down the road? And it's about Christ. How will you respond to that? Jesus is showing up. You could be riding down the road innocuously listening to Christmas music, not expecting to have a Jesus moment. And all of a sudden, no holy night comes on. And if you're paying attention, the words are about Christ. And so Jesus has shown up. You can be in a conversation with a friend that you're just talking to about life. And then they'll start to reference scripture or point towards prayer or point towards something that God has been teaching them. Jesus is now showing up in this conversation. You can be doing something that you know you have no business doing. That you could be somewhere where you should never be. And there will be this prick of conviction, this realization in the moment, I don't need to be here. This isn't good. This isn't what's best for me. That's Jesus showing up through the Holy Spirit of conviction. He can show up in the midst of sin. He can show up on a billboard that you see that flashes a memory and makes you think of something. He can show up in a terrible circumstance where you've just received terrible news. Someone is very sick, someone is very hurt, something that's very sad has happened and the right friend or the right person puts their arm around you and shows up for you and is the presence of God in that moment for you, Jesus is showing up. And so when I tried to answer the question, what does it look like when Jesus shows up? I think the only real practical answer is Jesus shows up whenever you let him. Jesus shows up whenever you let him. Whenever you're willing to pay attention and acknowledge that he's trying to get your attention, that's when he shows up. Whenever you're willing to stop all the other things going on in your day and in your head and acknowledge that he's just arrived. And what does he want me to do with this? We don't have to ask if Jesus is going to show up in our life. We just have to pay attention and realize that he is. And because that's how Jesus shows up every hour of every day, inviting you into his presence and under his lordship, inviting you to allow him to be the Lord of that moment or that role or that conversation or that habit or that discipline or that decision. Because that's how Jesus shows up, I will ask you again. When Jesus shows up in your life, which crowd are you in? Because I think this is a daily decision, Christians. It's a daily decision to decide today, this morning, at work, with my children, with my spouse, with my friends, with my habits, with my disciplines, with what I consume. I am going to be a part of the Sunday crowd. I'm going to lay down my cloak and I'm going to gladly, gleefully, and gratefully usher Jesus into my life and receive him today. I'm going to willingly submit to his lordship and his rule today. When Jesus shows up in a conversation, do we allow the conversation to go there and engage or do we steer away because it makes us uncomfortable? When he comes up in a worship song, are we going to stop and welcome him in and praise him in our car or are we going to turn it down and focus on something else? When the conviction stirs and our hearts are pricked, are we going to respond to that by allowing Jesus to come into our life and become Lord over that and move away from that sin and repent of it in that moment? How do we respond to Jesus when he shows up in our life? Maybe, hopefully, we can all claim from time to time to be part of the Sunday crowd. I said earlier, I don't think in a church service on a Sunday morning there's going to be very many of us that are part of the Friday crowd. No, Jesus, get out of here. I'd rather kill you. No thanks. But I do think that there are plenty of us in this room who are regularly a part of that Wednesday crowd. I do think there are plenty of us in this room and on this stage, and I don't have any company up here, who regularly are part of the Wednesday crowd. When Jesus shows up in our life and says, are you going to give me lordship over that? We go, listen, you're my savior. Okay, I'd like to go to heaven, but I'd also like to do this thing. So not today. I've got bread to deliver. Not today. I've got things to do. Am I your savior? Yes, absolutely. Am I your king? No, I got the crown. And we respond to Jesus, not with acceptance, not with rejection, but with apathy, as if he doesn't show up. And when we do this, when we respond, when we join the Wednesday crowd at the arrival of Christ and we decide not to care, do you know what that stops us from doing? Noticing the other times that he's shown up. If I asked, hey, how does Jesus show up in your life? And you're like, I don't know. Is that because you've been a part of the Wednesday crowd for a while? Because when you get in the habit of going, yeah, Jesus, I'm not giving you that thing today. I'm not giving you that relationship today. I'm not accepting your lordship in that action or in that sin today. I'm going to do my own thing. It gets a lot easier to be a part of the Wednesday crowd the next day. It gets a lot easier to choose apathy the next day. And then eventually, I know this from experience, you choose to be apathetic enough days in a row, and you're going to say things like, you know what, you're not going to say it out loud. You're never going to admit this. But you're going to take on a mindset of, yeah, not this week. We don't have to do the daily check-ins. Not this week. Not this month. Not this season. And we become deeply apathetic Christians who are part of the Wednesday crowd, neither accepting nor rejecting Christ, just going about our lives as if he doesn't exist. And if it's true that hate is not the opposite of love, but apathy is, then there is no greater sin that we could commit and no greater offense that we could offer to our Savior Jesus, to our King who offers us His Lordship. There is no greater offense to Him than an apathetic response towards His arrival. And I think, if I'm being honest, I know that I could just stop the sermon right there and send us home, and we would have enough to think about. Because I think apathy might be the most pernicious and sinister sin in the American church now. Yeah, I'm good. I've accepted you as Savior. But I don't really want you to be king every day. And I don't want to feel bad like I've rejected you. So I'm just going to pretend like I don't notice. I'm going to go about my life. But here's the thing. Here's the thing that tells us that not only is it wrong to choose apathy, but we literally can't. We cannot continue to choose to be apathetic Christians because those phrases are oxymoronic. They do not go together. They are impossible together. The Bible does not make space for apathetic Christians because make no mistake about it. When Jesus shows up, when he arrives, when he tells us, I stand at the door and knock. When we open the door and we let Jesus into our life, he fully, listen to me, he fully expects to take charge. Jesus' expectations when he shows up somewhere is, yeah, I'm going to show up on a donkey, but when you let me in, I'm the boss. I'm going to show up humble. But when you let me in, I'm the ruler. I'm in charge. You submit to me and you do what I say. And Jesus will settle for nothing less. This is why I said we're going to turn back to Zechariah chapter 9. After he says I'm going to show up humble and lowly, this is what he says after that in verse 10. I will take away the chariots from Ephraim and the war horses from Jerusalem and the battle bow will be broken. He will proclaim peace to the nations. His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth. When Jesus shows up, he's not doing it to be your vice president. He's not doing it to only be your savior. He's doing it to be your king. Those words do not sound like the words of someone who intends to do nothing. I'm going to break the battle bows. I'm going to get rid of the chariots. I'm going to get rid of the war horses. And my empire will extend from end to end and from sea to sea. I'm going to be in charge. So here's the thing that I think is profoundly important for us to understand about the arrival of Christ in our life. Jesus insists on ruling, but refuses to conquer. He insists on ruling you. He will not conquer you. Do you understand why that's so important? He will not force you into being a Christian. He will not force you into being a believer. He will not force you into submission. I think of the story of Joshua wrestling with Jesus, Jacob wrestling with Jesus. And it teaches us that if you want to wrestle with Jesus, you're going to win. If you want to defy his will, he's not going to force it on you. He will not conquer you. And I know this to be true because in the young zeal of my faith in my twenties, I prayed on multiple occasions. This is true. On multiple occasions, I got on my knees and I said, God, I want to be an automaton. I do not want my free will. It does not serve me. I have no use for it. I know that without it, I cannot offer you a greater love, but I no longer want my free will. It doesn't serve me. I just want to do whatever you want me to do every day. Please take it from me. And I can tell you at 43, he did not answer that prayer. I still very much have it. Much to my chagrin. Oh, wretched man that I am who will deliver me from this body of death. Jesus insists on ruling you. He will not conquer you. He will not make you do it. He only comes into your life through invitation. He only comes into those moments when you let him. He does not force his way in. And what's even better about this, listen, when he comes to Israel and he takes over as king, it's not that he's never conquered anything. It's just he's already conquered what he wants to conquer. And now, listen, he wants to come into your life and share with you the spoils of his wars that he's already won. Do you understand? He doesn't want what you have. He wants to come into your life and give you the victories that he's already won. He wanted to come into Israel, not to conquer Jerusalem, but to offer them the kingdom that he won outside of Jerusalem. How profound is that? That when Jesus says, hey, would you invite me in? He's not trying to conquer you. Listen, he'll pursue you. We're told that Jesus leaves the 99 who have let him in and is pursuing the hundredth that won't. So even if you're here this morning and you would not call yourself a believer, I want you to know that Jesus is still with you and following you every minute of every day. And I hope and pray, if I'm speaking to you right now, that you feel him hot on your heels. You can turn around and let him in anytime you want. And when you do, he's not going to conquer you. He's going to offer you the spoils of the wars and the battles that he's already fought. I love this song, this old hymn called See the Conqueror. Nobody's heard of it. It's nerdy, but I really like it. And in that song, there's lyrics. It talks about see the conqueror mounted in triumph and how Jesus ushers into heaven. But it was like here, it says, he has vanquished sin and Satan. He by death has spoiled his foes. He's conquered sin and death for us. Oh, sin, where are your shackles? Oh, death, where is your sting? He's conquered death and disease for us already. He's conquered that sin for you already. He's conquered that anxiety already. He's conquered that relationship already. He's conquered that life issue already. He's conquered the temporary nature of life already. He's conquered the loss of people already. Do you understand? He's already conquered it and he's not looking to conquer you. He's looking to be invited into your life to rule as king and to offer you the spoils of the wars that he's already fought. That's what it means when he arrives in your life on a donkey. He just wants to offer you the victories that he's already won. So at Grace, we talk a lot about the fact that we are step-takers. To be a step-taker is to simply acknowledge that God has a step of obedience for everyone to take, and it's your job to figure out what's my step of obedience and how do I take it. And so this morning, I think we have in front of us an opportunity to be a step-taker. And I think it comes in this form. Let me ask it this way. What would it look like to hand over lordship in a place where Jesus is showing up? The idea of, for those of us who have grown apathetic, and we're not even really paying attention to when Jesus shows up, the idea of handing over every moment of every day to him is something that seems so far off that it's almost so impossible that maybe we won't even start the journey. But I think if we can just look at the journey as one step of obedience, just one thing, not all the things, just one thing. Where is Jesus showing up in your life where you can be a part of the Sunday crowd and usher him in and submit to his lordship and experience the spoils of the victory that he's already won over that thing? Is it in a relationship? A marriage that you haven't focused on in a while and you know you need to? Is it in the way you parent? Not that I know this from experience, but maybe as a parent you've fallen into parenting the children towards just not being annoying to you instead of towards Jesus himself and loving him? Is it in the way that you go about work forgetting that it's your ministry, not your profession? Is Jesus convicting you in the way that you talk to others, treat other people? Is he convicting you to worship more? Is he convicting you to acknowledge him? Is he inviting you into his presence in times when you're refusing it? In response to this sermon, if you'll intellectually acknowledge with me that Jesus is showing up in our lives daily, hourly, maybe even momentarily, then where is he pressing on you the most? At what door is he standing and knocking, saying, are you going to let me in now? I'm going to pray. And as I pray, the band's going to come up and they're going to sing. And as they sing, they're going to offer you the opportunity to just continue to sit as they sing over us. I would invite you to use the next few minutes to spend time in prayer and go before God and say, Jesus, where are you pressing? Where are you showing up? Help me to see you and give me the strength to lay my cloak on the ground and invite you in as Lord and allow you to rule me there. Can we do that together? Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this morning. We thank you for the kiddos, the joy that they bring, the laughter that they cause, and the blessings that they represent. God, we pray that we would be good parents and grandparents to them. We pray that we would be good spiritual parents and grandparents to them. I pray that they would be good friends to one another. Jesus, we thank you for showing up on a donkey. We thank you that you don't conquer us. That for some reason, unique in world history and in the span of all religions, you simply wait for us to let you in. And you do not insist, and you do not force. So God, I pray this morning that we would let you in. And that when we did, we would know that you do that to rule us, not to partner with us. Not to simply usher us into heaven, but to share with us the spoils of the victories that you've already won. Jesus, we love you. We thank you for winning those victories and we thank you for being a good king that we can celebrate this Christmas. In Jesus' name, amen.

My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. Thanks for being here this Sunday. I am acutely aware that for many of you, you were not here for this, you were here for that. And so we're so glad that you are here. And if you're a grandparent, thank you for trusting us with your babies and your grandbabies. It's an honor and a privilege to do that. I've been talking a lot about how our children's ministry is growing and burgeoning, and I thought it would be, we thought it would be really good to highlight that on a Sunday and for you guys to be able to see physically all that God is doing and bringing, and that was great. If you're wondering who the pastor's kid was in the first, in the preschool one, it was the boy in the white sweater and red pants that looked like he hated everything in the world. So he's got somebody leaned over to me here and said he's got a real future. Yeah, I think so. I think so. This morning we are in the third part of our series called Foretold, where we are looking at prophecies from the Old Testament, messianic prophecies. And a messianic prophecy is simply a prophecy that tells about the coming Christ, the coming Messiah, who we know of as Jesus. And so in the first week, we looked at Jeremiah 31, where it said this coming Messiah will bring a new covenant. And so we talked about what that new covenant was. Last week we looked at Isaiah chapter 9, the most famous Christmas prophecy that his name will be called, that he will be called Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. And we talked about what those names mean. And it's right and good to focus on these prophecies about the coming Messiah at Christmastime because Christmas is when we celebrate the arrival of the Messiah and the fulfillment of these prophecies. So this morning, we arrive at a prophecy in the book of Zechariah. Zechariah chapter 9, verse 9. So if you have a Bible, go ahead and start trying to zero in on Zechariah. It's a tough one. It's a minor prophet towards the end of the Old Testament. If you need to use your table of contents for this, please do. I'd also like to just point out, because I can do this and they are friends, Tom and Linda Sartorius and their daughter Kristen thought that this week was Family Jammy Sunday. So make sure you say hey to them in the lobby. They are a delight this morning. I've been told to blame this on Kristen, but at this point it really doesn't matter. It's just fun all the way around. Steven and Maddie, they avoided it. They're another part of the family, son and daughter-in-law. but the rest of them look like suckers, and it's great. It's great. In Zechariah chapter 9, what we have is not a prophecy about the first arrival of Christ. It's a prophecy about the arrival of Christ as king, and it's a profoundly important one, and I think it's worth reflecting on this morning. So I'm going to read you the prophecy from Zechariah. We're going to talk about the context of that. And then we're going to look at its fulfillment in Matthew chapter 21. So read with me, if you will, Zechariah chapter 9, verse 9. Rejoice greatly, daughter Zion. Shout, daughter Jerusalem. See your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. This is the prophecy from Zechariah. And we're going to turn to Matthew 21, but if you're following along in your Bible, keep something noted in Zechariah because we're going to come back to verse 10, and I don't want you to have to find it again. But to understand what happens in Matthew 21 and the fulfillment of this prophecy, we need to understand the context of what this one implies. In ancient times, and even in the times of Christ, really up until World War I, we figured out we should kind of knock this off. Kings went out and conquered. That's what they did. The only major nation that hasn't figured out that we should knock it off on trying to conquer other nations is Russia. They keep dabbling in it since World War I. But everyone else has figured out not to do that. But in this time, it was very regular for kings to go out and conquer. It's what they did. If you were a king, this is what you did. And we know this because when David sins with Bathsheba, that story begins in Samuel. It was spring at the time when kings went off to war. So this is what they did. And when a king would enter a city to assume control of that city, there was two ways that he entered. One was on a war horse, symbolizing that he had conquered the city. He was coming in as the conquering hero to his people and the conquering king to these people. That he had conquered this city. He would ride in on his war horse once everything, all the dust had settled from the battle. The other way for a king to enter a city that was less, less, uh, it didn't happen as often, but it did happen. And it did mean something was for a king to come in on a donkey. When a king would come into a city on a donkey, he was symbolizing peace. He was symbolizing. I did not have to conquer this city. This city willfully gave itself over to me. And because of that, I'm not coming in to kill. I'm not coming in to conquer. I'm not coming in to hurt or to subdue. I am coming into this city in peace and I intend to peacefully take over this city. And then the prophecy of Zechariah takes it a step further because not only is he entering as a peaceful King on a donkey, but on the cult, the foal of a donkey on a bay, on a little baby donkey to be humble, to communicate in every way. And it says humble and lowly to communicate in every way that Jesus doesn't come as a conquering King for the city. He comes as a king who's already conquered and is now entering into the city peacefully. So there's great, it's not just random that he's entering into a donkey and that this is how Zechariah prophesies that he's going to become the king of Jerusalem. Because to become a king of the city, you basically got to go take it over. And Zechariah says, no, he's not going to do it like that. Jerusalem is going to welcome him with open arms. He will enter on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey, gentle, humble, and lowly. That's the context that we need to understand what's happening in Matthew chapter 21 when he fulfills it. So, if you don't mind, turn over to Matthew chapter 21. In the preceding verses, Matthew has said, I'm not going to read, there's a whole passage here, I'm just going to read a portion of it. I'm going to begin in verse 7 and go through 11. But in the preceding verses, Jesus has told the disciples on their way to Jerusalem, beginning the last week of his life, Holy Week. This is Palm Sunday. This is the story where we get Palm Sunday. He tells the disciples, I want you to go into town and I want you to get a donkey. I want you to get a colt, the foal of a donkey, and I'm going to ride that into Jerusalem. And then Matthew says, this is to fulfill what was said by the prophet Zechariah. And he quotes Zechariah. A wonderful aside about the gospel of Matthew is that the gospel of Matthew was written in the first century A.D. to convince skeptical Jewish people that Jesus was the actual Messiah that you learned about for all those generations. And so very often throughout the Gospel of Matthew, you'll see the narrative stop. There'll be a bracket in it, and it will say this is to fulfill the prophecy of, and then there's a bracket, and then it's the prophecy to show how Jesus really was the Messiah that the Old Testament talked about. So, for us New Testament believers, reading the book of Matthew is a great way to begin to tether the Old and New Testaments together to bring us to a greater depth of understanding. So, Jesus says, go get this. This is to go get this donkey. This is to fulfill this prophecy. And then this happens. Verse 7, they brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, Hosanna to the son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest heaven. When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, who is this? Who is this? So Jesus shows up at Jerusalem. At this point in his ministry, he's been doing ministry for three years. He knows that when he goes into Jerusalem, he's going to stir up a hornet's nest of conflict that's going to ultimately lead to his crucifixion. But he also knows that he's entering Jerusalem as a conquering king, as a king who has conquered. And so he enters in as king on a donkey. And I think about the crowds in this story because I think those are who we relate to the most. And I think in this story, there are really kind of three crowds that we see. The first crowd is the most obvious crowd is the crowd that welcomed him. The crowd that showed up, that heard about it. I don't know exactly how word spreads in Jerusalem in zero AD or whenever 33 AD, whenever this was. But it was word of mouth. It was people seeing, there was stirring up, there was a commotion and everybody just kind of goes to see what's going on. And these people were so excited at who Jesus is. They believe that he was the king that Zechariah had prophesied about. Now they believe, full disclosure, they believe that Jesus was showing up in Jerusalem to overthrow Herod, to overthrow Roman rule, to take over the kingdom of Israel, to make it independent and to make it an international superpower and rise it to prominence. That's what they're expecting Jesus to do. They don't yet know that that's far too small a goal for our Jesus and that he came to establish an eternal and universal kingdom that makes an international power like the Roman Empire at the time look like peanuts. He's not interested in that. But they came because they believed that Jesus was coming in to be the king. And so when the king arrives, they take off their cloaks, they throw it on the ground as a sign of respect and celebration and adoration and worship. And then they go and they cut off the palm leaves or the palm branches and they place those on the ground, a sign of respect and adoration and worship. And they sing to him, Hosanna, the son of David, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest heaven. They're praising him as he enters into the city. This crowd welcomes Jesus into their kingdom, welcomes Jesus into their life. And here's the implication here. And I'm going to talk more about this in a minute. Jesus came, he did not come to conquer, but he did come to rule. He did not come to take anything over, but his expectation is absolutely that he's going to be in charge. His expectation is absolutely that I'm going to reign and you are going to submit. And the people celebrating in this crowd, they know that. They're gleefully, gladly, and gratefully accepting the incoming king. Yes, we will serve you. Yes, we will submit to you. Yes, not only will we submit to your reign, but we desire your reign. That's why we're laying our cloaks down on the ground because we want to follow you and serve you and submit to you. That's the first crowd. We'll call them the Sunday crowd because that's Palm Sunday. Five days later, there's another crowd. We'll call them the Friday crowd. This is the crowd of people that gathered around the fortress that Pilate, the Roman governor, was in, who yelled at Pilate, give us Barabbas and crucify Christ. And Pilate says, I find no fault in the man. He's done nothing wrong. There's no reason to crucify him. He might be a little delusional, but he has done absolutely nothing worthy of capital punishment. And they said, the crowd said back, kill him, his blood be on our hands and on the hands of our children. And they were so adamantly against Jesus that they crucified him. That's the Friday crowd. No, we do not accept that king. No, we do not accept his rule. We will fight back with our lives to not have to accept that rule. As a matter of fact, let's kill him. Completely anti-Jesus. But I think that there's a third crowd that's not mentioned anywhere in the Bible explicitly. But if you'll allow me this license, I think we can all admit that they've existed in every generation. I'm going to call this the Wednesday crowd. This is the crowd that's apathetic towards the whole thing. This is the crowd of people that went, hey, on Sunday, they went, what's that commotion? And they went, this is Jesus. He's the coming king. And they're like, maybe for you. I've got things to do today. I have cabinets to make and bread to deliver. I got stuff to do. So not super interested. He can be your king, not going to be my king. I got to get along with my day. And didn't go over to the commotion and just kept going about their lives as if Jesus didn't exist. And then on Friday, the Wednesday crowd sees the Friday crowd getting all worked up and says, what are you doing? They're like, this Jesus is full of crud. We don't like him. We're going to kill him. He's like, all right, seems like a waste of time to me, but go ahead. I have things to do. I don't care that much. And I think we would tend, I think we would tend to say in the way we do our moral judgments that the Friday crowd, the anti-Jesus crowd, was worse than the Wednesday crowd. Obviously, Sunday crowd's the best crowd. We know that. But Friday crowd, worse than Wednesday crowd, because Friday crowd killed Jesus. Wednesday just decided they didn't care. But I heard someone really smart one time say that the opposite of love is not hate. It's apathy. Because in hatred and in love, there are a lot of the same emotions just poured out differently. But in apathy, there's none. And I would argue that the apathetic crowd is just as guilty of what happened on Friday as the Friday crowd. And that that may be the most dangerous one. So I think as we walk through those crowds, that there's one question that becomes really obvious for everyone, and hopefully you started asking yourself this question already. What crowd are you in? Which one is it? Are you in the Sunday crowd when Jesus shows up in your life? Are you in the Sunday crowd that lays down your cloak and gladly and gleefully and willingly accepts his rule in your life? Yes. Not only will I allow you to rule, I desire it. Come in. Are you the Friday crowd? And I doubt on a Sunday morning we have very many, if any, people at all who will admit to being in the Friday crowd and radically anti-Jesus. You're in church on Sunday. But because we've got a bunch of visitors here, maybe that is you. And if it is, thank you for coming and putting up with us. I will try to go faster. You're being very nice. But I bet there's some people in the Wednesday crowd. I bet there's some people who treat the arrival of Christ in their life with apathy. Like it doesn't have anything to do with us. And so as I ask, which crowd are you in? I think most Christian minds go to the idea of salvation. How did I respond to Jesus when he showed up in my life? I'm a Christian. I've accepted Christ as my savior. I've prayed to ask him into my heart. I am a believer. Whatever your nomenclature is, you would call yourself a follower of Jesus and believe that you are saved. I'm not here to negate that belief. But I think our Christian mind, when we ask, how do we receive Jesus when he shows up in our life? We go, well, I'm a Christian. So clearly Sunday crowd laid down my cloak. Come in. I'll gleefully follow you. I think that's where we go. But I would argue with you that Jesus doesn't just show up once in our life. That there's more to this question than simply, have you accepted Christ as your Savior or not? And I think to actually answer this question, what crowd are you in? That we first have to decide what it looks like when Jesus shows up in your life. So let's talk about that for a second. What does it look like when I say when Jesus shows up in your life, what do I mean? What does that look like? And I was trying to think through a succinct description of this to help us grab onto it. But the reality of it is that Jesus shows up in myriad ways. Yes, of course he shows up as our savior and he invites us to repent and to follow him. And the fundamental repentance of all Christianity is to repent of whoever you thought Jesus was before you believed in him as your savior. We, all of us in here have different ideas about Christ. And if you're here this morning and you're not a believer, you, you also have an idea about Christ. He's somebody that somebody made up. He was a good teacher, but he's not a savior. He was a good man, but we're going overboard with the God thing. He existed, but he doesn't matter. You have an opinion about Jesus. And to become a Christian, the fundamental repentance is to say, I was wrong about what I thought about Christ, and I now agree with him about who he says he is, what he said he did, and what he said he's going to do. I now have aligned my thoughts and actions by agreeing with Jesus about who he says he is. That's what it is to become a Christian. So when we think about what crowd we're in, we've got to think about how he shows up. And I don't think he just shows up at that moment of salvation. I think that Jesus shows up every day, every hour, and sometimes moment to moment, depending on the circumstances. Jesus can show up. I thought about how does he show up? When does he arrive? When does he make himself known? He shows up in sermons. You've come to church this morning. I'm saying his name a lot. He's come up. He's shown up. He's here. How will you respond to what you hear today? Jesus is showing up. How will you respond to what you sing when you sing a worship song riding down the road? And it's about Christ. How will you respond to that? Jesus is showing up. You could be riding down the road innocuously listening to Christmas music, not expecting to have a Jesus moment. And all of a sudden, no holy night comes on. And if you're paying attention, the words are about Christ. And so Jesus has shown up. You can be in a conversation with a friend that you're just talking to about life. And then they'll start to reference scripture or point towards prayer or point towards something that God has been teaching them. Jesus is now showing up in this conversation. You can be doing something that you know you have no business doing. That you could be somewhere where you should never be. And there will be this prick of conviction, this realization in the moment, I don't need to be here. This isn't good. This isn't what's best for me. That's Jesus showing up through the Holy Spirit of conviction. He can show up in the midst of sin. He can show up on a billboard that you see that flashes a memory and makes you think of something. He can show up in a terrible circumstance where you've just received terrible news. Someone is very sick, someone is very hurt, something that's very sad has happened and the right friend or the right person puts their arm around you and shows up for you and is the presence of God in that moment for you, Jesus is showing up. And so when I tried to answer the question, what does it look like when Jesus shows up? I think the only real practical answer is Jesus shows up whenever you let him. Jesus shows up whenever you let him. Whenever you're willing to pay attention and acknowledge that he's trying to get your attention, that's when he shows up. Whenever you're willing to stop all the other things going on in your day and in your head and acknowledge that he's just arrived. And what does he want me to do with this? We don't have to ask if Jesus is going to show up in our life. We just have to pay attention and realize that he is. And because that's how Jesus shows up every hour of every day, inviting you into his presence and under his lordship, inviting you to allow him to be the Lord of that moment or that role or that conversation or that habit or that discipline or that decision. Because that's how Jesus shows up, I will ask you again. When Jesus shows up in your life, which crowd are you in? Because I think this is a daily decision, Christians. It's a daily decision to decide today, this morning, at work, with my children, with my spouse, with my friends, with my habits, with my disciplines, with what I consume. I am going to be a part of the Sunday crowd. I'm going to lay down my cloak and I'm going to gladly, gleefully, and gratefully usher Jesus into my life and receive him today. I'm going to willingly submit to his lordship and his rule today. When Jesus shows up in a conversation, do we allow the conversation to go there and engage or do we steer away because it makes us uncomfortable? When he comes up in a worship song, are we going to stop and welcome him in and praise him in our car or are we going to turn it down and focus on something else? When the conviction stirs and our hearts are pricked, are we going to respond to that by allowing Jesus to come into our life and become Lord over that and move away from that sin and repent of it in that moment? How do we respond to Jesus when he shows up in our life? Maybe, hopefully, we can all claim from time to time to be part of the Sunday crowd. I said earlier, I don't think in a church service on a Sunday morning there's going to be very many of us that are part of the Friday crowd. No, Jesus, get out of here. I'd rather kill you. No thanks. But I do think that there are plenty of us in this room who are regularly a part of that Wednesday crowd. I do think there are plenty of us in this room and on this stage, and I don't have any company up here, who regularly are part of the Wednesday crowd. When Jesus shows up in our life and says, are you going to give me lordship over that? We go, listen, you're my savior. Okay, I'd like to go to heaven, but I'd also like to do this thing. So not today. I've got bread to deliver. Not today. I've got things to do. Am I your savior? Yes, absolutely. Am I your king? No, I got the crown. And we respond to Jesus, not with acceptance, not with rejection, but with apathy, as if he doesn't show up. And when we do this, when we respond, when we join the Wednesday crowd at the arrival of Christ and we decide not to care, do you know what that stops us from doing? Noticing the other times that he's shown up. If I asked, hey, how does Jesus show up in your life? And you're like, I don't know. Is that because you've been a part of the Wednesday crowd for a while? Because when you get in the habit of going, yeah, Jesus, I'm not giving you that thing today. I'm not giving you that relationship today. I'm not accepting your lordship in that action or in that sin today. I'm going to do my own thing. It gets a lot easier to be a part of the Wednesday crowd the next day. It gets a lot easier to choose apathy the next day. And then eventually, I know this from experience, you choose to be apathetic enough days in a row, and you're going to say things like, you know what, you're not going to say it out loud. You're never going to admit this. But you're going to take on a mindset of, yeah, not this week. We don't have to do the daily check-ins. Not this week. Not this month. Not this season. And we become deeply apathetic Christians who are part of the Wednesday crowd, neither accepting nor rejecting Christ, just going about our lives as if he doesn't exist. And if it's true that hate is not the opposite of love, but apathy is, then there is no greater sin that we could commit and no greater offense that we could offer to our Savior Jesus, to our King who offers us His Lordship. There is no greater offense to Him than an apathetic response towards His arrival. And I think, if I'm being honest, I know that I could just stop the sermon right there and send us home, and we would have enough to think about. Because I think apathy might be the most pernicious and sinister sin in the American church now. Yeah, I'm good. I've accepted you as Savior. But I don't really want you to be king every day. And I don't want to feel bad like I've rejected you. So I'm just going to pretend like I don't notice. I'm going to go about my life. But here's the thing. Here's the thing that tells us that not only is it wrong to choose apathy, but we literally can't. We cannot continue to choose to be apathetic Christians because those phrases are oxymoronic. They do not go together. They are impossible together. The Bible does not make space for apathetic Christians because make no mistake about it. When Jesus shows up, when he arrives, when he tells us, I stand at the door and knock. When we open the door and we let Jesus into our life, he fully, listen to me, he fully expects to take charge. Jesus' expectations when he shows up somewhere is, yeah, I'm going to show up on a donkey, but when you let me in, I'm the boss. I'm going to show up humble. But when you let me in, I'm the ruler. I'm in charge. You submit to me and you do what I say. And Jesus will settle for nothing less. This is why I said we're going to turn back to Zechariah chapter 9. After he says I'm going to show up humble and lowly, this is what he says after that in verse 10. I will take away the chariots from Ephraim and the war horses from Jerusalem and the battle bow will be broken. He will proclaim peace to the nations. His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth. When Jesus shows up, he's not doing it to be your vice president. He's not doing it to only be your savior. He's doing it to be your king. Those words do not sound like the words of someone who intends to do nothing. I'm going to break the battle bows. I'm going to get rid of the chariots. I'm going to get rid of the war horses. And my empire will extend from end to end and from sea to sea. I'm going to be in charge. So here's the thing that I think is profoundly important for us to understand about the arrival of Christ in our life. Jesus insists on ruling, but refuses to conquer. He insists on ruling you. He will not conquer you. Do you understand why that's so important? He will not force you into being a Christian. He will not force you into being a believer. He will not force you into submission. I think of the story of Joshua wrestling with Jesus, Jacob wrestling with Jesus. And it teaches us that if you want to wrestle with Jesus, you're going to win. If you want to defy his will, he's not going to force it on you. He will not conquer you. And I know this to be true because in the young zeal of my faith in my twenties, I prayed on multiple occasions. This is true. On multiple occasions, I got on my knees and I said, God, I want to be an automaton. I do not want my free will. It does not serve me. I have no use for it. I know that without it, I cannot offer you a greater love, but I no longer want my free will. It doesn't serve me. I just want to do whatever you want me to do every day. Please take it from me. And I can tell you at 43, he did not answer that prayer. I still very much have it. Much to my chagrin. Oh, wretched man that I am who will deliver me from this body of death. Jesus insists on ruling you. He will not conquer you. He will not make you do it. He only comes into your life through invitation. He only comes into those moments when you let him. He does not force his way in. And what's even better about this, listen, when he comes to Israel and he takes over as king, it's not that he's never conquered anything. It's just he's already conquered what he wants to conquer. And now, listen, he wants to come into your life and share with you the spoils of his wars that he's already won. Do you understand? He doesn't want what you have. He wants to come into your life and give you the victories that he's already won. He wanted to come into Israel, not to conquer Jerusalem, but to offer them the kingdom that he won outside of Jerusalem. How profound is that? That when Jesus says, hey, would you invite me in? He's not trying to conquer you. Listen, he'll pursue you. We're told that Jesus leaves the 99 who have let him in and is pursuing the hundredth that won't. So even if you're here this morning and you would not call yourself a believer, I want you to know that Jesus is still with you and following you every minute of every day. And I hope and pray, if I'm speaking to you right now, that you feel him hot on your heels. You can turn around and let him in anytime you want. And when you do, he's not going to conquer you. He's going to offer you the spoils of the wars and the battles that he's already fought. I love this song, this old hymn called See the Conqueror. Nobody's heard of it. It's nerdy, but I really like it. And in that song, there's lyrics. It talks about see the conqueror mounted in triumph and how Jesus ushers into heaven. But it was like here, it says, he has vanquished sin and Satan. He by death has spoiled his foes. He's conquered sin and death for us. Oh, sin, where are your shackles? Oh, death, where is your sting? He's conquered death and disease for us already. He's conquered that sin for you already. He's conquered that anxiety already. He's conquered that relationship already. He's conquered that life issue already. He's conquered the temporary nature of life already. He's conquered the loss of people already. Do you understand? He's already conquered it and he's not looking to conquer you. He's looking to be invited into your life to rule as king and to offer you the spoils of the wars that he's already fought. That's what it means when he arrives in your life on a donkey. He just wants to offer you the victories that he's already won. So at Grace, we talk a lot about the fact that we are step-takers. To be a step-taker is to simply acknowledge that God has a step of obedience for everyone to take, and it's your job to figure out what's my step of obedience and how do I take it. And so this morning, I think we have in front of us an opportunity to be a step-taker. And I think it comes in this form. Let me ask it this way. What would it look like to hand over lordship in a place where Jesus is showing up? The idea of, for those of us who have grown apathetic, and we're not even really paying attention to when Jesus shows up, the idea of handing over every moment of every day to him is something that seems so far off that it's almost so impossible that maybe we won't even start the journey. But I think if we can just look at the journey as one step of obedience, just one thing, not all the things, just one thing. Where is Jesus showing up in your life where you can be a part of the Sunday crowd and usher him in and submit to his lordship and experience the spoils of the victory that he's already won over that thing? Is it in a relationship? A marriage that you haven't focused on in a while and you know you need to? Is it in the way you parent? Not that I know this from experience, but maybe as a parent you've fallen into parenting the children towards just not being annoying to you instead of towards Jesus himself and loving him? Is it in the way that you go about work forgetting that it's your ministry, not your profession? Is Jesus convicting you in the way that you talk to others, treat other people? Is he convicting you to worship more? Is he convicting you to acknowledge him? Is he inviting you into his presence in times when you're refusing it? In response to this sermon, if you'll intellectually acknowledge with me that Jesus is showing up in our lives daily, hourly, maybe even momentarily, then where is he pressing on you the most? At what door is he standing and knocking, saying, are you going to let me in now? I'm going to pray. And as I pray, the band's going to come up and they're going to sing. And as they sing, they're going to offer you the opportunity to just continue to sit as they sing over us. I would invite you to use the next few minutes to spend time in prayer and go before God and say, Jesus, where are you pressing? Where are you showing up? Help me to see you and give me the strength to lay my cloak on the ground and invite you in as Lord and allow you to rule me there. Can we do that together? Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this morning. We thank you for the kiddos, the joy that they bring, the laughter that they cause, and the blessings that they represent. God, we pray that we would be good parents and grandparents to them. We pray that we would be good spiritual parents and grandparents to them. I pray that they would be good friends to one another. Jesus, we thank you for showing up on a donkey. We thank you that you don't conquer us. That for some reason, unique in world history and in the span of all religions, you simply wait for us to let you in. And you do not insist, and you do not force. So God, I pray this morning that we would let you in. And that when we did, we would know that you do that to rule us, not to partner with us. Not to simply usher us into heaven, but to share with us the spoils of the victories that you've already won. Jesus, we love you. We thank you for winning those victories and we thank you for being a good king that we can celebrate this Christmas. In Jesus' name, amen.

My name is Nate. I get to be one of the pastors here. Thanks for being here this Sunday. I am acutely aware that for many of you, you were not here for this, you were here for that. And so we're so glad that you are here. And if you're a grandparent, thank you for trusting us with your babies and your grandbabies. It's an honor and a privilege to do that. I've been talking a lot about how our children's ministry is growing and burgeoning, and I thought it would be, we thought it would be really good to highlight that on a Sunday and for you guys to be able to see physically all that God is doing and bringing, and that was great. If you're wondering who the pastor's kid was in the first, in the preschool one, it was the boy in the white sweater and red pants that looked like he hated everything in the world. So he's got somebody leaned over to me here and said he's got a real future. Yeah, I think so. I think so. This morning we are in the third part of our series called Foretold, where we are looking at prophecies from the Old Testament, messianic prophecies. And a messianic prophecy is simply a prophecy that tells about the coming Christ, the coming Messiah, who we know of as Jesus. And so in the first week, we looked at Jeremiah 31, where it said this coming Messiah will bring a new covenant. And so we talked about what that new covenant was. Last week we looked at Isaiah chapter 9, the most famous Christmas prophecy that his name will be called, that he will be called Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. And we talked about what those names mean. And it's right and good to focus on these prophecies about the coming Messiah at Christmastime because Christmas is when we celebrate the arrival of the Messiah and the fulfillment of these prophecies. So this morning, we arrive at a prophecy in the book of Zechariah. Zechariah chapter 9, verse 9. So if you have a Bible, go ahead and start trying to zero in on Zechariah. It's a tough one. It's a minor prophet towards the end of the Old Testament. If you need to use your table of contents for this, please do. I'd also like to just point out, because I can do this and they are friends, Tom and Linda Sartorius and their daughter Kristen thought that this week was Family Jammy Sunday. So make sure you say hey to them in the lobby. They are a delight this morning. I've been told to blame this on Kristen, but at this point it really doesn't matter. It's just fun all the way around. Steven and Maddie, they avoided it. They're another part of the family, son and daughter-in-law. but the rest of them look like suckers, and it's great. It's great. In Zechariah chapter 9, what we have is not a prophecy about the first arrival of Christ. It's a prophecy about the arrival of Christ as king, and it's a profoundly important one, and I think it's worth reflecting on this morning. So I'm going to read you the prophecy from Zechariah. We're going to talk about the context of that. And then we're going to look at its fulfillment in Matthew chapter 21. So read with me, if you will, Zechariah chapter 9, verse 9. Rejoice greatly, daughter Zion. Shout, daughter Jerusalem. See your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. This is the prophecy from Zechariah. And we're going to turn to Matthew 21, but if you're following along in your Bible, keep something noted in Zechariah because we're going to come back to verse 10, and I don't want you to have to find it again. But to understand what happens in Matthew 21 and the fulfillment of this prophecy, we need to understand the context of what this one implies. In ancient times, and even in the times of Christ, really up until World War I, we figured out we should kind of knock this off. Kings went out and conquered. That's what they did. The only major nation that hasn't figured out that we should knock it off on trying to conquer other nations is Russia. They keep dabbling in it since World War I. But everyone else has figured out not to do that. But in this time, it was very regular for kings to go out and conquer. It's what they did. If you were a king, this is what you did. And we know this because when David sins with Bathsheba, that story begins in Samuel. It was spring at the time when kings went off to war. So this is what they did. And when a king would enter a city to assume control of that city, there was two ways that he entered. One was on a war horse, symbolizing that he had conquered the city. He was coming in as the conquering hero to his people and the conquering king to these people. That he had conquered this city. He would ride in on his war horse once everything, all the dust had settled from the battle. The other way for a king to enter a city that was less, less, uh, it didn't happen as often, but it did happen. And it did mean something was for a king to come in on a donkey. When a king would come into a city on a donkey, he was symbolizing peace. He was symbolizing. I did not have to conquer this city. This city willfully gave itself over to me. And because of that, I'm not coming in to kill. I'm not coming in to conquer. I'm not coming in to hurt or to subdue. I am coming into this city in peace and I intend to peacefully take over this city. And then the prophecy of Zechariah takes it a step further because not only is he entering as a peaceful King on a donkey, but on the cult, the foal of a donkey on a bay, on a little baby donkey to be humble, to communicate in every way. And it says humble and lowly to communicate in every way that Jesus doesn't come as a conquering King for the city. He comes as a king who's already conquered and is now entering into the city peacefully. So there's great, it's not just random that he's entering into a donkey and that this is how Zechariah prophesies that he's going to become the king of Jerusalem. Because to become a king of the city, you basically got to go take it over. And Zechariah says, no, he's not going to do it like that. Jerusalem is going to welcome him with open arms. He will enter on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey, gentle, humble, and lowly. That's the context that we need to understand what's happening in Matthew chapter 21 when he fulfills it. So, if you don't mind, turn over to Matthew chapter 21. In the preceding verses, Matthew has said, I'm not going to read, there's a whole passage here, I'm just going to read a portion of it. I'm going to begin in verse 7 and go through 11. But in the preceding verses, Jesus has told the disciples on their way to Jerusalem, beginning the last week of his life, Holy Week. This is Palm Sunday. This is the story where we get Palm Sunday. He tells the disciples, I want you to go into town and I want you to get a donkey. I want you to get a colt, the foal of a donkey, and I'm going to ride that into Jerusalem. And then Matthew says, this is to fulfill what was said by the prophet Zechariah. And he quotes Zechariah. A wonderful aside about the gospel of Matthew is that the gospel of Matthew was written in the first century A.D. to convince skeptical Jewish people that Jesus was the actual Messiah that you learned about for all those generations. And so very often throughout the Gospel of Matthew, you'll see the narrative stop. There'll be a bracket in it, and it will say this is to fulfill the prophecy of, and then there's a bracket, and then it's the prophecy to show how Jesus really was the Messiah that the Old Testament talked about. So, for us New Testament believers, reading the book of Matthew is a great way to begin to tether the Old and New Testaments together to bring us to a greater depth of understanding. So, Jesus says, go get this. This is to go get this donkey. This is to fulfill this prophecy. And then this happens. Verse 7, they brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, Hosanna to the son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest heaven. When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, who is this? Who is this? So Jesus shows up at Jerusalem. At this point in his ministry, he's been doing ministry for three years. He knows that when he goes into Jerusalem, he's going to stir up a hornet's nest of conflict that's going to ultimately lead to his crucifixion. But he also knows that he's entering Jerusalem as a conquering king, as a king who has conquered. And so he enters in as king on a donkey. And I think about the crowds in this story because I think those are who we relate to the most. And I think in this story, there are really kind of three crowds that we see. The first crowd is the most obvious crowd is the crowd that welcomed him. The crowd that showed up, that heard about it. I don't know exactly how word spreads in Jerusalem in zero AD or whenever 33 AD, whenever this was. But it was word of mouth. It was people seeing, there was stirring up, there was a commotion and everybody just kind of goes to see what's going on. And these people were so excited at who Jesus is. They believe that he was the king that Zechariah had prophesied about. Now they believe, full disclosure, they believe that Jesus was showing up in Jerusalem to overthrow Herod, to overthrow Roman rule, to take over the kingdom of Israel, to make it independent and to make it an international superpower and rise it to prominence. That's what they're expecting Jesus to do. They don't yet know that that's far too small a goal for our Jesus and that he came to establish an eternal and universal kingdom that makes an international power like the Roman Empire at the time look like peanuts. He's not interested in that. But they came because they believed that Jesus was coming in to be the king. And so when the king arrives, they take off their cloaks, they throw it on the ground as a sign of respect and celebration and adoration and worship. And then they go and they cut off the palm leaves or the palm branches and they place those on the ground, a sign of respect and adoration and worship. And they sing to him, Hosanna, the son of David, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest heaven. They're praising him as he enters into the city. This crowd welcomes Jesus into their kingdom, welcomes Jesus into their life. And here's the implication here. And I'm going to talk more about this in a minute. Jesus came, he did not come to conquer, but he did come to rule. He did not come to take anything over, but his expectation is absolutely that he's going to be in charge. His expectation is absolutely that I'm going to reign and you are going to submit. And the people celebrating in this crowd, they know that. They're gleefully, gladly, and gratefully accepting the incoming king. Yes, we will serve you. Yes, we will submit to you. Yes, not only will we submit to your reign, but we desire your reign. That's why we're laying our cloaks down on the ground because we want to follow you and serve you and submit to you. That's the first crowd. We'll call them the Sunday crowd because that's Palm Sunday. Five days later, there's another crowd. We'll call them the Friday crowd. This is the crowd of people that gathered around the fortress that Pilate, the Roman governor, was in, who yelled at Pilate, give us Barabbas and crucify Christ. And Pilate says, I find no fault in the man. He's done nothing wrong. There's no reason to crucify him. He might be a little delusional, but he has done absolutely nothing worthy of capital punishment. And they said, the crowd said back, kill him, his blood be on our hands and on the hands of our children. And they were so adamantly against Jesus that they crucified him. That's the Friday crowd. No, we do not accept that king. No, we do not accept his rule. We will fight back with our lives to not have to accept that rule. As a matter of fact, let's kill him. Completely anti-Jesus. But I think that there's a third crowd that's not mentioned anywhere in the Bible explicitly. But if you'll allow me this license, I think we can all admit that they've existed in every generation. I'm going to call this the Wednesday crowd. This is the crowd that's apathetic towards the whole thing. This is the crowd of people that went, hey, on Sunday, they went, what's that commotion? And they went, this is Jesus. He's the coming king. And they're like, maybe for you. I've got things to do today. I have cabinets to make and bread to deliver. I got stuff to do. So not super interested. He can be your king, not going to be my king. I got to get along with my day. And didn't go over to the commotion and just kept going about their lives as if Jesus didn't exist. And then on Friday, the Wednesday crowd sees the Friday crowd getting all worked up and says, what are you doing? They're like, this Jesus is full of crud. We don't like him. We're going to kill him. He's like, all right, seems like a waste of time to me, but go ahead. I have things to do. I don't care that much. And I think we would tend, I think we would tend to say in the way we do our moral judgments that the Friday crowd, the anti-Jesus crowd, was worse than the Wednesday crowd. Obviously, Sunday crowd's the best crowd. We know that. But Friday crowd, worse than Wednesday crowd, because Friday crowd killed Jesus. Wednesday just decided they didn't care. But I heard someone really smart one time say that the opposite of love is not hate. It's apathy. Because in hatred and in love, there are a lot of the same emotions just poured out differently. But in apathy, there's none. And I would argue that the apathetic crowd is just as guilty of what happened on Friday as the Friday crowd. And that that may be the most dangerous one. So I think as we walk through those crowds, that there's one question that becomes really obvious for everyone, and hopefully you started asking yourself this question already. What crowd are you in? Which one is it? Are you in the Sunday crowd when Jesus shows up in your life? Are you in the Sunday crowd that lays down your cloak and gladly and gleefully and willingly accepts his rule in your life? Yes. Not only will I allow you to rule, I desire it. Come in. Are you the Friday crowd? And I doubt on a Sunday morning we have very many, if any, people at all who will admit to being in the Friday crowd and radically anti-Jesus. You're in church on Sunday. But because we've got a bunch of visitors here, maybe that is you. And if it is, thank you for coming and putting up with us. I will try to go faster. You're being very nice. But I bet there's some people in the Wednesday crowd. I bet there's some people who treat the arrival of Christ in their life with apathy. Like it doesn't have anything to do with us. And so as I ask, which crowd are you in? I think most Christian minds go to the idea of salvation. How did I respond to Jesus when he showed up in my life? I'm a Christian. I've accepted Christ as my savior. I've prayed to ask him into my heart. I am a believer. Whatever your nomenclature is, you would call yourself a follower of Jesus and believe that you are saved. I'm not here to negate that belief. But I think our Christian mind, when we ask, how do we receive Jesus when he shows up in our life? We go, well, I'm a Christian. So clearly Sunday crowd laid down my cloak. Come in. I'll gleefully follow you. I think that's where we go. But I would argue with you that Jesus doesn't just show up once in our life. That there's more to this question than simply, have you accepted Christ as your Savior or not? And I think to actually answer this question, what crowd are you in? That we first have to decide what it looks like when Jesus shows up in your life. So let's talk about that for a second. What does it look like when I say when Jesus shows up in your life, what do I mean? What does that look like? And I was trying to think through a succinct description of this to help us grab onto it. But the reality of it is that Jesus shows up in myriad ways. Yes, of course he shows up as our savior and he invites us to repent and to follow him. And the fundamental repentance of all Christianity is to repent of whoever you thought Jesus was before you believed in him as your savior. We, all of us in here have different ideas about Christ. And if you're here this morning and you're not a believer, you, you also have an idea about Christ. He's somebody that somebody made up. He was a good teacher, but he's not a savior. He was a good man, but we're going overboard with the God thing. He existed, but he doesn't matter. You have an opinion about Jesus. And to become a Christian, the fundamental repentance is to say, I was wrong about what I thought about Christ, and I now agree with him about who he says he is, what he said he did, and what he said he's going to do. I now have aligned my thoughts and actions by agreeing with Jesus about who he says he is. That's what it is to become a Christian. So when we think about what crowd we're in, we've got to think about how he shows up. And I don't think he just shows up at that moment of salvation. I think that Jesus shows up every day, every hour, and sometimes moment to moment, depending on the circumstances. Jesus can show up. I thought about how does he show up? When does he arrive? When does he make himself known? He shows up in sermons. You've come to church this morning. I'm saying his name a lot. He's come up. He's shown up. He's here. How will you respond to what you hear today? Jesus is showing up. How will you respond to what you sing when you sing a worship song riding down the road? And it's about Christ. How will you respond to that? Jesus is showing up. You could be riding down the road innocuously listening to Christmas music, not expecting to have a Jesus moment. And all of a sudden, no holy night comes on. And if you're paying attention, the words are about Christ. And so Jesus has shown up. You can be in a conversation with a friend that you're just talking to about life. And then they'll start to reference scripture or point towards prayer or point towards something that God has been teaching them. Jesus is now showing up in this conversation. You can be doing something that you know you have no business doing. That you could be somewhere where you should never be. And there will be this prick of conviction, this realization in the moment, I don't need to be here. This isn't good. This isn't what's best for me. That's Jesus showing up through the Holy Spirit of conviction. He can show up in the midst of sin. He can show up on a billboard that you see that flashes a memory and makes you think of something. He can show up in a terrible circumstance where you've just received terrible news. Someone is very sick, someone is very hurt, something that's very sad has happened and the right friend or the right person puts their arm around you and shows up for you and is the presence of God in that moment for you, Jesus is showing up. And so when I tried to answer the question, what does it look like when Jesus shows up? I think the only real practical answer is Jesus shows up whenever you let him. Jesus shows up whenever you let him. Whenever you're willing to pay attention and acknowledge that he's trying to get your attention, that's when he shows up. Whenever you're willing to stop all the other things going on in your day and in your head and acknowledge that he's just arrived. And what does he want me to do with this? We don't have to ask if Jesus is going to show up in our life. We just have to pay attention and realize that he is. And because that's how Jesus shows up every hour of every day, inviting you into his presence and under his lordship, inviting you to allow him to be the Lord of that moment or that role or that conversation or that habit or that discipline or that decision. Because that's how Jesus shows up, I will ask you again. When Jesus shows up in your life, which crowd are you in? Because I think this is a daily decision, Christians. It's a daily decision to decide today, this morning, at work, with my children, with my spouse, with my friends, with my habits, with my disciplines, with what I consume. I am going to be a part of the Sunday crowd. I'm going to lay down my cloak and I'm going to gladly, gleefully, and gratefully usher Jesus into my life and receive him today. I'm going to willingly submit to his lordship and his rule today. When Jesus shows up in a conversation, do we allow the conversation to go there and engage or do we steer away because it makes us uncomfortable? When he comes up in a worship song, are we going to stop and welcome him in and praise him in our car or are we going to turn it down and focus on something else? When the conviction stirs and our hearts are pricked, are we going to respond to that by allowing Jesus to come into our life and become Lord over that and move away from that sin and repent of it in that moment? How do we respond to Jesus when he shows up in our life? Maybe, hopefully, we can all claim from time to time to be part of the Sunday crowd. I said earlier, I don't think in a church service on a Sunday morning there's going to be very many of us that are part of the Friday crowd. No, Jesus, get out of here. I'd rather kill you. No thanks. But I do think that there are plenty of us in this room who are regularly a part of that Wednesday crowd. I do think there are plenty of us in this room and on this stage, and I don't have any company up here, who regularly are part of the Wednesday crowd. When Jesus shows up in our life and says, are you going to give me lordship over that? We go, listen, you're my savior. Okay, I'd like to go to heaven, but I'd also like to do this thing. So not today. I've got bread to deliver. Not today. I've got things to do. Am I your savior? Yes, absolutely. Am I your king? No, I got the crown. And we respond to Jesus, not with acceptance, not with rejection, but with apathy, as if he doesn't show up. And when we do this, when we respond, when we join the Wednesday crowd at the arrival of Christ and we decide not to care, do you know what that stops us from doing? Noticing the other times that he's shown up. If I asked, hey, how does Jesus show up in your life? And you're like, I don't know. Is that because you've been a part of the Wednesday crowd for a while? Because when you get in the habit of going, yeah, Jesus, I'm not giving you that thing today. I'm not giving you that relationship today. I'm not accepting your lordship in that action or in that sin today. I'm going to do my own thing. It gets a lot easier to be a part of the Wednesday crowd the next day. It gets a lot easier to choose apathy the next day. And then eventually, I know this from experience, you choose to be apathetic enough days in a row, and you're going to say things like, you know what, you're not going to say it out loud. You're never going to admit this. But you're going to take on a mindset of, yeah, not this week. We don't have to do the daily check-ins. Not this week. Not this month. Not this season. And we become deeply apathetic Christians who are part of the Wednesday crowd, neither accepting nor rejecting Christ, just going about our lives as if he doesn't exist. And if it's true that hate is not the opposite of love, but apathy is, then there is no greater sin that we could commit and no greater offense that we could offer to our Savior Jesus, to our King who offers us His Lordship. There is no greater offense to Him than an apathetic response towards His arrival. And I think, if I'm being honest, I know that I could just stop the sermon right there and send us home, and we would have enough to think about. Because I think apathy might be the most pernicious and sinister sin in the American church now. Yeah, I'm good. I've accepted you as Savior. But I don't really want you to be king every day. And I don't want to feel bad like I've rejected you. So I'm just going to pretend like I don't notice. I'm going to go about my life. But here's the thing. Here's the thing that tells us that not only is it wrong to choose apathy, but we literally can't. We cannot continue to choose to be apathetic Christians because those phrases are oxymoronic. They do not go together. They are impossible together. The Bible does not make space for apathetic Christians because make no mistake about it. When Jesus shows up, when he arrives, when he tells us, I stand at the door and knock. When we open the door and we let Jesus into our life, he fully, listen to me, he fully expects to take charge. Jesus' expectations when he shows up somewhere is, yeah, I'm going to show up on a donkey, but when you let me in, I'm the boss. I'm going to show up humble. But when you let me in, I'm the ruler. I'm in charge. You submit to me and you do what I say. And Jesus will settle for nothing less. This is why I said we're going to turn back to Zechariah chapter 9. After he says I'm going to show up humble and lowly, this is what he says after that in verse 10. I will take away the chariots from Ephraim and the war horses from Jerusalem and the battle bow will be broken. He will proclaim peace to the nations. His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth. When Jesus shows up, he's not doing it to be your vice president. He's not doing it to only be your savior. He's doing it to be your king. Those words do not sound like the words of someone who intends to do nothing. I'm going to break the battle bows. I'm going to get rid of the chariots. I'm going to get rid of the war horses. And my empire will extend from end to end and from sea to sea. I'm going to be in charge. So here's the thing that I think is profoundly important for us to understand about the arrival of Christ in our life. Jesus insists on ruling, but refuses to conquer. He insists on ruling you. He will not conquer you. Do you understand why that's so important? He will not force you into being a Christian. He will not force you into being a believer. He will not force you into submission. I think of the story of Joshua wrestling with Jesus, Jacob wrestling with Jesus. And it teaches us that if you want to wrestle with Jesus, you're going to win. If you want to defy his will, he's not going to force it on you. He will not conquer you. And I know this to be true because in the young zeal of my faith in my twenties, I prayed on multiple occasions. This is true. On multiple occasions, I got on my knees and I said, God, I want to be an automaton. I do not want my free will. It does not serve me. I have no use for it. I know that without it, I cannot offer you a greater love, but I no longer want my free will. It doesn't serve me. I just want to do whatever you want me to do every day. Please take it from me. And I can tell you at 43, he did not answer that prayer. I still very much have it. Much to my chagrin. Oh, wretched man that I am who will deliver me from this body of death. Jesus insists on ruling you. He will not conquer you. He will not make you do it. He only comes into your life through invitation. He only comes into those moments when you let him. He does not force his way in. And what's even better about this, listen, when he comes to Israel and he takes over as king, it's not that he's never conquered anything. It's just he's already conquered what he wants to conquer. And now, listen, he wants to come into your life and share with you the spoils of his wars that he's already won. Do you understand? He doesn't want what you have. He wants to come into your life and give you the victories that he's already won. He wanted to come into Israel, not to conquer Jerusalem, but to offer them the kingdom that he won outside of Jerusalem. How profound is that? That when Jesus says, hey, would you invite me in? He's not trying to conquer you. Listen, he'll pursue you. We're told that Jesus leaves the 99 who have let him in and is pursuing the hundredth that won't. So even if you're here this morning and you would not call yourself a believer, I want you to know that Jesus is still with you and following you every minute of every day. And I hope and pray, if I'm speaking to you right now, that you feel him hot on your heels. You can turn around and let him in anytime you want. And when you do, he's not going to conquer you. He's going to offer you the spoils of the wars and the battles that he's already fought. I love this song, this old hymn called See the Conqueror. Nobody's heard of it. It's nerdy, but I really like it. And in that song, there's lyrics. It talks about see the conqueror mounted in triumph and how Jesus ushers into heaven. But it was like here, it says, he has vanquished sin and Satan. He by death has spoiled his foes. He's conquered sin and death for us. Oh, sin, where are your shackles? Oh, death, where is your sting? He's conquered death and disease for us already. He's conquered that sin for you already. He's conquered that anxiety already. He's conquered that relationship already. He's conquered that life issue already. He's conquered the temporary nature of life already. He's conquered the loss of people already. Do you understand? He's already conquered it and he's not looking to conquer you. He's looking to be invited into your life to rule as king and to offer you the spoils of the wars that he's already fought. That's what it means when he arrives in your life on a donkey. He just wants to offer you the victories that he's already won. So at Grace, we talk a lot about the fact that we are step-takers. To be a step-taker is to simply acknowledge that God has a step of obedience for everyone to take, and it's your job to figure out what's my step of obedience and how do I take it. And so this morning, I think we have in front of us an opportunity to be a step-taker. And I think it comes in this form. Let me ask it this way. What would it look like to hand over lordship in a place where Jesus is showing up? The idea of, for those of us who have grown apathetic, and we're not even really paying attention to when Jesus shows up, the idea of handing over every moment of every day to him is something that seems so far off that it's almost so impossible that maybe we won't even start the journey. But I think if we can just look at the journey as one step of obedience, just one thing, not all the things, just one thing. Where is Jesus showing up in your life where you can be a part of the Sunday crowd and usher him in and submit to his lordship and experience the spoils of the victory that he's already won over that thing? Is it in a relationship? A marriage that you haven't focused on in a while and you know you need to? Is it in the way you parent? Not that I know this from experience, but maybe as a parent you've fallen into parenting the children towards just not being annoying to you instead of towards Jesus himself and loving him? Is it in the way that you go about work forgetting that it's your ministry, not your profession? Is Jesus convicting you in the way that you talk to others, treat other people? Is he convicting you to worship more? Is he convicting you to acknowledge him? Is he inviting you into his presence in times when you're refusing it? In response to this sermon, if you'll intellectually acknowledge with me that Jesus is showing up in our lives daily, hourly, maybe even momentarily, then where is he pressing on you the most? At what door is he standing and knocking, saying, are you going to let me in now? I'm going to pray. And as I pray, the band's going to come up and they're going to sing. And as they sing, they're going to offer you the opportunity to just continue to sit as they sing over us. I would invite you to use the next few minutes to spend time in prayer and go before God and say, Jesus, where are you pressing? Where are you showing up? Help me to see you and give me the strength to lay my cloak on the ground and invite you in as Lord and allow you to rule me there. Can we do that together? Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this morning. We thank you for the kiddos, the joy that they bring, the laughter that they cause, and the blessings that they represent. God, we pray that we would be good parents and grandparents to them. We pray that we would be good spiritual parents and grandparents to them. I pray that they would be good friends to one another. Jesus, we thank you for showing up on a donkey. We thank you that you don't conquer us. That for some reason, unique in world history and in the span of all religions, you simply wait for us to let you in. And you do not insist, and you do not force. So God, I pray this morning that we would let you in. And that when we did, we would know that you do that to rule us, not to partner with us. Not to simply usher us into heaven, but to share with us the spoils of the victories that you've already won. Jesus, we love you. We thank you for winning those victories and we thank you for being a good king that we can celebrate this Christmas. In Jesus' name, amen.