Jeremiah

I told Steve this week I wanted the full dance party intro for the sermon, so we are in a good spot. Speaking of being in good spots, before I just launch into the sermon, I just kind of felt compelled to say this. I think one of the things about church that a lot of us would agree that's tough sometimes is that when you show up, you kind of smile and people say, how you doing? And you say, good. And sometimes we mean it and sometimes we don't. And so sometimes church feels like a place where it's not okay to not be okay. And so I just wanted to tell you as your pastor, there's nothing going on with me. It's just, I feel like I need a vacation for about three weeks. Jen and Lily are sick. They're at home. I kind of feel like the weather does today. Just a little tired, just a little run down. I was praying that God would give me energy for this morning that I don't have. And so like, I'm just telling you that I've had better days. There's nothing wrong with Nate. I just would rather be at home in sweatpants right now. I'm being totally honest with you. So if you're there too, and it was a struggle to get here this morning, I just want you to know that I'm with you. And if you're listening online or watching online because you stayed in those sweatpants, I'm jealous. So here's what I want to do. I was reminded as we were singing, and I heard your voices singing out. It was one of my favorite things to do is listening to you guys, my church, sing to God. I was reminded that we're a group of people, mostly care about our spiritual health and are here for what the Lord might have to say to us this morning. That's why we've gathered. So let's pray that that would be good, and then I'll launch into the stuff that I have prepared for you. Father, thank you for this morning. Thank you for getting us out of bed. Lord, for those who didn't get out of bed this morning but are catching up later, thank you for that time of rest for them that need it so much. God, we just pray that you would tune us into your word and your will. We pray that you would give us energy that we might lack. We pray that you would give us the ability to tune out things that may be distracting right now, and that for a little while this morning, we would hear from you. It's in your son's name we ask. Amen. Okay. I don't normally do this, but I want you to raise your hand. Raise your hand, and I'm not going to ask you to quote it, although that would be super fun. Raise your hand if you think you know what the verse Jeremiah 29 11 says. If you think you know that, okay? It's so funny from my perspective. There's a bunch of people doing this, right? And nobody doing this. That's fine. That's fine. That's a pretty well-known verse, right? It's from the Old Testament, the book of Jeremiah. It says, for I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. Actually, it says declares. It's a big deal. I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans to prosper you, not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. And we like to glom onto that verse. We like to claim that verse. We like to go, oh gosh, it's so good to know that my God has a plan for me. And that's for the most part fun. But that verse is not for you. That verse is one of, I think, the most misapplied verses in Scripture, and it's one of the most misapplied verses in church. We look at that, for I know the plans God has for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you, not to harm you. Plans to give you hope in the future. And we go, oh, God has a plan for me. This is great. Except that that's not what that verse means. With that verse, who Jeremiah is talking to is the nation of Israel. And they're in slavery. They're cast out. And they don't feel like their God's looking out for them anymore. And he says to them, listen, I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you. I'm going to bring you out of this and into a time of prospering again. It's a promise to the nation of Israel. And really it has, it's multi-layers to this promise, but it's really a messianic promise. One day I'm going to send my son Jesus and he's going to rescue everyone back to me. And then there's going to be a new heaven and a new earth, and one day I'm going to prosper you. I'm not going to harm you. That's what that verse means. It doesn't mean, Harris is sitting in the front row, okay? Harris is my buddy. It does not mean that God has plans for you, Harris, to prosper you and not to harm you. It does not mean that. That's a promise to the nation of Israel. And if I'm breaking your heart right now, because you love that verse and it brings you comfort, I don't want to rob that comfort of you. Is it revelatory of God's character? Yes. Do I think that God has a plan for you? Yes, I do. But what I want to do this morning is give you a better verse than that to show you that he has a plan. And I want to offer you some sympathy because I think that we glom onto that verse. We grab that verse and we go, yes, this is good. This brings me peace and joy. I think it's such a well-known verse because we want to know that God has a plan for us. We want to know that in the midst of life, in the midst of all the chaos, in the midst of all the things that we can't control, that somehow, somewhere, there is a divine God who is orchestrating all of these situations and that they will work out. We need to know. We need the peace of knowing that everything's not just happening at random, that someone is orchestrating all of these events. We need that peace. And so we grab that verse and we go, yes, God has a plan for me. This is great news. And people have done this for all of history. This is a question that we've asked for all of history. Why am I here and what am I here for? How did I get here and what am I supposed to do when I get here? As a matter of fact, if you remember freshman philosophy in college, one of the things you learn is that all of philosophy boils down to those three questions of origin, purpose, and destiny. How did I get here? What am I supposed to do? And where am I going? And so it's natural if you're a believer and you've been exposed to scripture that you would see a verse like that put up on a wall somewhere or included in a devotional somewhere and that you would attach onto it and go, yes, this is great. God has a plan for me because this answers some of the basic questions of human existence. How did I get here? And what am I here for? That's why I think the book of Ephesians is so good for us to study right now. Because the whole purpose of Ephesians is to tell us our identity and our purpose. Paul wrote the book of Ephesians, and the purpose of Ephesians, the overarching purpose, based on the research that I did and the guides that I read, is to give us our identity and our purpose. It's to answer those questions for you. It's to begin to answer the question, God, do you really have a plan for me? Is there really someone to make sense of all the things that are happening in life right now? God, what is my, who am I and what is my purpose? Where did I come from and what am I here for? The book of Ephesians, scholars believe, was written to answer this question. It's also important to note, as I got into learning more about the book of Ephesians, it's important to note that this letter, this is, first of all, it's written by a guy named Paul. Paul's probably the most influential Christian to ever live. Paul wrote two-thirds of the New Testament. There was different churches all over Asia Minor gathering in the cities, and he would write them letters to encourage them in particular. And those became known as Paul's letters. If you want to sound really fancy in your small group, you can refer to them as Pauline epistles. And everyone will go, whoa, you're really smart. So these epistles, these letters that were written by Paul, are written to churches. And here's the thing that's really important. I just, as an aside, I just want to encourage you to do this. These letters that Paul wrote, Romans and 1st and 2nd Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, that big chunk in the New Testament, when they arrived at a church, someone would get up in front of the church after the student pastor did the announcements and made fun of the senior pastor that's been going on for thousands of years. They would get up and they would say, this is a letter from Paul. And they would read it. And they wouldn't just read chapter one. They wouldn't just parse out one of the little phrases and spend the Sunday on that. They would read the whole thing, start to finish. These letters are intended to be read from start to finish. Paul did not write this with chapters. Chapters got added hundreds of years later, thousands of years later. We didn't do that. Or he didn't do that. We put those there. It was intended to be read from start to finish. So I would encourage you, as we go through the book of Ephesians, Kyle has made a reading plan for us that's going to take us through the book two times if you read every day. But I would encourage you at some point in the next now five weeks to take some time. It won't take you but 30 or 45 minutes, or if you're Doug Bergeson, about an hour and a half to really sound out the words. To sit down and read it from start to finish. Sit down at some point or another and read the whole book from start to finish. And there you'll start to see the nuances and the points and really the overarching themes of the book of Ephesians come out. So that would be my challenge to you during this series, is to sit down and read it from start to finish and see what comes out to you. It's perfectly fine, like we're going to do this morning, to camp out in one verse, but it's important that we get the whole theme. The other thing I would say as we launch into our series in Ephesians, as I now step into it, Patrick did a great job last week of starting us in chapter one. There's no way I can do all of chapter two this week. If you love the book of Ephesians and you know chapter two well, I'm going to tell you this right up front. You're going to be disappointed today, okay? I'm not going to get to the theological thing that you want me to get to. It's just, there's so much there. I can't cover it all. So I have to invest our time in this one place this morning, but you guys need to invest your time in learning the rest of it on your own. Six weeks isn't enough time to cover all the theology in Ephesians. But that's why Paul wrote Ephesians. And he wrote it, we think, to the church in Ephesus, but really it was to all the churches surrounding the ancient city of Ephesus. And it just kind of found its home base in Ephesus. And so it became the book of Ephesians, but really it's a general letter to the churches to tell us our identity and our purpose, to give us the answers to those questions we've been asking for all of time. That's why he wrote it. And if that's why he wrote it, to tell us who we are and why we're here. Really to answer that question, another way to think about this is if you were to say, God, what's your will for my life? What would you have me do? Some of us are in our 20s and we've got our life in front of us and we're going, God, what do you want me to do? Some of us have lived life and we're kind of midlife and we're kind of going, God, have I been doing what you want me to do? And am I going to do now what you want me to do? Some of us have moved into a season of life that's different. You find yourself as empty nesters or adult children or you have grandchildren and you feel like maybe part of life has run its course and now we're going, now, Father, what would you have me do? We ask this question over and over again in our life. Father, what is your will for us? What do you want me to do? This verse answers that question. This verse is the better version, I think, of Jeremiah 29, 11. It's in chapter 2, verse 10. If you have a Bible, you can turn there. It follows a discourse that's showing you how you get saved. If you need to know, if your question is, how do I get saved? What do I need to do? Ephesians 2, 8, and 9 are the most succinct explanation of salvation you can find in the Bible. And it starts off, we're dead in our trespasses. God loves us. He gives us salvation by grace through faith. That not of yourself is a gift of God, not of works, so that no man can boast. So if you're here this morning and you're not a believer, God's will for you is that you would become a believer. Once you are a believer, God's will for you is revealed in verse 10. And it says this, for we, the church, the Christians, those that call God their Father and Jesus their Savior, for we are His workmanship. His there is God. For we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. You want to know what God's will is for your life? You want to know who you are and why you're here? This is it. You are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works that you may walk in them. I love this verse. As I was studying personally a couple of years ago, I came across this verse. I had never noticed it before. I had always paid attention to all the other very worthwhile things in Ephesians chapter two. And for whatever reason, when I sat down to read this verse on that day years ago, it leapt off the page. And this is one of those that I've been waiting for the opportunity to preach for a couple of years. And now that it's finally here, I'm going to pitch a dud. But we're going to do our best to make this verse matter to everybody because I love it so much. And the first thing we see is that we are God's workmanship. He created us. And just that sentence right there, we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus, just that phrase has so much in it. The first thing we see, the first thing that I would note is that that gives us our position in creation. I try to say as often as I can and make this point as often as I can because I think it's a salient one that the Bible starts with a very intentional sentence. In the beginning, God created. And if you were to ask, why does it start that way? You could say, well, that's the beginning of the story and that's fair. But I think there's more more going on there. When we see in the beginning God created, when we see in chapter 2, verse 10, that we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus, that immediately tells us our position in creation. God is the creator, and we are the created. God is the creator, and we are the creation. And I would submit to you that all discord with God, all sin, all disunity, even all lack of joy and happiness can be traced back to our misunderstanding this fundamental relationship. All discord we experience with God, if he is the creator and we are the created, then all discord that we experience is because in our lives we went, no thanks, I'm here. You see, all unhappiness that we experience, all sin can be boiled down to us going, I don't accept the fundamental order of creation and I want to elevate myself to my authority in my own life. Wasn't this the sin of Eve in the garden? For those unfamiliar, the Bible starts with Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. There's one rule, don't eat of that tree. And Satan comes up and sidles up next to Eve and he says, don't you want to eat of that tree? And I don't know if she rejects it or not, but he says, you know that God doesn't want you to eat of that tree because if you eat of it, you will become like him. And Eve went, oh, I want to be like him. And she became God in her own life. And that's how sin entered the world. And for us in our lives, when we experience any discord at all, the root of it is we have forgotten our fundamental position in creation. If you don't think that's true, read the book of Job and tell me what God is saying to Job in chapters 38, 39, and 40. He's saying, Job, you've forgotten your place. I'm the creator. You're the creation. So that sentence gives us our position in creation. It also gives us our purpose. It lets us know that because God created us, that he can now imbue us with purpose. Because he made us, he decides what we're for and what we're to be used for. That's not up to us to decide. We don't have to figure that out. We just have to ask God what it is. It also gives us our purpose. And then another thing that we see, I think, is that God takes pride in his creation. This last week, we finally launched our new website. Okay, our new website is up and running, graceralee.org. If you have a chance to go check it out today on mobile or on your desktop or whatever, go look at it. I think it's phenomenal. I think a guy named Hugh Butler did it for us. I think he did a phenomenal job. When you go look at it, I think you're gonna be really proud of your church. That website looks way better than us. That's what I would say, okay? You're going to go, oh man, this is such a good first impression. It's a really good website. And as we were designing it, the designer, a guy named Hugh, we were meeting with him. And I told him, I said, listen, man, you're more creative than me. You're way better at this than I could ever be. I don't want my preferences or what I'm asking you to do to limit your creativity in any way. I don't want the instructions that I give you to feel like they're limiting. I want your creation to have full reign. And actually what I told him is, I want you to be so proud of this website that it's the one you use to show to future clients to get their business. Like, you do whatever you want, just make it awesome. And after he got into designing it a little bit, he said, hey man, would you mind if I put my name down at the bottom of it? If I said that the website was made by HBCO, the name of his company? I said, no, absolutely, go ahead. Because I want him to be proud of what he did. And if you go to the website and you scroll to the bottom of the front page, you'll see website created by HBCO because he's proud of what he created. When you make something, you're proud of it. You guys know this. When you make something in your wood shop, when you put something back together, you show your wife, you show people, you take pictures of it, you text it to your buddies. Look what I did. When you put together, ladies, when you design something new, when you buy a new outfit, Jen does this all the time. I think that's creation. You've created a new outfit for Lily. She brings it home and then I have to go, that's the cutest thing ever. It's just, it's way cuter than the other 20 I've seen this year. Like, that's what you have to say. Like, when we create something, we want people to notice it. We take pride in that. That's what God does with his creation. He takes pride in you. Listen, this sounds flippant. It's not. God didn't make any duds, okay? God didn't create the good ones on Monday morning when he was fresh and then like Friday afternoon just spit out Jeff Lemons. Like that's not how that works. Yeah, whatever, this will be okay. God doesn't make any duds. He doesn't run out of energy. He created you. He is proud of you. He takes pride in his creation. And so in this very first sentence in Ephesians 2, verse 10, we see some huge themes. In this first statement, we see our position in creation, our purpose in creation, and His pride in creation. From the very beginning, it tells us our identity. If you were to ask, who am I? How did I get here? You are from God. If you are a believer, you are his child. It's his will that you would come into his family. And because of that, he's imbued you with purpose and he takes great pride in you. That one sentence at the very beginning, we see our position in creation, our purpose in that creation and his pride in his creation. And then once that's established, God made us. What did he make us for? Well, the very next sentence answers that question. He created us for good works that we might walk in them. I love the idea of this sentence. We don't have to figure out, God, what's your will for me? His will for you is that you would walk in the good works that he created for you. You have to think, God, what am I supposed to do with my life? Well, you're supposed to walk in the good works that he created for you. It's super simple. We don't have to figure this out. We don't have to divine anything or read the tea leaves. We just have to say that we were created to walk in the good works that he made for us, that he predetermined for us. That's our job. That's what we have to do. And it's at this point that I think we can kind of read this in two different ways. And the two ways to receive this passage, to kind of process it, I think, are kind of, you get the two pendulum swings in my marriage. Okay, Jen's not here this morning because Lily has neon green snot coming out of her nose, but if she were here, she would nod her head in agreement. There's me, when I see this, I'm an egomaniac. So when I read that I was created for good works beforehand, that I should walk in them, I go, that's right. I have a lot of talents to offer you, God. Where would you like me to be in your church? Like, yes, this makes sense to me. How would you like to use me? And I feel this grand sense of purpose and design and calling. Now, I'm humbled by that, and that's silly, and God doesn't need me at all. There's a story in the Old Testament where God talks through a donkey, and my dad likes to remind me often, if God can speak through a donkey, then he can speak through you. So don't get a big head, and that's not the word that he uses. He uses the King James version for that particular. But some of us read this, and because we're more maybe confident people, I don't know the best way to say it. Maybe it's just we're jerks. We go, yeah, okay, God, you've given me some gifts. How do I use them for you? But I think most of us process this like my wife does, who tend to think, I don't really have anything to offer. There can't possibly be a lot of good works that matter. My good works in comparison to others are really small. Certainly this verse applies to other people that are going to make a larger impact than me. And I think a lot of us tend to disqualify ourselves from passages like this. Other people were created for the good works. Other people should walk in those. That's really not for me. And I would just humbly submit to you, if that's how you feel, that that's not what the Bible says. The Bible says everyone, we, all Christians, if you're a believer, if you know Jesus, then God created you for good works, that you should walk in them, and those good works matter. And I would further submit to you, if you feel like someone who's on the fringe, who couldn't possibly be used in meaningful ways by God, that he couldn't possibly really have a plan for you, then I would point out to you that the people that God uses over and over and over again, generation after generation in scripture, are the exact people who would feel like you do right now if they were told, God has big plans for you. David would have never believed that. the youngest of eight sons watching the sheep on the hillside. Moses would have never believed that, a shepherd of 40 years out in the desert. Rahab would have never believed that, a prostitute in a forgotten city of Jericho. So if that's how you feel this morning, you're in good company. So these good works are for everyone. And if we want to know what are our good works, what can I do? How do I know this to be true? How do I begin to apply myself? I would make these points because I think we find our good works rooted in these truths. I would make these two points. First, everyone matters to someone. Everyone matters to someone. There are people in your life that if you said something nice to them, it would lift them up. If you said something harsh to them, it would tear them down. There are people in your life, whether you know it or not, who are watching you to determine how they should act in certain situations. There are people in your job, at your workplace, and you might not even know this, but they might know that you go to church. And when something happens in the company, when an email goes out, when a meeting happens, when someone goes long or someone says something snide, there are people who are looking at you to determine how a Christian reacts. Everybody matters to somebody. And everybody excels at something. Everyone is good at something. You might not feel like you're good at something, but I'm telling you, everyone is good at something. These last two years, I've gone to Mexico. I've been to Mexico three years in a row, but the last two years, there's been a guy come on the trip named Jacob Gutierrez. Jacob is the son of one of our great grace partners, and their family comes down every year. And Jacob's 24 years old, and he struggles with Down syndrome. And so when Jacob is there, there are some things that he feels like he can't do. There are some ways that he feels like he can't contribute like everyone else. There are some things that he feels like, man, I don't excel at that. But two years in a row, we've sat around the circle at the end of the night. If you've been on a mission trip, you know the circle, man. It's the same circle everywhere on every continent. You work all day, you get to the end of the day, you sit around because you're Christians and you sing songs and then somebody shares the devotion and then you ask the question, all right, what happened today? What did you see today? Let's talk about today. Let's kind of decompress, okay? And so I've seen two years in a row with Jacob in that circle, somebody say, man, I've learned so much from Jacob being here. And I learned it too. And as I watched him interact with everybody this week, I saw a guy with unfailing sweetness and kindness to other people. I saw a guy who never ever acted like he was in a conversation he didn't want to be in. Who never acted like he didn't have time for somebody. Who was never not interested in what somebody was saying. I saw a guy who, if you asked him to stay up all night talking to you, he would, about nothing. I saw a guy that loved people really well. And two years in a row, I'm not making this up, this isn't speaker embellishment, I'm telling you the truth. Two years in a row, I've come home with this indelible impression and thought, man, I need to be more like Jacob. Everybody matters to someone and everybody excels at something. So even if you think, gosh, I'm not sure that I have anything to offer in the kingdom of God. Yes, you do. There are people watching you and there are things that you are good at. We all have our comfort zone. So the question becomes, not do I have good works, but Father, what are my good works? What are my good works? What have you purposed me to do? What do you want me to do? I think a good way to answer that question is to start with, who are the people that I matter to, and what are the things that I feel like I'm okay at? What are the things that I feel like I excel at? You could say, what are the things that people affirm in you? You could say, what are the things that you're passionate about? What are the things that tick you off that make you want to make a change? But I think the most reasonable question for all of us to ask this morning, our Father, what are my good works? What have you designed me and purposed me to do? What am I gifted to do? What am I purposed to do? And there's an answer for everybody. So I would tell you this as your pastor, or if you're visiting as just a guy, that if you were to ask me, what's God's will for my life? I would ask you, I don't know. What are your good works? What has he designed you to do? And this is a layered question because sometimes this means for all of life. This means overarching call on life. My good work, I feel right now, is to be a pastor. And I think that that's gonna be a lifelong call. I hope that it is, that that's my good work. And so sometimes when we ask that, we're asking for this big overarching question. And sometimes God gives us that answer and sometimes he doesn't yet. So the more pertinent question is, God, what are my good works right now? What would you have me do right now? Father, I'm content if I don't get the five-year answer. I'm content if you don't give me the 10-year plan. God, what would you have me do right now? What are my good works right now? And then we ask that question. Say, Father, what are my good works and how do I walk in them? What have you designed me to do and how do I walk in them? And I'm grateful at Grace that we have examples of people all over the place who are walking in their good works. I think of Cindy Hayes. She's right here. Everyone look at her. She's right there in the third row. She's super embarrassed right now. Yeah, she's the best. If you're friends with Cindy, ask her about the nickname that she got in Mexico. I will not say it, Cindy. I will not say it, but you should ask her because it's funny. For about nine or 10 years, Cindy has served on our personnel committee. Cindy has a background in HR. She's been doing that her whole career. She's sharp and smart and has kept us legal and has told me many times since I got here, Nate, you cannot do that. That is illegal. Like you will, you'll take the church down in flames with you if you do that. Do not do that. And behind the scenes has protected us and guided us and seen us through hirings and seen us through dismissals and seen us through policy changes. And she did that for about nine or 10 years and just recently stepped off. So I wanted us first to pause and say thank you to Cindy for doing that for us. But I would tell you that for that period of time in her life, that was her good work to walk in. She was doing what God designed her to do. And it probably didn't feel like that to her. It probably didn't feel, she wouldn't have said at the beginning of those nine years, this is my good work and I'm gonna walk in it, Lord. That's probably not what she would have said, but that's what she did. That was her unique talent that she had to offer to God's kingdom and she built a church that way. I watched while we were in Mexico this last week, a guy came with us named Nate, and he's a carpenter. And we went down, and Nate had, he had his wrist was hurt. It was taped up. I think he was faking it to get out of work, but really milking it for some sympathy. But he couldn't pick up things on the job site, and so they told him, man, you can't come to the job site. But back at where we were staying, there was supposedly a wood shop that was filled with clutter and filth and trash and little bits of wood and sawdust and tools that were disassembled and in disrepair. And it was a totally useless space. And Nate decided that that week, what he was going to do is turn that into a usable wood shop for those folks. And by the time he left, that space looked like a professional wood shop. He built shelves. He sorted wood. He threw things away. He assembled tools. He lined it up. He showed the guys how to use the different tools. He told them this was dangerous. You need to sell it as fast as you can. Don't do this. And by the time he left, that place looked like a professional wood shop. And what I know for sure is he had some help. He had some dummies like me carrying wood and going, where do I put it? But we added no talent to the equation. So what I know is that if Nate had not gone, that would not have gotten done. And so that week, that was his good work to walk in. And I really do think that life is just as simple as, Father, what are my good works? And how can I walk in them? And can I share with you what happens when we'll do this for a lifetime? If you'll be a person who will just ask God faithfully, what are my good works? And how do I walk in them? My mom all passed away some years ago. I'm Southern, so I have a mom all. And for the last year of her life, I had the privilege of meeting with her every other Monday to have coffee with her. And as we would meet and spend time together, I learned about who she was. She was a woman, she had an older sister named Ann. My grandma's name was Linda. And Linda was convinced that Ann was more talented than her. She sang in like the school plays. She was prettier than her. All the boys paid attention to Ann and none of the boys paid attention to Linda. My papa actually met her by hitting on Ann. Ann said she was taken and he said, do you have a sister? And she goes, yeah. She's working down the street. So he goes down the street, and they dance together. And he said the first time he felt her in his arms, he knew that this was the one, which is just great because they were together for their whole life. She always felt like kind of the fading flower, the one in the background. She felt overshadowed by her sister. She never wanted to be in the spotlight. My grandfather, Don, had a huge personality. He would fill a room. Everybody loved him, and she was always playing the supporting role to him. Her children, some of them, had a big personality. She was always playing the supporting role to them. She didn't come to know the Lord until later in life. She started having babies at 19. She had four kids. And then somewhere in her late 20s, early 30s, she came to know the Lord because one of her children started going to the local church. And she never thought she had anything to offer. This little, she's tiny, diminutive woman. But she just loved the people that were in front of her. And even though she was never in public, even though she never had the spotlight, one time I remember she felt like her good work was to take a group of teenagers to Peru. The church was taking a mission trip to Peru. She was in her 60s, and she was like, yeah, I'll take them. And she just went. Everybody was shocked. What in the world? So when I did her funeral, even though she was a woman who never had any spotlight, who never felt like she had anything to offer, there was 400 people there. There was a whole section of young families that were representatives of the girls in Peru that she took, who years later said, we want to come honor Miss Linda. She worked at First Union at the time as a bank teller for years. She hadn't been there for 15 years. There's a whole section of people that she worked with who said, we want to honor Miss Linda. There's people coming out of the woodwork saying, we want to honor this woman because she loved us well. And her family, we had no idea that she was this loved. And it made an indelible impact on me. And to me, that's the evidence of a life lived. Saying, Father, what is my good work? And how do I walk in it? And that's what I want you to do too. We don't have to know, God, what's your will for me? What are the plans that you have for me for forever? He might tell us that, he might not. But if we want to know God's will for our life, it begins with that question. What are the good works that you created me for and how can I begin to walk in them? If you need a jump start on these good works, we have sheets in your seats to volunteer here at Grace. And I want to be very careful with this. I did not preach this sermon to get you to volunteer here, okay? I didn't do that. If your vision for what are the good works that I have to walk in is ushering, then you need better vision, man. You need a bigger view than that. Don't laugh too hard, slide guy. It's bigger than that too. It's a bigger vision than that. I'm not talking about how we can all volunteer here, but I will say if you've been coming here, particularly if you started within the last 12 months and you're not plugged in yet to a service team, this is a great way to get plugged in, a great way to get your foot in the door. And if you're asking the question, what are my good works? And you're not sure, a great start is to begin to volunteer somewhere. The last church that I attended without getting paid to show up was a church called Greystone back home. And when I went, I just wanted to get plugged in. And so I said, I don't know what my good works are here, Father, but I'm going to start ushering. I signed up to do that. That led to helping with the students. That led to a small group. That led to a staff position. We never know what's going to happen. But I want you to be people who walk in the good works that God created for you. If you need help getting started with those, we have the service sheets in your seats. The things that are highlighted in red are things that we need particularly right now. I would also mention that not listed on the sheet is a missions team that you can join. So if you're interested in doing that, you can just write that at the bottom. But if you're not plugged in yet or you have questions about that, fill that out. And in a few minutes, Kyle's gonna come up and pray for us and we're gonna do the offering. You can drop that in the basket when it comes by or especially if you're watching online, you can go to our super great website and go to gracerother.org slash service teams and we have a form there that you can fill out. But let us be people who ask God, Father, what are my good works and how do I walk in them? Let's pray. Father, we love you. You're good to us. You watch out for us. You care for us. Father, we know that you have a plan for us. I pray that you would give us the faith to believe that, the courage to ask what our good works are and the obedience to walk in them. God, I pray if there's anybody here who doesn't know you, that they would come to know you. Lord, I also pray for anybody here that may just be feeling a little tired, a little run down. Would you energize them? Would you let them know today in some way that speaks directly to their heart that you care about them? Father, would you use us in incredible ways to build your kingdom and serve your purpose? It's in your son's name we pray, 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.