Embracing Humility: Jesus' Triumphal Entry and Peace

Because Zechariah says, Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your king is coming to you. He is just and endowed with salvation, humble and mounted on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a donkey, which is then proclaimed in Matthew. Because the prophecy in Zechariah is about the coming of a king who's going to restore order to the nation of Israel. [00:38:23]

And normally, in the Old Testament times, kings came in on horses, which was a sign of conquest and triumph. Yet this king was going to come in on a donkey, which is a sign of humility and peace. And so we're going to be breaking those two down today of the characteristics that Jesus was, the characteristics that he had that led to his actions and how he was able to fulfill the prophecy of the Old Testament about himself. [00:39:35]

So he enters Jerusalem on a donkey because Jesus was focused on fulfilling everything said about him in the Old Testament. But he did it from a pure heart. We've gone over characteristics that we should all have and a pure heart is one of those characteristics because Jesus emulates it himself. [00:43:22]

And if we go to Isaiah 53 which speaks a lot about the character of Jesus in Isaiah 53 verse 2 it says, For he grew up before him like a tender shoot and like a root out of parched ground. He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon him nor appearance that we should be attracted to him. So Jesus wasn't some mighty king figure like people saw King Saul as because King Saul was tall, dark, handsome. [00:43:57]

Yet Jesus stooped so low to wash the feet of his most beloved friends because he was gentle and he was humble. But it says in Isaiah 53, he was like a root out of parched ground. Jesus himself said that he had living water and Israel was so thirsty for it. They hadn't had a prophet in a long time. [00:45:22]

And sometimes what caused the dry ground was the Pharisees themselves, those who were trying to uphold the law in the best way that they knew how, but they did it the wrong way. They lost the love that God had commanded them to have in the first place. And if there's less love, people start drying out. They start to think less of themselves. [00:45:56]

And so, being gentle does not mean you let people walk all over you. Humility knows, I am not more than someone else. How can I help that person? But Jesus had to go to his father's house and get rid of all the unrighteousness taking place in it. Just like he went to the cross to take the unrighteousness of the world upon himself, because the Holy Spirit, who is a part of God, cannot be where sin is. [00:48:04]

But riding a donkey or riding a war horse, that's a huge drop-off of how your eyes would perceive a king coming in. You know, nowadays, you know, you get the huge convoy of vehicles whenever the president's coming into town or whatever huge diplomat. You get, like, seven cars and, like, all the Secret Service people. Like, you have a convoy of people just to protect the one person. [00:50:58]

And so Jesus riding in on a donkey symbolized that the power is not in himself. The power is in God. How many of us walk around every day trying to will ourselves to do better or will ourselves to try to be better without God? Has it worked? In my experience, it never worked. I'm pretty stubborn. I got a lot of willpower in me. [00:54:06]

And so despite this prophecy that was being fulfilled, the people in the crowd in the city still missed what Jesus was doing. In verse 11 it says, and the crowds were saying, this is the prophet. prophet Jesus from Nazareth and Galilee. They still saw him as a prophet who they thought could have been a king. [00:55:19]

Because that's the freedom that we all actually need. It doesn't matter where you're born in this world. Jesus has come to conquer the spiritual bondage in your life so that you can proclaim the true kingdom that will never fail. Put your faith in a heavenly person who's going to be there and who's going to help you extend love, grace, and mercy, which will never be illegal. [00:57:27]

But it starts with humility because I can only assume whenever he comes back, there's a lot of righteous zeal for the Lord at that time because it's not just the house of the Lord that's been defiled at this point. My belief, this is Pastor Donovan Interpretation 101. It's not the actual scripture, but my belief is the earth is going to be so depraved and so defiled that it will have to be an act of Jesus Christ himself to make it righteous again. [01:00:55]