When Kings Ride Donkeys: Jesus' Disruptive Power

The question that they asked is probably the same question we should ask for ourselves. Who is this? Who is this king, and will we receive him as he is? Not the king that we would design for ourselves, but the king that we actually need. Because if Jesus came the way they expected, he wouldn't have saved them. And if he comes to confirm our expectations, he's not gonna save us as well. [00:45:28] (30 seconds)  #ReceiveTheRealKing

Word has spread, expectations are rising, and people are beginning to wonder, is he the one, the goat, the liberator, the messiah? Is he the king that's gonna finally set things right for us? And the city is pregnant. It's pregnant for power to come. And Jesus does arrive, but he does so in a way that completely disrupts every expectation. He sends his disciple, we're told, ahead to retrieve a donkey and a colt, fulfilling the prophecy from Zechariah hundreds of years before. [00:31:40] (39 seconds)  #UnexpectedKing

And so the invitation is, will we come to him? Not to shape, not to manage Jesus according to our expectations, not to reshape him, but simply to receive Jesus as king. As we do, we walk with Jesus to the cross, through the cross, and towards the resurrection that we celebrate next Sunday. Jesus does get to the throne. That's gonna happen. We're all gonna see that one day. But friends, receive the king you need and find the life that you can't make. [00:46:27] (37 seconds)  #ReceiveAndFollow

And that's why this invitation is not the invitation of this passage is not try harder. Don't use power, unjustly. The invitation is, will you trust the king who has done what you what you cannot? Will you trust this king? Will you follow this king on the path that he leads? Jesus the king has come not to take power, but to break the power of sin and death and to restore us to life under the good reign of God. [00:44:52] (35 seconds)  #TrustTheRedeemer

So when Jesus rides into Jerusalem, he's not simply confronting Rome and empire. He's dealing with the real power problem. He confronts sin and death themselves. And at the cross, he bears what distorts and destroys us and the human race. And in his resurrection, he breaks their hold and leads us into a whole new way of life. On the cross, Jesus exhausts the power of sin and death and allows them to throw all they can upon him, [00:43:50] (34 seconds)  #CrossConquersDeath

What is needed is not merely a redistribution of power, but a redemption of the people who wield it. You hear that? What is not needed, what will save us, what will fix us is not a redistribution of power, but a redemption of the people who hold power. And we all hold power because we're all humans. And that's why this isn't just about what's happening out there. It's about what's happening in us. [00:40:48] (29 seconds)  #RedeemThePeople

Here's the thing. Loving your country, being patriotic, there's nothing wrong with that. That's not the problem. But when we begin to look to political power to accomplish what Christ can only do, then we have both misunderstood power and salvation. When we expect political power to do what only Christ can do, then we have con confused both power and salvation. And what's often celebrated as Christian nationalism in America is neither genuinely Christian nor genuinely patriotic. [00:38:19] (40 seconds)  #ChristNotPolitics

Because the problem isn't just out there. It's what scripture and the Christian faith is called sin. Sin is a condition that turns us inward upon ourselves. It disorders our desires. Sin distorts what we believe will give us lasting life and happiness. This desire for control, this need to win, this desire to be right, this instinct to be secure to secure ourselves on our terms, they're not just habits. They are symptoms of a deep, deep fracture in our humanity. [00:43:12] (37 seconds)  #InwardSin