Well, good morning, everyone.
If you care to open your Bibles with me to Matthew chapter 21. Matthew chapter 21. Before we
begin, let's bow together in prayer. Our Father, which art in heaven,
holy and reverent is your matchless name. Father, we bow before you
with thankful hearts. How thankful we are for your
mercy and your grace to your people. in our Lord Jesus Christ. How we thank you, Father, that
you've given us another opportunity to meet together, to worship
you. Father, I pray that you would
send your spirit upon us and enable us to do that, to worship
you in spirit and in truth. We pray that the name of our
Lord Jesus Christ be exalted and magnified. Father, show us
your glory, we pray. Give us the eyes of faith to
see it and the heart of faith believe and rest in our Lord
Jesus Christ. We pray that you'd bless our
children's classes, that you'd bless the teachers, and bless
our children, Father, with your mercy and your grace. Use this
time, we pray, to plant the seeds of faith in their hearts. Father,
for those who are sick and afflicted, Father, we pray for them. We
pray that your hand of healing, comfort, mercy be upon them,
be with them special way we pray. All these things we ask and we
give thanks in that name, which is above every name, the name
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Now there's a very important
question I ask here in Matthew chapter 21 verse 10 and it's
the title of the lesson this morning. Who is this? Verse 10
says, and when he was coming to Jerusalem, all the city was
moved saying, who is this? Now, this is the most important
question we can ask. Who is this? It's the most important
question that we can ask because the only way any of us can have
spiritual life is by knowing the Lord Jesus Christ. If we
know and believe Christ, we'll be saved. We must know who he
is. So this is the most important
question. Who is this? Now, what we believe is not as
important because, I mean, we have to have right doctrine.
You understand what I'm saying, but we're not saved by knowledge
of facts. Who we believe, that's what's
important. If we know Christ and we believe
him, everything else that we believe, all of our doctrine,
will fall into place. Salvation is knowing a person. It's believing a person. It's
resting in a person. It's union with a person. So
this is the most important question we can ask. Who is this? Now, the whole Bible is written
to tell us who Christ is. So I will confine myself to our
text this morning and give you five truths that are revealed
about the Lord Jesus Christ, who he is from this text. Who is this? Well, number one,
the Lord Jesus Christ is the sovereign. Look, verse one, Matthew
21. And when they drew nigh unto
Jerusalem, and were come to Bethpage under the Mount of Olives, then
sent Jesus two disciples, saying unto them, go into the village
over against you, and straightway you shall find an ass tied, and
a colt with her. Loose them and bring them unto
me. If any man say ought unto thee, ye shall say, the Lord
hath need of them, and straightway he will send them. Now, who could
do this except the one who's sovereign over all things? who
sovereign over the thoughts and the actions of all men. Now I
don't know how far away they were, a couple miles maybe, but
the Lord knew right where that colt and her ass would be found.
Now he couldn't see them, so how do you know that they were
there? It's because he determined for them to be there. He put
them, that's why he knew that they were there, he put them
there. And that just shows you, And when the disciples got there
and they saw it was exactly like the Lord told them that it would
be, it's because he's sovereign over everything. And then second
thing about the man who owned this colt and her ass. These
are valuable animals to this man. Now two men he's never seen
before walk up and loose this colt and her ass and start to
lead him away. He's never seen them before.
What would you do if you were him? I mean, it'd be like somebody
walking up to your car and just, you know, taking the keys and
getting in and start driving away, you know. You'd stop him,
wouldn't you? What are you doing? That doesn't
belong to you. Don't take what doesn't belong
to you. That's what the owner of these animals did. And all
it took for him to let his animals be taken away by two men he'd
never seen before is to hear, the Lord has need of them. And
he said, oh, okay, why didn't you say that from the beginning?
Take them, they're yours. Now the only one who can make
that happen is the one who's sovereign over everything, over
the thoughts and the actions of men. He's the only one that
can make that happen. He's the sovereign. Yet the sovereign
is also a real man. He told his disciples, when somebody
stops you and asks you about where are you taking these animals,
You tell them that the Lord has need of them. The Lord has need. He needed them. Now, the Lord
couldn't fly to Jerusalem. He couldn't beam himself to Jerusalem.
He had the power to do those things. He had the power to just
disappear here and reappear over here. But he couldn't do that.
He couldn't do that because you and I can't do that. And he came
to be the representative of his people. He had to limit himself
to what we have the ability to do in the flesh so that he could
be our representative. So who is this? The most amazing
man. He's the representative of God's
elect. He's a real man, but he's also
the sovereign God. Now that's who he is. And since
he's a real man, so he can be our representative, he's the
sovereign God who always does his will. That tells me he's
a successful savior. and we should trust him and believe
him. He's to be trusted. Number one, who is this? He's
the Sovereign. Number two, the Lord Jesus Christ
is the fulfillment of all scripture. Verse four, here's why all this
was done, that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophet
saying, tell you the daughter of Zion, behold, thy King cometh
unto thee, meek and sitting upon an ass and a colt, the foal of
an ass. Now the Lord Jesus Christ is
the fulfillment of every type, every prophecy, every shadow
of the Old Testament scriptures. Every prophecy that you can find
in the Old Testament scriptures was fulfilled in the life of
the Lord Jesus. You find it somewhere fulfilled
in those four gospels. So there can't be any doubt he's
God's Messiah that God sent to redeem his people from their
sin. He fulfilled every Old Testament
prophecy. Nobody could have just done that
by happenstance. He did that because he fulfilled
all scripture because he's the Messiah. Now, from where they
were, the Lord could have walked to Jerusalem. I mean, they walked
everywhere. He had the physical strength to walk to Jerusalem,
but he didn't walk to Jerusalem. He rode this ass with its colt,
with his foal walking along beside it and he did it to fulfill a
prophecy. If you look back at Zachariah
chapter nine, this is why he did. He didn't just do this for
just because he wanted, wanted, wanted a ride, a free ride. He
did this to fulfill the scriptures, to fulfill this prophecy of the
savior, to reveal himself to his people as their savior and
as their king. Zachariah nine verse nine. And this is our reaction to him
coming. rejoice greatly. Oh daughter
of Zion, shout oh daughter of Jerusalem. Behold thy king cometh
to thee unto thee. He is just and having salvation
lowly and riding upon an ass and upon a cold, the full of
an ass and I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the
horse from Jerusalem and the battle bow should be cut off
and he should speak peace under the heathen and his dominion
should be from sea even to sea, and from the river, even to the
river. As for thee also, by the blood of thy covenant, I have
sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit, wherein is no water. Now this is the Savior coming
unto thee. He's lowly, he's meek, but buddy, he's the king, he's
the sovereign, and he's just. He is the righteousness of his
people. He came to fulfill God's law
to be the righteousness of his people, and he came to satisfy
God's justice for them by dying in their place. That's how he's
going to fulfill the covenant, by the blood of the covenant.
By his blood, he's going to fulfill the covenant of God's grace.
He's meek, he's lowly, but he's bringing salvation to his people.
He's bringing peace with God to his people. He's lowly and
he's meek, but he's also establishing a dominion from sea to sea, from
ocean to ocean. So who is this? He's the Savior
that's been promised by God in all of the scriptures. He's the
fulfillment of every Old Testament promise, and that makes God's
people rejoice. See, we don't rejoice in a what,
we don't just rejoice in the blessings that God gives, we
rejoice in a person. rejoicing is in Christ. He's
coming to his people, right? Here's the third thing. Who is
this back in our text? Verse five, the Lord Jesus Christ
is king. Tell you the daughter of Zion.
Behold thy king cometh under thee. Now the scene here is one
of a triumphant king. We'll read about this, how his
is coming into the city in just a minute, but the scene here,
is of a triumphant king. He's returning to the city from
a great, great battle. He saved the city. He saved all
the inhabitants of his kingdom from being destroyed by an enemy
army. He went out against that enemy. That enemy seemed like
they could not be defeated, and he bravely went out and faced
them. He faced them alone. He faced them in greater numbers
than him. It's the archenemy of the city,
and he destroyed them. Now he's returning back to the
city city safe. The city is prosperous. He's
spoiled the enemy and the king rides back into town and he,
as he goes through the town, he's being cheered by all of
his adoring subjects, how happy they are to see this victorious
king come save them from certain annihilation. Now that's a departure,
isn't it? From the way that the Lord has
done things up to now, just in a So many times we've seen this
in our study in Matthew. Every time the Lord performed
a miracle and healed somebody, what'd he tell them? See that
no one know it. Don't tell anybody. Every time
the people want to take him and make him king, he departed from
them and hid himself from them. He wouldn't let them make him
king. Even this is even different than just five days from now
when he's talking to pilot and pilot asking, are you a king?
That's different than now. On this day, the Lord allows
everyone to cheer him and to hail him as king. Now why is
this day different? I believe I know why. On this
day, the Lord is riding into Jerusalem. He's riding in to
suffer and die just five days from now. The rest of the book
of Matthew up to the crucifixion of our Lord just takes five days.
He's coming to town now. He's been there before, but this
time he's coming to town to fulfill the work that the father gave
him to do. This time he's coming to town
to Jerusalem to offer the sacrifice that he came to offer. He's come
now to honor every attribute of God by his sacrifice for his
people. He's come to honor God's justice
by being made sin and dying to satisfy the justice against that
sin but he's also coming to magnify God's grace. He's going to suffer
and die for an undeserving sinful people to give them life. He
came to honor both God's justice and his grace. He came to honor
God's truth and his mercy. At the same time, righteousness
and peace are going to kiss each other in five days. He's coming
to put away the sin of the people that the father gave him to say.
So those people who are separated from God and Adam can be brought
back to the father. Now brother, that's something
to celebrate. That he ought to be celebrated.
He should be honored, he should be adored as our conquering hero. He is king and he should announce
himself as king because when he comes into Jerusalem this
time, he's beginning to come into his kingdom. He's gonna
come into his kingdom by his suffering and his death for his
people. And five days from now, you already
know what's gonna happen. I don't know. I'm sure that that,
uh, that those thieves that were crucified on either side of our
Lord, they're in prison at this time. So they didn't, they didn't
see all this, this taking place, but that dying thief in his,
I mean, just agony that I can't imagine. He knew this is the
king. He knew this is the key. What
did he say? Lord, remember me when you come
into your kingdom. He's coming into his kingdom through his
suffering and through his death. That's why he's coming to town.
And that's why he's allowing these people to hail him as king. He's coming to defeat every enemy
of his people once and for all so that those enemies can't harm
his people anymore. He should be honored. He should
be adored, shouldn't he? So who is this? He's our king.
He's our king to be honored. He's our king to be praised.
But don't forget this. He's our king to be obeyed. Verse
six. And the disciples went and did
as Jesus commanded them. Now, when the Lord said, go get
this ass and her foal, he wasn't asking. He commanded them. You know why he commanded them? Because that's what kings do.
They command. And his disciples obeyed. Now, did as he commanded. Now, if you and I are the disciples
of the King, we're going to do as he commands. We're going to
obey him. And how is it that we obey Christ our King? It's by doing what he said. He
said, come unto me. He said, believe me. He said,
trust me. He said, rest in me. This is
how we obey Christ our King. It's by trusting him to be what
he says he is. He's the savior of sinners. We
obey our King when we believe Him and we trust Him to be everything
that we need for our salvation. And here's how I can tell if
I believe Christ is everything I need to be saved. I don't feel
it necessary to add something to it in order to assure my salvation. It's all in Christ. We obey our
King when we trust Him to be our righteousness, when we trust
Him to be our peace with God, when we trust Him to be the way
we can be accepted by the Father. He's our king, we obey him. So
who is this? He's our king. He's the king
that we bow to, the king that we adore, the king that we praise,
the king that we obey. He's the king. All right, fourthly,
who is this? The Lord Jesus Christ is the
one to be worshiped. Look at verse six. And the disciples
went and did as Jesus commanded them, and brought the ass in
the cold and put on them their clothes and they sent him there
on and a very great multitude spread their garments in the
way. Others cut down branches from the trees and straw them
in the way and the multitudes that went before and that followed
cried saying Hosanna to the son of David. Blessed is he that
cometh in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. Now this
custom of uh, Someone coming into town and the people spreading
their garments before them. And this is what people refer
to as Palm Sunday. Cutting these branches of palm
trees. Must have been the trees that
were there. And putting those branches down in the road. So
kind of soften the road or whatever for this coming dignitary. People
would do this custom as a show of respect. But they wouldn't
just do it for anybody. This is the way to show obedience,
and this is a custom that was reserved for a special person,
a newly crowned king. A new king is crowned, and this
is the way of saying, I'm your loyal subject. I'll obey. I recognize
your authority over me. But this is more than just welcoming
an earthly king. This is welcoming the savior
king, the savior king. Now I'm quite confident that
most people in this crowd did not know exactly what they were
shouting. They must have been a lot like
Caiaphas. Caiaphas preached one of the best gospel messages on
substitution you'll ever hear. He didn't believe Christ. He
didn't know Christ. He didn't know what he was saying. And
I'm afraid that these people were much the same way. And here's
why I'm afraid of that. Because in five days, this is
the very crowd shouting crucify. give us Brabus. Very same crowd. But this is what they were shouting
and by their shout that they're, they're showing this is the savior
king. They shouted Hosanna, Hosanna
to who? The son of David. Now when they
called the Lord Jesus, the son of David, this is what they were
calling him, the Messiah. Now everybody there, all these
Jews, they knew what the term son of David means. This is the
Messiah. This is who they were looking
for. Everybody there knew what that term meant. When they called
him the son of David, they may not have believed it, but this
is what they're telling you and me. This is the savior, the son of
David. And they cried to the son of
David, Hosanna. You know what that term means,
Hosanna? It means be propitious. It means cover my sin. It's a
cry of honor, but it's also the cry of a beggar. Be propitious
to me, save me, cover my sin. So this is what they're crying.
Save me, be propitious to me, thou son of David, the Messiah.
This is the one that we're to worship. And the best way any
of us can worship The Lord Jesus Christ is by begging him to save
us and then trusting him to do it. That's worship. True worship is not in the right
form, the right ceremony of religion. Yeah, I grew up hearing Brother
Henry say that, and I really had no idea what he meant. Do you remember? He would always
tell us that. Worship, true worship, is not
in the right form and the right ceremony. It's not in the right
order of service. It's not in the way that we do
things. True worship is from the heart. From the heart. True worship
is begging God to save me and trusting Him to do it. Often
in the four Gospels, you'll see someone come to the Lord. They're
diseased, they're sick, they need help, they're in dire straits,
maybe they're sick, they have a child who's dying, whatever
it is, they're in dire straits. And they come, and Scripture
says they worship the Lord. They worship Him by acknowledging,
I can't do anything to make you do what I need, but I'm begging
you. The example I think of is that
leper that came to the Lord and worshipped him. Matthew says
he worshipped him, saying, Lord, if you will, you can make me
whole. That's worship. True worship
is trusting Christ that he's able to say that he'll keep his
promise to save. He said, come unto me, all ye
that are weary and heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. Now,
Are you weary of trying to keep the law and can't? Are you weary
of just running on the hamster wheel? You can't get anywhere.
You can't keep God's law. You can't. Are you weary of it?
Are you weary? True worship is coming to Christ
and believing Him that He'll give you rest. He'll give you
rest because He did everything for you. He gives you rest. That's
worship. True worship is trusting that
Christ's sacrifice alone, His blood, is all it takes to cleanse
me from my sin. It's trusting that Christ's righteousness,
his obedience, that's all it takes to make me righteous. True
worship is trusting that Christ will finish the work of salvation
that he's once begun. He'll finish it. It's trust.
That's worship. And when we bow and we lay everything at his
feet, trusting him to take care of it all, that's worship. That's true worship. And that's
who this is. He's the sole object of our worship. Now I'm thankful. Aren't you
thankful he's come? He's the king. He's the sole
object of our worship. He must be successful. He's coming
into his kingdom. He's gonna be successful in it.
All right, here's the fifth thing. Who is this? The Lord Jesus Christ
is that prophet. Verse 11, and the multitude said,
This is Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee. This is
the prophet, but you know this, the Lord Jesus Christ is not
just any prophet. He's not a prophet like Isaiah
and Jeremiah and all the old Testament prophets. This man
is that prophet, that prophet that Moses said would come. I
can imagine Moses being so frustrated, just so frustrated with Israel. They're a stiff-necked people.
They never listened to him. They never did what he said to
do the first time. They just would not. And he finally told
them one day, I know y'all ain't listening to me, but there's
one coming you'll listen to, that prophet. He said to him,
you'll hearken. You'll listen to him. He's come. He's that prophet, the one to
whom we'll listen. He's that prophet. who has the
message from God for his people. Here's how God saves sinners.
Here I am, he said. This is it. This is God's salvation.
He's no mere prophet. He's that prophet. But here's
another way. There's never been another prophet
like him. He's that prophet. But he's also
the subject of the message. He's the teacher and he's the
lesson. And he's also the fulfillment
of his message. He's also the salvation of his people. He's
the prophet that brings the message. He's the subject of the message
and he's the salvation of itself and he's called here the prophet
of Nazareth and he's the Nazarene and you know about the, the Nazarite,
the Nazarite vow of the old Testament. And men were Nazirites for a
while. Samson was a Nazirite. He was
a Nazirite for a while. It might not necessarily, seldom,
I don't think ever, a whole lifetime thing. But that Nazirite vow
was impossible for a man to fulfill. So the Lord Jesus is the only
true Nazirite ever. He's the one that kept his vow
to God. Remember in our study in Psalms,
we saw this so often about, when David would write, I'll pay my
vow. Well, none of us has ever paid
our vow. How many times have you thought,
I mean, maybe you know you ought not pray this way, but it just
goes through your mind. Lord, if you'll get me out of this,
I'll do this, or I'll do this. Lord, just get me out of, I'll
do this. Have you ever kept your vow? No, we never have. The only one who's ever kept
his vow to God the Lord Jesus Christ and he did it keeping
the vow for his people. He came to this earth and he
separated himself to doing the will of his father. He vowed,
he promised that he would do it and he did it. In John 17 what did he say? Father
I finished the work that you give me. He did, he kept his
vow. He did what he said that he would
do. He fulfilled all of the will of God concerning the redemption
of his people. Well, all the will of God in
everything, but the will of God is the redemption of his people.
He did it all. He made them perfect by his obedience
for them. He sanctified them by washing
them of their sin. He did it all so that his people
would be saved. That was the father's will, would
send him. that he saved all of his people from their sin, and
that's exactly what he did. Now he's the Nazirite. Come to
Jerusalem to fulfill the last bit of that vow. He promised
his father in eternity, the covenant of grace. Covenant of grace is
a covenant between the Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The Father in the covenant elected a people. He promised to save
those people by the obedience and by the sacrifice of his son
And the son promised he'd do it. He promised the father, I'll
come in the flesh. I'll be made a man. I'll do what
my people cannot do. I'll obey the law for them. My
people are sinful people, but I love them. I'll sacrifice myself
for them to put their sin away. He promised the father that he
would do that. Now he's come to do it. He's
the Nazarite. He's that prophet come to save
his people from their sin. Now, in a short 11 verses, I
mean, like I told you, the whole Bible's written to tell us who
Christ is, but in a short 11 verses, that's who he is. And that's why I said this is
the most important question we can ask. Who is this? And it is my prayer that week
after week as we open and read and study God's word, the Spirit
will be pleased to reveal him to us so that we'll trust him. If we know him, We'll trust him,
won't we? All right, Lord bless you.