Sunday Sermon: The Triumphal Entry (Matthew 21:1-11)

Palm Sunday and the Triumphal Entry in Matthew 21

You are listening to the teaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday on this podcast, we feature 20 minutes of Bible study through a New Testament book.

On Thursday is a study in the Old Testament, and then we answer questions from the listeners on Friday. Each Sunday, we are pleased to share our sermon series. Here's Pastor Gabe.

Well, good morning. Please turn in your Bible to Matthew chapter 21. As today, we're going to be looking at Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Now, if we were continuing in our sermon series in the Sermon on the Mount, we would be in Matthew chapter 5 and looking at divorce and oaths this morning.

When it was about 10 o 'clock last night, I texted Raymond and said, hey, I'm changing my entire sermon. We're going to be doing a Palm Sunday service. And he said, okay, what does that mean for Jubilee and me?

And I said, well, nothing, I guess, unless you had picked praise songs that had to do with divorce and oaths. And he said, I don't think there's much of a market for praise songs about divorce. Touche.

So today, we're going to do a Palm Sunday service. If you have been with us for at least the last three or four years, then you'll know about this time of the year, we would be doing what we call our Passion Week.

And every evening leading up to Easter Sunday, from Palm Sunday to Easter, we would have a small service committed to studying the passage of Scripture that correlates with that particular day, what Jesus was doing in his earthly ministry leading up to his death on the cross.

And of course, his resurrection from the grave, as we have Easter Sunday coming up next week. But because of the pandemic and due to shelter-in-place orders, we knew that we weren't going to be able to have those services this coming week.

So I've decided that this morning, I'm going to do a Palm Sunday message. And on the podcast this coming week, all of those messages that we would have had in our services during the week, they're going to be on the podcast instead.

So be sure to look up www .tt .podbean .com, and I'll also have the message posted on the church Facebook page or the website. You can find them there as well. We begin this week, a week away from Easter.

Of course, looking at the triumphal entry on what we refer to as Palm Sunday. So we are in Matthew 21, and I'm going to be reading verses 1 through 11. Would you please stand in honor of the word of the King?

Matthew 21, starting in verse 1. Now, when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey and a colt with her.

Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, The Lord has need of them, and he will send them at once. This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying, Say to the daughter of Zion, Behold, your king is coming to you, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.

The disciples went and did just as Jesus had directed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them. Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.

And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest! And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, Who is this?

And the crowd said, This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee. Let us come to the Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, we rejoice to read this story this morning, even though for many of us it's something we've been reading about and hearing our entire lives.

From the time we were kids in Sunday school, we've been coloring pictures of the triumphal entry of Jesus coming into Jerusalem and people laying down palm branches, shouting, Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!

But as familiar as this story might be to us, I pray that we look at it this morning with fresh eyes and a heart that yearns for the things of Christ. That we might hear this wonderful story about the Messiah who has come, and it stirs in us a desire to see the return of Christ, who is coming again, not on a donkey's colt, but riding on a white horse, as described in the book of Revelation.

The King will return, and that is a day that we long with our whole heart to see. May we desire it so much that it awakens in us a yearning for holiness, to walk in holiness even as we are here still in this world.

Deliver us from temptation, protect us from despair. May we look upon you each day with hope, and it's in the name of our Lord Christ that we pray, and all God's people said, Amen. Thank you. You may be seated.

I was reading a story recently of a man who moved from Africa to the United States, and he settled down in Kansas City and opened up an electronics store. This is a kind of a store that we might remember Radio Shack as being, for those of you who remember Radio Shack.

He secured a little storefront property for himself in downtown Kansas City and opened up a business. This was just a couple of months ago. He was still getting his store in order, when one day he was trying to get to his place of business, and he was hindered by a massive crowd.

He had no idea where this crowd had come from, though he noticed most everybody was wearing red. But there was so many people, he couldn't even find a parking space. He had to park like a mile away. And then as he was walking back to his place of business, when he got to the crowd, he stopped somebody, and he said, What in the world is going on?

And the person in the crowd said to him, Well, we're having a parade for the chiefs. The man from Africa said, I didn't know that a chief was coming to town. What country is he from? And the person in the crowd laughed and said, No, no, no, no.

The Kansas City chiefs, they won the Super Bowl. And the man said, What is a Super Bowl? Now, this story sounds kind of astounding to us, considering how connected we are with the world today. We're up on current events happening worldwide, or even here in our own community.

How could a person live in Kansas City and not know about the Kansas City chiefs, or that they had even won the Super Bowl just a few days before? So it might be astonishing to us to look at this story here in Matthew 21 and see that though there were crowds who were shouting, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, yet there were so many in verse 10 who did not know who he was.

When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up and saying, Who is this? Really? They didn't know Jesus? They had not heard about the miracles? The man was healing the sick. He was raising the dead.

How could they not know who this was? We have to understand this in proper context. You've got to understand this, 2 ,000 years ago in Judea, nobody knew his face. Now, there were many who did know his face, but there were plenty of others who did not.

It's not like they had Facebook back then. They could just look it up and say, Oh, okay, Jesus of Nazareth. This is the guy that we're talking about. They didn't know his face, but they most certainly knew his name.

And that's why when the people said, Who is this? The crowds responded, This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee. Oh, they knew that name. The people who loved him and the people who hated him knew that name.

Remember that when Judas turned Jesus over to the scribes and the Pharisees, to the priests in the temple, when he turned him over, Judas said, The one I kiss is the man. It wasn't like faces were just automatically known back then.

There wasn't a little thing you could look up with photographs and see a lineup of different people. It wasn't like they were sending out their police to arrest this guy and they knew exactly who they were looking for.

So there had to be a sign as to who it was Judas was saying, This is the man. The one I kiss is the man. So the people didn't know him by his appearance, but they knew him by his name. And we are even told in Philippians chapter 2 that his name is the name that is above all names.

And at that name, every knee will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. So my friends, you will bow the knee now or you will bow the knee later, but you will most definitely bow the knee.

Here the people were proclaiming Jesus' entry into Jerusalem as the King who has come. Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. The story of the triumphal entry, this story that marks the holiday that we have marked on our calendar or the Sunday of significance that we call Palm Sunday.

We find this story of the triumphal entry in all four Gospels. Here in Matthew 21, also in Mark 11, Luke 19, and in John 12. Now since we're in a current study of the book of Matthew, it is this book that I chose to be the version of the triumphal entry that we would be studying for this morning, but I will be making references from the other three accounts as well.

So let's come here to Matthew chapter 21 starting in verse 1 where it says, Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples saying to them, go into the village in front of you and immediately you will find a donkey tied and a colt with her, untie them and bring them to me.

Now in this time from the triumphal entry all the way up to Jesus' arrest and his crucifixion, which of course will happen on Friday, Jesus was staying in Bethany, which was two miles from Jerusalem. You would go out of Jerusalem over the Mount of Olives and Bethany was on the other side.

The triumphal entry begins on the Mount of Olives. Oftentimes we think of this as when Jesus came into the city on the donkey's colt, he's coming in like through the city gates. So the people are just there.

They're lining the streets as though some announcement had been sent out. Jesus is coming, right? So hey, let's everybody have a parade. This is the day that the Messiah is coming. So let's all line the streets and we don't know who this is going to be, but whoever it is that comes through those gates on the donkey, this is the guy that we're supposed to be celebrating.

It's the one that Zachariah had prophesied that we read about in the Old Testament. Here he comes. So here's the day, here's the time. Let's all get together. It's not the way that went. See, the people were celebrating Jesus because he had just raised Lazarus from the dead.

How do we know that? Well, of course, we get that from the Gospel of John. It says in John 12, 17, the crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness.

So they were now saying Jesus raised a man from the dead who had been four days dead in a tomb. Now, that's actually significant. We don't really think about that a whole lot, four days dead in a tomb.

But four days was considered to be the amount of time that had to pass before the spirit of a person had truly completely left their body. And so when Jesus, in John 11, when he came to the place where Lazarus had been buried and he said, roll away the stone, the people were like, hey, it's been four days.

This man stinketh. You want to open up this tomb and tell him to rise from the dead? His spirit's not even with him anymore. That's what it was that the people were thinking. That's why they told him that.

And so that's what made the miracle all the more incredible that four days after his death, Jesus raised him from the dead. We had seen Jesus raise the dead prior to Lazarus. There were others who had gotten sick and died and Jesus raised them to life, but no one who had been sick and dead for that long.

No one who had died four days before. Jesus did this miracle and the people were praising him for it. And there were many others who had seen miracles that Jesus had done. Many others who were sick, who had been cured by Jesus.

So when the word goes far and wide about what he had done for Lazarus, there was a Lazarus, I'm sorry, there were plenty of people who were ready to join in, in this procession, celebrating Jesus as the King who is come.

This is the Messiah that we have been looking for. Even in John 6, long before we get to the triumphal entry, because of the things Jesus was doing, there were people who were ready to crown him King.

But it says there in John 6 that Jesus just kind of quietly pulled himself away from them and went off by himself because he knew what it was that was stirring in their hearts. The time had not yet come.

It had not yet come for him to be announced as the King. So he just quietly withdrew from them. But here it is, in fulfillment of the prophecies, this is exactly the time that the Messiah was to come and be announced, just as Zechariah says it.

Say to the daughter of Zion, behold, your King is coming to you, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden. Now, this is another way that we might misunderstand or misinterpret the arrival of Jesus into Jerusalem in the triumphal entry.

Oftentimes, we picture him on a single donkey coming into the town and the people shouting, Hosanna, Hosanna. But he was riding on a donkey's colt. And the colt was with the mother. So there were two donkeys there, not just the one.

And Jesus is riding on the colt, which had never been ridden by anyone else before. So Jesus riding on the smaller of the two with the mother right there next to the colt as he came into the city. Down the Mount of Olives and into the city.

This procession began way up on the Mount of Olives because, again, they were coming from Bethany. The disciples meet him with the colt. They're going down the Mount of Olives with the people shouting these praises and coming into Jerusalem this way and then stirring up the crowds with all of the commotion that was going on.

So there was more than one animal there. There were two animals, and Jesus is riding on the smaller of the two. When I was looking up artwork, people painting an illustration of what they think the triumphal entry looked like, I don't know that I ever really found an accurate artistic representation of how this may have appeared.

The closest that I saw was Jesus sitting on a donkey with a colt riding alongside, but in that case he's riding on the wrong animal. He wasn't on the larger of the two animals. He was on the smaller of the two, on the colt.

So this is an animal that had never been ridden by anyone else before. It had never had another rider. Jesus was the first to ride on this small animal. He says, go into the village in front of you. This is prophetic for Jesus to tell his disciples this.

Immediately you will find a donkey tied and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. Verse 3, if anyone says anything to you, you shall say, the Lord needs them and he will send them at once.

Now the interpretation of that, Matthew 21, 3, the part where it says, and he will send them at once, is a little bit confusing, but I think Mark 11, 3 kind of clears it up for us a little bit. It says there, if anyone says to you, why are you doing this?

Say, the Lord has need of it and will send it back. So where it says, if anyone says anything to you, you shall say, the Lord needs them and he will send them at once. That probably means the Lord will send them back at once.

So Jesus wasn't keeping these animals. He was going to ride on the donkey's colt, but they didn't belong to him. He was going to return the animals. But this was all very prophetic for Jesus to say this to the disciples and them to find the animals exactly as he said, and for the owners of those animals to say, sure, take them.

No one's ever ridden this colt before, but that was the point. This was an animal that was pure, had never been ridden by anyone else. Jesus would be the first. And we see other occasions in the scriptures where this is the way that an animal is supposed to be presented as holy, as pure, that it has never been ridden before or never been yoked to anything before.

In Numbers chapter 19, we read about laws concerning purification. And in verse 2, it says, This animal's not even been applied for work before. This is an animal that is one of a kind, that is pure for this ritual of purification.

We have in Deuteronomy 21 .3, we're learning if a person is slain, but his murderer is never found. Like out on a road somewhere in the wilderness, they find a dead body, but whoever killed this person is never found.

Here is what you're supposed to do when it comes to atonement for unsolved murders. Deuteronomy 21 .3, The elders of the city that is nearest to the slain shall take a heifer that has never been worked and that has not yet pulled in a yoke.

So this had to do with the purity of the animal that was to be sacrificed. And so this animal that was going to be used to present the coming king into Jerusalem was going to be an animal that no one else had ridden before.

This was the purity of this creature for the king who was arriving, the king of kings, who was even going to present himself as a sacrifice, as a spotless lamb for our sins, who was going to die on the cross for his people, redeeming us from all lawlessness, purifying for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good works, as it says in Titus 2 .14.

This, of course, is going to happen days later on Friday. But in fulfillment of these prophecies, like in Zechariah 9 .9, where it says there, Why humble? Why is it announcing humility there? When the king came on a donkey, it was an announcement of peace.

But when a king came on a horse, it was an announcement of war. We have occasions in the Old Testament where we see kings riding on donkeys. This was an announcement of coming in peace. It really was like the limousine for a king.

We don't really have such a high standard for donkeys or mules these days. We tend to think of them as stupid and stubborn animals. That tends to be our mentality of the donkey these days. But a donkey was a very, very prized animal in ancient Israel, even a thousand years before Christ.

King David owned himself a donkey. And when Solomon was presented as the king who would follow David, he was put on David's donkey and ridden into the city as the people would shout his praises coming into the city.

This is our new king. And so Jesus was presented this same way, riding on a donkey, even a donkey's colt, an animal that had never been ridden before. So even more humble than riding on a donkey is riding on the colt of a donkey, a symbolization even of purity.

Donkeys are also the only unclean animal in the Old Testament that is talked about as needing to be consecrated. In Exodus 13 and 34, "...all that open the womb are mine, all your male livestock, the firstborn of cow and sheep," those were clean animals, "...the firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it, you shall break its neck.

All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem, and none shall appear before me empty-handed.". So it's kind of interesting to note there that the donkey is the only unclean animal that's mentioned as needing to be consecrated because it was an animal that the Lord was going to use to present his son to the people as the king who was prophesied, the king who had come.

Dr. Merrill C. Tinney says this about the triumphal entry, "...the impression is gained that Jesus was deliberately presenting himself in such a way that his royal claims would be manifest and Israel brought to a place of decision.

Yet, for all the acclamation, he was not such a Messiah as they desired.". See, the people were thinking that Jesus coming was like he was the next David. He was the one who was going to bring Israel back to the greatness it had under Solomon.

He is going to come into Jerusalem, he's going to go into the palace, and he's going to assume his place on the throne. That's his throne. That's David's throne. And Jesus is the descendant of David. The people knew that.

The Pharisees even knew that. They didn't even challenge that. They knew he was of the line of David. So, from the tribe of Judah, Jesus comes in, he's going to go to the palace, he's going to sit down, and he's going to free Israel.

They're going to be freed from the tyranny of Rome? Israel's going to become that great nation once again, that nation that we once were. Jesus is that Messiah who's going to make us that great. That's the kind of king that they were expecting.

It's not the kind of king they got. For God's ways are higher than man's ways. And what God was giving to them was even so much greater than an earthly king. He was giving them a heavenly king. That by faith in Jesus, we become fellow heirs of that heavenly kingdom.

And it did not come in power at this time. Not the kind of power the people were looking for. It came in humility. Jesus coming in humility on a donkey's colt. But a day is coming in which the kingdom of heaven is going to come in such great power that the world and all of creation has never seen before.

We'll talk about that here in just a moment. We continue on from beyond the prophecy, verse 6. The disciples went and did just as Jesus directed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them.

Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, Hosanna to the son of David.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. Again, they're expecting this guy to be, this is the next David. He is going to be a warrior king. He's going to free us from tyranny and make Israel a superpower again.

And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, Who is this? And the crowd said, This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee. Oh, that's him. I've heard about this guy. I've heard about the miracles that he's done, the dead he has raised, the sick he has healed.

They're ready for him to assume his place on the throne of Israel and rule even over all the nations. That had been prophesied in the Old Testament. Of course it had been prophesied there. That's what the people were expecting.

A literal king sitting on a literal throne in Israel, literally making them great again. Now, when Matthew tells this story, he's got a reason why he goes where he goes next. So in Matthew 21, 12, if we were to keep reading, Jesus entered where?

Not the palace. Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who bought and sold in the temple. He overturned the tables, the money changers, the seats of those who sold pigeons, and he said to them, It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you've made it into a den of robbers.

You know that story, right? Jesus cleansing the temple. Well, it looks like here in Matthew that this happens on the same day that Jesus rides into Jerusalem to the shouts and praises of the people. But according to Mark's gospel, this actually happens on the next day.

Jesus comes in and he looks around in the temple, but then he goes back to Bethany and he comes back the next day on Monday, and that's when he cleanses the temple and drives everybody out. Why doesn't Matthew mention that?

Why doesn't he mention that there's a break between Jesus riding in and his going into the temple? Well, because of the story that Matthew is telling. And this goes very well with what we've been talking about in our study of the Sermon on the Mount, in our study of the book of Matthew, even all the way up to Matthew 5.

Remember what we've been reading. Jesus announcing the coming of the kingdom. It's the way he began his ministry in Matthew. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And the Sermon on the Mount begins with Jesus saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

In fact, he says that twice in the Beatitudes. Theirs will be the kingdom of heaven. He is talking about a kingdom. And then he starts talking about the laws of that kingdom, the law that God has given for the people of God, and how the Pharisees had messed it up.

But Jesus had not come to abolish that law, but to fulfill it. All of these things that are pointing to the heavenly kingdom of God and Christ being that king who has come. So that's the story that Matthew is telling about the kingdom of God that has come, the kingdom of heaven that is at hand.

So therefore, as Matthew is telling this story, Jesus coming into Jerusalem, being celebrated as a king, Matthew is sure to point out that Jesus goes to his house. Not the palace, but the place that was even greater than the palace.

The temple. And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables, the money changers, and the seats of those who sold pigeons. He purged it of those who were doing earthly things, ungodly things, not worshiping the Father, but rather glorifying in themselves.

Jesus cleansed his house. He put his house in order. As it says in John chapter 2, zeal for your house has consumed me. And so for Matthew to tell that story about the coming king going to his house, that's why he goes immediately to the cleansing of the temple.

It's not that Matthew's telling a different story than Mark. It's just he's got a reason for these events to happen so rapidly in succession to point out that Jesus is more than an earthly king. He is the heavenly king who has come.

Right now, our culture is in even somewhat of a tizzy over what is essential and what is not when it comes to these sanctions that are being put in place, these shelter-in-place orders, the shutting down of businesses or keeping other businesses open because of the threat of this pandemic.

There's this debate, this discussion going on as to what is an essential business and what is not. What is essential for us to have? What is not essential for us to have? And I've kind of been pulled into a little bit of that controversy online when I've been saying things like churches are essential.

As a matter of fact, the church is more essential than hospitals. And that has made people incredibly angry, mostly secular humanists. But that message is not for them. They've totally misunderstood exactly what it is that I'm saying because they're naturally-minded people.

And as it says in 1 Corinthians 2 .14, the naturally-minded man can't understand spiritual things for they are spiritually discerned. But this should not be shocking to us as believers, my brothers and sisters.

It should not be shocking to hear. The church is essential. The church is more essential than anything else on earth because it is the church that Christ has redeemed. Of course, we're talking about a people.

We're not talking about a building. But it is the church, the people of God, whom Christ has redeemed from all lawlessness and purified for Himself. And we who are the church, who are followers of Christ, are citizens of that kingdom that has come.

The kingdom of heaven that is at hand. We are citizens of that kingdom even now. And we are longing for the day when that kingdom comes to earth, when the king returns, not in peace, as we see here in the triumphal entry in Matthew 21, but he comes to make war against his enemies.

And that last enemy, according to 1 Corinthians 15, is death that he will destroy. And we will reign with him in his heavenly kingdom forever. This is the next return of Christ in Revelation 19. His first entry is here in Matthew 21.

Fast forward to Revelation 19 and that next return of Christ that we are looking for. Starting in verse 11,. Then I saw heaven opened, not the gates of a city, but heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, the one sitting on it, is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war.

His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. This is simply a way of stating he has no equal. No one can even comprehend the magnificence of this name that he alone holds, that the Father has given to him, to which every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that he is Lord.

He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is the Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on the white horse. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule with them.

He will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. My friends, it should stir us to cry out, victory in Jesus when we read this passage.

We have nothing to fear of this coming of Christ if we are in him. We celebrate. We rejoice his coming. We look forward to that day and proclaim his excellency, crown him with many crowns, the Lamb upon the throne.

This day is our hope. This day is our deliverance, the day that Christ returns. We have no hope in the present day. What this world has to offer us is nothing. It's perishing in disease right now. It's falling apart and wasting away.

There is no hope in this world. Our hope is only in Christ. And we look forward to a day that we'll be delivered from all of this into his perfect, imperishable kingdom. Going on to Revelation 21, 4. On that day and in that place, he will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more.

Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore for the former things have passed away. That's what we're looking forward to on that day as believers. But in the book of Zephaniah, that day is described as a day of wrath for the unbeliever.

So we have much to say to them, to warn them about the judgment that is to come so that they have this time to turn from their sin and place their faith in Jesus. You can't place your faith in a hospital.

You can't place your faith in a doctor. They may prolong your life, but they cannot save your soul. Only Jesus will save you from the judgment of God that is coming against all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men that has been revealed from heaven.

Where will you stand on that day? With Christ in victory or against him in perish? Shout his praises today. Hosanna, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. And you declare his praises today.

You will be with him on that day. And the people of God, when they shout, Salvation belongs to our God and unto the Lamb who sits upon the throne. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the word that we have read today, and I pray that it does stir in us a longing for the day of Christ that is coming.

That we not place any of our hope and trust in these days that we live here on this earth. The world has nothing to give to us. We see what's going on in the world today, how panic-stricken people are, how quarreling with one another they are, even in facing death, even in facing such uncertain times.

There is no kindness. There is no real generosity that is happening here that can save our souls. There are people that can show kindness for a little while, but it's nothing compared to the grace of God that's been given to us in your Son, Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for our sins.

What a great sacrifice that was. God demonstrating his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Let our hope be in that act, in that glory of Christ rising from the dead to the place of God in heaven, seated at his right hand.

And we look forward to that day when he comes back as a conquering king to destroy his enemies and deliver his own. Let us seek the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.