The Humble Savior Who Came

This episode contains portions from the following programs:

"The Gospel and Our Longings"

"The Savior Who Loves You"

"The Root of Every Virtue: The Humility of Christ"

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Dannah Gresh: Has anyone ever broken a promise they made to you? It hurts, doesn’t it? Maybe you’ve told someone you’d do something, and then you forgot, or you changed your mind. You dashed someone else’s hopes.

Well, whether you’re on the receiving end or the giving end of the pain of a broken promise, I’m here to tell you this: God always keeps His word. Always. There’s great comfort in knowing that.

Hi, I’m Dannah Gresh, and you’re listening to Revive Our Hearts Weekend. I’m so glad to have you along.

The Bible is chock full of promises God has made to us. Some are comforting, like “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” Some are sober warnings, like “the soul that sins shall die.” Many of God’s promises were fulfilled beautifully in Jesus. Some prophecies have yet to be fulfilled. 

Today I want to zoom in on one particular prophecy God gave to Zechariah in the Old Testament. It’s Zechariah chapter 9, verse 9. 

Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!
Shout in triumph, Daughter Jerusalem!
Look, your King is coming to you;
he is righteous and has salvation,
humble and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

That prophecy goes along with what we celebrate this weekend in the church calendar. It’s sometimes called Palm Sunday, or the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. 

Matthew and John both quote this verse from Zechariah when they’re telling the story. 

I want to zoom in on a few phrases from this prophecy: 

• First, the part that says “your King is coming to you.”
• Next, the description of Jesus as “righteous and having salvation.”
• And finally, the fact that He is humble. Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth will share about the humility of Christ.

So, number one: Christ came. 

Let that soak in. It’s not just that He came into Jerusalem—He did that. But think back to what we celebrate every year at Christmas. He came to be one of us. Here’s counselor and speaker Janet Aucoin meditating on that truth.

Janet Aucoin: Sometimes we’re just too used to the gospel, to our shame. We talk about Christ on the cross, and we go, “Yeah, I know, I know. Yeah, that should do it for me, but it just kinda doesn’t anymore.”

We get so used to it, I think, in part because we have a pretty inflated view of ourselves. We know we’re not perfect. We know we need a Savior. But I can remember, and I would never have said this out loud, that I had a mentality early on in my Christian life that me and God were going to do this.

Here was my thinking: I want Him to be glad He picked me on His team because I’m going to do things. This makes it sound like, “Why wouldn’t He want to save me?” Well, if you really knew me, why would He want to save me? But I didn’t understand all of that then. I had a pretty inflated view of myself.

I don’t know that we understand how momentous it was for Jesus to come. I think it was in the book Knowing God where he said, “It’s amazing that the resurrection happened, the power of God on display at the resurrection, but it’s more surprising that He even came at all.”

That’s not really surprising that He has power over death. It’s amazing, but it’s not surprising. What should shock us: He came as a baby. He didn’t have to do that. But we think, Well, it was nice of Him.

So having little kids and always trying to find ways to help them understand stories, maybe it will help if we think about it a little differently. I’m going to stretch your imaginations a little bit.

I’m from Florida. We have a lot of beaches. I love walking along the beach. If you’re familiar at all with tides, if you’re out on low tide, there's a lot more beach, but it’s darker sand because there’s water underneath. And you know when high tide comes, that’s not going to be beach anymore. That’s going to be under water.

So when you’re walking along the beach at low tide, the harder sand is easier to walk on because it’s wet underneath. And you see a colony of ants building their little ant hill. They’re working really hard because they work very hard. Actually, they can put us to shame. So they’re working, and they’re making it. And here’s what you know: when the tide comes in, it’s gone. Demolished. And they’re all going to die. You know that. Now, what would you do? Okay, probably nothing. Right? Because who cares? It’s just ants. (laughter)

Let’s suppose, for whatever reason, you actually cared about those little ants, and you could tell them apart, and you decided to warn them. So you yell at them. They don’t care. You try to draw a line, telling them to, “Come this way.” They don’t care.

What’s it going to take for them to listen to you? What kind of love would it take for you to choose to become an ant? Because really, anybody could step on you. You’re risking everything to become an ant because you love them so much.

Let’s just say somehow you have that kind of love, and you do it, and you warn them. What would you expect? “Thank you? You didn’t have to do this. I can’t believe that you’d be willing to do this. I didn’t even know what that loud roar was. That was you talking? Oh, my word, I had no idea.” Some gratitude? And what if, instead, now that you have chosen to become an ant, they pick you up, torture your little ant body, and kill you?

That pales in comparison. I am cousins with an ant compared to the difference between me and God. But my brain can’t go much farther than an ant. I don’t know how to think a whole lot differently. So, for me, one of the biggest differences I can see is between me and a little ant. And I have to tell you, I would not choose to become one even if I knew they were all going to die. I don’t care.

And you know what we might even do? Kick the ant hill as you go by and watch them all scurry. Now, how unkind is that? But that’s what we’d probably do. Right? Because who cares?

We’re lower than ants. He is far higher than a human being, and He came as a baby. He didn’t even come as a thirty-year old man. He came as a baby, purposely. He lived the life we were supposed to live so He could do that in our place and fulfill the law because we couldn’t.

Wow! That’s amazing! Well, it should boggle your mind. When you see an ant when you leave here, you probably won’t even notice them. Right? You’re stepping on them all the time, you don’t even see them.

Shame on me that I am not blown away by that but say, “Do I know He cares?”

Dannah: That’s Janet Aucoin, speaking at a women’s conference. There’s such meaning and comfort in knowing that the King who rules the entire universe cared enough to come.

Here on Revive Our Hearts Weekend we’re looking at some of the phrases in Zechariah 9:9, which reads:

Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!
Shout in triumph, Daughter Jerusalem!
Look, your King is coming to you;
he is righteous and has salvation,
humble and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

The next thing we see is that our King is our righteous Savior. It says, “He is righteous and has salvation.” That’s why people were shouting “Hosanna!” quoting Psalm 118. “Save us, O Lord!” They wanted to be rescued. And Jesus did come to rescue His people from their sin. It was just a different kind of rescue than they thought they would get. 

Erika VanHaitsma explains.

Erika VanHaitsma: Think of a healthy marriage, in the intimacy between a husband and a wife, and you begin to get the picture that God wants with His people. God is a Lover who wants to dwell with His Beloved!

By the days of Jesus, it was commonly taught that the Deliverer—the Messiah—would come at another Passover. So every year, you can almost picture the Jewish people holding their breath as they’re waiting with anticipation: “Is this the year? Is this finally the time our God is going to send another Deliverer to set us free?”

They were thinking, during the days of Jesus, freedom from Romans, but Israel had a deeper problem than Rome! Even though it’s been generations since they have left Egypt, Egypt is still in them. There’s still that power of sin oppressing the nation . . . and no festival is able to remove it.

Israel was expecting the Messiah. They were not expecting Messiah to be God, nor were they expecting their Messiah to be another Passover Lamb. And now we come to that New Testament connection with Passover.

Did you know that hours before Jesus went to the cross He was with His disciples celebrating Passover? We call it the Last Supper, but actually it was the festival of Passover. And we today have a pretty good idea of what Jesus and the disciples were doing because the Jewish people have celebrated Passover in almost the same way for the last several thousands of years.

They were praising God for His redemption in Israel from Egypt. They were recounting the amazing signs and wonders God had done. During the Passover meal, Jesus would remind the disciples of God’s faithfulness, God’s love, God’s plan, and God’s promises.

But as you read through the gospels, you see Jesus pick up that Passover story and add a whole new level to it. He lets His disciples know: God is coming again, but this time it’s about to get a lot bigger! There’s a whole new depth and beauty to this story, because this time the enemy is a lot harder.

So, knowing that all this was coming, is it any wonder that in the Garden Jesus pleads with His Father, “Take this cup from Me. There has to be another way!” But knowing what was coming, “Not My will but Yours be done. So be it. I’m willing” (see Matt. 26:39).

How? How is Jesus able to say this? It’s not in His divinity, because His divinity is not about to suffer. His humanity is what is about to break. It is His blood that is about to be poured out, so it is His human flesh—His physical-ness—that has to say “yes” to His Father.

How is He able to tell His Father—knowing all He is about to endure—“So be it. Yes.” I think partly because Jesus spent His whole life saying “yes” to His Father. In the little things, in the big things—His habit, His attitude, His mindset was “yes, yes, yes.” So when that moment—that trial—came, He was already conditioned. “Yes.” He said, “Yes.”

But another reason I believe Jesus was able to say “yes” was because He had just celebrated the Passover. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the last supper Jesus ate with His disciples was the festival of the Passover. God is way too detail-oriented for that.

Mere hours before the cross, Jesus has just spent hours recounting the covenant story, the Exodus. He spent the time singing through very appropriate psalms. He knows this has been His Father’s plan from the beginning.

During the festival of Passover, Jesus was reminded of the amazing love of His Father for these people, the amazing works of His Father for their redemption. He’s reminded how the Lover came once, bounding over the mountains, tearing heaven and earth to get to the one He loves. And now it’s time to do it again.

In the Passover meal, His spirit was fortified, His humanity was reminded. So now He’s able to say in the Garden, “Not My will but Yours be done.” In other words, “This is the moment everything changes! This is the moment we've been waiting for. This is what we’ve been working for, for thousands of years, Father. It’s time to do it again. This is the fulfillment of those promises we made way back to Abraham. Let’s do it.”

The Lover is coming once again, bounding over the mountains, leaping over the hills! “Look, my Beloved, there He stands!” But now my Beloved is covered with shame . . . and dripping with blood. Now, His body is torn, His heart has been turned to wax, His bones are out of joint.

All men mock and shame my Beloved! But there He is, high and lifted up, filled with faithfulness to His Father and love for you!

Dannah: That’s Erika VanHaitsma, speaking about our King who came and conquered by giving His life. What a powerful concept. And what an amazing fulfillment of the promise God had made hundreds of years before, through the prophet Zechariah. 

Our King came.

Our King is righteous and with salvation,

And third, Zechariah tells us our King shows us absolute humility. When He rode into Jerusalem, He rode on a donkey! 

Here’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, with more about the humility of Jesus.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: The Incarnation—Christ stooping down. It’s a demonstration of His humility, but the humility of Christ was not just demonstrated when He was born as a baby in Bethlehem. It was demonstrated all through His life and ministry here on earth.

Now, at a human level, Jesus had much of which He could have boasted—His background, His gifts, His abilities, His knowledge, His inheritance, His royal heritage, and on and on. Yet, the Scripture says—and He says of Himself—that He was “lowly in spirit.” (Isn’t it ironic, by the way, that we who have nothing in which to boast or glory should proudly exalt ourselves? It’s so backwards!)

So how did Jesus demonstrate humility during His life and ministry here on earth? Well, the Scripture says He did not seek honor or praise from men, but only from God.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus says, “I do not receive glory from people” (5:41); “I do not seek my own glory” (8:50). When we seek glory or praise from men, we’re demonstrating a proud heart. But Jesus had a humble heart. He said, “I don’t seek My own glory. I don’t seek praise from men.”

We see His humility in the fact that He was totally dependent on His heavenly Father—not independent, but dependent.

John chapter 5, Jesus said, “The Son can do nothing of his own accord” (v. 19). “I can do nothing on my own” (v. 30).

John 8: “I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me” (v. 28). By the way, that humble dependence on His Father was seen nowhere more clearly than in His prayer life. We’ll talk about that in an upcoming session.

His humility was seen in His serving.He always sought the best interests of others. He placed their needs above His own well-being. We see Jesus coming to the disciples after they had just had a side argument about which of them was greatest, and then they come in for dinner, and what does Jesus do? He takes the lowly place of a bondservant—a slave—and He washes the disciples’ feet. He stoops to serve the servants. His humility was seen in His serving.

His humility is seen in what we call His Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, which we’ll be celebrating a couple of weeks from now on Palm Sunday. That Triumphal Entry fulfilled the words that the prophet Zechariah said, “Behold, your king is coming to you, [how?] humble, and mounted on a donkey" (9:9). Warrior kings, when they would ride into town, they would come in on a horse. If a king came in on a donkey, that was a sign of peace, not war.

The Jews of that day expected the Messiah to come as a conquering warrior, but He came instead as a humble King on a mission of peace. Because He didn’t fit their expectation of what a conquering king should look like, they rejected Him. They missed Him. It was His humility that caused them to miss Him.

His humility was not only seen in His serving and in His humble entry into Jerusalem, but it was seen in His suffering, His response to insults and to injury as throughout His life and then even more so toward the end of His earthly life, the Passion of Christ, as we’re going to be studying it over these next few weeks, He was maligned. His character was slandered. He was accused of being demon-possessed, a drunkard, a glutton, crazy.

I can only say that my instinct, under those circumstances, likely would be to defend myself, to defend my reputation, to resent those who misunderstand or criticize me, to retaliate by criticizing them in return. But Christ did none of those things. Instead, He humbled Himself.

Then His humility is seen not in all those aspects of His life here on earth, but His humility is seen ultimately in His death. What does Philippians 2 say? “He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death” (v. 8). We see that humility as He takes His final breath, and He says, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46)—a humble submission of Himself to His Father.

His humility is seen in that absolute submission to the will of His Father. All through His life, in coming to this earth, in the life He lived here on this earth, in His suffering, His passion, His death—submission to the will of the Father. It’s an expression of humility, His humble, lowly heart.

Dannah: We serve a King who not only came, who not only came to save us, but who is humble. That’s a powerful reminder from Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.

Remember that, as you meditate on the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem this weekend. We see the gospel in that one prophecy of Zechariah 9:9. He came. He was victorious. And He’s humble. So what should our response be? Well, that’s also in Zechariah 9:9: “Rejoice greatly!” That's our response.

I hope you’ll do that today. Right now. Rejoice. Greatly! God kept His promise. Jesus came. He conquered sin and death. He’s humble. Aren’t you glad He came, not to be served, but to serve and give His life as a ransom for many?!

Hey, I wanted to let you know that Nancy wrote the book Incomparable to examine many aspects of the life of Jesus, including His humility. You can find more information on how you can get a copy when you go to ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend, and select today’s program, on "The Humble King Who Came." Tammy will put a link there for you about Nancy’s book Incomparable: 50 Days with Jesus.

Next weekend we’ll be praising God for raising Jesus from the grave. Have a wonderful Holy Week, preparing your heart to remember Jesus’ death on the cross and His glorious resurrection.

Thanks for listening today. I’m Dannah Gresh. We’ll see you next time for Revive Our Hearts Weekend.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

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