THE MAIN IDEA – Our salvation is found in Christ alone and Him crucified. People tend to look at Jesus on their own terms, but there are three things we must get right. 

JESUS CAME TO SAVE US FROM SIN – The crowds were praising Jesus because they  believed that He was coming as the Messiah who would save them from the oppression of the  Roman Empire through military might. But Jesus came to save the Jews from the power of sin not from the oppression of the Roman empire. In the same way, Jesus did not come to save us  from the sin of this world but from the power of sin over us. We are powerless over the power of  sin. And that’s terrible news because sin is the source of all the bad that is in this world. But the brokenness in this world is not the problem. The ultimate problem of sin is that this world is on  an express train to hell—eternal separation from God. But Jesus came to take the full wrath of  God on the cross on our behalf and in our place for the atonement of the sin of the whole world. And those who receive this gift of His sacrifice and decide to follow Jesus as Savior and Lord,  may exit the express train to hell and gain free entry into the kingdom of God, eternal life in  intimate, loving fellowship with God—no more brokenness, no more death, no more sin. 

JESUS CAME TO BRING US PEACE – To come in the name of the Lord means to come as a  representative of God and to set forth the purposes of God. The crowd said the right words but  did not know what they meant. Jesus is not merely a representative of God but the image of God  and the exact representation of His being (Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:3). Revealing the Father  to us is one of the main reasons that Jesus came (John 14:7). Jesus rode the colt to fulfill  prophecy (Zechariah 9:9-10) and to let everyone know He is the Messiah, but the crowd missed  the symbolism of the colt. Jesus revealed that (1) the Father is gentle and patient with us (also,  Exodus 34:6-7), and (2) our Father God is the God of peace, not a god of war. And the Father  wants peace because He wants all people to be saved (1 Timothy 2:1-4). That is because during  wartime, our preoccupation must be war. But during peacetime, our preoccupation must be  Christ so that we may bear witness to the Prince of Peace. 

JESUS CAME TO TEACH US SURRENDER – The crowd was praising Jesus in the highest  heaven because they were expecting Him to end the Roman occupation with violence. They were  not praising Jesus for what He actually came to do—to surrender to the will of the Father. By  surrendering to the will of the Father, Jesus was surrendering Himself into the hands of sinful  people, and every single one of them petty, full of pride and arrogance and insecurity, chasing  after the things of the world but knowing nothing about the purpose of God or the love of God. Surely, such injustice contributed to why Jesus agonized so much in the Garden of Gethsemane.  Of course, we’re not Jesus Christ, but no one is asking any of us to suffer the full wrath of God  to pay for the sin of all of humanity. Only the Son of God could do that. But He did tell us that  his disciples must take up their cross and follow Him. Jesus is not telling us that being His  disciple means being a martyr but that we have to surrender our own lives over to the purposes of  God and take the yoke of Jesus Christ upon ourselves. When we surrender ourselves to the yoke  of Christ Jesus, we will go where He goes and plow the fields that He plows. But in being yoked  with Christ, we find rest. 

DISCUSSION QUESTION: Is there anything you do that requires a decent amount of effort but you find  “rest” in doing. What do you enjoy about that activity?