Key points
- 1
1If we place wrong expectations on Jesus and He doesn't meet them, we will conclude that God doesn't work — when the real problem is we invented a counterfeit Christ.
“He may not be the Jesus you want, but he's the Jesus we need”
- 2
2Jesus is a king who brings victory through humility — He rode in on a donkey, not a war horse, modeling that true winning in relationships and life comes through peace and humility, not power.
“They're saying praise God, Hosanna on Sunday, these same voices that are screaming out Hosanna are gonna be the same voices on Friday screaming out, crucify him”
A story from life
Pastor Hunter recalls a Monopoly game with his sister that ended with the board thrown against the wall, illustrating how using power to win leads to everyone losing
- 3
3Jesus is a king who brings joy through sorrow — like a shepherd who leads us through the valley, He does not route us around pain but walks us through it to healing and real joy.
“Jesus is a king who knows that only makes things worse. He wants to take us through. That conviction in your life, He wants to take you through that. He wants you to deal with it. He wants you to walk through it because there is healing on the other side”
A story from life
Pastor Ronnie on staff shares the story behind his buffalo tattoo — buffalo run toward storms rather than away from them — as a picture of moving through sorrow toward joy
- 4
4Jesus is a king who brings salvation through sacrifice, not strength — He entered Jerusalem as the perfect Passover Lamb, dying in our place so we could be saved by His sacrifice, not our effort.
- 5
5Our response to His sacrifice is to offer our lives as living sacrifices — surrendering ourselves to Jesus as Lord and Savior and living from His love rather than working to earn it.
“we live from God's love. We're not here to earn God's love, but we actually start with the fact that Jesus wanted us while we were still sinners, while we were still broken”
“Hosanna is this beautiful word that we can bring to our king. It's a word that says, God, save me in my hard times now. Would you save me? Hosanna, help me. At the very same time, Hosanna, praise you because I know you're gonna do it because you've done it before”
“Jesus may not be the king we want, but he's the king we need”
A story from life
Pastor Hunter shares about closing on a new house and recounts repeated encounters with a neighbor named Kevin who organized the communal dumpster, leading to an unexpected act of kindness
Application
Pastor Hunter calls us to honestly examine where we have built a counterfeit Jesus shaped around our own preferences — a king we expect to fix our circumstances, defeat our enemies, or confirm our comfort. The practical challenge is threefold: first, bring humility into the relationships where you have been trying to win through power; second, stop numbing or avoiding the pain in your life and instead run through it with Jesus, trusting that healing and joy are on the other side; third, stop trying to earn God's love through performance and instead receive the salvation Jesus purchased through His sacrifice — then offer your life back to Him as your Lord. For those taking that step for the first time, the invitation is open right now. For everyone, the next question is simply: where is Jesus asking you to sacrifice?
