Learning from Jesus Riding on a Donkey

One of the things that we need to learn in the church and always remember is this word in Isaiah 55 and verse 8 and 9. We must remember it always, always, always. Isaiah 55 verse 8, my thoughts are not your thoughts. In other words, what the Lord is saying is, my way of thinking is not the same as your way of thinking.

And the way you seek to do certain things is not the way I seek to do things. And in fact, the difference between your way and my way is not just a slight difference. It's the difference between heaven and earth.

That is how much our human way of thinking is different from God's way of thinking. So that's why we can't, if you come with a human cleverness to understand the Bible, you will not understand it. All the clever people in Jesus' time were the ones who killed him.

And the ignorant fishermen, they are the ones who found the truth. So God says, my way of thinking is not your way of thinking. So in the Old Testament, there was a prophecy, you know, concerning the crucifixion of Christ.

And it says here, Isaiah 52 verse 13, my servant will prosper. He will be high and lifted up and greatly exalted. But who has believed, Isaiah 53 verse 1, has believed our report.

Because this one was going to be high and lifted up does not come, verse 2, middle with stately form or majesty. And there was no appearance in him, verse 2, last part, that we should be attracted to him. That God, when he sent his son to earth, verse 3, was despised, forsaken of men.

And that is the message of Jesus riding on a donkey. Because all the kings on earth, always in those days, anyway, rode on horses. A horse is a dignified animal.

A donkey is a despised animal. And when there was an Old Testament prophecy about Jesus coming, that prophecy is quoted in Matthew 21. When Jesus came on this donkey, it says, this was Matthew 21, 4, it was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet, the verse 5, your daughter of Zion, that your king is coming, not riding on a horse, but mounted on a donkey, the beast of burden.

No king would ever ride on a donkey. It's shameful. And Jesus brought all that human glory and dignity down to the ground.

And there's nothing in that. It's good for us to ask ourselves, brothers and sisters, do we glory in anything human in us? If you glory in your cleverness, that's what the people of the world glory in. And if God used only clever people to preach his gospel or to serve him, that would be like he uses only horses.

No, he uses donkeys. Donkey is known. Throughout the world, people think of the donkey as a stupid, they say, as stupid as a donkey.

Well, Jesus says, that's the one I'm going to choose. So if you feel that you're not so educated and not so capable, not so gifted, not so smart, maybe not so handsome or good looking, and some girls can think, I'm not as pretty as some of these other girls. There's a lot of competition among girls for attractiveness.

And you know how women do so many things in order to make themselves more attractive. And I'm not saying we shouldn't be clean and attractive. But if God has given you features, which are not attractive, there are many people whom God has used.

I've heard that the Apostle Paul, I've read in history, it's not written in the Bible. But people who wrote history in those days wrote that the Apostle Paul was four feet 11 inches in height. You had to put the mic right down here to get him to speak.

And he was bald. And he had a hooked nose. And he had eyes that were always dripping with some type of pus.

You think this is the great Apostle? Doesn't look like that. If that man walked into a church building, then say, who's the guy who's come here? And that was the mightiest Apostle of the first century. In Galatians four, we read about how the Galatians, initially, they didn't, they despised him.

But it says here, in Galatians in chapter four, that when he preached to them, they saw this pus coming out of his eyes. And he says, I know Galatians 4.15. The middle, it says, I know that if possible, you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me. You know, they felt sorry for this man standing up there, a great Apostle with all this pus coming out of his eyes.

And some of those brothers felt, oh, I wish I could give him my eyes. He was a despised person. He wasn't very attractive.

And even though we read his letters, but he wasn't a very smart, capable, attractive type of person like a film star. I want you to turn to 1 Corinthians in chapter 12. Here it says, there are different members in our body.

Christ is the head, and each of us is a member in that body. Now, there are some members which are very, you know, presentable, you know, face and people's eyes and presentable parts. And there are other parts of our body which we hide.

We don't want to see people to see it. That's what it says here. In verse 23, 1223, those members of our body which are less honorable, we don't, but on them, we bestow more abundant honor.

And those which are less presentable, become much more presentable. So, you know, some parts of the body which we don't like other people to see are some of the most useful members in our body. And he says the body of Christ is like that.

That's the lesson of Jesus riding on a donkey. And you can say you've learned that lesson. If you can look at brothers and sisters in the church, who are not so smart, not so capable, and value them, they may never stand in the pulpit.

But if you can say Jesus has chosen, Jesus is in that person. I value that person because Christ lives in him. Paul says to the Corinthians, in 1 Corinthians 1. No, here, before we go there, 1 Corinthians 12.

He says, God, verse 24, last part, God has so composed the body that he gives more abundant honor to the member which lacked. It's amazing how God uses people with tremendous limitations. Some of you may have seen the video of a brother in Australia who was born without hands and legs.

Can you imagine being born without hands and legs, just the body, and how he got converted? And he's traveling the world preaching the gospel. They have to lift him up and make him put him on a table. There are people like that God is using.

And some of you know of that sister who once dived into a lake and hit her head and broke her neck and is paralyzed from that day for the rest of her life. Sister Joni Eareckson, 50 years, has been sitting in a wheelchair preaching the gospel. More used by God than many others who are so capable and smart and got so many abilities who can walk around.

All her life she's been in a wheelchair. I think in eternity you'll see how many people she brought to Christ and how many poor people she has helped with getting them wheelchairs and things like that. So don't think that anybody here is too weak or small or incapable of serving the Lord.

Anybody who has what the Bible calls, what the world calls, an inferiority complex. God says my ways are not your ways. The way I think of that person is not the way you think of that person.

It's not only in this church. If you ever see, you know, as I've often said, a lot of my work has been among the poorest people in India for 50 years. 40 years of those 50 years I worked with them.

The poorest villages, people who are so poor, they actually, some of them, I met one of them, told me like this. He believes that it's not the earth that goes around the sun. The sun goes around the earth.

Completely uneducated. He asked me whether I was one of those stupid people who believed that the earth goes around the sun because he believed it right that the sun goes around the earth. A believer.

I'm very happy to meet such people who we think he's got it all wrong, but he loves the Lord. What does it matter whether the sun goes around the earth or the earth goes around the sun? If you love Jesus and follow him, it doesn't make the slightest difference. So many things that we value people for their smartness, they're clever.

God doesn't use them. God uses little children. He said that children are the most important, most like God on earth are the little children.

So there's a great lesson to be learned from the donkey that God chooses those which are weak and not valued by the earth. He uses the example of parts of the body. And that is why when he was crucified also, nobody could believe how can this person, is this going to be the king of the world? Now there is a day coming.

We read in Revelation and chapter 19 with the same Jesus who rode on donkey. We read in Revelation 19 and verse 11. I saw the heaven opened and a white horse, beautiful white horse, and Jesus sitting on it called faithful and true with righteousness.

He judges and wages war. There is a day coming when he will come as a king today. But when he came first, he came as a servant.

Dear brothers and sisters, remember today is not the day for us to get honor in the world and to be known as kings and great people and honor even in the church or by anybody else. Today we follow Jesus who came on a donkey. All of us.

One day he'll come as a king on a horse. That day we can sit on horses. May God help us to remember that so that we will never despise a child of God because of his lack of culture or his ignorance or lack of education.

One. Secondly, if God uses us and people appreciate us and people say, oh brother, that was a great message you gave or something they appreciate you, it'll be as stupid as the donkey thinking, oh, these people are throwing quotes in honor of me. Here I am.

They're throwing quotes in front of me and praising me. What a stupid donkey that would be, thinking that they're praising him. They're not praising him.

They're praising the Lord who sat on him. So if people appreciate you, brother, sister, for anything, don't take that honor to yourself. That's as stupid as the donkey thinking all those people were praising it.

Remember it is because the Lord is in you that people appreciate you at all. Amen.