This guest blog post draws directly from Charles Scheffe's sermon “7 Days: Triumphal Entry” so you can keep engaging with the message all week. Read, reflect, and share it with your small group or friends.
Don't Fill in the Fine Print: What Palm Sunday Really Reveals About the King We Want vs. the King We Need
Meta Description: Pastor Charles opened our eyes to a stunning truth about Palm Sunday—the crowd had the right titles, the right songs, but the wrong expectations. Sound familiar?
There are moments in a sermon when the room gets quiet in a particular way—not because nothing is happening, but because something is landing deeply. That happened this past Sunday when Pastor Charles opened our new series walking through the last seven days of Jesus's life on earth. Beginning with Palm Sunday, he delivered a message that was equal parts historically rich, theologically sharp, and uncomfortably personal.
If you were there, you know exactly what I mean. If you missed it, keep reading—because this one is worth your time.
Setting the Scene: A City on the Edge
Pastor Charles has a remarkable gift for transporting a congregation into the world of scripture, and he did exactly that as he opened Matthew 21:1-11:
"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. If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, "The Lord needs 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 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 crowds said, 'This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.'"
He helped us picture Jerusalem swelling from its normal population of 25,000 to somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000 people during Passover week—Roman soldiers stationed throughout the city, Jewish pilgrims who had traveled weeks to get there, and a buzzing crowd that had been whispering about a miracle-working rabbi named Jesus. Then the word spreads: He's coming. Right now.
"The whole city was stirred up," Pastor Charles said with a grin. "Yeah. I bet it was."
Everything Was Pointing to a King
What made this Sunday's teaching so compelling was the way Pastor Charles methodically unpacked just how loaded this moment truly was. Nothing about the triumphal entry was accidental.
The Mount of Olives carried deep messianic significance. Zechariah 14 says that when the day of the Lord comes, he would set his feet on the Mount of Olives. Ezekiel 11 and 43 speak of God's glory departing east from the temple—and then returning from that same eastern mountain. Jesus approached Jerusalem from exactly that direction, overlooking the temple, headed straight for the heart of the city.
The donkey was a deliberate fulfillment of Zechariah 9:9: "Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey." It also echoed the moment when David placed Solomon on a donkey to ride into Jerusalem, publicly declaring him the next king.
The palm branches, as Pastor Charles pointed out, were not a random decorating choice. The only gospel writer to specifically mention palm branches is John—and intentionally so. In the Second Temple period, palm branches were symbols of national victory and liberation. They were used when the Maccabees reclaimed the temple from foreign oppressors. They were stamped on coins during the Jewish revolt. They also connected to the Feast of Tabernacles—a celebration of God dwelling with his people.
The song they sang came directly from Psalm 118, part of the Hallel (Psalms 113-118), sung every year at Passover. Pastor Charles walked us through verses 25-26:
"Save us, we pray, O Lord! O Lord, we pray, give us success! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!"
"Hosanna," he explained, literally means save now. It's exodus language. Rescue language. The language of a people longing to be set free.
Right timing. Right location. Right symbolism. Right song. Every dot was connecting to one unmistakable conclusion: the Messiah-King had arrived.
The Crash: Right Cover, Wrong Chapters
Here's where Pastor Charles's teaching cut deepest.
When the city asked "Who is this?", the crowd's answer quietly shifted. A moment earlier they were shouting Son of David—a messianic title, a royal declaration. But when pressed, they answered: "This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee."
"They weren't wrong that Jesus was a prophet," Pastor Charles said carefully. "But they shrunk back down. Not heresy—but a lot safer." Prophets speak for God. Kings rule for God. The crowd was singing king, but they answered prophet. And he suggested that the shift may have been as much about self-preservation as theology—because in a city full of Roman soldiers, calling someone a king was genuinely dangerous.
But the deeper issue wasn't political caution. It was misplaced expectation.
"They read the cover correctly—King," Pastor Charles said. "But they filled in all the chapters with their own details."
They shouted Hosanna—and meant God, save us from Rome. Jesus meant I'm saving you from your sin. They sang about deliverance and meant political freedom. Jesus meant dying in their place as the sacrificial lamb. When they said Son of David, they imagined a throne and an army. Jesus had a cross and surrender in mind.
Luke 19 tells us that Jesus, drawing near to the city, wept. Pastor Charles quoted the passage with evident tenderness:
"Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace!"
"He wept," Pastor Charles said quietly, "not because they were loud. But because they were so close—and yet they missed it. Not from stupidity. Not from lack of evidence. They missed it because of misplaced expectation."
Maybe We're Not Just Talking About Them
This is the moment the message turned a corner and became deeply personal.
Pastor Charles challenged us to consider whether we do the same thing. We sing Jesus, you're king of my heart on Sunday morning and then quietly fill in our own fine print the rest of the week. We welcome him to fix our circumstances but pull back the moment he confronts our sin. We shout hosanna and then, when pressed, quietly demote him from King to prophet—because kings make demands, and we'd rather keep certain rooms locked.
He offered a pointed diagnostic: "If your Jesus never disagrees with you, if your Jesus always votes like you do, if your Jesus never confronts your habits, and if your Jesus only comforts and never corrects—you've got AI Jesus. Not the real Jesus."
It landed exactly as hard as it was meant to.
Three Practical Ways to Make Jesus King This Week
Pastor Charles never leaves us without a path forward, and he closed with three honest, actionable challenges:
Surrender your agenda before you open your phone each morning. Start the day by saying, "Jesus, you are king today—not me."
Read the Bible this week and don't edit it. When scripture confronts something in your life, resist the urge to reinterpret it into something more comfortable. Obey first.
Identify one area you've been protecting from Jesus. The closet with the skeletons. The room you've kept locked. Hand him the keys—because kings get all the keys.
A Series Worth Following
This Sunday was just the beginning. Over the coming weeks, Pastor Charles will walk us through the final seven days of Jesus's life—from Palm Sunday through Good Friday, with Easter Sunday waiting on the other side. His hope, stated plainly at the outset, is that by the time we arrive at Easter, it won't feel routine. It will feel like something we've been building toward together—and we'll celebrate with everything we have.
If you missed Sunday's message, watch the full sermon on our YouTube channel—it's well worth an hour of your week. And if it resonates with you, share it with someone who needs to hear it.
Palm Sunday is all about the kind of king Jesus actually is. The only question left—as Pastor Charles reminded us—is whether we'll let him be that kind of king in us.
Don't miss the next message in this series. Join us Sunday and bring someone with you.
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