The Hardest Job - April 13, 2025

Today we're talking about uh Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem.

Uh we know this uh this Sunday because it's known as Palm Sunday, when they're uh they've cut off palm branches and they're singing and praising him and saying Hosanna, Hosanna.

Now I've titled this message The Hardest Job.

The hardest job.

And it's on purpose because Jesus knows what's gonna happen.

He knows.

They're gonna be singing and and and and expressing gratitude to him, and he appreciates it.

I believe the praise is sincere.

I believe it's a messianic prophecy that's fulfilled, right?

Like this is him, uh the son of David, the the Messiah that's come.

But Jesus also knows that it's going to be short-lived.

And on the same day that they're expressing all this joy and gladness, Jesus weeps and has tears and has sorrow because he knows they're going to reject him.

So I've titled this the hardest job because it's mixed emotions on what he's entering into do.

And uh, and so I hope this message is a blessing to you.

Let's pray.

Father, would you open up the word of God to us, open our understanding?

We want to understand the context, we want to understand you, the king of the text.

And we pray that you'd speak to us, open our understanding, please give us knowledge, understanding, and wisdom that we might know how to apply these truths to our life and to our followship and our discipleship unto you.

Bless this message, please, in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Turn your Bible to Mark chapter number 11.

Mark chapter number 11, we're going to look at several places, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, all four of what we call the got the harmony of the gospels.

And its accounts of Christ's ministry from different vantage points.

Well, in Mark chapter number 11, the Bible says in verse 1, and when they came to Jerusalem, unto Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, he sendeth forth two of his disciples and saith unto them, Go your way into the village over against you, and as soon as ye be entered into it, ye shall find a colt tied wherein never a man sat.

Loose him and bring him.

And if any man say unto you, Why do ye this?

Say ye that the Lord hath need of him, and straightway he will send him hither.

And they went their way and found the colt tied by the door without in a place where two ways met, and they loose him.

And a certain of them that stood there said unto them, What do ye loosing the colt?

And they said unto them, even as Jesus had commanded, and they let them go.

And they brought the colt to Jesus, and cast their garments on him, and he sat upon him, and many spread their garments in the way, and others cut down branches off the trees and strawed them in the way.

And they that went before, and they that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.

Blessed be the kingdom of our Father David that cometh in the name of the Lord.

Hosanna in the highest.

And Jesus entered into Jerusalem and into the temple.

And when he looked round about upon all things, and now the even tide was come, he went out unto Bethany with the twelve.

So we can see Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem.

But we must recognize it wasn't just for the earthly praise, but it was for the eternal purpose of God, that the Lamb of God would truly become the Lamb of God that would be slain on our behalf.

He enters in with full knowledge, full willingness, and full authority, knowing that this was his purpose.

The hour is drawing nigh that he would be raised up and he would be crucified.

And with great perception, he recognizes that they're singing his praises, but listen to this.

It's for the wrong reasons.

They think he's gonna overthrow the Roman government, they think he's gonna usher in the Messianic kingdom.

They think that, yes, finally, we're gonna overthrow the oppressors.

We've seen this Jesus.

He raises the dead, he heals the lame, he opens the eyes of the blind, he opens the mouth of the mutes.

Yes! Hosanna, the son of David, is come.

It's him.

But Jesus with his perception realizes that this would be short-lived.

And those same people in that area would reject him.

And instead of saying Hosanna, they would begin saying, Crucify him.

You see, Jesus is the Lamb of God, and we get to see his heart as he enters into the hardest week of his ministry.

And so if you're taking notes, number one, we see the purposeful procession.

He enters into Jerusalem.

They're singing, they're shouting.

It's a prophecy fulfilled from Zechariah 9:9.

Zechariah 9:9

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion.

Behold, thy king cometh unto thee lowly in riding upon an ass.

It's a prophecy that they would be saying, Hosanna, from Psalm 118, verses 25 and 26.

Psalms 118:25

Save now, Hosanna, send prosperity.

These are prophecies fulfilled.

But understand this as Jesus goes into Jerusalem, Jesus doesn't stumble into Jerusalem.

He sends for the donkey and enters into it intentionally.

Fulfilling the ancient prophecy.

He rides in not as a military general to conquer everybody, but as a humble messiah, choosing the path and paving the path for eternal peace.

You see, he came in to make reconciliation and ransom so that you and I could have peace with God.

He didn't come in for physical power.

See, they were praising him.

Hosanna, Hosanna.

They're thinking he's gonna do one thing, but he's knowing he's gonna do another.

And he's told his disciples all along.

How many of you have been there before?

You've been singing God's praises, you were excited about what God was doing, you got caught up in an emotional uh uh conundrum where you're just built up and inflamed.

Yes, yes, yes, only to find out Jesus didn't actually do what you thought he was gonna do.

It happens.

We get caught up into emotionalism.

We think he's gonna give us the new fancy job or the nice car, we're gonna get the raise or the promotion.

Hosanna! Come on, Jesus! And all of a sudden, instead of him building your kingdom and your life and what you want, all of a sudden he's going right to where it matters the most.

And he starts handling business in the spiritual realm.

See, a lot of times we go to God because we want the prosperity and the prestige and the reputation and all the physical circumstances, but I want to tell you this: God's way more interested in your spiritual walk than with your physical kingdom and your family and everything like that.

He wants to make sure your heart is right with him.

And so Jesus comes in and he's fully aware that this road leads to Calvary.

He is the Passover lamb entering into the city at just the right time.

Jesus was not a victim, he was a volunteer.

Our salvation is not accidental, it is the result of a sovereign and sacrificial Savior.

And if you and I are going to be like Jesus, we too must stop playing the victim.

We too must stop having pity parties.

We too must be like, Here am I, God, send me, send me.

It's not about my feelings and my emotions.

If there's a hard job, God, then please hear am I, send me.

If people sing my praises and then a moment later they hate my guts, I volunteer for you, Jesus.

And your sovereign will I will sacrifice as a privilege to your glory.

Oh, yes, this was no accident.

He knew that the moment was drawing nigh, all the way from John chapter 2, when his mother came to him and said, They have no wine.

John 2 · chapter mention

And the moment he did that first miracle, it was ticking for the moment of this hour.

That the Messiah, the miracle worker, would come into Jerusalem on this day, knowing full well what was about to happen.

So we see the purposeful procession, but then number two, write this down, we see the perceptive prediction.

You say, What did he do when he came in?

How did they react?

How did they respond?

This is why we've got to go line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, there a little.

This is why we let the context become king and we let the word of God speak to us.

We don't use eesegesis, we use exegesis.

We're looking for the Bible to speak to us.

Too many times we approach the Bible and how we want with our own mindset and read into things when we need to let the Bible be the Lord of our life and speak to us.

This is why we need a little here and there.

We need to get the full counsel, the full picture of the Word of God.

See, the devil has a way of just making you narcissistically myopic and only seeing one little portion.

But God has a way of opening the understanding and enlightening the eyes and giving you the full counsel of the word of God as you have a heart to study it.

And so look at Luke chapter number 19.

It's the same story of the triumphant entry, that Palm Sunday, with a little bit more commentary.

And in Luke 19, we see he enters in in verse 37.

And when he was come nigh, even now to the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and to praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen.

And isn't it good to praise God?

It is absolutely good to glorify him and to lift up holy hands and to give him the glory.

Oh, magnify the Lord with me.

I would have loved to have been there.

I would have loved to have been there.

And it says that they went with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen.

Let me remind you that good preaching is supposed to be loud, good praising is supposed to be loud.

Let the let the let the praises of God be in our mouth.

It should be loud.

Why?

Because our God is worthy of our utmost for his highest.

And we see that it says in 38, saying, Blessed be the king that cometh in the name of the Lord, peace in heaven and glory in the highest.

Now, do you understand?

Not everybody's going to be happy with your praise.

Not everybody's going to be happy with your preaching.

It says in 39, and some of the Pharisees from among the multitudes said unto the man unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples.

And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.

You know, there are some people that want to dampen your praise.

There's some people that want to put a wet blanket over your fervency for God.

But I want to remind you, do not let the Pharisees out there, do not let those religious people that think themselves to be something when they are nothing, stop you from praising God and glorifying God.

I'm reminded of several cases when David was bringing the ark in and he was singing and dancing before the Lord, and of course there were those haters that didn't like his praise, they didn't like him glorifying the Lord.

I'm reminded that God loves a zealous praiser.

I'm reminded when those two were having wicked relations inside the temple, inside of Israel, that who was that man that had zeal that came in and dealt with the issue?

Phineas was his name.

Because he enacted judgment and righteousness.

Oh, God loves it when we zealously work in justice and in righteousness to praise him.

Now, not everybody's gonna like it.

Some people will misjudge you, some people will misdiagnose you, some people will try to draw your attention and your affection away from the things of God.

But I want to remind you, Jesus has got your back.

Jesus has got your back, friend.

And I'm glad I'm with Jesus.

I'm glad he's for me and he's not against me.

I'm glad that there's nothing's gonna separate me from the love of Christ.

He said, if they don't praise him, friend, listen to this.

All these rocks are gonna open a mouth and they're just gonna start magnifying.

Why?

Because all of creation knows who he is.

Everything, everything, let everything that have breath praise the Lord.

That's why you feel so good when you're praising him.

That's why when you're when you're down in the dumps and you're feeling discouraged and you're feeling defeated, one of the best things you can do is talk to your soul.

Oh, why art thou cast down, oh my soul?

Lift up your eyes and and praise the Lord.

Get you some good songs.

I got a reason to praise, praise, and find you some hymns and some spiritual songs and make some melody of the Lord.

Why?

Because he's the King of glory, he is worthy of a praise revival.

You say, what does Jesus do next?

I mean, he's kind of backing up his disciples.

It's interesting.

He doesn't get caught up or he doesn't lose his sobriety, his stability, his groundedness from the truth when people are praising him.

You know how sometimes people, if they're buttering you up, they'll want to kind of praise you a little bit just to kind of get you to drop your guard before they give and ask or before they try to do something.

See, Jesus, he welcomes the praise, but he also recognizes, he also recognizes he can't lose the stability of truth in what he's gonna do.

Plus, his heart is is is in pain because he knows what's gonna happen.

And so you'd think, man, he should be happy.

And sometimes we can think everybody should be happy all the time.

Listen, no, no, there's a lot of other emotions in happiness, right?

There's joy, there's sadness, there's grief, there's loss, there's anger, there's a lot of emotions.

And we do not want to commit the sin of emotivism where we're constantly trying to just be led into different emotions.

We need to have the stability of the truth to govern and tether our emotions.

And so we see what does Jesus do next?

It's this perceptive prediction.

Look what it says in verse 41.

And when he was come near, he beheld the city.

Look at his heart, and he wept over it.

So he enters in and he sees the people.

Have you ever done this?

I did this the other day.

I was doing a funeral and I was driving and I was ministering at a place where people that were down and out were going into rehab, and I drove through an area of San Diego, my heart began to break, seeing all the nationalities and backgrounds, thinking about how many people are lost.

And I had started getting some tears on the inside of my heart, thinking about this.

Well, Jesus, he weeps over the city.

You say, Why?

Well, look at verse 42, saying, If thou hast known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace, but now they are hid from thine eyes.

For the day shall come upon thee that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and can pass thee round and keep thee on every side, and shall lay uh thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee, and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another, because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.

You say, What's he doing?

He's offering himself to the people, but he knows that they don't want him.

Have you ever been rejected?

Have you ever had to do the hard job of giving yourself over to somebody only to know that their hard heart would not receive you?

That they would be so fixated and focused on what you didn't do for them, or how you didn't perform for them, or you're not acting in alignment with them, that you know that their hard heart is gonna blind their understanding, that's gonna blind their eyes, and they're gonna miss the moment of visitation.

That's why Jesus was weeping.

He knew their understanding that's gonna blind their eyes, and they're gonna visit.

He knew that yes, he is the king.

And whether they appraise him or rejected him, it's not gonna change who he is.

His identity is forever settled in truth.

But he's weeping because he knows it.

They don't want him.

They just want to use him.

Have you ever been used?

Have you ever had somebody tell you they love you and they're for you?

And all of a sudden, when you don't meet their expectations, now they reject you, mock you, diss you, ghost you, don't care about you.

Oh yeah, it happens to us.

And it's because their love was not love at all.

Love is sacrificial.

Love is kind, love thinks no evil, love doesn't vaunt itself, it doesn't lift itself up.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things.

See, Jesus didn't lose his love in the face of this rejection.

He just broke into more love.

He's weeping because he knows that they're going, they're missing their moment.

They're rejecting.

Their eyes are closed.

And he also knows not only is he gonna die for the sins of the world, but he knows in 70 AD that whole place was gonna be ripped to pieces.

And so his perception is this broken heart.

Have you ever had a broken heart?

Yeah.

Let me tell you something.

When your heart breaks, don't isolate.

When your heart breaks, get closer to Jesus.

When your heart breaks, we're more like him.

In Isaiah 53, it says, He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

If you're going through grief today, let that grief lead you closer to the heartbeat of God.

Oh, yes, he can feel it.

Yes, he knows it.

He in all points was tempted.

He can feel our infirmities, yet he did it without sin.

Many times you and I, we we feel grief, we feel sadness, we feel loss, but then we we try to emotionally process it without God.

And then those emotions of grief and anger and loss, they take us away from the stability of truth, and then we're in a sea of feelings and emotions, and we're tossed to and fro by the wicked one.

See, you're not to suppress your emotions, and you're also not to let your emotions be God.

You're supposed to give the emotions of grief and joy and sadness to him and say, This is how I'm doing, and this is why God.

I don't want to let these emotions be the Lord of my life because you're the Lord of my life.

And so, Jesus, help me process my emotions.

Help me to be lead my emotions in truth and in stability, and don't let me get out of bounds with anger or empathy or rage or the praise of man.

Help me, God, to be steadfast and steady.

And upon the rock, oh God, please let my soul be governed and guided and protected by thy truth.

That's what you're supposed to do with your emotions.

You don't want to fall into the trap of burying them and then busting out like a volcano.

And you don't want to fall into the trap of you're just talking about emotions all day long, but you're never focusing it and channeling it according to the precepts of truth.

Emotions are good when they're under the lordship of Jesus.

And so he had this perceptive prediction.

And he's weeping.

As the crowd is rejoicing, Jesus is weeping.

Not for himself, though, but for the city that would soon reject him.

He knows their cries of Hosanna will soon turn into crucify him.

He foretells of the destruction of Jerusalem because they did not recognize the time of their visitation.

You see, Jesus sees beyond outward religion and emotional worship.

He sees our hearts.

He sees why we're doing what we're doing.

See, it's not enough just for you to come to church and sing praises and get an emotional high.

God wants your heart.

Not just in your happy moments, but in your dark moments.

That's why we sing those songs.

Tell it to Jesus.

Tell it to Jesus.

He is a friend that's well known.

We ought to be singing to him and working with every emotion, everything we're going through with him.

You see, you would not wander out of church all the time if you kept your emotions in check with Jesus.

See, no church, no family is perfect.

No Christian is perfect.

But Jesus is.

Amen?

And so when people start getting out the banks with their emotions or with their tone or things like that, that's in those moments that you need to be tethered to truth and focus on what does Jesus want me to do with this?

Because truth, the entrance of truth, gives light, gives direction, gives clarity.

And so perhaps you're out there and you're you're struggling with emotions.

You don't know how to process it.

Either you're suppressing it or you're just talking about emotions all day long and you're never directing it back in alignment with truth.

Let me encourage you.

Walk through it with Jesus.

Ask, what does the Bible say about this?

Let me get in alignment with the Word of God.

That's the boundaries that help you walk down the straight and narrow way.

God does not want just our lip service, He wants our devotion, He wants our consecration.

And so we see the purposeful procession, we see the perceptive prediction, but then watch what he does next.

It's quite interesting.

Number three, the purifying passion.

You say, what does he do next, preacher?

Okay, so they're all singing his praises.

And a lot of Christians on this day, oh, it's triumphant Sunday, it's Palm Sunday.

And yet we fail to realize the true heart of God.

What was happening inside of him while everybody's so happy, his heart was broken.

Well, what does he do with his broken heart?

Did he get caught up in the emotions?

Did he did he accept the praise?

Yeah, he loved the praises, but he was still brokenhearted.

Well, what did he do next, preacher?

What did he do next?

I'm gonna tell you this.

He did the opposite of what you and I do when we're grieving and we're hurting many times.

He didn't leave church, he went to church.

A lot of times when people are grieving or hurting, or they have loss, or they've been ghosted, or they've been rejected, or they perceive something bad's happening, they isolate away from the house of God and the things of God.

It's almost as if they feel like they have to work their emotions privately without the house of God, without the truth of God, and they end up wandering further and end up toiling longer.

It's more pain.

Jesus takes the burden of the fact that they're going to reject him, and he sets his eyes on the temple.

You say, What does he do?

He handles business.

He handles business.

This is a hard job, guys.

Walking through all those emotions and still leans in and says, I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life.

This is my father's house, and I will keep it in order.

You say, Show it to me.

Well, you're there right now.

Look what it says.

In verse 45.

And he went into the temple and began to cast them that sold therein and them that bought, saying unto them, It is written, My house is the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves.

And he taught daily in the temple.

You say, What is he doing?

He didn't let his emotions pull him out of church.

He took all of that and he set his sights into the temple and realized there are a lot of people here for the wrong reasons.

There are a lot of people here, they're only here for money, they're only here to try to get some sort of fellowship or one up on somebody else.

There's a lot of people here for, well, they want their family connection, they want this.

Let me tell you something.

Jesus said, My father's house is a house of prayer, it's a house of connection, it's a house of purity, it's a house of praise.

And let me remind you, you can't control everybody else's praises and purity, but bless the Lord, you can consecrate yourself.

And you could say, God, I will give my devotion in the middle of my pain and my rejection and my sadness and my hurting.

Oh, God, I will enact truth.

You know what's missing today in churches and what's missing in families?

Truth.

Why?

Because we have the fear of man.

We want everybody to like us.

We want everybody, oh, I really like that pastor, I really like that Sunday school teacher, I really like that person.

And if your loyalty is to the affection and praises of man, you will not exact truth.

Because you will commit the sin of empathy, where you're so empathetic and you're so coddling feelings and you're so wanting to be with somebody in their pain that while they're in their quicksand, instead of staying on the bank of truth and reaching your hand out to bring them back into truth, you jump into the pit that is sinking with quicksand and you perish with them.

You jump into the pit that is sinking with quicksand and you perish with them.

We don't want to commit the sin of empathy.

We don't want to commit the sin of emotivism, we don't want to affirm people in ungodly, hellish beliefs that deny Jesus and propagate sodomy and the woke agenda and all the evils that we see in our day.

No, no, no.

If your goal here today is to try to, oh, I just want to connect with people with their feelings, I just want to affirm them.

You're on the wrong path.

Well, they transgender.

They want me to, her name is Susie, but she wants me to call her Bob.

I'm not going to affirm a lie.

Well, what if they feel hurt?

There's another sin.

Well, I feel hurt, so therefore you sinned.

No, you feel hurt because you're led astray and you did wrong, and I'm telling you, get back on the right path.

I do you no good by jumping into the quicksand with you and affirming you in your lies.

This is why truth is falling out into the streets.

We esteem evil as good now.

No, no, no, no.

When your son or your daughter is doing wrong, they don't need you to, oh, my poor little baby.

No, they need you to say, I love you, but that's wrong.

You need to change your ways.

Here's the Bible word, repent.

You're caught up in your feelings.

You think if if if you feel hurt, therefore I sin.

No, no, no.

You feel hurt because you did wrong.

And you think I don't love you because now I'm reproving you and rebuking you, but really, this is what love is.

If I don't love you, I don't tell you the truth.

Am I become your enemy because I tell you the truth now?

How did you get so jaded?

How did you get so mixed?

Oh, ye foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, is what Paul said.

You began in the Spirit by the Holy Ghost of God.

Are you now then made perfect by the works of the law?

Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?

God forbid.

Call sin.

Call a rebel and a reprobate.

Tell them what they're doing.

Listen, sweetheart, listen, sir.

There is a way which seems right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.

Listen, sweetheart.

The heart is deceitful above all things, desperately wicked.

Who can know it?

You need to trust the Lord.

And the way you trust the Lord is get yourself back on the stability of truth.

This is what happened in America.

We thought, oh, you know what?

Women's power, men being weak, and abdication of spiritual authority, and before you know it, men and women they don't appreciate their own roles anymore.

They find themselves in the wrong spots.

There's all kinds of issues now.

Abdication of leadership, then idolatry, and before you know it, the whole country, the whole church is going straight to hell.

And many unsuspecting churches would not do what Jesus is calling us to do.

What do you mean?

He steps in and handles business.

Well, I don't like that.

Well, tough.

It's a hard job.

It's a hard job.

Why?

Because you have to be willing to be mocked, to be ridiculed, have people talk crap about you, be all kinds of uh gossip and slander.

How about this?

Even from your own family, from your own friends, from your own church members.

You have to be able to truly stand alone with God.

And just say, I have decided to follow Jesus.

Though none joined me, still I will follow.

Demons has forsaken me.

These people have done this, but the Lord stood with me and strengthened me.

This is the marks of a man of God and a woman of God.

Stabilized on truth, not on emotionalism.

You say, what's he doing?

He's purifying with passion.

You say, what's he doing at the temple?

He's making straight the way for the ultimate sacrifice.

He's getting rid of things.

And by the way, hey, sometimes in the church, God will cast some people out of the church.

Sometimes God will say, get out of here and get this out of here.

And sometimes mamas and daddies need to go into the room and say, No, this doesn't belong in my house.

And sometimes you got to open the fridge and say, No, this doesn't belong in my house.

No, we're not wearing this.

The problem many times with pastors and churches and parents, we just want to coddle them.

And then we give place to the devil.

And before you know it, a little leaven leavens the whole lump.

And we wonder, why did the church get cancer?

Why did this person get cancer?

Why does my kid all of a sudden become uh you know homosexual?

Why all of a sudden do they not want to go to church?

Why do they not want to have anything to do with me?

I'm gonna tell you why.

It's the pity party and it's the praise of man, it's the fear of man.

The moments that you should have spoken truth, you failed.

You say, What do I do now?

When we fail, Jesus never does.

I can't go backwards and undo the my the sins of the past.

I make, I'm glad that Jesus forgave me of all that stuff, but I have today, friend, you have today.

And our future generations, they need a papa and a grandma and a mama and a daddy to be able to say they are full of God and they're full of truth and they're full of the Spirit, and they will tell the truth and they will show the way and go the way.

And I love them.

You still have a shot.

You still have time.

You say, Well, what if they've left?

Listen, it's not too late.

If you're hearing this message today, there's still a shot for you and for your children.

But I'm gonna tell you right now, you better get right with God though.

If you coddle all the emotions and you blame and shame and point the finger at everybody else, and you don't behave like Jesus and enact judgment and division, you say, What's gonna happen?

They won't they won't change.

And they won't respect you either.

But if you step in like Jesus did, you say, Well, they're not gonna like me for a little bit.

Yep.

Yep.

They're gonna get their feelings hurt.

Yep.

I care more of the truth and following Jesus than coddling their emotions.

Emotions is what caused the devil to come out of glory, to steal Jesus' and try to steal that glory.

I want that.

I feel like I deserve it.

Adam and Eve, same thing.

Well, it looks good, tastes good.

No, no, watch out.

Watch out.

See, what did Jesus do?

He was purifying with passion.

And I'm not saying be a jerk, I'm not saying be mean, but I am saying you need to stand on the truth.

And if that means people don't like it, you think those business people like what Jesus was doing right there?

I mean, he was walking through the place going like this, get this out of here, and get this out of here.

I mean, he just coming through and he's looking at the at the people's hearts.

And he's saying, No, you're trying to extort her, and you came from a long journey.

Oh, only so you can do this.

And Jesus said, Y'all got it wrong.

This is a house of prayer, a house of devotion, a house of worship.

It's not a place for you to try to get your financial uh lifting going on.

It's not a place for you to go ahead and try to get the next uh date, or it's not the place where you can uh just you're gonna build your kingdom.

This is the place of God.

It's where you put him first.

And some of you guys need to remember this.

You came to this house looking for God, and God saved you and sanctified you and blessed you, and you you were so happy and grateful.

And then something happened along the way.

You thought it was all about you, and you twisted it, and then all of a sudden you're blaming and shaming.

You say, What do I do?

Get back to your first love.

God.

God, I'm here for you.

Listen, when you're in love with God, you just want to be with him.

You're like, hey, is there a service?

I'd love to go to a service.

Right?

Hey, if there's a church service, I want to be there.

If there's a pray session, I want to be there.

All of a sudden, why?

It's because you want God.

But when you're not in love with God and you're not following truth, you're thinking about all of your stinking emotions.

Well, he did this and she did that, and they don't love me and they don't like me.

Okay, so your Christianity and your discipleship is based upon everybody else?

Last I checked, it ought to be based off the truth of the word of God.

See, when that happens, people can leave you, they can smite you, they can talk crap about you, but you're still doing right.

And it gives you the power to do what Jesus did.

He's cleaning house.

You say, why is he cleaning house there?

Well, it's prophecy fulfilled.

In Malachi, it says, The Lord shall suddenly come into his temple and he shall purify the sons of Levi.

Hey, listen, don't get mad at the pastor or the parent for cleaning house.

Amen.

Sometimes you've got to cast out the bondwoman and her son.

If you know the text there in Galatians.

Sometimes you've got to be able to be like Nehemiah and say, uh-uh, we're not committing this idolatry in this place.

Sometimes you've got to grab some situations and say, uh-uh, get this junk out of here.

We're not doing business this way.

And that's not unloving, that's the right thing to do.

It's like, it's like if there's cancer in your body and you just let it manifest and grow and spread.

That's very unloving.

The most loving thing you could do is let's have the great surgeon go on in.

It's gonna hurt, though.

Yes, it's gonna hurt.

Let's rip it out.

Oh, I want it to feel good.

It's not gonna feel good.

Here's a stick, hold on to it.

There's some things that hurt.

It's gonna, how about you parents?

How many of you parents know this?

It's gonna hurt you just as much in a different way than it's gonna hurt the children.

When all of a sudden you can't, listen, we can't go out, we can't have this food, we can't do this.

We're doing that.

Why?

I want this.

Well, guess what?

You don't always get what you want.

It hurts me too, but I gotta do right here.

I gotta lead this thing the right way.

And so Jesus is purifying the temple.

Hey, question Do you think that the Sadducees and the Pharisees and Ciaphas were gonna be happy about this?

He was destroying their business system.

And by the way, some of our business systems need to be destroyed.

Some of our philosophies and mindsets, we have vain philosophies that are not rooted in the truth.

And they beguile unstable souls.

And what King Jesus will do with the Holy Spirit of God is he'll come through the temple and he'll just start hacking things away and getting rid of things.

And it's not because he doesn't love you, it's because he loves you more.

He's getting rid of the things that are hindering you.

So Jesus enters the temple, not for man-made worship or to be a people uh pleaser, but to cleanse it.

He drives out the money changers, declaring that this is God's house, it's his house, it's a house of prayer.

This was not just righteous anger, it was a symbolic act.

Purifying the place of sacrifice before becoming the sacrifice himself.

Before Christ went to the cross, he dealt with the corruption in God's house.

Let us allow him to cleanse our own corruption.

How many of you know you've got some corruption in the house?

The Bible talks about us as Christians, our bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost.

And I'm not always right, and you're not always wrong, and you're not always right, and I'm not always wrong.

Isn't that right?

But the truth is, there's some corruption that we have on the inside.

And the Holy Spirit is holy and he loves us way too much to just let us stay in that bad, corrupted state.

Oh, yeah, sure.

God loves you right where you're at, but he loves you too much to leave you there.

And so, in application, let's let him cleanse our hearts.

He entered that Jerusalem to fulfill prophecy, to face rejection, to prepare for the cross, and he did it willingly.

He did it with wisdom, and he did it with righteous authority.

He is the king who came to die, the priest who purifies, and the prophet who weeps.

Let us not be like the crowd cheering when it's easy and silent when it's costly.

Let us follow Christ not just to the gates of the city, but to the foot of the cross.

Let's stay with them all the way.

Whether it's an easy time or it's a hard time.

Let's take the good, let's accept the hard times, and let's let him do his work in our lives, in our families, and in our church.