The King Has Arrived- Matthew 21:1-17

Well, happy Palm Sunday, everyone. That's pretty

loud. Yeah, Hosanna. When I scream it, they're

going to hear it at Rock Springs. So y 'all can

cut that back a little bit. There we go. They

say there is a simple way to break down structure

in a good story. There's always a promise and

then there is progress and then there is the

payoff. And throughout the gospel of Matthew,

he has been alluding to the climax of his story.

And that promise was made clear in Matthew 16,

21. The Bible says from that time, Jesus began

to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem

and suffer many things from the elders and chief

priests and scribes and be killed and on the

third day be raised. And ever since that point,

when that was made clear, that is where Jesus

is going. That is what he's going to do. We have

been seeing him make progress. coming to Jerusalem.

And now we get to the triumphal entry where we

are seeing the beginning of the climax of the

story. And under the inspiration of the Holy

Spirit, Matthew in particular has meticulously

organized his gospel as a master class in storytelling.

So much so that when you do come to this story,

I think careful Bible readers should be experiencing

a little sense of deja vu. And I don't mean deja

vu in the sense that, yeah, we've heard this

passage before. We're all familiar with it. But

you know what deja vu is, right? Anybody in here

experienced it before? Yes? Okay, it's that very

weird feeling where something is happening and

you feel like you've already lived this moment

before. And scientists don't even know what it

is. They think it's a misfire of the brain or

that it's the subconscious mistaking memories

for present events. But we, as Bible readers,

should be experiencing deja vu here. because

I want to ask you a question. Have you ever noticed

how similar the story of Jesus's birth is to

the story of the triumphal entry? Have you ever

thought about that? If you want to notice a few

similarities, think about it like this. The Bible

tells us that after Jesus was born, some wise

men came to Jerusalem. You remember the old hymn

refers to them as the three kings. of orient

so they come to Jerusalem and they are accompanied

by a large crowd and the reason they are there

they say in Matthew 2 2 they say where is he

who has been born the king of the Jews for we

saw his star when it rose and we've come to worship

him so what happens at the birth story a large

crowd comes to Jerusalem to worship the king

of the Jews Well, not only that the Bible says

that shortly after that did Jerusalem recognize

their king when Jesus was born No, the Bible

says in Matthew 2 3 when Herod the king heard

this he was troubled and all Jerusalem with him

and so the city is stirred up They're troubled

by the arrival of this king and then right after

that happens Matthew tells us this was actually

a fulfillment of a prophecy about how the Messiah

was to be born in Bethlehem Well, what happens

at the triumphal entry? Jesus enters into Jerusalem

as a king, and did you notice there's a small

detail in our passage when Jordan read it? The

city of Jerusalem once again did not recognize

their king. The Bible says when he entered Jerusalem,

in verse 10, the whole city was stirred up, saying,

who is this? It's the same phrase that's used

back in Matthew chapter two. They're stirred

up and troubled. Here in Matthew 21, they're

stirred up and troubled. And then Matthew tells

us this was a fulfillment about how the Messiah

would enter Jerusalem. You might say, okay, pastor,

that's one interesting observation, but we can

take it a step further. Because right after Jesus

was born, the Bible tells us he was taken to

Jerusalem. And when he went to Jerusalem, he

was immediately taken to the temple for purification

rights. Did you happen to notice what Jesus did

when he entered Jerusalem in our passage? As

soon as he enters Jerusalem, where does he go?

To the temple, to purify it. And we can take

it even a step further than that. The Bible tells

us that after Jesus was born, a Roman ruler,

this would have been Herod the king, sought to

put Jesus to death. When you go to the triumphal

entry, and Jesus enters into Jerusalem, a different

Roman ruler, Pontius Pilate, seeks to put Jesus

to death, and actually does, on the cross. And

so you look at the story of Jesus' birth, and

you look at the story of his triumphal entry,

and they are serving as bookends to the Gospel

of Matthew. And you might say, okay, but what's

the big deal? Why the parallelism here? It's

because the Bible is wanting you to see that

the climax to the story of Jesus is beginning

here. This is what the whole book has been about.

It has all been leading to Jerusalem. They say

all roads lead to Rome. In Matthew, all roads

lead to Jerusalem. It's all been pointing here,

and now we are seeing that the King has come.

And it's very interesting whether you're looking

at the birth story of Jesus or whether you're

looking at the triumphal entry. People do not

recognize him for who he is. The city of Jerusalem

and Matthew chapter 2 was stirred up and troubled

Matthew 2 · chapter mention

because they didn't know that Jesus was the king

of the Jews. And then when you look at Matthew

21, the same city of Jerusalem, they initially

praise him. The crowds are shouting, Hosanna.

And then less than a week later, they are going

to be shouting, crucify him. And it all has to

do with how they perceive Jesus and who they

think he is. And the point I want you to understand

this morning is, if we fail to see Jesus for

who He is, we will fail to follow Him as we ought.

If we fail to see Jesus for who He is, we will

fail to follow Him as we ought. You've probably

heard someone ask before, who is Jesus to you?

That's a terrible question. With all due respect

to anyone who asked that question, it does not

matter who Jesus is to you. What matters is who

is Jesus according to Jesus? Who is Jesus according

to how he has revealed himself in scripture?

And we have to focus on this church. We have

to prioritize this because if we do not get Jesus

right, listen to me, we're not gonna get anything

else right either. If we don't get Jesus right,

nothing else. in the church is gonna be right

either. And so the question that I want us to

consider together this morning is how do misunderstandings

about Jesus keep us from following him faithfully?

How do misunderstandings about Jesus keep us

from following him faithfully? And you might

remember in our passage, thanks to Jordan reading

it for us, that Jesus tells his disciples to

go and get a donkey for him, and this was to

fulfill a prophecy. that we read about in Zechariah

9 .9. It says, Rejoice greatly, O daughter of

Zion. Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold,

your king is coming to you. Righteous in having

salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey,

on a colt, the foal of a donkey. Now what you

have to understand is that all of the Jewish

people understood this prophecy to be a Messianic

prophecy. They believed that this prophecy meant

that the Messiah was going to ride into Jerusalem

as a political and military ruler. That Jesus,

or whoever the Messiah was, he was going to come

to overthrow Israel's oppressors and retake the

land. That is who they understood the Messiah

to be. And the crowds actually have a pretty

interesting choice to make here. because this

was a pretty big event going on in Jerusalem.

This is the beginning of Passover week. And you

may not know this, but it was customary for the

Roman governor of Judea to enter into Jerusalem

at the beginning of the Passover week in order

to keep peace and basically to remind everyone

you can have your festivals, you can have your

feasts and your celebrations, but no one forget

you were ultimately under Roman rule. So the

Roman ruler, he would come in, to remind everybody

of this, and so what you see is something pretty

interesting. You have a clash of kingdoms going

on in Jerusalem right now. The Bible tells us

that Jesus entered Jerusalem from the east, and

you look at Jesus and he comes riding the colt

of the donkey, and who is with him? Does he have

an impressive group with him? No, he's accompanied

by fishermen, by women, by everyday working people.

Overall, it's not very impressive. But this is

what the east side of the city had to offer.

It was one who was called the Son of God and

the King of the Jews, riding humbly into Jerusalem.

Now, that was on the east side of the city. Here's

what's really interesting. On the exact opposite

side of the city, on the west, from the west,

Pilate entered Jerusalem. And when he entered

Jerusalem, he entered with full military attire.

He was riding a war stallion draped in armor.

He was accompanied by legions of soldiers. They

were marching to the beat of a steady drum. Trumpeters

announced their arrival. And of course, Pontius

Pilate came as an extension of Caesar, who was

Tiberius Caesar, who was also known as the Son

of God. And so this is what the west side of

the city had to offer. It was a well -known military

leader. who comes as a representative of the

Son of God, he's ready for battle, he has the

soldiers and the weapons to back it up, and he's

arriving on a stallion in full fanfare. And so

if you're a citizen of Jerusalem, if you're in

the city at this time, you have an important

choice to make. It's the most important choice

you're ever gonna make, because you have to decide,

which ruler am I gonna welcome into the city?

Am I gonna go to the east and welcome Jesus into

the city, or am I gonna go to the west and welcome

Pilate into the city? And your choice says a

lot about your heart and where your stance is

with God. They wanted Jesus to come in and be

a rival to Pontius Pilate. They wanted him to

come in and overthrow Pontius Pilate. They thought

he was coming to deliver them militarily. And

yet, if you look at the Zechariah prophecy, the

larger context of it, the Bible tells us exactly

why Jesus came to Jerusalem. In that same chapter,

Zechariah 9, verses 16 through 17, it says this,

Zechariah 9:16–17

and how great is his beauty. Grain shall make

the young men flourish and new wine the young

women." So what was the purpose of Jesus coming

to Jerusalem? It was salvation, right? Did you

notice that? On that day, the Lord their God

will save them. See, you have to understand something,

folks. Jesus came to Jerusalem for one reason

and one reason only. And it was not to overthrow

Pontius Pilate. It was not to retake the land.

He came to save His people from their sins. That

is why He is here. That is His purpose for coming.

And the interesting thing is, the crowds did

have salvation in mind. I mean, the crowds here

are spreading their cloaks and their palm branches.

And notice what they're saying in verse 9. It

says, 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. The word

hosanna was originally a cry for help. And hosanna

actually comes from the Hebrew word meaning to

save. And so hosanna, it means save us, oh Lord,

save us, we pray. And it's so interesting to

look at this passage and you see this huge crowd

that's going out to meet Jesus. They're welcoming

Jesus into the city. They're shouting, Hosanna

to the son of David, Hosanna in the highest,

save us, oh Lord. And this same crowd, just a

few days later, is gonna be shouting, give us

Barabbas. Crucify Jesus. And they're gonna be

offered again, are you sure? Barabbas is a known

criminal. We know what he did. We have proof

of what he did. Are you sure? Barabbas or Jesus?

And they shouted, give us Barabbas. Crucify Jesus.

This happens over the course of a week. How does

someone go from praising Jesus to cursing Jesus

in a week's time? And I think it's because they

weren't thinking about Jesus correctly. It all

has to do with the fact that they expected him

to be someone that he never claimed to be. They

expected him to be someone, and when he turned

out not to be that person, they walked away from

him. They expected him to do certain things for

them, and when he didn't do those things, they

turned on him. And so what I want you to understand

this morning is that Jesus did not come to satisfy

our expectations, but to fulfill God's promises.

Jesus did not come to satisfy our expectations,

but to fulfill God's promises. This is ultimately

why this crowd would turn on Jesus. It's because

they were not primarily interested in salvation

from sin. They just wanted deliverance from Rome.

Their primary concern was not peace with God.

They just wanted a comfortable life. They just

wanted to be free from Roman oppression. They

wanted to live their lives however they wanted

to, and they thought Jesus was the means to get

to that end. And when Jesus doesn't do what they

want Him to do, they turn and walk away from

Him. Which is a natural human reaction, right?

Like, I mean, have you ever mistaken someone

in a crowd? It's a pretty embarrassing situation.

Am I the only one who's ever done that? You've

done that too, right? Yeah, okay. Mine was a

little worse, okay? Because I remember, I think

I was at like seven or eight or something. We

were at probably the county fair. I'd gotten

separated from mom and so I was a kid crying

out, mom, mom, where are you? And thankfully

I saw my mom a little ways off and so I run up

to her and I start pulling on her leg and I'm

like, hey, I'm here. I don't know if you're looking

for me, doesn't look like you were, but I'm here

so. glad to be back with you. And then, the person

who turned around was not my mom. It was just

some random lady who kind of looked like my mom

from behind. So, when that was not who I expected

to be, what do you think I did? I struck up a

conversation. We're still friends to this day.

I took off and ran the other direction, right?

That's what people do. When you expected to be

someone and that person turns out to be not who

you expected it to be, you leave. You get out

of there. And I think, unfortunately, so many

people do the same thing with Jesus. There are

so many people today who think they know who

Jesus is. And they think they know what Jesus

is like. And it's because, as humans, we have

this bad habit of creating our own version of

Jesus. And the funny thing is about that, our

version of Jesus always agrees with us on everything.

Have you noticed that? My idea of Jesus says

that Alex is never in the wrong. It's always

everybody else. He loves me. He loves everything

I do. It's because we create Jesus in our own

image. And we create this idea of Jesus of who

we want him to be. What he says is okay. What

he says is not okay. But the problem is when

the real Jesus doesn't do what our imaginary

Jesus is supposed to do, we walk away from it.

I saw a post going around on Twitter. the other

week, and it was a post from a man who was being

interviewed about why he left the faith and walked

away from Jesus. And this is what he said. He

said, Jesus didn't answer my prayers. He never

provided me with a wife. He didn't help me in

my career. He didn't resolve my health issues.

Simply put, he didn't do anything for me. Just

stop for a moment. Jesus didn't do anything for

you? We're talking about Jesus who left the glories

of heaven to subject himself to this sinful world

and become like us in every way and ultimately

go and suffer and die on the cross. You're saying

that's the Jesus who did nothing for you because

he didn't answer a few of your prayers? But isn't

this the attitude so many people have? I mean

so many people in the world today they expect

Jesus to fix their lives in the world around

them and when he doesn't what do they do? they

walk away. When Jesus doesn't heal the sick loved

one, when he doesn't keep someone from dying,

when he doesn't stop the setbacks and tragedies

from happening, when they don't get their dream

job, when the family just can't seem to get along

even for five seconds, when marriage isn't as

easy as they were hoping for, people are disappointed

with Jesus and they walk away from him. They

become like the people in this crowd, people

who were once so excited about Jesus and saw

so much potential in Jesus are disappointed when

he doesn't give them their personal preferences.

And I'm just gonna tell you this as your pastor

because I want you to know it and you need to

know it. That's not how Jesus works. Jesus is

not some genie who exists to grant your every

wish. I want you to understand this, that even

if Jesus does not give you any of these things,

even if He doesn't check all the boxes on your

wish list, Jesus is still worthy to be praised

and followed. Because He is God, and the Bible

says there is no other. This is God. And I think

the reason so many people have this idea about

Jesus is because we don't base our idea of Jesus

on the Bible. Because if you just picked up the

Bible and read it, you're going to see there's

nothing in there about, hey, if you come to Jesus

and you become a Christian, life's going to be

easy. I wish it said it. It doesn't. I've checked.

There's nothing in there that says if you just

come to Jesus, then marriage is going to be easy.

You're going to get that promotion. God's going

to make sure you never experience financial hardships.

He's going to keep all the sickness out of your

life. It's going to be smooth sailing from here

to eternity. If you read the Bible, it says the

exact opposite. That's why Jesus often told people

to count the cost of following Him. He says,

you're gonna have to take up your cross, deny

yourself, and follow Me daily. That's why He

tells His disciples, in this world, you're gonna

have tribulation. But take heart, because I've

overcome the world. That's why He tells His disciples,

if the world hated Me, do you think they're gonna

love you? No. If they hated me, of course they're

gonna hate you as well. This life is going to

be hard. That has nothing to do with God's goodness.

Do we understand that? Those are two totally

separate issues. The goodness of God is an established

fact, and if your life is great here on earth,

or if your life is horrible here on earth, that

says nothing about God. God is good all the time,

and all the time, God is... Good. That's why

the Bible says in Romans chapter 8 that the sufferings

Romans 8 · chapter mention

of this present life aren't worth comparing to

the glories that are to come. You folks understand

we're headed to eternity, right? That's our destination.

That's where we're going. When we've been there

10 ,000 years, do you think for a second that

after you've been there for 10 ,000 years in

the presence of the Son of God, you're going

to be thinking about that hard Monday you had

a few weeks ago? I'm not saying the Monday wasn't

hard. I've had a couple hard Mondays recently.

It is hard, but in the grand scheme of things,

it's a blip on the radar. The Bible says you're

getting to go be with God. So keep eternity in

mind and make sure that you're basing your understanding

of Jesus on who he says he is and how he has

revealed himself because he didn't come to primarily

give you everything you want. Jesus came to give

you everything you need. He came to give us peace

with God. He came to pay the price of our sins

He came to reconcile us to God. He came to give

us eternal life in his presence He came to seek

and to save the lost and I want you to know this

now So that we won't be like this crowd and turn

on Jesus when he doesn't meet our expectations

As long as we have these wrong views about him.

We will fail to follow him as we ought to and

Here's the knee jerk Americanized Christian response

to this. People say, okay, I see that I'm in

the wrong pastor. I get that. I've been making

my own version of Jesus. I've kind of been living

my life however I want. So here's what I need

to do. I need to go to church. I need to go buy

a Bible, start reading it. I need to start saying

some prayers. I need to basically get some religion

in my life. And listen, hey, those things aren't

bad. That's not a bad start. It's great for you

to go to church, read your Bible and pray. Here's

the problem. If you think that that's going to

fix the problem you have with God, you're sorely

mistaken. There's no amount of religion and religiosity

that can possibly fix your stance with God, which

is why when Jesus comes into Jerusalem, he immediately

goes to the temple. Look at verse 12. And Jesus

entered the temple and drove out all who sold

and bought in the temple. And he overturned the

tables of the money changers in the seats of

those who sold pigeons. And he said to them,

it is written, my house shall be called a house

of prayer, but you make it a den of robbers.

Now again, keep in mind, Jerusalem is very busy

at this time. because it's the beginning of Passover

week and people were traveling from all over

the world to come to Jerusalem to celebrate the

Passover. And the temple was one of the busiest

places and the loudest place that you could be

in Jerusalem at this time because they needed

to exchange and buy and sell and all sorts of

things like that. Basically, all donations to

the temple had to be made in Tyrian shekels.

And so if you didn't have Tyrian shekels, you

had to take whatever your currency was and you

had to exchange it for the Tyrian shekels. And

that was done right there in the temple. And

since you were coming to the temple to celebrate

Passover and you knew that you would need to

offer a sacrifice for yourself and your family,

well, you don't want to travel hundreds and hundreds

of miles with a bunch of sacrifices, right? So

what do you think? You say, Well, we'll just

buy them there. We don't need to travel with

these things. That's cumbersome. Let's just buy

all of our sacrifices there. Which was like the

worst thing you could possibly do. If you own

a modern equivalent, it's like saying, I'm gonna

go to the Clemson game on Saturday and we don't

need to eat beforehand. We'll just buy food there.

And what? Pay 18 bucks for a hot dog? Ten bucks

for a bottle of water. That's a dollar and 25

cents and a vending machine down the road Come

on, like I love Clemson, but you know, they rip

you off at those places, right? No matter the

stadium amusement park. They will rip you off.

That's exactly what was going on in the temple

The temple workers were ripping people off especially

foreigners. So what they would do when they're

exchanging their money They wouldn't give them

a fair exchange rate. They'd overcharge them

when they're buying their sacrifices. For the

Jew, it was one price. For the Gentile, it was

a much higher price. And all of this was taking

place in what was known as the court of the Gentiles.

I have a picture here you can look at. This is

an idea of what the temple would have looked

like in Jesus' day. In that whole courtyard area

that you can see there, that entire area is known

as the court of the Gentiles. This is where this

event was taking place. It was the only place

in the entire temple complex that Gentiles were

allowed to come and worship God. And the Jews

had turned it into a center of commerce where

they were buying and selling. And so it wasn't

a place that was quiet. You couldn't actually

focus on worship there. I mean, imagine you were

a Gentile coming to the temple to worship. You've

just been ripped off by someone in your exchange

rate. You've just been ripped off to buy your

sacrifice. You're thinking, OK, it's just what

I have to do. Get through it. And let's say you're

finally kneeling to pray and you can't even pray

because it's so busy. People keep bumping into

you and it's so loud from all the heckling going

on and trying to barter over prices and stuff.

You can't even hear yourself pray. And so this

was their only place where they could come and

worship the God of Israel. And yet the Jewish

people at the time had made it completely impossible.

Those who were called by God's name had become

the biggest hindrance to the nations coming to

worship God. And listen, when God's people become

a hindrance to people coming to know and worship

God, it's time for Jesus to clean house. And

we still see this happen today, do we not? Because

I think you all understand, it's never Jesus

that keeps people from coming to Jesus. It's

typically always Christians that keep people

from coming to Jesus. Even atheists, I've listened

to so many atheists, they like Jesus. They like

some of the things he said. They said he was

a good moral teacher. I really liked his philosophies

of life and spirituality. That stuff is great.

Here's who I have a problem with. It's all the

people in the church. It's all the Christians.

And people don't want to come to church because

they say Christians are hypocrites. Christians

are judgmental. Christians are mean. Christians

are self -righteous. The list goes on and on.

And so you might say, well, pastor, we're not

buying and selling in our church like they were

doing there, so we're good. Listen, we might

not be buying and selling, but I think far too

many church people make outsiders feel as unwelcome

in here as the Jews made the Gentiles feel in

the temple. And so Jesus does something about

it. and that infuriated the religious leaders.

If you look at verse 14, Jesus comes in the temple,

he's doing all these great things, the blind

and the lame came to him in the temple and he

healed them. And when the chief priests and scribes,

now notice what Matthew does here, this is amazing,

look how he describes it, just so he wants you

to be clear who the bad guys are in this passage,

he says, when the chief priests and the scribes

saw the wonderful things, Let's make no mistake,

these are great and wonderful things that are

happening. When they saw the wonderful things

that he did, and the children crying out the

temple, Hosanna to the son of David, another

beautiful image, right? Even the children are

coming to praise him. Like we had the children

down front this morning with the palm branches.

It is beautiful to see children praising Jesus.

You know who didn't like that? The religious

people. They were indignant and they said to

him, Do you hear what these are saying? And Jesus

said to them, the funniest thing that Jesus always

says to the religious leaders, yes, have you

never read? Which again? hilarious. People think

the Bible's not funny. This is hysterical because

the religious leaders were the ones who were

copying the entire Old Testament and passing

it down. They were the ones who were memorizing

the entire Old Testament. They knew the Old Testament

so well they could tell you the central word

in every single book of each Old Testament book

of the Bible. And Jesus says to those people,

have you uh have you never read? It's great out

of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you

have prepared praise And leaving them he went

out of the city to Bethany and lodge there You

see the problem with the religious leaders of

Israel here is that they didn't necessarily care

about anyone but themselves And they the worst

part is they thought that God was pleased with

them They had this idea that when Jesus came

into the temple He was going to be happy with

them You can imagine a bunch of religious leaders

just kind of standing there like this. They see

Jesus coming in. They're like, uh, there's the

carpenter's son from Nazareth. Let's see what

he has to say about this. Like, just wait till

he sees everything. He's gonna love it, right?

Crowds are following him. And as soon as Jesus

walks in, what does he do? He starts flipping

tables and driving people out. And they're in

complete shock because they were thinking, he's

gonna come in and be happy with us. Look at all

the stuff we're doing. Look at all the money

we're making for the temple. Look at all the

sacrifices that are going to be offered. Look

at all the religious things that we're doing.

We're even tithing our mint and our dill. Jesus,

look how religious we are. Aren't you happy with

us? And they are completely shocked that Jesus

is just not going to approve of their agenda

and everything that they've got going on here.

They are completely in shock that Jesus is not

happy with them. I want you to understand this

point here that we learn from them is that Jesus

did not come to approve our agendas, but to implement

God's agenda. Jesus did not come to approve our

agendas, but to implement God's agenda. And I

want you to know this and we need to know this

because it cuts right to the heart of modern

American Christianity. It exposes this false

belief that we have that Jesus is just going

to give our lives the stamp of approval no matter

what they look like. Pretty much if you look

at the South and the church in the South today,

there's this common idea that as long as you

say you believe in God, You're good. Doesn't

matter what your life looks like. Doesn't matter

if you live in obedience to the Lord. Doesn't

matter how out of line your life is with God's

expectations. In the South, the idea, all you

have to say is, I believe in Jesus. I know that

Jesus is real. You're good. You're going to heaven.

And this passage cuts right to the quick of that.

It shows us that Jesus is not interested in partial

obedience. He's not interested in superficial

obedience. He is interested in making sure God's

will is followed. Which means you can't just

look at your life and say, yeah, God's good with

me because of this reason, right? People say,

well, I believe in God so I can live my life

however I want. Yeah, I don't really make it

to church that often, but that's because I have

a lot going on. We've got a lot of busy things

on our schedule. We have a lot of activities,

and so I don't really make it to church that

often, but listen to me, but God's okay with

that because he knows I believe in him. I don't

really lead my kids and my wife the way that

I should, but the thing is God knows I'm not

really that type of person. I'm more of a backseat

kind of guy, and so even though he says I'm supposed

to do that, He's okay with me not doing that

because he knows I believe in him. And I believe

that Jesus actually did die on the cross. I don't

really pray that often or read my Bible, but

here's the thing, God knows I believe in him.

So he's okay with that. People will say, I never

share the gospel with other people. But that's

just because God knows I'm not really that type

of person. I'm more of an introvert. I'm not

really an extrovert. I don't always know the

right things to say, so I never share the gospel

with people, but God's okay with that. I know

he said to go and make disciples of all nations.

I know he said we're an ambassador of Christ

and all that kind of stuff, but he knows I'm

not that type of person, so he's good with it.

I'm not really involved in the church or the

mission of the church, but at the end of the

day, God knows I believe in him, and that's good

enough for God. Here's my question to you. Says

who? Says you? Here's what I want you to understand

this morning. We do not get the right to define

what a Christian is and is not. Only God can

do that. We don't get to say, well, I'm a Christian

and here's how I live and God's okay with it

because I said he's okay with it. We do not have

the right to define what a Christian is or how

a Christian should live. And if your definition

does not match God's definition, here's the thing,

folks, I've never known God to be wrong about

anything. And only one of you can be right. If

you find yourself saying those things, then it

sounds like maybe Jesus needs to come and flip

some tables in your life. We need to make sure

we understand who Jesus actually is and what

he actually came to do because if we fail to

see him for who he is we will not follow him

as we ought. I want you to understand this morning

what you need more than anything this morning

is not for Jesus to save you from a difficult

marriage. It is not to save you from financial

hardships. It is not to save you from failing

health. It is not to save you from a dead -end

job. It's not to save you from conflict. What

you need more than anything else in the entire

world this morning is for Jesus to save you from

your sins and reconcile you to God. That is what

you need. And if you come to Jesus for any other

reason than salvation, then you will walk away

from Jesus when He doesn't give you that thing.

He did not come to approve your life. He came

to improve your life and give you eternal life

in Himself. He came to establish God's kingdom.

He came to seek and to save the lost. He came

to open the eyes of the blind. He came to restore

the broken. He came to ransom God's people. He

came to triumph over death. He came to rise again

victorious. This is Jesus according to Jesus.

This is what he came to do. According to His

word, may God open up our eyes to see Him for

who He truly is so we can begin to follow Him

as we ought. Amen? Let's pray.