Palm Sunday 2026

We Uh, we just finished up our Silver Spoons series

and over the next two weeks, I've never really just

kind of preached Easter. I've never really done that. It's

always been part of a series. And over the next

two weeks, I just want to talk about the Resurrection.

I just want to talk about UH Palm Sunday and

what it means and the significance of it for our lives.

So over the next two weeks, no series, We're just

going to talk about UH Palm Sunday and Easter and

the instrumental impact that Jesus.

Made through this week of our lives. And also.

Every single day at noon through the through this week

through Holy Week, we're going to be going live on

Facebook and YouTube. Uh, So you're gonna be able to

get live devotional time at noon every day and then

in the evening as well, we're gonna do the same thing.

But that's gonna be over on TikTok on the Church's

TikTok channel. So we're gonna be going live on all

those platforms. So no't matter what social media you have,

you're gonna be able to have access to it. So

just tune in for those things. I believe it'll be

a blessing to you. If you're at work sitting in

the breakroom, make sure you turn the volume up really loud, Amen,

so everybody can hear it.

Amen.

You never know, it might just start a revival right

there at your workplace.

Amen.

Go to Matthew chapter twenty one. Matthew chapter twenty one,

starting in verse seven. Matthew twenty one, verse seven. If

you're there, say amen. If you're not, say oh my.

Okay. All the old miyas read on the screens.

It says they brought the donkey and the colt, laid

their clothes on them and set them on them, and

a very great multitude spread their clothes on the road.

Others cut down branches from the trees and spread them

on the road.

Then the multitudes who went.

Before and those who followed cried out, Hosanna to the

son of David, Blessed is he who comes in the

name of the Lord Hosanna in the Highest. And when

he had come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved,

saying who is this? So the multitude said, this is Jesus,

the prophet from Nazareth of Galilee. Let's pray, Father, we

thank you for your mercy and your grace. We thank

you for your word. It's the only change agent that

we have on the face of the planet. And I

pray today that it takes root at the very fabric

of our being, way down deep, at the foundation of

our soul, and that it brings a harvest of life.

Challenge us today, Lord, challenge us to see you in

a different way. Challenge us to see ourselves.

In a different way.

The Lord, I ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

You know, this is what we refer to as the

triumphal end. Jesus rides in their shouting Hosanna. It's a

huge scene and it's spectacular, but there's a lot of

a lot of impact in the setting of what's happening

here too, because it wasn't just Jesus riding into Jerusalem

on an ordinary day. This was the beginning of Passover week.

So in Jerusalem, which was a population of around fifty

thousand on any given day, those numbers had swelled to

the hundreds of thousands. It was a giant celebration of Passover,

and all the people were gathered and Jesus strategically chose

this time because of the mentality and the mindset of

those people that were gathered, because Passover wasn't just a

celebration for the Jews of sins being removed, but it

was a strategic moment where Passover actually set them free

from the bondage of Egypt. It was that passovernight that

all led Pharaoh to say you can go, and then

the Israel left, and then we know.

The great miracle that happened at the Red.

Sea and all of those things, and it was a

time where they saw the military occupation that they were under.

Israel wasn't a free place. Jerusalem was not a free

place at this time. They were ruled very heavin, heavily

handed by the Roman Empire. They were very strictly controlled,

and at the very foundational level, very abusive control, and

at the very top level, very indifferent control. And that's

a mixture for bad things. When those people that are

on the ground are cruel and the ones that are

in leadership are indifferent, that leads to a lot of abuse.

And the Israeli people, the Jews had been abused and

they were getting worn down. But every Passover they looked

for that same kind of deliverance from God. That they

saw on the original passover when Jesus set them free

from each And then we have this picture of Jesus

riding in on a donkey, and we contrast that, and

there's a lot of people that teach that at the

same time Jesus was riding in on this side of

the city on that donkey, that on the other side

of the city, Pilot was riding in.

With extra armed forces.

So it was the humble entry of the king as

opposed to the military might of Pilot riding in on

his war horses and chariots on the other side to

make sure for order and control.

And that contrast.

Confused the people because what the people were looking for

was a military savior. What the people were looking for

was someone that would come in and fight. And here

Jesus has markedly fulfilled one of the greatest prophecies that

they looked for in their deliverer. In zach radt chapter nine,

verse nine, it says, rejoiced greatly, o'dall of Zion, shadow,

daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your king.

Is coming to you. He is just and having salvation.

Lowly and riding on a donkey, a colt, the foal

of a donkey in Jesus has met this, and immediately

people begin to have hope rise on the inside of them.

They begin to say, this is it. This is the

moment we waited for.

This is the moment where.

The King has arrived and he's going to set us

free from all of this military occupation, and we're going

to be a free people.

And they were.

Looking for somebody to save them. The people were looking

for somebody to fight for them, but Jesus came to

die for them. They were looking for someone to overthrow.

A military power.

But Jesus was coming to overthrow the hold of sin.

And bondage in their lives.

And because there was such a difference in what the

people were looking for and what Jesus was, so many

of them missed the opportunity that stood before them in

the embodiment of the Son of God. I wonder how

many of us, and our relationship with Jesus misunderstand exactly

what the Lord is trying to do in us and

through us. You know, when we as Americans, when we

come to the Bible, we have a very Western understanding

of the Bible.

Amen. We have a very.

United States of America viewpoint and when we come to scriptures,

and we read scriptures, we see prosperity in a very

different way than other people do in a lot's places.

In the world.

We see reationship in a very different way and a

very different place that we normally see it, or or

people see it in other places of the world. And

we persue and we project our Western filter on the scripture,

and we think that Jesus, yes, he saves us.

Yes, we come to.

An altar, but Jesus is all supposed also supposed to

bail me out of every tough spot that I get into.

That if things are not going just right now listen,

and it doesn't matter who causes it.

We think that.

Jesus is supposed to bail us out. I used to

I used to counsel people all the time. They come

and say, oh, the devil's doing this, and the devil's

doing that, Oh the devil and the devil. And I

was saying, Okay, now, who decided to do this? Why

decided to do that? Well, who decided to do this,

Why we decided to do that, Who decided to buy this,

why we decided to buy that?

Who decided to do that?

Or we decided that, Oh, so the devil didn't decide

any one of those things for you. So the devil's

getting the credit for your situation. But really, you deserve

the credit for your situation. And we come to the

Lord and we think that just because he saved us,

that he also has to bail us out of every

bad decision that we make in our lives. See, Expectation

without understanding leads to disappointment. Expectation without understanding leads to

disappointment because we think that Jesus is an atm machine,

that he's just there to give us the things we need.

And for so long the church, especially here in America,

we have sought the hands of Jesus that we have

forgotten to seek his face. We want what he holds

in his hands, but we do not encounter the stare

of his loving gaze. Because the stare of his loving

gaze sometimes dishes out tough love, because the reality is

sometimes going through things is more important than being taken

out of something. As a matter of fact, we have

no promise in scripture that Jesus will deliver us out

of anything, but we do have a promise that he

will deliver us through everything.

And he may want to change.

Your position and your understanding and your peace level in

the midst of something hard. Rather than just simply changing

the situation and the circumstance around it, he may use

the position you're in, even if you caused it, to

change you at the very fabric of your being, into

someone that looks more like him, because who we are

is more important than what we have. I've been to

some very poor places in the world. I have been

to some of the worst places, places with just raw

sewage standing on the ground and infested with bugs and

disease and all of those things. In places where kids

have very little to eat, and when a church shows up,

sometimes it's all they could.

Get in a month was the little bag of rice

that we handed out.

But there's something that's in common to all of those places.

It's that the kids still laugh and enjoy life, and

they run and they play because they do not have

a false expectation of anything, because they realize that they

must make the best out of the situation that they're

in right now.

You know, the difference between.

Those places and this place is that we compare ourselves

with what everybody else has, and then because we don't

have a proper viewpoint and a proper context in which

we view those things. We become disappointed that God doesn't

give us the things that other people have, But most

likely it's because other people have come to the point

of discipleship and spiritual maturity that they can handle having

things without things having them. I didn't really come to

day to preach for applause, but thank y'all for that.

You know, when we misunderstand who Jesus is like they

did on that very first that very first Palm Sunday,

we live our lives always chasing something, and chasing something

usually means we're running away from the plan of the Lord.

That he wants to bring.

Transformation to the inside of us rather than things to

the outside of us. If you really want to shine

like Jesus, you invite people into the messiness of your testimony,

right in the middle of it, when things still don't

look clean, and you allow them to experience the Lord

with you on your journey. So it doesn't just look

like a cute story with a bow on it at

the end, but people get to see you survive all

the hard times. If they get to see you say

you know what things are not going well, but I'm

still trusting Jesus. And then next week when things are

going worse, you look at him and you say, you

know what, things are a little worse than they were

last week, but I'm still trusting Jesus. And then when

the bottom falls out of it the next week and

you're just you're right up against losing everything, you look

at say, you know what, if Jesus doesn't show up,

I'm gonna lose everything. But you know what, I'm still

trusting him, because even if they throw me in the fire,

I'm still going to trust him because He's still God.

It doesn't matter what I have, it doesn't matter the

things that I accumulate. What matters is that Jesus is

who he says he is, and he is giving me

a peace that passes all human understanding. Because let me

tell youself that we are very blessed to be born

where we're born, when we're born, and we don't need

to take those things for granted, because there's a lot

of places that on the best day of their life,

is worse than the worst day of our lives. And

God has put us in a very fortunate place, and

we need to learn to give him gratitude.

And the only way we can do.

That is that understand that Jesus is more concerned with

your soul than he is with your things. He's more

concerned with the state of your spirit than he is

with the state of your bank account or the state

in which you reside, or any of those things. Jesus

is trying to do a work down deep on the

inside of us that makes lasting impacts, so that our

kids see our character and not our twenty dollars bills.

That kids see our character.

Not the time we spend with them, but they see

the character down deep on the insult of us, because

we're being transformed into the image of Jesus. If you

want to live a legacy life, a life that impacts others,

you turn yourself over to Jesus and say, Jesus, form

me from the inside out.

It doesn't matter what.

Happens to me, just make something happen in me. And

had Israel had different eyes that day, had Israel had

a different understanding that day, instead of looking for a

military savior, they would have embraced the humble king that

would have set them free from the pressure and the

stress and the depression they felt from an occupying force,

and they would have been a light to that force

that would have carried the Gospel around the world. Had

Israel accepted Jesus in that moment, the Gospel would have

encompassed the world at lightning speed, because Rome ruled the

entire known world. If you will adjust your heart and

see Jesus for who he is, how many people can

be touched through the influence that you have right now

in this moment. You know, my wife has what I

call a smart testimony. She grew up in church, she

got saved at an early age, She's always served the Lord.

She hadn't done dumb things. I have a dumb testimony.

I was dumb for a lot of years.

Amen.

And here's the thing that here's the thing that we

celebrate in churches. We celebrate testimonies like mine where you

know had a I really liked alcohol and other things.

Amen.

If it altered my mood, I enjoyed it. And we think, oh,

God delivered him and set him free. But the purest

testimony is someone who understands Jesus at a very early

age and never ventures into the world and has to

be delivered out of anything, but can just simply.

Walk with Jesus through everything.

The greatest testimonies in the world are not the flamboyant

things where Jesus shows up in the nick of time.

It's where we've just conditioned ourselves to live in the

knowledge and the safety of the grace and mercy of Jesus.

And if he blesses me, thank you. If he doesn't

bless me, thank you. I'm just going to be okay.

I want you to ask yourself a very important question today.

What is enough? Let me say that again, what is enough?

Most of our worries and struggles are the same thing

that Israel was happening. We want something we don't have.

We want freedom, we want this, we want that. We

want this, and the same thing with us, we always

want something else. But what about the words of the

apostle Paul that I'm content in all things. I've learned

to live in abundance, and I've learned to live in lack,

And in all things I am content. It doesn't mean

that you don't need to strive for more, but that

doesn't need to be the focus of your life.

The focus of.

Your life needs to be a thriving relationship with Jesus

that spills over into your family and your coworkers, and

the person you buy coffee from, and the lady at

the grocery store, and your dentist and your doctor. And

your doctor should look forward to you showing up for

a doctor's appointment because you fill him with hope and joy,

because you are so pregnant with Jesus, he should make

an appointment not because you need it, but because he

needs it. And then of course you give him a

bill at the end. Amen, Amen, say this is your cove.

But Church, when we have a misunderstanding, it always creates disappointment.

In Proverbs chapter three, verse five, it says, trust in

the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on

your own understanding.

In all your ways.

Acknowledge Him, and he shall direct your paths. Do not

be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord, and

depart from evil. It will be health to your flesh

and strength to your bones. You know they missed the

Savior because he didn't look like their solution. Are you

missing Jesus because he doesn't look like your solution? You know,

in our minds, we know what our perfect life is

supposed to look like.

Right. The house and the fence.

And the dog and the cat that get along, A

son and a daughter that never squabble and they never fight.

Those are just pipe dreams. Come on, somebody. Cats and

dogs are supposed to fight. So are brothers and sisters.

And as much as I hate to say it, I

guess so are sisters. I'm learning that every day with

my two. One of them's grown and the other one

thinks she is, and they still fight, even on the

phone with each other. But you know what, we have

to come to the place and the reality that Jesus

is enough, that Jesus is enough to satisfy us even

when things are hard and difficult. When Jesus rode into Jerusalem,

band you can come and get ready. When Jesus rode

into Jerusalem, and they all shouted Hosanna, and they took

their coats off, and they threw.

Them down on the ground as a.

Sign of submission and humility as he rode in over

their coats, and they were doing everything right with their mouth.

These are the same people. The same people who.

Celebrated him and shouted for him on Sunday were the

same people that on Friday were shouting crucify him.

Kill him.

We don't want him. He's wrong, he's a heretic. The

same people that celebrated him were the same people that

crucified him because they were disappointed that he didn't come

with the sword. In our case, they were disappointed that

he did come with a check, that he didn't come

with enough peace, that he didn't come with enough flash,

that he didn't come with a promotion, that he didn't

come with this, that he didn't come with that, we

find ourselves broken and disappointed. In Matthew chapter eleven, verse

twenty eight, it says, come to me, all you who are,

all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I

will give you rest.

Go back to that.

He didn't say that I will give you anything other

than rest. He didn't say I'm going to show up

and change things. He didn't say I'm going to show

up and suddenly move situation and circumstance. He said, I'm

going to give you rest. I'm going to give you

the ability that in the middle of your heaviness, in

the middle of your labor, I'm going to give you

a peace that causes rest in your spirit and rest

in your soul. Go to the next. Take my yoke

upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle

and lowly in heart, and you'll find rest for your souls,

for my yoke is.

Easy and my burden is light.

You know, I don't know where you are today. I

don't know what you're struggling with. I don't know what

you're stressed out about. I don't know why anxiety creeps in.

I don't know any of those things.

But all I know.

Is that Jesus promise when we just sang a song.

All his promises are yes and amen. That Jesus' promise

is that he will come into the midst of your sickness.

He'll come into the midst of your debt. He'll come

into the midst of your brokenness. He'll come into the

midst of your addiction. He'll come into the midst of

all those things.

And he will give you rest.

He will come into the soulish part of you who

you are, and he will allow you to see those

situations and circumstances differently. And your testimony can shine through

the hardest moments of your life.

But it starts with the very beginning.

Put that very first passage from that scripture back up.

Come to me, Come to me. Come to me.

All you who are heavy laden, come to me, and

I will give you rest. Jesus will take every every

single step in building a relationship with you except for

the last one, and he will stand one step away,

and he will mirror your life because he needs you

to take that last step. He needs you to reach

in for that embrace.

He needs you.

To trust him in that moment, to fall into his arms.

And right now, in this moment, Jesus is standing at

the doorway, and all you need to do is take

the final step.

He's calling you into his arms.

He's already died, he's already raised again. He's already the

conditions for his part of your salvation, for his part

of your restoration, for his part of your will.

He's already met those conditions.

Now you just need to meet yours with that one

final step, every head bowed and every eye closed.

In the midst of your.

Brokenness and hurt, stress and anxiety.

If you're here.

Today, say pastor, I'm ready. I'm ready to give everything

to Jesus. I'm ready to run to him, fall into

his arms. I need his peace and his joy. I

need him.

I fast you.

Slip your hand up and say that's me, Pastor. I

just need him to touch me right where I am.

Need him to forgive me of my stubbornness and my

hard heartedness. I need him to forgive me and set

me free. Slip your hand up and put it right

back down. We got time to wait on you, amen.

I believe there's two or three more. Just throw your

hand up, put it right back down.

Just give in. Take up his yoke.

Your yoke is too hard, it's heavy. His yoke is

light and easy. I can feel somebody fighting right now.

I can feel in my spirit somebody fighting against giving

into the Lord right now.

Stick your hand up and put it right back down.

Come on, come on, come on, amen? Is there another?

Come on?

Come on?

Amen? Amen?

Amen, Amen, everybody put your hands down.

Everybody open your eyes, everybody standing with me all over

the building. Jesus will take us right where we are,

but we have to come.

As a matter of.

Fact, the Bible says, This Bible says, if you confess

me before men, I'll confess you before my father in Heaven.

In other words, if.

You'll stand in front of people when you get to heaven.

I'm gonna look at my father and I'm gonna say, Dad,

he's with us.

Let him in. Dad, she's with us. Let her in.

But if you deny me before men, if you refuse

to stand in front of people when you get to heaven,

there's nothing I can do because I don't know if

you're with me or not. This is where faith takes

that final step, from where.

You're seating, from where you're seitated. From where you're.

Seated, y'all go ahead and laugh at me, it's okay.

From where you're seated to this altar is that final step.

So if you're here, you raise your hand. I'm going

to count to three, and when I get to three,

I want you to move. Don't look to see if

anybody else moves. That's popularity, that's not faith. You step

out because this is your moment to build your relationship

with your God and to stand and say here I

am Lord, use me. It's on the count of three.

I want you to step out and move. When I

hit three, you guys, go one, two, three, step out

and move right now. If you raise your hand, come on,

step out and move right now. Come on, come on,

come on, come on, come on, come on, come on,

come on, come on, come on, come on, come on,

come on, come.

On, Alter Team. I need you, I need your Altar team.

Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on,

come on, come on, come on.

You know what maybe maybe you did,