Palm Sunday: Why did Jesus have to die?

Get to Venture Church. If you don't know who I am, I'm Pastor

Brandon. I am the lead pastor of the church. Glad that you have

chosen to join us here on Palm Sunday, which is one of my favorite

services of the year, probably is my favorite service of the year. I

want to mention that today is also die Beal's birthday. She loves it when

people make a big deal about her birthday, so feel free to take selfies

with her in the lobby afterwards and post them on social media. I also

want to mention that tomorrow is Kaylee Pastor Kaylee our kids Pastor's birthday, so

show her some love also. But today is Palm Sunday. This is the

official beginning of Holy Week. This is the most important week for those of

us of the Christian faith. This is our super Bowl week. This is

a bigger deal than March Madness. This is a bigger deal than the week

leading up to Christmas. This is the most important week on our calendar.

This week is so important that Matthew, Mark and Luke spent a third of

their entire gospels dealing with this week. In the Life of Jesus, half

of the entire Gospel of John deals with this week in Jesus' life. If

you were to make a movie about Jesus, you would do a little bit

about his birth, a little bit about the time up to this point,

but three quarters of the movie would deal with this portion of Jesus' life.

You see, this is the week where Jesus has the conflict with the religious

leaders. Then on Thursday he spends his last moments with his disciples and they

celebrate Passover together, and at that Passover meal afterwards he implements communion for the

very first time. You see, this week is the week where Jesus is

betrayed by Judas denied by Peter. He deals with all of the courtroom drama.

There is the beatings, and it eventually leads to Jesus being crucified on

a cross. We know that day as Good Friday. We have a Good

Friday service where we remember that moment. But it is the day where Jesus

dies on the cross for our sins. But the best part of the story

slory is that on Sunday we celebrate Easter, and Easter is the day we

remember that Jesus conquered death, hell and the grave that Jesus is alive.

I want to mention two things. I don't believe that you can truly appreciate

Easter until you understand Palm Sunday. And I don't believe you can truly appreciate

Palm Sunday until you understand Passover. So I'm going to take some time today

and I'm going to teach you on Passover and why Palm Sunday is my favorite

service of the year. To help you with your learning about Passover. Pastor

Tony and I our podcast kind of a promo for it right here. We

do a podcast. It drops every Friday morning. Now. It's also available

for you to watch on YouTube. But this particular last episode we talked about

Passover. We brought a gentleman in from our church who studied many years to

become a Jewish rabbi. He is not necessarily a Messianic Jew. I don't

know what he labels himself something. He's super smart, though, he's smarter

than me, and he really does a great job explaining the significance of Passover.

If you want to learn more, I really do encourage you to go

back and listen to that. I think it will really help you but when

it comes to this Easter season, I think it's important that you know how

to answer this question because this is a question that you likely get asked by

many of your friends that are non religious. When we talked a couple of

weeks ago about the fact that over eighty percent of people that live in this

region do not share our faith at all. In all likelihood, when you

interact with them and they find out you're a follower of Jesus, they might

ask you a question like, what is the Christian's obsession with death? Why

do you guys make such a big deal about death. Maybe they ask you

this question, what's the deal with this whole blood thing? You Christians?

You talk about blood so much? Why would a god demand a blood sacrifice?

Only a primitive god would demand a blood sacrifice? Bottom line, they're

asking the question, why did Jesus have to die and go to the cross

and die in our place? I want to ask everyone to buy your heads,

close your eyes. I want you to repeat this prayer after me.

Everyone say, dear Jesus, speak to my heart, change my life in

Jesus' name. Amen? Why did Jesus have to die? You can't appreciate

Easter until you understand Palm Sunday. And you can't appreciate Palm Sunday until you

understand Passover. You were wondering why you're holding a palm branch? Why are

you giving this to come in? I had people ask me in the lobby

after the second service, if or first service, if they were just to

hit their neighbor with this, But what does this symbolize? A palm branch

symbolizes victory and triumph. When we talk about Passover. I want to teach

you a Hebrew word. There is one Hebrew word. If you only learn

one Hebrew word your entire lifetime, you need to learn this word. And

it is the word hosanna. So we're gonna play a game here. Everybody.

When I say hosanna, you say it back hosanna. Okay, that's

not bad. Let's try it again hosanna. So that word hosanna means God.

Sorry, you're really excited. You get extra credit. You can have

two selfies with die in the lobby. That word hozanna means God rescue us,

God save us, God deliver us. And we're reminded about that moment

when the Israelites were held captive in Egypt for four hundred years. They were

in slavery in Egypt. They were oppressed in Egypt. Whenever we talk about

like the year that go by in the Old Testament, it's hard for you

and I to contextualize it today because you know, in our minds we just

kind of breeze over those things. But I want you to think about how

long in your life you think if I said this is gonna happen in five

years, five years seems like an eternity. We always joked that one year

being a part of Venture is the equivalent of being a part of another church

for seven years, because of how much changes every single year at Venture.

But this was four hundred years of being oppressed by the Egyptians, being slaves

in Egypt. In other words, they watched entire generations born into oppression and

die into oppression, generation after generation. For four hundred years this happened.

And finally the people of Israel started crying out to God asking God for help.

And they cried out to God saying, Hosannah, come on, play

along, or we are not going Hosanna. So I gave you this palm

branch. This symbolizes victory symbolizes triumph. Palm Sunday is also the day we

remember the triumphal entry where Jesus entered into Jerusalem and they threw they were waving

these palm branches shouting Hosanna, and they threw them at Jesus' feet when he

walked into Jerusalem. So here's what we're gonna do. Every time I say

Hosannah and you say it back. I'm literally doing all of this because my

wife told me to, like in the middle of worship, so I didn't

have this prepped as well. So when I say don't say it yet,

I'm telling you what I'm gonna say that I'm gonna say it. This is

awesome on the online that are watching right now. When I say Hosannah,

don't say it. But when I say it and you say it back,

I want you to wave your palm branches as we're signifying that this is the

day of jesus triumphal entry. God, is everybody practice waving the palm branches.

Here we go. I fully blamed I for this five minutes. This

is taking me. Okay, good, put them down, Okay, here

we go. Are you ready? The Israelites cried, out, Hosanna,

God rescue us, Hosanna. God deliver us, Hosannah, God save us

Hosanna. And God heard their cry, and he sent them a deliverer,

the Prince of Egypt, a man by the name of Moses, who went

to the ruler of the Egyptians, the Pharaoh, and he said, Pharaoh,

let my people go. But Pharaoh said, I'm not going to let

your people go. Your people do all the things that are below my people.

Your people are our people's servants. They do the things that we don't

want to do. So God sent them a number of plagues, and finally

he sent the tenth plague, which was known as the plague of Death,

which applies to the festival of Passover, and we read about it in Exodus

chapter twelve. Go ahead and turn there. This is what happened with the

plague of Death and that first Passover. It says this month verse two is

to be for you the first month, the first month of your year.

Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month,

each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household.

So follow these days. This is important, and it's all going to

come together. So on the tenth day of the first month, the people

of Israel are to choose a lamb. It's known as lamb selection day.

But God is very specific in the type of lamb they need to choose.

He says verse five, the animal you choose must be a year old male

without defect, and you may take them from the sheep and the goats take

care of them until the fourteenth day. So on the tenth day lamb selection

day, they are to choose a lamb, but not just any lamb.

This must be a perfect, spotless lamb without blemish. Then they are to

take care of that lamb until the fourteenth day. And then on the fourteenth

day they are to slaughter that lamb at twilight, and they are to take

some of that lamb's blood and they wipe it on their doorposts and on their

doorframes. And they're to have a festival together where they eat, and God

is very specific about how they eat and how this festival takes place. Verse

eight says that same night, they are to eat the meat roasted over fire,

along with bitter herbs and bread made without yeast. So we know that

you put yeast in bread and over time, it causes bread to rise.

But why would God tell them to make bread without yeast? Because God is

trying to teach the people of God the principle of suddenly Church. I will

tell you, when God answers, he answers suddenly. There are some of

you. You've been praying for miracles for years. Some of you been praying

for people in your family that they would find Jesus, that they would come

back to Jesus. And you've been praying for what seems like days, months,

years, and then when God all of us sudden, here's your cry,

and answers, he answers suddenly. Some of you have been praying for

a physical miracle. You've been praying for a financial miracle. You have been

praying and believing, holding on to faith that God is gonna hear your cry.

And I'm telling you, when he does, he doesn't prepare you for

it. When God answers, he answers suddenly, he answers, so suddenly

you don't have time to wait for the bread to rise. He goes on

and it says, this is how you were to eat it, with your

cloak tucked into your belt and your sandals on your feet and your staff in

your hand. Why So, back then men would wear cloaks, and when

they were going to run, they would tuck their cloak into their out,

because if they tried to run without it tucked into their belt, they'd trip.

So God says, you are to make this meat, and you are

to cook this bread without yeast, and you were to eat it with your

cloak tucked into your belt and your sandals on your feet. In a Hebrew

home, in a Jewish home, it was etiquette that when you entered someone's

home you took off your sandals. Now, as a courtesy to you,

they would have a basin of water next to the door and a towel for

you to your feet. So you would, as courtesy, come to the

house, take off your sandals, wash your feet, leave your sandals there,

and enter their house without your shoes on. But God is saying,

not only do you have your cloak tucked into your belt, but you have

your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Why, because

he's teaching them haste, He's saying, and when I show up, you're

not gonna have time to tuck your cloak into your belt. When I answer,

you're not gonna have time to put your sandals on your feet. This

is the Lord's passover. So on that first passover, on the tenth day,

Lamb selection day, throughout Egypt, the people of God found a lamb

that was perfect, spotless, without blemish. They kept that lamb till the

fourteenth day, when at twilight, out of obedience to God, they slaughtered

that lamb, and they took that lamb's blood and they wiped it on their

doorpost, doorframe, and they begin to eat this meal just as God commanded.

Well that night the tenth place came the plague of death, and it's

swept over the nation of Egypt. Is my mic going out, And it

swept over the nation of Egypt, killing the first born of every single household

except those that on the tenth day had chosen a perfect lamb that had kept

it until the fourteenth day, took the blood and wiped it on their doorposts.

Those that had done that, the death angel passed over them. There

was cries throughout the nation of Egypt. Pharaoh called Moses back and he said

to Moses, you and all the Israelites can go. And God said,

I never won I want you to forget. I never want your children to

forget the miraculous deliverance I did for them when I brought them out of Egypt.

So every year, I want you to celebrate Passover. Every year,

on the tenth day of the first month, lamb selection day, I want

you to choose a perfect, spotless lamb. Then I want you to keep

that lamb till the fourteenth day, when at twilight you will slaughter that lamb.

And it is to represent that because of the blood of an innocent we

were saved. So for fifteen hundred years, the Israelites did this. For

fifteen hundred years, Prophets would come and they would say, someday God is

going to deliver you again. But this time he's not gonna deliver you from

captivity. He's not gonna deliver you from oppression. He's gonna deliver you from

the darkness of your hearts. He's gonna deliver you from your sin. That

God is going to send you a messiah. For fifteen hundred years they celebrated

Passover. It was fifteen hundred years later. Israel was now a Roman occupied

territory. The people of God were being oppressed by the Romans. It was

the tenth day of the first month, lamb selection day, where the people

throughout Israel had gone to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover, and on Lamb's selection day,

they are looking for that perfect, spotless lamb, and the people of

God are shouting Hosannah. They're shouting Hosannah, and Jesus enters into Jerusalem and

in that moment God was saying, I have chosen a perfect lamb for you.

John the Baptist said, look, the Lamb of God who takes away

the sins of man. Why do I love Palm Sunday so much? Because

Palm Sunday is the day that I remember Jesus came to my rescue. My

favorite thing about Venture is we're a bunch of people that have different backgrounds.

We're very diverse and unique in our stories, but we have one thing in

common. Had just the right moment, Jesus crossed our path. And when

Jesus crossed our path, he changed everything. You might be a venture today

for the very first time, I want you to know the only thing that

anyone in this room has in common is that Jesus all came to our rescue.

And that's what we remember on Palm. Sunday lamb Selection Day, Jesus

enters into Jerusalem. Then on Thursday he celebrates Passover with his disciples. Then

after that Passover meal, he introduces this idea of communion. The first time,

he takes bread and he passes it around and he says, this represents

my body that is broken for you. Now they didn't know what he was

talking about. Then he took a cup and he passed it around and he

says, this represents my new covenant in blood. Now they understood blood.

They were celebrating blood. It was passover. But ultimately they didn't know what

Jesus was talking about. They didn't know that he was talking about his blood

that was about to be shed for our forgiveness. And what God is doing

is he's bringing all of this together. And God is saying, are you

ready, because I'm about to answer suddenly. Are you ready to get delivered?

Are you ready to be set free? Are you ready to be forgiven?

On Friday, Jesus goes to the cross and he dies for our sins.

Why did Jesus have to die? Why did he have to die?

If you're new to venture, you've probably never heard me share this verse.

But if you've been around here for any length of time, you know my

favorite verse is tewod Corinthians five twenty one. Paul was thinking about this moment

when he said, God made him who had no sin, to be sin

for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Martin Luther called that verse the Great Exchange. Let me break it down.

It says God made him who had no sin. Jesus came the God man

God in the flesh. He was sinless. Jesus said it himself, I

am without sin. Can you find any fault in me? Jesus was the

perfect sinless son of God, the perfect sinless Savior. God made him who

had no sin to be sin for us. Theologians referred to that as the

substitutionary atonement. It's substitutionary, and that Jesus died in our place. That

word atone means to wipe away, to cover, to remove. In other

words, Jesus in the Great Exchange, takes from you and I the only

thing we have to offer, which is the hardness of our hearts, the

darkness of our lives, our mistakes, our failures, our worst moments,

our worst motives. We get to come to Jesus with the only thing that

we have to offer, our brokenness, and you know what he does in

this great exchange. He takes it from us and willingly goes to the cross,

and he honors mercy and he honors justice, knowing that there needs to

be justice for these mistakes. And he dies on the cross in our place

to pay our debt. But that's not it. There's more to the story,

and he gives He doesn't just take our brokenness and die in our place.

He gives us in exchange his righteousness, knowing that there will come a

moment you and I will stand before God and give an account for our life.

The Bible says that a man is destined to die once and face the

judgment. It doesn't matter if you know God or not. Every single one

of us will die, and we will stand before are a holy, righteous

God and give an account for our life. But because of the great exchange,

because you came to Jesus with the only thing that you had to offer,

which was your brokenness, he took it willingly from you all the way

to the cross, and he died in our place, and in exchange gave

us his righteousness. So you and I when we stand before God, God

does not judge us because of our sin. He judges us according to Christ's

righteousness, the Great Exchange, and what that does Church. As a result,

you and I get a stand before God knowing we are right with God.

You cannot appreciate Easter until you understand Palm Sunday. You cannot appreciate Palm

Sunday until you understand the significance of Passover. Because it was that Passover two

thousand years ago when Jesus entered into Jerusalem, that you and I were given

the opportunity from that day forward to stand before God. As Paul said in

Tewod Corinthians five, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come.

The old is gone, the new is here. All this is from

God who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, the Great Exchange. When you

came in, one of our ushers gave you a communion emblem. I want

you to take that real quick. In preparation for communion. You peel off

the top layer, and that exposes the cracker. Then you peel off the

second layer, and that exposes the juice. When you have your communion emblems

in your hand. By the way, if you did not receive communion emblems

when you came in, will you wave and one of our ushers will,

oh my gosh, We'll run quickly to help you keep waving for that.

Do we have anybody on this side usshers? I want everyone to stand up

on your feet before we receive communion. I want to give you an opportunity

to receive the great exchange. I think I wouldn't be doing you a great

service if I didn't give you the opportunity to make that exchange. So I

want everyone to close your eyes. I just have a question for you.

If you were here today and you do not know Jesus, but you want

to In just a moment, I'm gonna count to three, and when I

say three, I want you to raise your hand. But I'm also gonna

ask some of you this question, and I want you to hear me as

I say this. If you were here, and if you were to answer

this question honestly, and the question is am I in a right relationship with

Jesus? And if your answer to that question is no or even I'm not

sure, but you want to leave this place today knowing I'm in a right

relationship with Jesus. When I say three, I want you to raise your

hand to so with every eye closed. If you're here you do not know

Jesus, but you want to or you want to leave this place knowing I

am right with Jesus. When I say three, raise your hand. Here

I go one, two, raise your hand. Now three you can put

them down before we receive communion. I want everyone to pray this simple prayer

of repentance with me. For those of you that raised your hand, you

get a receive communion in just a moment, knowing I'm receiving this in a

moment where I am right with Jesus. But I want to invite everyone to

pray this prayer with me, if you would so, with every eye closed,

everyone repeat after me. Everyone say, Dear Jesus, I stand before

you today and I admit I've messed up. I've made mistakes. But today

I ask you to forgive me and invite you to come into my life and

to change me. I choose from this day forward to serve you with my

life. Thank you for forgiving me and for saving me. In Jesus' name,

Amen. On the night before Jesus was betrayed. He took bread and

he broke it, and he passed it around to each one of his disciples,

and he says, this represents my body, which is broken for you.

Every time you receive of it, remember me. Let's receive of the

body together. Then he took that cup and he says, this represents my

new covenant in blood. I tell you this that it's not what it is

that matters. You see, what it is is some sort of Jewish concoction

that Lord knows how long it's been in there. But it's what it represents

that matters. This represents everything that Jesus did for us this Easter week.

It represents his triumphal entry. It represents going to the cross and dying in

our place, and it represents him conquering death, hell, and the grave

so that you and I can stand before God and be right with God.

Every time you're given the opportunity to receive communion, you need to envision it

as if this is God's grace washing over you, his mercy washing over you.

All of your mistakes and all of your failures, all of your worst

moments are washed away because of what Jesus has done and what this represents.

So as you receive of the cup, no, you are receiving God's grace

covering your entire life. Let's receive together,