A Life of Worship (Palm Sunday)

If I haven't had the privilege to meet with you.

My name is Chris Durham and I serve as the administrative pastor here at RLC, and so that means this morning I get to take a moment and do some administrative things really quick.

I have two things super, super fast.

If this is your first time with us, we just want to say a very special welcome to you, and one thing we love to do here at RLC is we believe this is a family.

We're a family of God here at Real Life Church and we would love to connect with you and we would love an opportunity just to have a conversation with you.

So if you would please fill that connect card You'll see that there in your worship guide and do me a favor, drop that off at the Welcome Center and we have a very special gift for you, just our way of saying thank you for being here.

And if you've already received that gift, do me a favor, drop that Connect card in the offering box or you're still welcome to drop it at the Welcome Center.

You're just not going to get two coffee mugs, okay, but please be sure, stop out at the Welcome Center and then also this one's for everybody On the back of the seat in front of you, you will see a little QR code that looks like this.

So here for just a moment, I'm gonna play administrative pastor, which is my job here.

Okay, I would like to see everybody take their phone out and actually scan the small QR code.

This signs you up for 94,000.

This is the main way that we connect and we're able to relay information to everybody on massive scale.

So if I don't see your phone out, I'm just going to take it as if you're already signed up for 94,000 and we have a list of people that are signed up for 94,000.

I'm going to go through and see if you have signed up and if you haven't, you might get a call from either me or Whitney Sloan saying, hey, get signed up for, and if you haven't, you might get a call from either me or Whitney Sloan saying, hey, get signed up for this thing, because we send out things like if we're closed for weather or if we have a big event coming up.

Guys, we have a bunch of things going on all through RLC, so, please be sure, get signed up for 94,000.

That is our best way to communicate with you guys.

All right, administrative pastor.

Time is over.

Now I just get to bring what God has laid on my heart to first of all wrestle with myself and then also for you guys to wrestle with.

So if you would, in your Bibles, go ahead and turn to Luke, chapter 19.

Luke 19 · chapter mention

We're gonna be in Luke, chapter 19,.

Luke 19 · chapter mention

And we're gonna be verses 28 through 40.

This will be a fairly common passage if you have been around church for a while.

It's actually what we celebrate today, being Palm Sunday, and we're going to unpack that in just a little bit but to kind of reorient everybody and get everybody on the same page.

This is a time where Jesus is coming out of a place called Jericho and he is headed into Jerusalem to celebrate Passover.

So what's happening is he's leaving Jericho, which is roughly 15 to 20 kilometers from Jerusalem.

They don't have cars, so he's at best on feet, okay, so he's walking towards Jerusalem.

He's already talked to this wee little man named Zacchaeus.

Anybody grow up in church there once was a wee little man.

A wee little man, was he?

Yeah, that just happened.

And now they're leaving out of Jericho, headed into Jerusalem.

So let's read the word of God here In Luke, chapter 19,.

Luke 19 · chapter mention

It says After telling this story, jesus went on toward Jerusalem, walking ahead of his disciples.

As he came to the towns of Bethpage and Bethany on the Mount of Olives, he sent two disciples ahead.

Go into that village over there.

He told them, as you enter it you will see a young donkey tied there that no one has ever ridden.

Untie it and bring it here.

If anyone asks why are you untying that colt, just say the Lord needs it.

So they went ahead and found the colt, just as Jesus had said.

And sure enough, as they were untying it, the owners asked them why are you untying that colt?

And the disciples simply replied the Lord needs it.

So they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their garments over for him to ride on.

As he rode along, the crowds spread their garments on the road ahead of him.

When he reached the place where the road started down the Mount of Olives, all of his followers began to shout and sing as they walked along, praising God for all the wonderful miracles they had seen.

Blessings on the king who comes in the name of the Lord, peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven.

But some of the Pharisees among the crowd said teacher, rebuke your followers for saying things like this and I love this.

Jesus replied if they keep quiet, the stones along the road would burst into cheers.

Let's pray Our father, god, thank you.

Thank you for this place and bringing each and every one of us to this place safely.

Lord, I ask this as we have worshiped through song.

Lord, I ask this as we worship in your word, now that your word will be made known, that it'll be clear and that you'll give us understanding.

Lord, as you're already here, you're already moving and you're already speaking to people's hearts.

Lord, as you're already here, you're already moving and you're already speaking to people's hearts.

Lord, we give this time to you to speak to us.

Change our lives forever.

God, we give you all praise and all glory in this place in your holy and powerful name.

Amen and amen.

So if I had to put a title on this message, the way I would title this is a life of worship, a life of worship.

And so, if you've been with us over the past couple of months or so, we have been walking through Psalms, psalm 23.

And we've kind of used this book right here.

It's a shepherd.

Look as Psalm 23.

And, guys, we still have copies of this.

If you do not have a copy, please stop at the Welcome Center and grab one of those.

This is an amazing book.

It's actually a very short read and it's something that I would say put on your annual read list, even if you're not a reader.

That's okay.

Chapters are like two, three pages at a time.

Okay, but we've been looking at Jesus as the shepherd, and so now we want to look at why is he worthy of our worship and what exactly is worship?

So, before we jump over to worship, it's actually very, very important that we believe and understand the right things.

So I'm going to give you a couple of terms really quick.

Okay, it's orthodoxy and orthopraxy.

Okay, orthodoxy and orthopraxy.

You may have heard at least orthodoxy at some point in time.

There's actually a book by GK Chesterton I would highly recommend.

It's called Orthodoxy and it's a great, great read.

But what are these things?

Well, first, orthodoxy is correct doctrines and belief.

Correct doctrines and belief Basically saying, hey, we need to believe the right things.

So here at Real Life Church, we believe and I think it's all through test of time that there is an objective truth and that is the Word of God.

And so how do we get our right beliefs?

Well, we look at our beliefs and we line them up with the Word of God, not the other way around.

We don't have a feeling necessary of what's true.

If we have this feeling of what's true, but it doesn't line up with the word of God, I'm going to go ahead and tell you you and I are wrong.

The word of God is right, okay.

So this is super, super important as we're looking today, because I want to get super practical and look at the practices.

But the practices don't matter if the doctrine is not right and our beliefs are not right.

This has to be there first or we can't do the other right.

Okay, so orthopraxy, you can guess it's correct practice and actions.

So in other words, what we're doing right here, how we live life on the day-to-day.

So so important that we do that correctly, according to what the Word of God says.

So first, remember orthodoxy, correct beliefs and doctrine.

Orthopraxy is the correct practice.

The way we live out those beliefs has to be done correctly.

Now I'm going to argue here for a second that this is more important than this, because without this you can't have this, but they go together.

You can't just have a good belief but not ever live it out.

That doesn't work.

That doesn't line up with the Bible, okay, so here's what I want to be very careful of is that I'm going to throw some caution at you.

There is this thing called legalism.

Apparently, some of y'all have heard this thing, okay, so.

So legalism is not a good thing.

Legalism says hey, in order for you to get to heaven, you have to do all these correct things.

Right, that's what it says.

No, we believe in salvation by faith and grace alone.

Okay, so that means if you believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, then you can enter into the gates of heaven.

It doesn't matter what all the good things you do, if you don't have Jesus, you will not enter into heaven.

Okay, gospel, simple gospel, right there.

So I love the way Dallas Willard says this, though, because sometimes we hear orthopraxy of correct practice and action.

Sometimes we hear that and we think this thing of legalism, no, no, practice, correct practice is a good thing.

So I love the way Dallas Willard says it.

This way, he says grace is not opposed to effort, it's opposed to earning.

Earning is an attitude, effort is an action.

It's the idea, and if you've heard me speak before, I reference this almost every time it's the idea.

If you have a tree, a fruit tree, and it's not bearing any fruit, that's likely a dead tree.

Our faith is the same way.

If we have faith but we don't have anything living it out, it's likely we have a dead faith.

Your actions, our fruit, is actually some evidence of what we believe.

Okay, so grace is not opposed to effort, it's opposed to earning.

Earning is an attitude, effort is an action.

That's from the Great Omission by Dallas Fuller Super, super important to remember where we're going.

All right now, we're all oriented in the same place.

What I'd like to do really quick is define worship, because sometimes, in a room this big, we hear the word worship and we probably think different things.

Most of us probably think what we just did here in song, that is an act of worship, but that's not all worship is.

So I want to clarify some things.

Worship the way we're going to define this is the act of honoring, loving and obeying someone or something who is of highest regard, or, in other words, placing someone or something above all else.

That's how we're going to define worship.

It's not just singing a song.

We're going to talk about that.

We're going to talk about getting into the word and all these things, but we have to be on the same page of what this is, guys.

For the record, this is apologetics 101.

Define the terms.

Know that we're talking about the same thing.

So, as a worship, it's the act of honoring, loving and obeying someone or something who is the highest regard.

So then, how in the world do we get living a life of worship from this passage here?

Because this kind of sounds just like a story of Jesus entering into Jerusalem.

So let's get to unpack this a little bit.

So how is a life of worship from Luke, chapter 19?

Luke 19 · chapter mention

First, we see that worship is obedience, Worship is obedience.

Let's look, starting in verse 23.

There God's word says that's in Matthew.

I'm in the wrong book here.

Hold on.

There we go.

Matthew, chapter 19, verse 28, says After telling this story, jesus went on toward Jerusalem, walking ahead of his disciples.

Matthew 19:28

As he came to the town of Bethpage and Bethany on the Mount of Olives, he sent two disciples ahead.

Go into that village over there.

He told them as you enter it, you will see a young donkey tied there that no one has ever ridden.

Untie it and bring it here.

If anyone asks, why are you untying that colt?

Just say the Lord needs it.

So they went and found the colt, just as Jesus said.

And sure enough, as they were untying it, the owners asked them why are you untying that colt?

And the disciples simply replied the Lord needs it.

So they brought the colt to Jesus and they threw their garments over it for him to ride on.

We see right away where Jesus gives the disciples a command and they go do it.

Remember, worship is the act of putting something or someone above yourself.

It's putting them to the top of the list, right, and so an act of obedience is actually worship.

That's what the disciples are doing here.

Think about it this way they have just walked all this way to the Mount of Olives and then, all of a sudden, jesus says hey, I need you to go get this colt all the way down there.

First of all, why not a full-sized donkey?

Why a colt?

I mean, if I'm a disciple, I'm thinking what is Jesus doing?

Like, dude, we've already walked all this way, why not just finish it out?

Well, there's actually some prophecy that's being fulfilled there and you can take your own time.

Please do that this week.

Go look and see where that prophecy lines up with Jesus riding on a colt, because it actually fulfills Jewish prophecy of oh, this is actually the Messiah.

Okay, so super important there.

But rather they say, okay, let's go.

I can only imagine in my head if it's like Peter and John walking down to get this colt Peter's over there, dude, I don't know what Jesus is thinking.

We're going to get this tiny little donkey.

We're going to get there.

This guy's not going to give it to us.

Why are we even doing this?

Doesn't say anything about that.

No, it's simple obedience.

If you will do me a favor, go ahead and turn in your Bible.

And I do say turn in your Bible because I'm expecting that you have a Bible of sorts, whether that's a hard copy or an electronic Bible.

If you don't have a hard copy Bible, please stop at the Welcome Center, because this is so important to not just take what this person up here is saying for the word of God.

You need to see it in the word of God yourself.

These exact copies of the Bible.

We have them out front.

Please stop and grab one.

Go ahead and turn to Exodus chapter 19, though for me, exodus chapter 19.

Exodus 19 · chapter mention Exodus 19 · chapter mention

And if you have one of the cross Bibles from the front, that is page 62.

I'll make it easy for you and we're going to be in Exodus, 19, verses three through six.

Here we get to see where actually that it's so important that we talk about obedience, because in Old Testament the word of God says then Moses climbed the mountain to appear before God.

The Lord God, called to him from the mountain and said Give these instructions to the family of Jacob Talking about Israel, announce it to the descendants of Israel.

You have seen what I did.

Excuse me, what I did to the Egyptians.

You know how I carried you on the eagle's wings and brought you to myself.

Now, if you will obey me and keep my commandment, you will be my own special treasure from among all people of the earth.

This is Old Testament God telling the people of Israel hey, do as I have told you to do, keep my commandments.

If you ever want to see what those commandments are, go look in Exodus.

You can look in Deuteronomy and Leviticus as well.

There's a bunch of law that's laid out to the Israelites.

God says obey me, do as I say.

Now sometimes here in the American Christianity, if you will, we will say, hey, that Old Testament law doesn't matter because of Jesus.

Yes, but Okay, so let's look at that, but really quick.

Romans 10, 19.

I love the word of God because it just doesn't pull any punches.

Romans 10, 19 talks about Jesus being the Lord and Savior.

It says if you profess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord.

Now, that word Lord there is very, very key, because in the actual Greek there it's kurios, or kurios if you're from the south, kurios if you really want to go that far, kurios.

That word kurios means master.

When a master tells you to do something, you do it.

It's also extremely honoring to God.

Do I have any parents in the room?

Some?

Yeah, okay, we have some parents.

Now.

I have four kids.

Every sermon illustration probably has to do with my kids.

That's just the season of life we're in.

Okay, I have four kids, and all of which are so different.

We have one more on the way and it's going to be an amazing time with a fifth child in our house.

It's going to be even louder than what it is.

It's going to be a blast.

It's going to be a blast, but we'll tell our kids, archer and Charlie especially hey, go clean your room.

You know what's more honoring to me as a father than anything.

Yes, sir, and they go do it You're laughing because you know that's not reality Say, hey, I told you to go clean your room.

Hey, go clean your room.

Okay, it's three times.

Next time you're going to the corner, right?

But the most honoring thing for me as a father is for Archer, our oldest, to say yes, sir, and go do it.

Charlie will actually say yes, sir.

Hey, noah, will you come help me?

She'll take Noah, she'll sit in her room.

Hey, noah, that goes there, that goes there.

Can you put that there?

That's just Charlie, right, but hey, it's still honoring.

She's getting the job done.

She's just delegating, right, leadership 101.

Delegate what you can right.

Super, super.

It's awesome.

I love them.

But the most honoring thing to me is, yes, sir, and they go do it.

How honoring do you think it is to God as our Father when he tells us to do something that we do it?

God gives us emotions for a reason I would say God loves when we obey him.

Now let's get back to the part of Jesus being the Lord and Savior, not just Savior.

Sometimes in American Christianity we say, hey, all you have to do is raise your hand and say a quick prayer and boom, you're saved.

That's it, that's all there is to it.

Well, that's not good theology, that's actually bad orthodoxy, if you will, bad belief, because the Bible actually says nothing about that.

Yes, you profess him as your savior.

Meaning this is gospel, simple gospel, really quick.

When you're a sinner, there has to be some sort of payment for your sin before God.

Okay, and it has to be done in blood.

Meaning it has to be done in some sort of death.

And as a Christian, we say that, okay, jesus Christ dying on the cross for our sins.

Meaning when he died, that our sin is paid in full and we accept that payment.

God accepts that payment and we are washed clean before God.

Okay, that's, that is one component of it.

That second component of making Jesus Lord, meaning making Jesus the master of our life, is so key.

Here there's all kinds of life that's brought into it, but also eternal life is brought into it, and so I want to be careful that when we look at Old Testament law, we don't just say, hey, that's Old Testament law, it doesn't matter.

No, it does matter.

So let's look at it really quick.

If you go to the New Testament Matthew chapter 5, matthew, chapter 5, verse 17 through 19, says it this way this is Jesus teaching here.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention Matthew 5:17–19

He says don't misunderstand why I have come.

I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets.

No, I came to accomplish their purpose.

I tell you the truth until heaven and earth disappear, not even the smallest detail of God's law will disappear, until its purpose is achieved.

No, jesus did not come to abolish, meaning kick out or destroy the law.

No, he came to fulfill it.

So what does that mean?

Guys?

I have a tattoo.

Old Testament law would say this is against the Old Testament law.

So why does this matter today?

Well, there are three different types of law in Old Testament.

Okay, three different types of law.

There is civil law, there is ceremonial law and there is moral law.

We don't uphold all of these types of Old Testament law because certain types of laws were meant for a certain group of people, a certain culture and time, and then there's certain laws that actually matter today.

So here's what I wanna do.

I don't have time, I'm already at 26 minutes.

Okay, this QR code.

You can scan this and it takes you to a link that actually explains these three different types of law very, very well.

It's by a gentleman by the name of JD Greer.

I don't agree with everything JD Greer says, but he does a pretty good job on this one, and it explains why we keep moral laws and why some of the civil and ceremonial laws don't line up for us.

How many people here eat bacon?

You realize you would not be able to eat bacon if we kept all of the Old Testament laws.

But actually the Lord appears to Peter and he puts basically a plate of bacon in his brain and all of a sudden says, hey, this is good, he corrects things right.

So please go look at that.

It is incredibly important that we understand which laws to obey and which ones don't apply to us as New Testament Christians on this side of the cross.

So so important, okay.

So obedience is a way of worship.

When we obey the word of God, we are worshiping him.

We're making him higher than ourselves.

We're making him higher than our spouse.

We're making him higher than our job.

We're making him higher than our kids.

Nothing can go before God.

Now here's the way I like to view all of my priorities.

Okay, god is the paper in which I write all the priorities on.

So you'll hear me say hey, yeah, you know, katie, my wife, she is my top priority.

And I'll argue your wife should be higher than your kids and your husband should be higher than your kids.

If that is ever out of place, your marriage is going to be in shambles.

If you don't agree, that's fine, come talk to me after service.

I would love to walk with you through that in the most gracious way possible.

But I say Katie is my top priority, because God is what has written all that paper.

Everything is funneled through God, everything is funneled through my walk with Christ.

Everything is funneled through worshiping.

Now, is this perfect?

Absolutely not, guys, I'm human.

If you ever expect the person that is on stage to be perfect, you can look at me.

You can look at Pastor Brandon.

You can look at Brandon Gillum, you can look at Eric Leach, you can look at Pastor Bree, you can look at Pastor Derek, anybody who's on this stage.

They will fail you because we're human.

There's only one who will not, and his name is Jesus Christ.

So obedience is an act of worship.

The next thing we get to see in this passage is worship is a lifestyle, worship is a lifestyle.

So in verse 35, there.

God's word says let's see 35.

So they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their garments over it for him to ride on.

As he rode along, the crowd spread out their garments on the road ahead of him.

This passage, when I first read this little two verses, just skated right over it.

We see this idea of the disciples and all of his followers taking off their garments and laying them down.

Well, if you actually look at what garments are, it's amazing.

In the Jewish world there's so much representation In ancient cultures.

There's so much representation what this outer garment would be.

It would be like actually representing your role or your status inside of the community.

So let me try to get you to picture this for a second.

You take that role or status off and you're laying it on the ground for Jesus's donkey, who knows what, has it on its feet, to walk across.

What better way of worship than to say okay, jesus, I'm going to lay down my status and I'm going to lay down my role for you to do as you please.

What better way of worship, right?

So think about it this way Our status and role.

I'm going to talk to men for a minute, because men are generally wired this way.

Women, you probably are too in some way.

But a lot of times men find their identity in our jobs, right, how well we're doing in our jobs and how well we're not doing in our jobs.

And that maybe that's just me and I'm going to speak very general.

That's cool, I can live with that.

But it's saying okay, jesus, because of you, I'm taking that off and I'm laying that down before you and I'm gonna let you walk across it for an act of worship for you.

Act of worship for you In Colossians 3, verses 20 through 24, it actually talks about how we worship through our job.

Colossians 3:20–24

So let's look Colossians 3, 20 through 24.

I'm going to start with children, because we do have a few teens here.

You still fall in this realm.

Okay, you're not tiny kids, but you're children.

Children always obey your parents, for this, pleases the Lord, guys, did you realize when we obey our parents even now I have parents.

Okay, when I obey my parents, that is an act of worship to the Lord, because I'm honoring God, which was one of his commandments in the Ten Commandments.

Children, obey your parents for this, pleases the Lord, fathers, do not aggravate your children.

How many aggravate your kids?

I do Apparently.

This has always been a thing.

Fathers, don't aggravate your children or they will become discouraged.

I see it every day.

I'm guilty.

Verse 22, and this is where I want to kind of camp out for just a moment.

Slaves obey your earthly masters in everything you do.

Try to please them all the time, not just when they're watching.

You serve them sincerely because of your reverent fear for the Lord.

Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.

Remember the Lord will give you an inheritance as your reward and that the master you are serving is Christ.

That word servant there, depending on what translation you're looking at it, may say bond servant.

That's okay.

We're meaning the same thing In today's translation.

The way that would actually be translated would actually be employees.

Okay, the slaves back in that culture was very different than what we think of as American slavery.

We think of American slavery as African slaves coming across and they were abused, beat, all those things, and maybe that was a portion of that.

But most ancient culture and slaves there was some sort of payment back and forth, maybe not monetarily, maybe it was agriculture that was transferred, but that's what that would look like it would look like employers work hard.

Can I tell you how this is an act of worship?

Think of it this way If every business owner out there in Bowling Green, kentucky knew that if they needed a hard worker, we go to the church to find that, because those Christians I don't know what it is about them, but they work their tails off, guess what that does.

We get to go to work.

We get to live a life of worship that's obedient to Christ, which is going to look different than today's culture.

And guess what?

We get a door open, that we get to tell somebody else about Christ.

The next thing, you know you want to change the world.

Very simple Paul actually lays it out all through Colossians.

I'd highly recommend you to go.

Look at that.

You want to change the world for Christ.

You want to change Bowling Green, kentucky for Christ.

Treat your family well, do family the way God calls you to Work hard, serve the community, evangelize Christ.

You want to change the world.

It doesn't matter how much money you make in the world.

If we have those small steps, if we come together as a family of God and we get to work, man, that's going to change everything.

I love how Paul writes to Titus.

Titus is in a place called Crete.

Crete is an absolute desolate of a place.

When it comes to faith.

I mean it's just train wreck.

There's sexual immorality.

They're worshiping Zeus, although they also claim to worship Jesus, because that works.

I mean you have all these things that are just a mess.

That's what Paul tells Titus.

You want to change the world.

You want to change the world.

You want to change Crete.

Do family well, do it as I've called you to Work hard.

Stay at it your entire life.

That's what he does.

We want to change Bowling Green, kentucky, and I would say every Christ follower out there has a desire to see Jesus go out and change the world.

I think we all have that same common goal.

You know how simple it can be.

Not saying it's easy, but I am saying it's simple.

Get to work, Work hard.

Hard work is an act of worship to the king.

You know what is not an act of worship to the king?

But it's rather an act of worship to ourself.

Laziness, skating and coasting by Doing just enough.

Tell me how that's an act of worship to God.

Now, what does God tell us to do at the very beginning of time.

Hey, go out in the fields and work it.

Are we working agriculture here?

We have a few, but no, we're working in the community, we're working in technology, we're working in all these things.

The principle still applies Get out, do work.

All for the glory of God.

My guys, I've been very blessed in the employers that I've had, every single one.

I've had hardworking employers and I've had people that have at least known and somewhat loved Jesus, or at least known and somewhat loved Jesus or at least knew who he was, and they treated me well.

I've been very blessed in that all the way since I was 14 years old, every single one.

But I can't tell you how many conversations I have that that's not the case.

It's that constant reminder yes, they're treating you right, not not well here, but you're doing this for the glory and the furthering of Jesus Christ.

That's what we do and that's what we stand solid on Now.

If you're you're all those other nuances that can happen over here come talk to me after.

I would.

I would love to talk through that with you some.

But we work for Jesus Christ and we work in all seasons of life.

I'm going to tell you the Bible says nothing about retirement.

Some people giggle, that's an American mindset.

Now, there's nothing wrong.

Wrong with retirement guys.

I hope to retire one day from from vocational work where I get paid for things.

But can I tell you right now, the lord jesus christ never calls anybody to sit back, consume and do nothing.

Nobody, you don't believe me?

Go look at titus.

You're going to get two verses, one through 13.

You can look at colossians.

He talks to old men, old, old women, young men, young women and children.

Nowhere in there is there a gap for oh, but you retired people, you get to chill.

There's also no room for anybody to just sit back and consume.

That's nowhere in the Bible that you just come in to the church, you sit back, you hear just awesome music, a good message, feel good through the day, go out, do your thing, come back next week.

That ain't nowhere in there.

And he calls us to work.

Lastly, we get to see that worship is community, worship is community.

So let's look at verse 36 here.

Again Back to Luke here and we're going to go to verse 36.

God's word says as he rode along, the crowd spread out their garments on the road ahead of him.

When he reached the place where the Lord started down the Mount of Olives.

All of his followers began to shout and sing as they walked along, praising God for all the wonderful miracles they had seen.

Blessings on the King who comes in the name of the Lord, peace in heaven and glory in the highest.

But some of the Pharisees among the crowd said Teacher, rebuke your followers for saying these things.

He replied.

If they keep quiet, the stones along the road would burst out into cheers.

Now here is a very key component.

The way I want to look at the community here is the followers of Jesus Christ, and we're going to use this moment right here, sunday mornings and all through the week, the corporate gathering of worship.

It doesn't say some of his followers shouted.

It doesn't say some of his followers put their garments on the ground.

No, the word of God.

In every translation I looked at used the same verbiage here.

It says all, every single one.

So let's look.

What does this look like in the context of corporate worship here, at Real Life Church and everywhere else?

Okay, in some sort of form there's going to be these components.

The first thing is song.

What we just did here in about 15 minutes ago, 20 minutes ago, we all sang to the Lord.

Now I say all I did look around because I knew exactly where I was going for this message and not everybody in here singing.

You know who I'm talking to.

You know who I'm talking to.

Now.

Is it wrong to not sing?

No, but if you call Jesus your Lord and you truly understand what Jesus did for you and for me, man, you ain't shutting up.

You may have the worst voice in the world, can I tell you.

That's why every week our tech team works so hard back there to keep that sound loud, so nobody else hears you.

Maybe that's just me, not my wife.

She sings awesome, so I don't care how terrible of a voice you have.

Sing to the Lord, because that's who we're singing to.

It's not to you, it's not to the people up here.

It's not for anything else except to worship the King.

Guys, that's what we get to do in here.

We get to come together as a family.

You know what a family does.

The family argues.

A family gets to work together.

A family sings together.

A family just does all the things together.

You're not comfortable to sing here.

Where are you going to sing?

It's like trying to argue If you're not comfortable arguing about Jesus here.

Where are you going to argue?

We sing to the king, the risen king, who is alive.

Here's the thing.

We talk about the lamb of God all the time, and we should right, we should.

But here's the thing as soon as Jesus resurrected from the grave Easter spoiler if you've never heard the Easter message come back next week, okay.

But what happens?

Jesus Christ dies on the cross.

When he dies, everything is fractured for eternity.

Then he goes into a grave, into a big tomb, for three days.

When he comes out three days later, he comes out alive.

Nobody raised him from the dead, except for himself, because he's fully God, fully human.

Okay.

So here's the thing when he raises from the dead, he conquers everything, he wins, everything's done.

That's what we're worshiping, and posture matters.

Okay.

If you ever want references and sources for all these things, please come find me.

I would gladly send you any of those.

But we see a man.

His name is David.

I gotta hustle, I got 11 minutes.

Okay, his name is David.

This guy's a man among men.

He fights bears and lions with his own hand, but then you know what he does and turns around.

He turns around and starts writing songs with either a lyre or a harp, not an acoustic guitar, not some awesome drums, not a bass, not keys.

No, no, the most feminine instrument I can think of is a harp, and he's in there and he's writing music.

He is worshiping Jesus, guys, like that's what we get to do.

Do you have to have your hands raised?

No, I would argue, posture does matter, because David, that same guy, when he's praying, he puts his face on the ground because we are not worthy to be in the presence of the king, but because of Jesus, he loves us enough that he brought us into that presence, guys.

So posture matters.

Do you have to stand there with your hands raised?

No, you don't, that's okay, but I'm telling you you better start singing.

Stand there with your hands raised.

No, you don't, that's okay, but I'm telling you you better start singing.

Jesus wants to hear it and he's worthy of it.

The next thing we get to see is scripture.

That's what we're doing right now.

What we're doing right now is an act of worship to the king to sit in his word, as we believe.

That is fully right.

This is worship, guys.

I'm gonna tell you this is my favorite part of worship right here.

If you can't tell, I'm passionate.

Sorry, not really.

It's scripture.

Now here's the question how do we actually engage in scripture?

What should engagement look like?

It doesn't matter how charismatic the speaker is, how awesome of a teacher Guys, we have a great teacher in our senior pastor and Pastor Brandon.

I mean, he just sits there and he just unpacks the word.

But what does this actually look like?

First of all, have your Bible.

This is one thing I love about the students at the front.

Typically on any given Sunday, all of these kids up here, they have their Bibles out and they have their notebooks out.

I love that.

Parents, what you doing, Like what kind of example are we giving to our kids when we don't even have the Word of God here?

You can have it electronically, that's fine.

It's not against the Word of God.

Have your Bible.

Secondly, pay attention.

If you are asleep and I'm shouting at you, something is wrong.

So I'm literally shouting Pay attention, because what he is saying and what we are saying from this platform, if you will, god wants to speak to you.

Keep going.

So pay attention, take notes.

If you're wired that way I'm not naturally wired that way If I take notes, I will probably miss something.

So I sit, I soak and listen.

But then here's the key After Sunday morning, go back and reflect.

That's when you shouldn't make notes.

Go back and reflect on what the word of God has said, whatever speaker here has said.

Now here's the thing If what the speaker says does not line up with the word of God, this is a great opportunity.

You go back to that speaker and you ask them questions to understand better, because maybe we've missed the mark.

Because I have missed the mark, I've had to go back and apologize from the stage Like, hey guys, I missed that.

I'm sorry, let's fix it.

But reflect, get confirmation for what the Lord has said in that service and that emotional experience that you feel.

And then get confirmation and then go live it out, engage, serving.

Okay, I'm gonna do my best here.

Barna research shows 37% of church attenders serve inside their church.

We're a little better.

We do pretty good here at RLC 50% give or take, 50% of people that attend on a normal basis, that are eligible, meaning not the kids, the people generally in this room, people that are eligible to serve.

Guys, first of all, thank you so much Because you know what we get to do.

No matter where we serve, we get to do ministry together.

Ministry is the furthering of the kingdom.

Ministry is on impressions.

God bless you, extroverts.

When you're standing out there, people are walking in and they see a welcoming face.

They feel that week was terrible.

They want to be here.

I think I do too.

Maybe you serve in the tech team, guys.

If you don't know, the tech team is actually back here and the only time people notice them is when, like, lights flicker or things go off here, like Derek's getting a text from me, and it's like ah, you know what our tech team does, though.

They worship by serving, not just to lead us up here.

All those lyrics, they don't just magically appear.

Somebody has to be back there working that this sound coming through.

Somebody has to actually do that.

But here's the thing If you ever look back, don't do it all this week, but if you ever look back on a Sunday morning, man, they got their hands raised.

They are worshiping, every single one of them.

And if you ever see a missed lyric or something, it's probably because Aaron Howard's back there worshiping.

Oh shoot, got to click that button.

We're worshiping.

You know what we're doing in kids' life, guys.

Any given Sunday, 70 to 90 different kids are back in kids' life, and we have people that are so dedicated that they serve those kids.

That's an act of worship, because they're leading them closer to Christ.

Here's the thing that we also have what's called Worship One Serve, one culture here at RLC.

That means if you serve one Sunday somewhere whether that's Impressions, hope, cafe, kids Life whatever you serve one service, the next service you go to Okay.

Here's the thing, though in kids life right now, we don't typically do this.

I'm an administrative pastor.

I get to get away with it.

In kids' life, we have people who have to serve twice because we don't have enough people to serve, so those people never get to come in and worship together as a family.

Tell me, something's not wrong with that.

Guys, I love you.

I promise I love you, and I'm telling you this because I love you.

Our kids need Jesus, but so does everybody else.

People need to be able to come in and worship together.

That's what we get to do.

We serve through worshiping, we serve through prayer.

We get to worship through prayer Tuesday nights, every Tuesday night.

We have a very dedicated group of people who come in and they worship on Tuesday nights.

And, guys.

That's open to everybody.

We have a prayer team who actually serves at that back table if you ever need to have somebody pray with you.

But did you know that?

Not just in this place do we get to get in scripture, not just in this place.

We get to get in song.

Not just in this place do we get to get to worship through prayer.

We song Not just in this place.

We get to get to worship through prayer.

We do that daily.

We should be.

But getting in the fight, tell me there's not a better way of warfare than prayer.

We get to enter into the throne room and speak to the living God.

We worship through prayer.

We worship through life groups.

Everybody has a private battle that nobody else knows about, right, but here we exist to make disciples.

One of the best way to do that is through life groups, because we get to do life together.

And then, lastly, we get to worship through communion.

Now, here, in just a few minutes, we are going to worship by receiving communion together.

But for just a moment I want to reorient us to what communion is.

Back in Old Testament times, the Israelites were in captivity in Egypt, treated terribly during this time, and so God in his greatness goes to a gentleman by the name of Moses who is a good man.

On the second half of Old Testament the first half I don't know about, you could question God goes before Moses and he calls Moses to come back to Egypt and free his people.

Moses is like nah, dude, I ain't doing that, but a little more coercing.

Moses throws a line at him like hey, I'm not that good of a speaker.

God's like fine, I'll give you Aaron, come on, let's go.

Moses finally submits.

He says okay.

So he goes before the Pharaoh at the time the leader of Egypt and he says hey, let God's people go.

Pharaoh says no, shocking, he's gonna lose all of his workers.

So Moses says okay, well then the Lord's going to send plague upon plague upon plague.

Well, the last of those plagues is actually called an angel of death.

So what's going to happen is there's going to be an angel that comes in and he is going to kill all the firstborn sons.

But God in his greatness goes and tells the people of Israel and he says hey, do this.

Take the blood of a lamb and put it over your doorframe.

So then the angel of death knows to pass by because you're my chosen people and I'm going to save you.

And so what happens?

The angel of death comes Poof.

All these firstborn sons are killed.

Pharaoh says fine, israelites can go.

That's Passover.

That's what gets celebrated this week.

Well, at Passover there's four different cups technically wine that would be laid out on the table there.

They all mean different things.

The first cup means that it's a promise, a reminder of a promise that I will bring you out.

God will bring his people out.

The next cup is that God will deliver you.

The next, after that, is God will redeem you.

And then the last cup, that fourth cup, is God will claim you.

That's what God tells his people to do.

That's why they do Passover.

That's why the Jewish culture does Passover.

So there's four things to remember If you really think about it.

Looking at Jesus Christ as who he is, you can take every single one of those cups and pour it into a singular cup, that cup being Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ brings us out of sin, he's delivered us from evil, he has redeemed us, made us clean and he has claimed us as his own.

That is Jesus.

He fulfills every single promise that God gave to Old Testament people.

That's what we get to do when we drink out of these tiny little cups of juice.

That's that representation, that's that remembrance.

And then we also eat this little cracker.

In Old Testament times it would have been an unleavened bread and that represents Jesus's body.

Now think about it this way Jesus was born in a town called Bethlehem.

Right, bethlehem actually means city of bread.

Jesus was born into the city of bread and he calls himself the bread of life, meaning we will be sustained forever.

And when we eat that cracker or bread, however you may have been raised, it is remembrance of Jesus' broken body on the cross, that when he died, he did that for you and for me, that's worship.

Okay, we do this together.

So my challenge invite someone into the community.

You know what a great opportunity.

There's little cards on your seats there.

Invite somebody to Easter.

There is something to be said about Easter.

For some reason, more people will show up on Easter if they would never do any other Sunday.

Somebody might show up on Easter.

Invite them, bring them into the community.

So, guys, what is a life of worship?

Worship's obedience, worship's a lifestyle and worship's community.

I wasn't sure if I was going to bring this portion up, but I'm already over.

So this portion up, but I'm already over.

So I did ask permission just to be sure.

But last week I had the privilege to sit back in kids' life and I believe it was Cindy Rinnick was back there teaching and she actually asked.

They had no idea where I was going.

I didn't know where they were going.

She asked hey, why do you worship Jesus?

She asked the kids this A guy by the name of Josiah Balinowski, more affectionately known around here as Jojo yeah, yeah, that's the typical response of Jojo.

He raised his hand.

He said sure, jojo, what's up?

I said because Jesus is my hero, I got Jojo's remarkably gifted.

It's an incredible kid.

I remember when we first came back we left Bowling Green for a little bit, came back.

It was like the second or third week we were back and we walk in and JoJo's out, giving suckers to everybody.

Like JoJo's desire is to see a smile on your face.

You know why he does that.

It may have a little bit to do with you, but it has suckers to everybody.

Like Jojo's desire is to see a smile on your face.

You know why he does that.

It may have a little bit to do with you, but it has a whole lot more to do with Jesus.

Is Jesus your hero today?

If so, do you worship him like he is?

Have you given your life of worship?

Do you work like he's your king?

Do we worship in community like he's our king?

Do you get in the word of God like he's your king?

It's his word.

The black letters, the red letters, they both matter the same because it's all the Holy Spirit.

Jesus has been here since the beginning of time.

John 1.1 in the beginning was the word.

The word was God.

The word was with God in creation.

Jesus has been there all the way through.

Do you worship him?

So here, in just a moment, we're going to do one of my favorite things that we get to do as a family.

We're going to receive one of my favorite things that we get to do as a family.

We are going to receive communion together and then, after communion, we're going to go back into a time of worship and song, and so maybe this is a moment that you need to stop and say Jesus, I'm making you my true king.

Maybe it's for the first time.

If you've never accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, can I tell you I'm so you, my true king.

Maybe it's for the first time.

If you've never accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, can I tell you I'm so glad you're here, and if you're a skeptic, I'm even more glad you're here.

I'd love to answer any questions.

Pastor Brandon's here today.

He would love to answer any questions.

Our prayer team would love to try to answer questions.

The person next to you would love to try to answer questions, would love to try to answer questions.

And if they don't know the answer, guess what?

They're going to say I don't know, but I can find out who does.

And they're going to walk with you, to me, pastor Brandon.

Then you're going to ask us a question we don't know.

We're going to say I don't know, but we're going to find out together.

Maybe you need to get involved and get in the fight by serving.

Can I tell you, please, don't just say I'm going to write it down in a card.

Don't just say I'm going to come pray about it.

Yeah, pray about it, because you've got to do that.

Starts right there, but then go do something about it.

How is it that you need to worship today?

So, here, in just a moment, we're going to stand our feet.

We're going to pray together.

We're going to receive communion.

We're going to go back into prayer, time of song, worship through song.

There's prayer pads on the side.

If you think you need to kneel at the floor, but you can't use the excuse that my knees are gonna hurt because we have pads for that, we've got a prayer team.

If you don't even know what to say, go back there.

Can I tell you, I'd love to see a time where we have 100% of attenders that are RLC that are serving meaning getting in the fight.

It.

Percent of attenders that are RLC that are serving meaning getting in the fight.

It don't matter if it's through the prayer team.

Kids life, hope Cafe, impressions, student life there's dozens of places we can serve.

But what kind of church would we look like just here at RLC if we were all in the fight together, if we fought together and we argued together and at the end of the day, jesus is king.

That's our unity factor and we're going to go out and we're gonna change the world.

What would that look like, guys?

So if you would all across the room, go ahead and stand with us and we're gonna pray and then we're gonna have a time of communion, and I know this is a little different than a typical Sunday for us.

It's gonna be an amazing time that we're going to worship the King together.

Let's pray Our Father, god, thank you.

Thank you for each and every person that is under my voice right now.

Lord, I ask that as you're moving, you're speaking, that it's been a whole lot less of me and a whole lot more of you, lord.

There's all these different distractions going on, there's all these different things in life that are happening, but, god, we give it to you.

Lord, I ask that you'll be with each and every person in my voice as we get to celebrate through communion.

We give this time to you In your holy name, amen.

So here at RLC, we are family right, and we could break out in a song if we wanted to right there.

Nobody did.

That's good.

And we're gonna worship through communion and we here at RLC, we don't want anybody to do communion on your own.

So if you would, if you look around and you see somebody by themselves, please go ahead and move towards them and we would love to receive communion.

And this is my beautiful bride, the one getting super red right now.

Her name's Katie and we get to receive communion together.

So if you would go ahead and pull back that first layer to reveal the cracker there Look, you guys already y'all know the drill.

To the right of you there is a bucket.

Please send that bucket down the way, there we go and you can pull the little cracker out there.

And just as we talked about this cracker, this tiny little disc thing, this represents the body of Christ that, through his love for us, he's willing to come down out of heaven and have a broken body.

For you and for I, that's what this represents.

Now, this doesn't mean you have to join us in communion.

If you're not comfortable with that, that's fine, that's okay, not mad at you, but as Christ followers, that's what we remember is Jesus' broken body for you and for I.

So I'd like to pray over it.

As I'm praying over it, please pray yourself.

Prayer is not just sitting and listening to some guy in a peach shirt.

Pray, it's engaging with the Lord.

So let's pray.

Our Father, thank you, thank you for your son, thank you for loving us to not leave us where we are.

God, as we go through this week called Holy Week, where we worship you, we remember the broken body that you had, and we thank you, we submit to you and we give our lives to you.

We do this in remembrance of you.

Amen, you may take the bread, and if you would go ahead and peel back that second part that revealed the juice and just as we talked about earlier, this is one cup that all of God's promises have been fulfilled through.

Now, it's not just those promises that we remember, it's Jesus' blood, the blood that he poured out for you and for I.

That excruciating pain that he took on was for us.

Let's pray, lord, again.

Thank you.

Sometimes there's no words that we can say when we pray.

There's nothing, we know what to do, but thank you for telling us what to do, for showing us what to do.

Thank you for dying for us.

Lord, thank you for shedding your blood.

May everything we do be glorified to you because of your blood In your holy name.

Amen.

I would like to pray over us one more time and, like I said earlier, we're gonna go back into a time of worship through song.

Maybe this is the moment you need to come before.

Grab a kneeling pad.

If you need pray before the King of Kings, maybe you just need to be in the space that you're in.

But can I tell you, hey, don't weep today the same as when you walked in.

Weep today changed, because what we do, the way we live, is an act of worship to God.

Let's pray Our Father, god again.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for all that you do, thank you for all that you don't do, because we trust you, we trust your way is good, we trust your way is just, we trust that you are perfectly good and right.

Sovereign God, I pray, blessing upon blessing, under every person, under my voice, that, as you're moving and you're wrestling with them, lord, you wrestle with us.

That we submit and we surrender to you in everything.

God, we love you.

We're so thankful for you In the powerful name of Jesus Christ.

Amen and amen, let's worship.