Come and See His Passion

Love the Lord this morning. You love the Lord this morning. I love the Lord this morning. Amen.

If you turn your Bibles, the book of Matthew chapter 21. And,

Matthew 21 · chapter mention

uh, it's so good to see you this morning. Welcome to freedom of worship church.

Uh, want to say, uh, welcome to, uh, the brother Bishop and his sisters back there.

Uh, brother Bishop gave his heart to the Lord Thursday and, uh,

he's, he's new to our family.

And so he's good to have him in the family. And so we appreciate them being there.

But it's good to see all of you guys. Welcome to Freedom of Worship.

I'm glad you guys are here. If you've not been with us, before we read our scripture,

if you've not been with us, our theme this year is come and see.

And we say this. We say that an invitation to come and see is an invitation to transformation.

We believe that Christ transforms your life.

And when you see him for who he is, you will truly be living a life transformed.

We believe that. But if you've got your Bibles this morning,

in the book of Matthew, chapter 21, as we're going to take our text this morning,

Matthew 21 · chapter mention

you can turn there or you can read it from the screen.

But the Bible says this, and, of course, this is Palm Sunday.

We're celebrating Palm Sunday.

We're going to get an understanding of Palm Sunday this morning.

The Bible says, now when they drew near Jerusalem, they came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives.

Then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, go into the village in front

of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied and a colt with her.

This is the story that Jonathan was talking about when he opened up.

Jesus said, Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you,

you shall say, The Lord needs them and he will send them at once.

This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet.

This is prophecy, Old Testament. Saying to the daughter of Zion,

Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey,

on a colt, a foal of a beast of burden.

The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them.

They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks,

and he sat upon them. Notice this.

Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road. Others cut branches from

trees and spread them on the road.

And the crowd that went before him and that followed him were shouting,

Hosanna to the son of David.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Hosanna in the highest. The crowd was cheering. The crowd realized the Old Testament

prophecy that this was fulfilling.

So they're crying out, Hosanna. We'll talk about what that means in just a moment. But notice here.

And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up saying, who is this?

And the crowd says, this is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee. They were excited.

Everybody was cheering. They were like a bunch of fans that had tuned in to

a major event that was taking place.

And, you know, it's not unlike what we do on most Sundays. We come in,

we get excited about what Jesus is doing. But I believe that Jesus is wanting

to draw us closer this morning.

Not just being excited about what's going on, but knowing Him for who He really is.

And so I'm preaching a three-part series. It's the second.

I'm preaching on Come and See. Last week I said Come and See His Promise.

And so you can go on our Facebook page, YouTube channel.

You can go on our podcast and listen to that if you didn't get to listen to that.

But this week I want to preach on this subject.

Come and see His passion. This is passion week.

This is we're celebrating the passion of jesus this week honoring the passion

of jesus this week And I believe that this week he's bidding us come a little

closer to him I believe this week.

He's bidding us come to know who he really is and get to know him for ourselves

So let's do that this morning before we do.

Can we open up in another word of prayer? Let's do that together Let's everybody

pray father in the name of jesus.

We come together. We thank you for your holy spirit We thank you for your word in our lives.

Jesus, we thank you for your sacrifice.

But Lord, we didn't come just to celebrate. We come to know you this morning.

We come to get to know you for who you really are. We come to serve you this morning.

So Holy Spirit, minister us. As the word goes forth, Holy Spirit,

minister to every person in this congregation.

We thank you for your word. Holy Spirit, speak to me.

Can everybody just pray that prayer right now? Say, Holy Spirit, speak to me.

Make it personal. speak to us in this place today only you can speak one word

that says so much we thank you in the name of Jesus we pray and the church said.

Amen. Amen. Preaching on this subject this morning, come and see his passion.

Of course, every week I kind of give you what my thesis, what my theme is for

the week. And the reason I do that is because we're going somewhere.

I kind of make a theme so that I make sure I follow through on that theme.

We were at a church the other night, and the minister preached beautifully. Wonderful sermon.

And at the end of the sermon, I looked at Ashley. I said, if I was creating

a thesis for this, this would be this.

And I told her what my thesis would be. And she just, she was like, okay, it's mediocre.

Anyway, but today, if I had to have a thesis, a theme, this would be my theme.

When we truly see Jesus for who he is, we move from superficial praise to surrendered worship.

We move from a place of being superficial to a place of sacrifice is really

what it comes down to because anybody can be a fan,

but it takes a true follower to really stick with Jesus when it comes to the

sacrificial place of worship.

I started thinking about this. I thought about this idea for the past two weeks,

and so I started thinking about how this applies in my life.

I always try to make this applicable to my life, and maybe it can be applicable

to your life as well, and so I started thinking about the way that we raised our children.

You know, I got Carter here. He's the better looking of the two.

Lucas is, anyway, I'm sorry.

Carter, he's here, so I got to say that. You know, Lucas, he's at church in

Charlottesville right now.

And so, but anyway, Carter's here. Lucas is in Charlottesville.

We raised our kids and we tried to raise them right, okay?

We raised them in the house of the Lord and we raised them to be Tennessee volunteer

fans, okay? We did everything we can to raise them right.

And so, see, look at him. He's still, but growing up, up, I started thinking

of it in this context, is that growing up, we bought them the t-shirts.

Growing up, we bought them the jerseys. Growing up, we took them to games and

let them be around it. We tried to teach them how to be a fan.

And I looked at those bottom two pictures right there. That was the first Tennessee.

Music.

Game that we ever took them to.

And look at Carter right there, leading over the rails, hugging his mom.

He's getting married in July.

Ah, man, it just does something to me right here. But I started thinking about all of that.

In thinking about that, I started thinking about how easy it is to be a fan,

but how difficult it is to follow through in the hard times and be a follower.

My mind fast-forwarded from the times of taking them to games as young men,

and my mind fast-forwarded to 2017, all right?

2017, it was lean years in Tennessee. It was the end of the Butch Jones era,

brick by brick, and we had just lost a football game, 50-17 to Missouri.

I mean, how's that even happen to the Tennessee Volunteers? And I saw my youngest, Lucas.

He was just a little guy then. I saw him walk out into the porch with a t-shirt and a lighter, okay?

That is never a good combination, and I'm glad I snapped a picture of it because

I caught him out there before he did anything, but I got him outside,

and this is where I found Lucas.

He had his Butch Jones Tennessee t-shirt, and he was so displeased with the

outcome of being beaten by Missouri, he was getting ready to set fire to his

Butch Jones Tennessee t-shirt.

Now, I want to tell you, I did not allow him to set fire to his t-shirt.

I figured that would be a bad trajectory for the rest of his life,

and so I did not allow him to set, but I wanted to set fire to it.

I'll tell you that much right now. I want to throw all that stuff in a can and burn it.

It made me start to think, though, we were fans. We went to games.

We bought t-shirts, but when things got difficult, we were ready to burn the jersey.

We were ready to burn the t-shirt. I started thinking about this in the context of our scripture today.

It's easy, if all of us are honest, it's easy to be a fan of Jesus.

It's easy to celebrate when the music's going on.

It's easy to lift our hands when everything is exciting, it's the week of Easter.

Wave our hands as the music is playing.

But here's the reality. Here's the question that we have to ask ourselves. Do we really know Jesus?

Are you a fan or are you really a follower, and I like to say it this way,

a devoted follower of Jesus Christ? Because anybody can be a fan.

Anybody can walk in when the music is playing and lift their hands.

Anybody can get excited when we're packing a hundred shoeboxes to send to foreign countries.

But it takes a follower when things get difficult, when you may be being mocked

because of your faith, when it's not popular to stand for the tenants and the

precepts of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It's hard to say, no, I go beyond being a fan. I'm a truly devoted follower of Jesus Christ.

Are we following Jesus with all of our hearts? Have we been captivated by who

he is, or are we just a fan of the show that goes on every Sunday morning?

I want to say this right now, because you've got two groups of people.

As I'm not against music, I love the music because followers use that as an

opportunity to worship him in spirit and truth.

But if we're not careful, we stay at a superficial level and we just sing songs

and clap our hands because there's a beat.

We'd do the same thing at a Taylor Swift concert. If we were there, that's what fans are.

But followers of Jesus go beyond that.

See, what we've got to be careful of. Now think about this. those same people

that we read about, that they're waving palm branches, they're throwing their cloaks out.

Five days later, those same people are going to be shouting, crucify him.

So it at least makes me to look at this and say, am I a fan or am I a follower?

What do I do when the complexities of life start to press in on me and I start

to feel a little bit of that pressure?

See, the reason why they turned on Jesus is because Jesus didn't do what they expected him to do.

Woo. Man, that's...

Have you felt that before? Have you felt that tension before?

Jesus, I know I should love you, but I'm not real happy right now.

Amen? Have you felt that before? That Jesus, I know I'm supposed to trust you

through all of this, but I was expecting it to be easier than it is right now?

See, this is what separates a fan from a follower, and this is what we need

to kind of flesh out in this sermon today.

See, the reason why this matters to us, the reason why we need to be concerned

about this, even though we lifted our hands, even though we're singing our songs,

we have to realize that praise that isn't rooted in relationship will never last.

If you're not lifting your hands because of a relationship with Jesus Christ,

then you're not going to be able to make it through the struggles of life.

You're not going to be able to look at Job and say, the Lord gives and the Lord taketh away.

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Listen, there's times, I've been preaching and bragging on my kids and stuff.

There's times when they were growing up that I think, surely God didn't give

me these kids. Surely there's...

I mean, let's be honest, okay? How many parents we got in here that when you

read in the Bible and it says, children are the heritage of the Lord and the

fruit of the womb is His reward and His arrows in the hands of a mighty man,

so are the children of our youth.

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Applause. He's not looking for that golf clap. He's not looking for you just.

To show up when things are going fine in your life.

He's looking for hearts that are completely surrendered.

And so as we look at this triumphal entry, we have to realize He is inviting

us to come and see His passion so that we know Him for who He truly is.

His passion was not about earthly power, but it's about eternal love.

It's about what he has done for us, what he has done supernaturally in our lives

that goes beyond the natural.

See, first of all, we have to realize that we're not just worshiping anybody.

We're worshiping the king.

It's all about his kingship. Sometimes we elevate Jesus.

I remember back in the days when I youth pastored, there was a very popular

t-shirt that was sweeping around America, and even some people in our youth

group had them that said that Jesus is my homeboy.

And it was a popular term at the time, homeboy was.

But see, what we were trying to do is reduce Jesus down to our level.

And the reality is, he's not on our level.

He is the King of kings. He is the Lord of lords. He is the hope of glory.

See, here's what we have to realize is that we got to get back to the kingship of Jesus Christ.

When Jesus entered into Jerusalem, he wasn't just fulfilling prophecy,

he was declaring his kingship.

He wasn't just showing that, yes, I am who's.

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Is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, on a colt,

the foal of a beast of burden.

See, this moment was a direct reference to the book of Zechariah, chapter 9 and verse 9.

Zechariah 9 · chapter mention

500 years earlier, Zechariah had prophesied that Messiah, as the Jewish people

would know him, that Messiah would be riding into Jerusalem, humble, and on a donkey.

Jesus fulfilled every word of that prophecy. But where they got hung up was

that it wasn't about political power.

I got to say that this is more relevant in today's world than it's ever been in our human history.

Christ's coming is not about political power. Jesus did not come to increase your 401k.

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Jesus did not come so that you, and I could go, the list could go on so that

you would marry the woman of your dream, so that you land your perfect job so

that you, there's going to be difficulty in this life.

Jesus's coming was not political, but it was to show his spiritual authority

and his work was primarily spiritual.

I know I got, I got a group of people right now. They're like,

but I've been waiting on the one of my dreams, you know, well, keep on holding out.

You know, what's going to help you with that? Yeah. Haircut a job. But anyway, here we go.

Second Samuel chapter seven. We look at this, foreshadowing this,

Christ is coming, the kingship of Christ.

2 Samuel, all the way back in the Old Testament, says this, says,

when your days are fulfilled, speaking to David there,

said, when your days are fulfilled, you'll lie down with your fathers,

and I will raise you up offspring after you, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

God is speaking to David, and he said, on your throne, I'm going to raise up

a king that will have an eternal kingdom on your throne. David couldn't imagine this.

David, he had seen what was happening in his own home. He had seen the rebellion

of his predecessor, Saul.

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He had seen the rebellion in his own life. He had seen the rebellion in his

household through Absalom.

David had no idea that this could take place, but in the person of the Lord

Jesus Christ, God fulfilled the

prophecy that he spoke to David back in 2 Samuel chapter 7 and verse 12.

2 Samuel 7 · chapter mention

But not only that, we learn in the New Testament that Jesus came not to be the

political king, he came to be the humble king, but also the suffering savior, the suffering king.

Philippians chapter 2 and verse 8 says, and being found in human form,

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death,

even the death of a cross.

Therefore, God has highly, I love that right there. What is that therefore?

Therefore, we know it right here. Why did he suffer? Why did he do what he,

because now he's been highly exalted and bestowed on him the name that is above

every other name. The reason why.

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The Bible says that the name of Jesus, every knee must bow, every tongue confess

that he is the Lord to the glory of God.

That is the Savior that we're worshiping today. If you believe that,

give him a hand clap of praise. I believe that.

The crowd saw him coming to save them from Rome, but Jesus said,

my work is not a political work. It's not an earthly work, but Jesus came to

save them from their selves. Think about this.

Pastor Sergio used to say your worst enemy is the person wearing your clothes.

He used to say that all the time.

I realized after I began to follow Jesus Christ, I was my own worst enemy.

I made choices that were detrimental to me, to my life, to my future.

And it wasn't until I accepted Jesus into my life that he allowed me to make

choices that were beneficial for my life.

See, when we recognize that Jesus is king, we move beyond the shallow,

we move beyond the superficial, and we move into the surrendered worship,

the relationship with Jesus Christ.

See, his passion was not to overthrow governments. It was to overcome sin and

to restore hearts to himself.

I know some of us, we're like the people in Jerusalem was.

Well, Jesus, we want you to come and we want you to make, gosh, I can't even say that.

We want you to make our government strong, right?

I'm going to preach on everybody, all right? I'm conservative to the core,

but I'll preach right on us, all right? I'm not ashamed of that.

We've got people that voted a certain way because they thought that Jesus was

going to make America the greatest country in the world.

I don't know if he is or he isn't. I hope he does. But if he doesn't,

you know what? His work was not political. It was spiritual.

He didn't come. And I want to say this right now. As an American,

it's not about you anyway.

Amen? It's not about you anyway. Everything that happens in this future is centered

right around that little country in the Middle East.

There were eyes where the Bible says that he's going to come back and he's putting

his foot down on the Mount of Olives. Hallelujah!

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It's not about us anyway. The sooner that we realize it's not about America

and it's not about even this church.

And listen, you may be cute, but it's not about you either.

It's all about Jesus and what he's going to do in our world.

So Passover week, we're in Passover, this week right now that we were in,

it would be the week of Passover.

This event took place at the beginning of the Passover week,

at a time when people, thousands of people would make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

They would bring their sacrifices. Everybody is bringing a lamb to be sacrificed

because it was a time when they were celebrating their deliverance from Egyptian

bondage hundreds of years earlier.

And so we see here that Jesus entered into Jerusalem on the 10th of Nisan.

It was a month that was declared that on that day they were to bring the Passover

lamb into Jerusalem. It wasn't coincidence. God had already lined it up.

Jesus is our Passover lamb. Jesus is the lamb that was slain from the foundation

of the world. And on the 10th of Nisan, the Bible says that Jesus made this triumphal entry.

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He was fulfilling prophecy once again. Exodus chapter 12, tell all the congregation

Exodus 12 · chapter mention

of Israel that on the 10th day of this month, every man shall take a lamb.

Jesus is our Passover lamb.

And while people were there choosing their lambs for sacrifice,

God had already chosen his lamb.

God had already sent Jesus as the Passover lamb. Jesus, the Lamb of God,

was about to be sacrificed for the sins of the world.

So he comes riding in on this colt, on this donkey.

And the Bible says that people were shouting Hosanna.

That term Hosanna there in the original Hebrew form of that world means save us, we pray.

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You a spiritual salvation. You're wanting a freedom from Rome,

but Jesus said, I've come to bring you a freedom from sin and death.

If they could only see him for, I mean, think about this.

How many of us would we really rationally choose?

Yeah, I would rather be a little more comfortable here on this temporal life

that I'm living right now and neglect this freedom from sin and death for eternity,

yet that's what they were doing.

And that's what many of us do if we're not careful, because we get caught up

in being fans. We get caught up in being spectators.

We get caught up in just being people that are part of the crowd that wave the palm branches.

But when things get difficult, we turn our back, ready to burn our jerseys,

ready to throw away the t-shirt.

I remember this years ago, I youth pastored here at Freedom of Worship.

We were up on Thacker's Branch, and we had these yellow t-shirts that had battles

on. Anybody remember those yellow t-shirts that we used to have everywhere.

They were yellow t-shirts that had battles on. That was the name of our youth crew.

And we gave away hundreds of those t-shirts over a period of years.

At one point in a four-year period, we had over 1,200 teenagers that came through our youth ministry.

And we bought t-shirts like you wouldn't believe and gave those things away.

Well, about 10 years ago, 12 years ago, I was down this way.

I was probably longer than that. Poor Bargain Barn.

That's when Bargain Barn was still down there. I was walking through Bargain

Barn, and I found a yellow battle zone t-shirt.

You know, I thought, man, I hope it wasn't as easy for somebody to get rid of

the relationship with Christ as it was.

See, for some of us, we buy the t-shirt.

For some of us, we pull into the parking lot. We come in the door.

We're a part of the crowd that's waving the palm branches. But when things get

difficult, we're like, no, I don't think I'm going to be associated with that anymore.

We cannot do what the people of Jerusalem and the people of Israel did and miss our salvation.

Three things that you need to leave with. Three keys to not missing the king

as he's riding right in front of you. Number one is we got to see the king's humility.

We live in a world where we think that power is synonymous with domination.

Power is synonymous with an iron fist.

Power is synonymous with having to be the most powerful person in the room at the time.

And if you look at it, Jesus, he came in humility.

We read this in our scripture, our text we read this morning.

It says, Behold, your king is coming to you, humble and mounted on a donkey,

on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.

See, we don't get that sometimes why that had to be, but in Jewish culture,

a donkey was symbolic of peace, symbolic of humility, symbolic of service.

In the Old Testament culture in ancient Israel, if a king was riding in to conquer

a city, he would ride a horse.

They knew that a king was coming to conquer because he would be on a horse.

But if a king was riding in in peace and wasn't coming to conquer but to ride

into peace, he would ride in a donkey.

See, people knew the purpose of the king based on what he was riding in on.

Jesus was sending a message to them when he rode into Jerusalem that day,

I'm not coming here to conquer a natural kingdom.

I'm coming in peace because my kingdom is not of this world.

Here's what the Bible says, because he shows them humility. He shows them the act of sacrifice.

John chapter 13 and verse 14, he tells his followers, if I then,

John 13 · chapter mention

your Lord and teacher have washed your feet, you ought also also to wash another's feet.

Now he's speaking symbolically there. I want to say there, I had somebody call

me after last week's sermon and say, man, you got, you got us not wanting to wash feet.

All right. Cause I described, I described foot washing and JR, you want, you want to.

Okay, bake me a cake, okay. But he's speaking symbolically.

I know people say, well, he said you ought to wash your... He also said you

ought to take up serpents and no deadly thing will harm you.

But don't be drinking, stricken, and don't be handling snakes,

all right? So we've got to look at what God is saying through all of this,

that he is saying that there has to be a servant's heart.

I don't know. I'm not... I mean, I've washed feet before, and I probably will

again. But what he's trying to say right here is his entire mission was marked

by humility and service.

See, the reality is when we come to church and we say that we belong to God,

then we should want to send supplies to another country.

We should want to come out and volunteer in the diaper ministry.

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We should want to volunteer in the children's ministry. We should want to go

out and to serve our community in humility. Why?

Because that is the example of our Savior.

Our Savior's example was not sitting in the temple and just allowing people

just to come and serve him.

But his example was he came to serve.

He came to minister through humility.

And we must bear the marks of our Savior.

The Barna Research Group, they found this. They found that 51% of Christians struggled.

Now, this is Christians, not just Americans. 51% of real Christians struggle

to adopt a servant attitude in their daily.

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About him, and if it's all about him, he said to go into all the world and preach

the gospel to every living creature.

And so we should be finding ways to minister to lost humanity,

find ways to touch hearts and change lives, find ways to speak into the life

of someone else. See, that's what Jesus would have done.

And so if we're going to see Jesus, the king for who he really is,

we've got to see him in his humility.

We do. We've got to see him in his humility. But not only that,

but also we've got to realize that we have witnessed the fulfillment of prophecy.

We have witnessed the fulfillment of prophecy.

The Bible says it in Matthew chapter 21 of our text said, this took place to

Matthew 21 · chapter mention

fulfill what was spoken by the prophet saying, behold, your king is coming to you.

500 years earlier, Zechariah chapter nine, verse nine had prophesied his coming.

500 years, perfectly fulfilled that. But not only did he fulfill Zachariah's

prophecy, he fulfilled Isaiah's prophecy.

He fulfilled Samuel's prophecy to David.

He fulfilled every Old Testament prophecy. I read the statistic years ago, someone did a study,

and the chances of Jesus fulfilling every Old

Testament prophecy and getting it 100%

accurately would be the same as if you line the

state of Texas with silver dollars one foot

deep and on the bottom of one of those silver dollars

you put it took a sharpie and put an x on it now i don't know if you've ever

been to texas or not but you know they say everything's bigger as in texas because

it's a big state i drove a group to mexico one time it took us 12 hours to get

to texas and another 12 hours to get through texas that's how big Texas is.

And so, but driving across that, the chances of Jesus fulfilling every prophecy

would be like putting silver dollars one foot deep all.

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And rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

And we see this fulfilled perfectly.

Yet we cannot trust that he is who he says he is. You say, well,

Scott, I do believe he's Jesus. Well, do you?

Because if you're just a fan, then you really don't. If you're just a fan,

if your attitude toward him is based on circumstance, then you don't.

If your worship of Him is based on your mood at the time, then you don't.

Oh, how many times? I was up at two o'clock this morning. I went to Powell's,

got a sweet tea way too late last night.

I was up at two o'clock this morning, and I was praying, and your mind's rolling,

and I started thinking, how many times have I come in and He's worthy of praise,

but because things are difficult in my life at the time, I'm not lifting up.

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My hands in authentic worship.

You know what I was being? I was being a fan, not a follower,

because when you're a fan, your worship is dependent upon circumstance.

But when you're a follower, you're like Job, and Job said, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.

Blessed be the name of the Lord. No matter what's going on in our life,

whether you're well or whether you're sick, he's worthy of praise.

Whether you're rich or whether you're poor, he's worthy of praise.

Whether things are great in your family or it's a wreck, he's worthy of praise.

I was on the continent of Africa almost two decades ago, and I was preaching

a national conference for the nation of Tanzania. pastors started coming in. They rode bicycles.

They walked for hours just to get there. And, and I asked the bishop at the

time because they cooked us meals and, and everybody had rice.

Me and the person that, that, that traveled with me were the only two people

that got little slivers of chicken, little chicken leg.

That chicken looked like it'd been on Weight Watchers. I'll tell you that right

now. It's just a little, it was a little sliver of chicken.

And I said, I said, Bishop, I said, I can't eat this chicken while they're out

there and walk for hours and they're malnourished already. I can't eat this chicken. He said, no.

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Let's walk for hours. If we've got to raise money for months just to send something

so somebody can hear the gospel in a foreign country, let's raise money for a month.

If we got to, let's go ahead and say this, if we don't replace a light that's

out or do anything fancy around here, but we send money to our community and.

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Other communities that need the Lord, then let's preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It's not about being a fan. It's about being a follower of him.

We've got to get to the place where we realize, we realize, number one,

he was a humble king. We see his humility.

We embody that humility. We imitate that humility, but also we realize that

he was prophecy fulfilled, that we have witnessed prophecy fulfilled.

See, if you do that, what's left to do?

Well, the only thing left to do is to respond and with authentic worship.

You move from a place of superficial worship to a place of sacrificial worship.

There we go. You move from a place of superficial worship.

Yeah, we're here because it's Sunday. We're here because it's Palm Sunday.

We're here because we saw a billboard. We're here because we got a flyer in

the mail. You move beyond the place of superficial worship to the place of God

is transforming my life.

I know he's in my heart.

And because he has changed me, no matter what's going on in this world,

I'm going to worship him. That's sacrificial worship.

I may not feel like it right now, but he's worthy of a praise.

That's sacrificial worship.

Things may be chaotic in my home right now, but that's not Jesus' fault.

He's still worthy of a praise. That's sacrificial worship. Look at this.

Look at this. And the crowds that went before him.

I'm going to show you superficial. And the crowds that went before him and that

followed him were shouting, Hosanna to the son of David.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

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They're crying out, Hosanna. They're crying out, you're the one we saw in the Old Testament.

The thing that I've thought about this for two weeks now. the thing that jumps

out to me is the same crowd that cried Hosanna on Sunday is the same crowd that's

yelling crucify him on Friday.

Five days he goes from being the Messiah to the one that they would rather have Barabbas for.

Think about this. Hey, listen, they got nothing on us because we can go from

worthy is the lamb who was slain,

you know, to go out and if our waitress is five seconds

late bringing our drink we're letting her right right yeah we can be in here

lifting our hands and you know yeah what am I am I am I receiving or giving

you we can we can be doing all those different things those spiritual calisthenics

and then somebody pulls out in front of us in the parking lot and we're ready to,

Yeah, we may not throw rocks, but you'll throw something at them.

Yeah, you'll give them the Hawaiian blessing right out there in the church parking

lot if you're not careful.

And it's because it's easy to be a fan.

It's easy to be a fan, but it takes sacrifice to be a follower.

It takes dedication. It takes living a life that's intentional to be a follower.

It takes suppressing your own desires to be a follower.

It takes crucifying yourself daily to be a follower.

Here's what Jesus said. Jesus said, but the hour is coming and is now here that

the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth.

Not from emotion, even though emotion is involved, but not from emotion.

See, here's the difference in a fan and a follower.

Fans worship Jesus from emotion.

Followers worship Jesus from relationships that flow into their emotions and

every other part of their lives.

Jesus is saying, go beyond the emotion, go beyond the superficial,

and enter into relationship with me. Hope you'll come help me close this out.

A study by the Gallup group found this, that while 90% of Americans pray occasionally,

only 30% regularly engage in worship. That deepens their relationship with Christ. Think about that.

Only 30% move from a place of superficial to sacrificial.

Only 30% go from a place of being a fan to being a follower.

See, Dietrich Bonhoeffer said this. If you don't know Dietrich Bonhoeffer, he was a pastor.

It would cost him his life. He was a pastor in Germany, and he stood against

the Nazi regime, stood against Hitler.

And he made this quote. He said, When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.

He said, only a man who is dead to his own will can follow Christ.

And here's what you have to realize. I'm not saying that Jesus is saying that

you're going to have to die for him.

But he is saying you're going to have to live for him.

And there are times when faced with criticism, faced with adversity,

when people are mocking you, when things have not been going well in your own

life, when this body is feeling the curse of sin, disease,

sometimes it's as difficult to live for Him in those cases than it is to die for Him. It is.

Man, I've been in some services in this place, and you can feel the Spirit of

the Lord, and in that moment, I'd be willing to give my life for Him.

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But then, a few days later,

when the song's not there, when Miracle's not hitting a high note,

when the band's not playing, I think, can I really tell anybody about him?

I feel so defeated in my own life.

Those are the days that make you either a fan or a follower.

Either a fan or a follower.

And in this Passion Week, knowing him coming and seeing his passion he is asking

us move beyond the place of a fan move beyond the crowd of Jerusalem that were

waving palm branches but were yelling crucify him by Friday,

move to the place where you're a devoted follower of Jesus Christ devoted follower

of Jesus Christ let's all stand all over the building this morning,

And my question is, will you come and see his passion? Will you come and see

his passion this Palm Sunday morning?

Will you move from, all of us are guilty.

I was thinking about this two o'clock in the morning. I'm guilty.

There's time when I'm too much of a fan and not enough of a follower.

That's, I'm going to admit that as a pastor.

And I would almost dare to say that I'm probably not the only one.

I think all of us at times may be right there.

So I got two questions, two calls this morning. Everyone bow your head, close your eyes.

It's very personal. I want you to, this is us and God right now.

My first call is this. If you're here today and you don't know Jesus Christ,

maybe you knew the Lord, you've walked away from him. Maybe you burnt your t-shirt.

Maybe the storms of life caused you to throw in the towel at some point.

But you'd like to say I'd like to renew that relationship I'd like to make it right with him,

I'd like to give my heart to Jesus today you can do that right where you're

standing but if that's you I just want you to raise your hands that's me I want

to give my heart to Jesus today right where I am I want to give my heart to

Jesus there's hands going up who else who else you'd say I'd like to give my

heart to Jesus I want to renew that commitment.

Yes, thank you, Jesus. You can put those hands down. We're going to pray in just a moment.

Here's my main call. Here's my main call. If you're here today and you'd say,

Pastor Scott, I know what you're talking about.

There's times I'm too much of a fan, but I need to become more of a follower.

I need to move from the place of the superficial to the place of the sacrificial to live it for him.

If that's you, I just want you to raise your hand right now.

There's a lot of hands going up. That's us.

That's us. That's us. Absolutely.

Let's do it this way because I feel the Holy Spirit moving in this place today.

If you raise your hand on any of those calls, can we just step out and come

to this altar now? Can we do that on the count of three? One,

two, three, step on out. That's right. They're coming.

You're not going to be the only one. Let's come to this altar together.

This altar is not a place of shame. It's a place of power. It's a place of renewal.

It's a place where we meet God, where we find God in this church right now.

Can we do this? If you raised your hand that you want salvation,

then can we do it all over the building right now?

If you're standing for those that raise their hand for salvation,

I want everybody in this house to pray this prayer.

Say, Dear Jesus, I come before you, and I admit I'm a sinner,

and I'm in need of a Savior.

So I ask you to save me.

I ask you to set me free.

I understand you're my king. and

i commit to you to live my life

for you for the rest of my life i'm saved and you are my savior in jesus name

amen if you prayed that prayer the bible says if you believe it in your heart

confess it with your mouth you are saved for those that are in this altar right now if someone's to.

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