29 March 2026 - Palm Sunday : The King, The Servant & The Crowd - Pastor Clarance Shashi

Holy Week, the week leading to Easter or Resurrection Sunday as we know it.

And this is a significant week for the believers, for Christians all across the world, because it is a week where we remember all that Jesus accomplished for us through his suffering, through his death, and through his resurrection.

This week was a pivotal week of Jesus' journey and his mission on the earth.

This was the most crucial week.

It is the week that changed everything for mankind.

For Jesus himself, this was probably the an incredibly busy and eventful time.

A lot of things he had to accomplish over this week because he knew the end was coming.

His time on earth was coming to an end.

So he had a lot to do.

Today, of course, we are remembering Palm Sunday, where Jesus enters into Jerusalem, riding on that donkey, publicly revealing himself for the first time as the promised Messiah.

And of course, the next day, that Monday, Jesus enters into the temple, drives out the merchants and the money changers, accusing them of turning the temple into a den of thieves.

Then on Tuesday, he teaches and debates with the religious leaders in the temple as well.

He shares parables and prophecies about the coming destruction of the temple.

Jesus predicts his own death and resurrection several times, explaining also the purpose of his coming.

And on Wednesday, Judas Iscariot agrees to betray Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.

And then on Thursday, what some Christians will call Monday Thursday, Jesus washes the disciples' feet.

He lays down the foundational principle of Christian service and Christian leadership.

And then, of course, he goes into the Last Supper where he shares a final meal with his disciples and also institutes the Eucharist, the Holy Communion, the Last Supper as we know it.

And then he goes to the garden to pray.

He prays at Gethsemane, expresses deep anguish about his impending crucifixion.

And after that, he is betrayed by Judas, one of his disciples, with a kiss leading to his arrest by the gods.

And then on Friday, what we call Good Friday in hindsight, which this Friday we're gonna be celebrating through a time of worship and lifting up Jesus.

But that actual Friday wasn't a very good Friday for Jesus.

He had to face trial before the religious leaders, he tried before the St.

Henry, and uh and where he is accused and condemned.

There, one of his closest disciples, Peter, denies knowing Jesus three times.

Then he's brought before Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor who ultimately condemns him to crucifixion, despite saying, I can find no fault in him.

And Jesus is then ultimately crucified, dies.

And before he dies, he utters these last words.

He says, It is finished.

Notice he said, It is finished.

He doesn't say I am finished because Jesus was not finished on that third day, on that Sunday, early Sunday morning, just like Jesus said, He broke the curse of sin and death, and he rose up from the grave.

Now we have a new beginning, and a kingdom that has no end.

Hallelujah.

Jesus is alive that has lost his victory, and the grave has been denied.

Jesus lives forever.

He's alive.

He's alive.

Okay, okay, save it, save it for Easter.

So Jesus rises from the dead.

He was wasn't finished.

Amen.

But what a week.

So much happens in that week.

You know, some of us things think we have a busy week.

We have a tough week.

We've got so many things going on.

But when you consider the holy week and all that Jesus had to go through, he said, you know, what I'm going through is nothing compared to what Jesus had to manage and go through and navigate in this last week of his life while carrying the weight of the world literally upon himself.

But today being Palm Sunday, I want to look at that first Palm Sunday and glean some points that are being revealed or communicated through this event.

So let's read that portion of scripture.

I think Pastor Debbie read it earlier, Matthew chapter 21, verse 1 to 9.

Matthew 21:1–9

Now, when they drew near Jerusalem and came to Bethpage at the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you'll find a donkey tied and a colt with her.

Loose them and bring them to me.

And if anyone says anything to you, you shall say, The Lord has need of them, and immediately he will send them.

All this was done that it might be fulfill that it might be fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet, saying, Tell the daughter of Zion, Behold, your king is coming to you lowly and sitting on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.

So the disciples went and did as Jesus commanded them.

They brought the donkey and the colt, laid their clothes on them, and set him on them, and a very great multitude spread their clothes on the road.

Others cut down branches from trees and spread them on the road.

Then the multitudes who went before and those who followed cried out, saying, Hosanna to the Son of David, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest.

So while we recognize this week as the week leading to Easter or Resurrection Sunday, on that more than 2,000 years ago, in Jesus' time, this same week, or the people of Jerusalem celebrated this week as the week leading to the Passover celebration.

The Passover celebration was a very important celebration for the Jewish people.

Families would be traveling from all over to go to Jerusalem.

They will all converge in Jerusalem to celebrate this Passover festival.

Passover in a nutshell is remembering and celebrating how God delivered his people out of Egypt.

We know the story, the story of Moses, how God sends Moses to speak to Pharaoh, says, Let my people go, but Pharaoh refuses to let the people go.

God's people were slaves in Egypt.

And uh and God goes on to send judgments, the ten plagues, ten plagues, the judgments on the gods of Egypt.

And before that final judgment, which was death itself, uh God tells the people to take a lamb, sacrifice that lamb, roast it, or you know, uh do whatever you can read all of that in Exodus chapter 12.

Exodus 12 · chapter mention

But ultimately he tells him, take the blood from that lamb and paint it on the lentils of your doorposts.

And uh it was sort of that first cross, the blood on the wooden beams of the doorposts up and down that first cross, and it says, Because of the blood of the lamb on the doorpost, that would not come into your home.

You will be spared, and that is pointing to Jesus, and also the next day, it is true that blood stained doorpost that they walk out into freedom.

Before they were slaves, but the moment they stepped through that bloodstained doorpost, they were no longer slaves, but they were children of God.

They had a promise, they had a future waiting for them.

All of them pointed to Jesus.

What Jesus would accomplish through his finished work, through his shed blood.

That is no longer our lot in life.

We don't die, we fall asleep, we are absent in the flesh, and we are present with the Lord.

Amen.

And it is by the blood of Jesus that we step out of the old life, out of death, and into the eternity that we have with God, into that blessed life, out of darkness, into the kingdom of his son.

And back then in Egypt, God, after doing all this, he institutes this festival, this feast, and he says, You must remember this every year.

You must celebrate this Passover festival, this Passover celebration to remember how because of God death passed over you.

Amen.

So moving forward to first century Jerusalem, the Jewish families from all over Israel would now be coming to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover.

You know, nowadays in our celebrations, we all leave the city during our celebrations and go home.

But in Passover, everybody leaves their homes and they come to this one place in Jerusalem where the temple was.

So you gotta imagine the scene.

Jerusalem would be packed.

They say it would be about two million people that would be converging in in Jerusalem for this Passover celebration.

The air would be filled with all kinds of smell, roast lamb, Middle Eastern perfume, if there were perfume at that point.

The smell of spices, merchants selling their wares and trying to call, it was like a massive pasamalam calling, come come buy from me.

Everybody, it was a huge business as well, right?

So, in the midst of all this, all this noise, families running around, children running around, families excited.

It was sort of a holiday trip, you know.

Everybody's in Jerusalem, Jerusalem's packed, Jerusalem's noisy.

In the midst of all of this, there's suddenly a huge commotion, uh, screaming, excitement, and it seemed to be coming from the entrance of town.

And the people looked, the people from in the city looked towards the entrance of town, and they saw this huge crowd spilling into the city, coming into Jerusalem, screaming, shouting, and and and they were laying their clothes on the ground, sort of like paving the way, taking branches and putting it on the ground, waving branches, and they were doing it all.

All of this excitement was centered around this one lone figure on the back of a donkey.

Who was this man?

The people of Jerusalem, the people in the city, didn't initially know what was going on.

Let's see that.

It says a great multitude spread their clothes on the road, others cut down branches from trees, spread them on the road.

Then the multitudes who went before, and those who followed after cried out.

So there was a multitude, it was like a procession.

There was a multitude going before Jesus on the donkey entering into the city, crying out, shouting, praising.

And then there was another multitude coming after Jesus.

And it says the people in the city didn't know what was going on at first.

It says all the city was moved in verse 10.

And they said, Who is this?

What's this commotion about?

So the multitude said, This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth of Galilee.

So the ones that were with Jesus said, Hey, this is Jesus, this is the one, he's the guy, he's the one the the the prophecies were were alluding to when they talked about the coming Messiah.

For years and years we read all these things.

This is the man, he's the man.

So that was a scene on that first Palm Sunday.

And I want to look at, like I said, some of the things that is revealed through this one event.

This event, as I said, marks the first time Jesus is publicly acknowledging himself as the Messiah, as the king that Israel has been waiting for.

Notice that they were praising him as the son of David, Hosanna to the son of David.

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

And that is a messianic title.

The Old Testament prophets spoke about a coming Messiah, that he would be from the line of David, a son of David.

So when the people are calling him son of David, they're not just acknowledging his great great great great great grandfather.

They were saying, Hey, you are the guy that the prophets spoke about, that they wrote about.

You are that Messiah that from the line of David, you are that king, you are the promised one that we have been waiting for.

In fact, even the the praises, the songs that they were singing, they were saying, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

It was not just verses that they picked out of nowhere, it was a verse taken out of a messianic psalm, Psalm 118.

In fact, even till today, messianic Jews would sing those verses in their song.

They would say, Baruch Haba Hash uh Bashem Adonai, which literally means blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

So they were praising him using that that prophetic praise that was found in Psalm 118, which was a messianic psalm.

So they were saying, Yeah, you are the guy, you are the one.

And Jesus in this event is acknowledging, Yes, I am He.

I am the one, I am the one that you have been waiting for, I am the one that all your scriptures and prophets spoke about and wrote about.

He's act publicly for the first time acknowledging that I am that Messiah.

And this was significant and very exciting, especially for the disciples, because for the longest time they wanted Jesus to do this, they wanted to be the crew of the Messiah, the guy, the king.

They wanted Jesus to openly declare that he was that king and that Messiah that Israel had been waiting for, the savior of Israel.

But Jesus was always very careful with this information.

He only spoke about this or revealed it to them.

A selected few.

And he would use to and he used to tell them, Don't tell anyone.

When he does a miracle, he does something phenomenal, and people get all excited.

He said, Don't tell anyone.

There was a timing.

And at that point, it was not the time.

So the the disciples would have been very, very excited.

This is that moment.

He is revealing that that he is the one.

And we are gonna be all his generals, his right hand men, and we are gonna be elevated along with him.

This is the moment, like Clark Kent taking off his glasses, and everyone, you're Superman.

Yeah.

So this was Jesus's Clark Kent, Superman moment for the disciples.

But Jesus wanted everyone at this point to know.

He wanted this reality to be established that it was He was the one.

No more doubts about it.

And more than receiving the title, the Son of David, his entrance into Jerusalem is according to the prophecies about the coming Messiah.

The prophecy found in Zechariah chapter 9, verse 9, written more than uh about four to five hundred years before Jesus was even born, that says, Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion.

Zechariah 9:9

Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem, Behold, your king is coming to you, he's just having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey, a coal, the foal of a donkey.

So Jesus was making it clear, Yes, I am the king.

And this had to be done.

People needed to know.

The religious leaders needed to know who they were plotting against, so they will not be able to claim ignorance as a defense.

The crowds would bear witness to this.

The scriptures would bear witness that he was the one that you were plotting against.

This truth had to be known and established.

He is the savior, he is the Messiah, he is the king.

Even today, everything about yours and my faith, everything that you and I believe, must be established on that reality.

That is the unshakable reality that our lives and our faith must be built on.

Once he asked his disciples in Matthew 16, verse 13, he says, Who do men say that I am?

Matthew 16:13

Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?

So they said, Some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, others say you're Jeremiah or one of the prophets.

So there are a lot of people today who will tell us who they think Jesus is.

In fact, Jesus is the only religious figure that is an acknowledged personality by every other religion.

None of them will tell you that Jesus never existed.

They all know Jesus existed.

They will not tell you that Jesus was a myth or Jesus was a legend because the history proves otherwise.

No other religious leader or founder is seen or acknowledged by all other faiths the way Jesus is.

Islam acknowledges the existence of the person of Jesus.

Hinduism acknowledges his person and his existence.

Buddhism acknowledges Jesus.

Judaism acknowledges Jesus.

Sikhism acknowledges Jesus.

Even the 80s acknowledge that there was once a historical personality by the name of Jesus who walked the earth.

There are historical, non-religious, non-sympathetic historical accounts that attest to the existence of the one that people call and believed was the Savior, Jesus Christ.

So there is evidence of his existence.

So that is why people won't and deny the existence of Jesus.

They won't deny that he once walked the earth, but they will deny that he was who he claimed to be.

They will say, Yes, there was Jesus.

Yes, Jesus is a real person.

Yes, he did walk the face of the earth.

But they will say, contrary to Jesus' own claims about himself, he was here, but he was just a prophet.

He was just an avatar.

He was just a good man.

He was a revolutionary.

But they will not acknowledge that he is the savior that he claimed to be, that he is, as he said, the way, the truth, and the life.

That he is the I am before, even before Abraham was.

That he is, as the scriptures and his followers declare him to be our Lord and our God.

But they all know he existed.

But knowing that Jesus existed does not help you, does not save you, does not deliver you, does not heal you.

Knowing him as your Lord and Savior is what's gonna make a difference in this life for you and well into your eternity.

So Jesus asked his disciples, Who do men say that I am?

And they replied, like I said, Elijah, John the Baptist.

Some say you're a prophet, some say Jeremiah.

They share the opinions of people.

But then Jesus poses this million-dollar question.

He says to them, But who do you say that I am?

And that is, in essence, the question that matters the most for each and everyone here.

It is the life and death question.

Who do you say Jesus is?

Who do you say that?

I am.

And then, of course, we know Simon Peter answered and said, You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

And Jesus answered and said to him, Blessed are you, Simon, but Jonah for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you.

But my Father who is in heaven, and I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

You know, some of us, some people read the scripture and they say that, yeah, uh, Peter is the rock that Jesus is going to build his church on.

You could interpret that if Jesus spoke in this English language, but in the original Greek, it is two different words.

He says to Peter, Thou art Petrus, meaning small stone or pebble.

And then he goes on to say, and on this petra, big rock, stone, I will build my church.

The petra that he was talking about was not petrus, the petra he was talking about was the confession that Peter's pay that Peter makes, you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

And that is the reality that the church of Jesus Christ is built on today, that He is God, He is Lord, He is the Son of the risen, He is the Son of God, amen.

And that is the reality that all our lives must be built on.

Amen.

So to the event of Palm Sunday, Jesus is establishing and publicly declaring the reality of his identity.

He was king, he was the one the prophet Zechariah wrote about and spoke about 500 years prior.

He was he is that king that is entering into Jerusalem, riding in a donkey.

He was revealing his identity publicly.

I'm the one.

And the other thing that he reveals to this was the type of king that he would be.

He rides into Jerusalem on a donkey skull.

Typically, when kings enter a city or a town, they enter riding on a war horse or a horse, at least, or horse-drawn chariots.

Those were the official modes of transportation for kings and conquerors.

But Jesus, while acknowledging that he was their king, he enters into Jerusalem riding on a donkey.

This was not normal, it was not customary, because the donkey was typically used not by kings or generals or conquerors, but by servants.

It was not a beast of kings, it was a beast of burden.

And Jesus reveals his kingship carried by a beast of burden, a servant's animal.

And yes, through this entrance, he was revealing that he is that king, but he is also revealing the way in which his kingship would come.

Jesus' kingship would come not through force, but through love and service and ultimately sacrifice.

He was not coming to conquer cities, but he was coming to conquer hearts.

The donkey is important because it is revealing, like I said, going back to the prophecy.

He said he he comes in riding on the donkey.

Your king is coming to you riding on the donkey, he's just having salvation, lowly, lowly, and riding on a donkey, the cold, the fall of a donkey.

And our God is a just God, that is his nature.

He's coming to save us.

How lowly, humbly riding on a donkey.

That is the heart of our Savior.

This is his desire for all of us who count ourselves as followers and disciples of Jesus.

In fact, Jesus Himself makes this distinction between his followers, how we should behave compared to people in the world.

It says in Mark chapter 20, verse 25, Jesus called them together, said, You know that the rulers of this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them.

But among you, all of you, all of us, it shall be different.

Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant.

Whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave.

For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve others and give his life as a ransom for many.

And you can tell that the disciples never got this in spite of hearing this from him in many different forms.

They argued about power, they argued about position, they argued about authority.

So what he does is in this last week he realized this guy still don't get it.

I've got to prepare, I've got one week more.

I'm going to prepare an object lesson for them.

So in John 13, verse 3, on which he says, Jesus knew that the Father had given him authority over everything, and that he had come from God, would return to God.

John 13:3

So Jesus knew who he was.

And then he says, His next step is important.

He says he rose from supper, laid aside his garments, took a towel, girded it on himself.

After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and wiped them with a towel with which he was girded.

He knew he was king, he knew he had authority over everything.

He knew where he had come from.

He had come from God and he knew he's going back to sit at the right hand of the Father.

He could have used that position to get everyone to wash his feet.

Each of you take one toe.

But twelve of you, never mind.

He could have gotten everyone to serve him.

But he chose to serve his disciples, to wash their feet.

And that was a task that was culturally, that was something that was cultural those days.

The lowest servant of the house, because you know they would walk outside the dirt roads and all that before they entered the house.

It was the job of the lowest servant of the house to wash the feet of the people coming into the house.

He did the task normally reserved for the lowest servant in the house.

In fact, even his disciples were shocked.

And he made it very clear to them.

Explicitly, he said this because he didn't want to speak in parables anymore, because his guys were a bit thick, they you know we're not getting in.

So he says, after washing their feet, he put on his robe again, sat down, and said, Do you understand what I was doing?

You call me teacher and lord, and you are right.

Because that is what I am, and since I, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash each other's feet.

I have done this or given you an example to follow.

Do as I have done to you.

I tell you the truth, slaves are not greater than their master, nor is the messenger more important than the one who sends the message.

Now that you know these things, God will bless you for doing them.

So he's saying, if I, your Lord, the one to whom all authority has been given by God, who is of God, if I can humble myself and serve others and do the task of the lowest servant of the house, then you have no excuse.

You have no business thinking you're too high, too mighty, too holy, too educated, too successful to serve others.

And even if it means doing things that are normally reserved for the lowest laborer in the marketplace, you must be willing to do those things if that would mean that you could be a channel of God's heart, God's love, God's hope to the community around you.

Jesus' weapon of choice to conquer the hearts of men was not a sword, it was not a spear, it was a basin and a towel.

Servanthood is the nail on which Christian leadership hangs, on which service and ministry hangs.

Humility is at the heart of Christ's likeness and Christian character.

And he tells him, now that you know these things, God will bless you, not just for knowing these things, God will bless you for doing them.

A lot of us know, but a lot of us don't do.

You are here to serve, love, do it, and he says that in that space you will be blessed by God.

James chapter 4, verse 6.

James 4:6

It says, God resists the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.

This is countercultural, guys.

He did things that was countercultural even in that day, and he tells us to live countercultural in our day, going against the established mindsets when it comes to power, when it comes to rulership.

And it is a struggle, even for Christians.

It is hard because a lot of people link our service to our identity.

Who does it think I am?

Who does Pastor think I am to tell me to go and mop the floor?

To wash his pinky.

I'm kidding, I'll never ask you to do that.

Who does it think I am to ask me to do such a task?

Do you know who I am?

People who are insecure in their identity in Christ find it difficult to serve others, find it difficult to stoop and serve others.

Wash someone's feet, so to speak.

Jesus was so secure in who he was that he could do the job of that lowest servant without it affecting his self image.

He could go low without feeling low.

He could embrace the least without making him feel less.

He was so secure in his value to the Father that he could have the heart and do the job of a servant without feeling that it devalued him in any way.

He was that kind of a king.

Aren't you grateful?

Don't you just praise God because Jesus is that kind of a king?

Amen.

To be Christ-like, which is the call of every believer, is to be someone who is so secure in their value to the Father, in our identity in Christ, that we can step in any level of service, no matter how humble it is.

And it does not make us feel any lesser.

Listen, your value is already established.

I've got five minutes.

Your value is already established.

Pain, that's my signal for you.

I've got five minutes.

God already established your value.

The price for you was already determined and paid.

You know, when you when you go to an auction, you know, sometimes you see the things that people sell at auctions.

It's ridiculous.

Right?

I saw once that a banana pasted on the wall.

How many of y'all saw that?

Just a banana on a tape on a wall, and people paid millions for this artwork.

And it comes with when that banana rots, they'll change a new banana.

Ridiculous.

But the thing about uh an auction is sometimes the thing by itself may be of no value.

Let's say an old you find an old cabinet in an antique shop and they want to auction it.

The cabinet by itself, the wood, would cost nothing.

Old wood, half rotting, the doors, the knobs.

I think if you were to break it down and sell bits of it, and that value might be probably about ten dollars, its inherent value.

But to the eyes of the collector, he looks at the cabinet and he goes, Wow, I've got to have that, and it's in the auction, and people are going thousand, ten thousand, one million dollars going once, going twice.

This guy says, one million dollars.

I want that cabinet.

The cabinet by itself, like I said, may not have that value, but this collector looks at this cabinet and sees value, and then he takes it home.

How much is the cabinet worth now?

One million dollars.

One million dollars.

The price paid for it becomes its current value.

The Bible says, for God so loved you that he gave his only son for you.

The price paid for you is your current value.

What is the value of Jesus to the father?

What is the value of Jesus to Father?

How precious is Jesus to Father?

Most of y'all will say, Oh, he's the most precious thing is in heaven.

So God took the most precious thing in heaven as a price to pay so that he can have you.

The price paid has become your new value.

Your value has already been determined by God.

It doesn't matter what you think you're made of, how much you think you're worth, how much your sister told you your word, how much your brother told you your word, how much your family thinks your word, how much your teacher thinks your word.

God saw your value and he paid the price, and you are precious to him.

Stop getting your worth and your value from outside, from people who don't know your true worth.

That is why Jesus praised his prayer in in John 17, verse 23.

John 17:23

He said, One of his this was part of his final prayer, and he says, He says, I pray that they will know that you love them just like how you love me, as much as how you love me.

A lot of people struggle with that.

We all know God loves Jesus, but do we believe that he loves Jesus as much?

He loves you as much as he loves Jesus.

That was Jesus prayer, so that we will we will understand our value.

We are in Christ to the Father.

Stop thinking that you're not valuable.

If you've come in here and maybe you had a value put on you by circumstances, by your past, by your history, by others.

I want to rip it off you right now and say the price paid for you is your current value.

Amen.

God loves you as much as He loves the most precious one in heaven, Jesus Christ.

You are hidden in Christ, and no one can take that away from you.

Amen.

Another thing that this reveals, this event of Palm Sunday reveals is this the hearts of people, the same people who are worship worshiping, worshipping him on that Sunday, son of David, Baruchaba, Bashem Madunai, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, were the same people a few days later who were standing at the side of the road shouting, crucify him, crucify him.

The people who wanted him crowned as king on Sunday wanted him dead on Friday.

Don't let your life be influenced by the crowd.

People are fickle.

Don't live your life trying to please the crowd.

Don't allow your value, your worth, your identity to be determined and influenced by the crowd.

There are a lot of people who are unhappy in this world because you're looking to the crowd for value, for word, for acceptance.

They live their lives trying to please the crowd.

I read about this social media influencer who committed suicide because the crowd, her followers who loved her at one point, turned against her and hated her because they didn't like something she said or did.

She lost the crowd.

She lost her followers.

The ones who were praising her one day were crucifying her the next day.

Her whole value system was built on the opinion of the crowd.

What a tragic way to live your lives.

Today's suicide rates among young people are at an all-time high.

And in many cases, it is triggered by a misplaced sense of value and word.

Jesus went through this.

Thousands followed him into Jerusalem, praising him on that first Sunday.

Five days later, he was alone on a cross.

Everyone deserted him, even his own disciples.

And the reason why Jesus could endure all of this because he knew his true value to the Father, his creator, his God, his father, his word as defined by the father, not the crowd around him.

Don't get me wrong, he loved the crowd, he had compassion for the crowd, he served the crowd, he died for the crowd, but he did not live for the crowd.

Amen.

Listen, we serve the crowd, we love the crowd.

We give our lives for the crowd, but we don't live for the crowd.

We live for an audience of one.

Amen.

This freedom, there's a freedom that you can walk in the moment you decide.

I'm living for this audience of one.

Doesn't matter what that person thinks, what they think.

People are praising me today, will be cursing me tomorrow.

Doesn't matter.

I'm gonna live my life for Jesus to please him.

Because ultimately it is his opinion that matters at the end of the day.

Amen.

Come on, let's stand.

You know, today I want to ask you that question.

You've heard who I think Jesus is.

You can hear online many different opinions of who he is, but the million-dollar question is who do you say that he is?

That is the question only you can answer, and that is the question that's gonna make a difference in your life from here and well into eternity.

If you're not sure, if you've never made that decision or you've never even thought about it, I wanna challenge you to think about it today.

Because one day we'll all be standing before God, and our answer to that question is gonna determine the eternity that we step into.

You know, we had a funeral of a close friend just uh two weeks ago who died suddenly, 52 years old.

I spoke to him on Friday night, went for a walk Saturday morning, while walking, just collapses, dies of a heart attack.

Funeral was sad, but there was uh another emotion in that sadness, the joy that we would see him again, and why we could have that joy, that confidence, that hope.

Because we know he knew who Jesus was, because we knew he gave his life to Christ, he made that decision a long time ago.

I'm gonna trust in Jesus, trust in what he's accomplished for me, he's finished work at the cross, he is the Christ, the Son of the living God, he is my God, my savior.

So we like Paul says, we we grieve in hope.

We grieve, yes, grieving is real, but we grieve in hope.

There was a hope in that funeral that you don't find in any other funerals, and that hope is because of one person, one name, the one whom we have called our Lord and Savior.

And today you can call upon that same name.

Today you too can decide yes, he is my Lord, yes, he is the King, yes, he is the Savior.

If that's you today, you want to just maybe you're not sure.

Maybe you've been 50-50, and today you feel, yeah, you know what?

I'm ready to cross that line.

If that's you, just lift your hands to Jesus right where you stand.

I want to pray with you.

Come on.