Palm Sunday

Well, like I said a few minutes ago, today is a very important day.

Today's kind of the beginning of our whole celebration of Easter that's that's really gonna finalize next Sunday.

But today is historically a day known as Palm Sunday.

Now, I didn't start going to church until I was in like upper elementary school.

Um didn't grow up in church until that age, and I was really mad when we started going to church because church meant dress pants.

That's just what I knew as a little kid.

Um it doesn't mean dress pants here, but it meant dress pants, and I hated dress pants because I was a nine-year-old, ten-year-old boy.

Um, but the church that I grew up in, we didn't really celebrate special days.

Like Easter, absolutely Christmas, but if it wasn't Easter, Christmas wasn't even on the radar.

And so Palm Sunday, that's a that's a phrase that I heard just sort of here and there, uh, sort of grew to understand it, but it wasn't a big part of my experience.

Now, many of you who grew up in church, especially in certain types of churches, Palm Sunday was probably huge.

So, just out of curiosity, how many of you grew up in a church where Palm Sunday was a big deal?

It was celebrated, it was known, all right?

And that's maybe half of us or so.

Um, a lot of us didn't grow up in church at all.

It's all cool.

But what I'm excited about for this morning is we all get to come together regardless of your background and celebrate and reflect upon.

And my hope is respond in our hearts to what Jesus did on Palm Sunday.

Because this isn't just a historical event that we celebrate and we remember.

This is something that means so much for us and it has so much to say to how we engage with Jesus on a day-to-day basis.

And whether you've been following Jesus for years, you might be really new to the whole Jesus thing.

You might not even know where you stand with Jesus yet.

My prayer today is that everything that we look at today gives you a clearer picture of who he is and of what he does in our lives because he is incredible, he is beautiful, he's also fierce and powerful, he is loving, but man, he's just, there's no one like him.

And I hope that you have a clearer picture than you did when you came today of who he is and what he can do in your life.

With that said, we're just gonna go ahead and read the main portion of scripture that we have for today.

This is Matthew chapter 21, verses 1 through 11.

Matthew 21:1–11

Verses are on the screen if you're new, and if you didn't know this in our mobile app, we always put all of the scriptures that we're gonna read in the app, and you can always follow along there.

It says, As Jesus and the disciples approached Jerusalem, they came to the town of Bethphage on the Mount of Olives.

I know I mispronounced that.

I actually think it's pronounced Bethphagai.

So that's just okay, there you go.

Uh mistake number one, out of the way.

Jesus sent two of them ahead.

Go into the village over there, he said, and as soon as you enter it, you will see a donkey tied there with his colt beside it.

Untie them and bring them to me.

And if anyone asks what you're doing, just say the Lord needs them, and he will immediately let you take them.

Just think about this in our world today.

That would be like Jesus telling you to go take someone's car.

Just to go into their driveway, just hot wire the car, and if anyone asks you what you're doing, you just say, Don't worry, the Lord needs it.

And they're like, Cool.

Okay?

That's exactly what's happening.

It's very strange.

Okay?

This took place to fulfill the prophecy that said, Tell the people of Jerusalem, look, your king is coming to you.

He is humble, riding on a donkey, riding on a donkey's colt.

And that is a that's a phrase from an earlier part of Scripture.

This is a prophecy about the Messiah, and Jesus is fulfilling that here.

Goes on in verse 6 to say the two disciples did as Jesus commanded.

They brought the donkey and the colt to him, they threw their garments over the colt, and he sat on it.

Most of the crowd spread their garments on the road ahead of him, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.

These specifically would have been palm branches.

Jesus was in the center of the procession, and the people all around him were shouting, Praise God for the Son of David.

Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord.

Praise God in the highest heaven.

And the actual word they would have said was Hosanna.

There's a song that you might be familiar with, uh, Hosanna in the highest.

That's what they would have said.

And Hosanna is a tough, it's a tough word to translate.

It can mean save us, but in a very immediate way, like save us right now.

It could also be translated to be to be hail or praise.

And so that's what they're doing.

They're shouting Hosanna as Jesus comes into Jerusalem.

It says the entire city of Jerusalem was in an uproar as he entered.

Who is this?

They asked, and the crowds replied, It's Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.

Now, just for some context to understand what's happening here, it's a big deal.

Okay, it's a big deal.

The people of this time are living in anticipation of a Messiah.

They've been promised in the old scriptures that a king will come, and he'll be from the line of David.

David was a king in the Old Testament, and there were prophecies about how his line would be re-established, and they're waiting for the son of David.

They're waiting for a king.

At this time, they're occupied by the Romans, before the Romans, it was the Greeks, before the Greeks, it was others, that it's been the Persians, it's been the Babylonians.

The people of Israel have only had about a hundred-ish-year period of time where they were free for centuries.

They've just been occupied by one group after another, and they are desperately anticipating a Messiah who's gonna come and free them.

And it's just known that at the time of Jesus, this anticipation had reached like a fever pitch.

Like it was, people were keenly aware that this was a unique time and that something was going to happen.

And so, as Jesus has been traveling around for the last three years, doing miracles, teaching, and saying very bold things, and in fact, things that could only be true if he was the Messiah, there was this buzz about Jesus.

There's no one more famous in the entire in the entire world at this point than Jesus, especially in that part of the world.

Jesus is, he's on everybody's minds, he's the talk of the town, and now he's coming into Jerusalem at the time of Passover.

Passover was this huge celebration, this major holiday that goes all the way back to when God had freed the people of Israel from captivity in Egypt.

Everyone who's who's anyone is in Jerusalem.

In fact, they they thought that at the time of Passover, the city's population grew by about 10 times.

And there's there's definitely over two million people in the city at this one point in time.

I mean, it is it is crazy.

And here comes Jesus, and he rides in on a donkey, which is a fulfillment of scripture, of prophecy.

And everyone is shouting, everyone is cheering.

They're laying their garments down in front of Jesus.

This is a this is an acknowledgement of royalty.

This is what you would have done if a king was riding in the streets.

You throw your garments down so that you're recognizing, you're honoring, paying homage to the authority that this king has.

So as the people are throwing their garments down, they're saying, You're the king.

And then the palm branches, that's a super significant thing.

That's why we call it Palm Sunday.

They're cutting down branches, just ripping branches off of trees and putting those on the ground in front of Jesus.

This has a very specific historical context.

If you were here last year, when we went through the whole story of the book of Matthew, we we covered this briefly.

But um, I said there was about a hundred or so year period of time where the Jewish people had had freedom over the course of many centuries.

There was a family, this is uh a few centuries before Jesus, around that time range, and the family were called the Maccabees.

And they read they led this revolution.

And this revolution was actually against a Greek group of people who were in control of Jerusalem at that time.

The Roman Empire hadn't quite overtaken the Greek Empire at that point in history.

And they they overthrew the Greeks who were in charge of them and they established this century or so period of independence.

And it's known in history as the Hasmonean dynasty.

And there was a specific figure who was a big part of that.

His name was Judas Maccabeas.

And Judas Maccabees raised an army and he marched on Jerusalem and he took Jerusalem back from the Greeks.

Specifically, he marched to the temple, the temple that had been dedicated to the worship of God, but the Greeks had turned it into something very different.

They were doing all kinds of pagan rituals there in order, honestly, just to mock the faith of the Jewish people.

They were doing things that the Jews found detestable in that temple.

And Judas Maccabeus, he went right to the temple and he cleansed it, and he kicked them all out.

And the people celebrated that day by waving palm branches in the air.

It was a big deal.

In fact, let me show you a picture of a coin that was a coin that the Jewish people used during that period of time.

And you can see there's a palm branch on that, on that coin.

This is an ancient coin.

This became a symbol.

In that part of the world, a symbol among the Jewish people of freedom and independence.

And so the garments being laid on the ground, that's a recognition of Jesus' authority, of his royalty.

But the palm branches, this is an acknowledgement of their expectations.

They are expecting Jesus to be Judas Maccabees 2.0.

The palm branches are like, He's coming to conquer, he's coming to free us.

The Romans are in a lot of trouble.

Independence is about to happen.

This represents their expectations of what Jesus is here to do.

Now, all of us have experienced what it's like to have your expectations unmet.

Or at the very least, to have something that maybe you even miss out on appreciating or experiencing because it doesn't match your expectations.

I'll give you an example.

Anyone here like a fan of Broadway plays?

If you were in New York, you would like to go to a Broadway play.

Anyone here is like I would do anything other than go to a Broadway play.

All right.

Big group of us were trying to experience, we went to a Yankees game.

That was awesome.

Um did a lot of cool stuff in New York, and and as a group, like, hey, you if you're in New York City, you gotta go to this Broadway play.

And so we went to a Broadway play and we saw this play called Les Miz.

I don't know how many of you are familiar with Le Miz.

Here's the thing.

And I would consider myself um, like if this is a really cultured person, I'm like here.

I'm not, I mean, I can appreciate theater, okay?

I did theater in high school.

But like, I would not I I'm not passionate about it, I'm not super knowledgeable of it.

So my expectations going in were like pretty pretty minimal, and all I knew is that someone told me it was a musical.

Okay, they're like, it's a musical.

And so when I heard musical, here were my expectations.

I was thinking like Disney movie, like there's a song, and then they all talk, and then there's a song, and they talk, and that's that's what a musical is to me.

And I also knew that it was three hours long.

So we go, and this man, the set was incredible.

It was like clearly, it's Broadway, it was clearly a high production you know thing.

And so it was amazing, it was awesome, and they're singing, and they're just and they're they're singing this song, and it's like I mean, it's really incredibly choreographed, it's really cool.

But I start thinking to myself after a while, like, man, this is a really long song.

I mean, seven or eight minutes goes by, and I'm sitting there like this song is and it doesn't even seem anymore like the song has a chorus.

It just seems like they're talking to each other, but also singing.

10, 12, 15 minutes go by, I'm having this thought, like, is the whole thing singing?

But I don't want to ask that question because I don't want to, you know, look stupid.

So I'm just sitting there trying to work this out of my head because I did not expect that.

I was not anticipating three hours of constant singing.

If that's something, you need to be prepped for that.

You need to be like, someone needs to say, hey, for the next three hours, everyone's gonna sing.

I just didn't know that going in.

And so it took me like a stupid amount of time to realize, yep, this is definitely gonna be all singing.

30 minutes or so in, I was like, this whole three hours of singing.

And I'm just being honest with you, maybe Le Miz is amazing, maybe it's one of the greatest uh stage productions in history, but if you don't know that you're about to experience three hours of singing, makes it really tough to enjoy it.

Uh so I did not walk away being like, that was incredible.

I walked away, frankly, with a headache, and just so I can say I went to I saw Le Miz on Broadway and hated it because it did not live up or didn't match my expectations, just wasn't what I was expecting.

That's a little bit of a lighthearted and humorous way to explain that Jesus is about to experience something very similar, and the people are as well.

They have clear expectations of who the Messiah is, they see the Messiah as a political figure.

They believe that the Messiah's primary concern is going to be to establish Israel as a powerful nation upon the earth.

That means that the Messiah's primary enemy is going to be whoever is occupying Israel.

At that time, it would be the Romans.

So when they're waving these palm branches, that's why we call up Palm Sunday, they are saying, hey, Jesus, we believe you're the Messiah.

Go take care of the Romans.

And what Jesus is going to do is completely subvert their expectations.

It's important for us to know this because Jesus often does that with us as well.

If we're honest, all of us have certain expectations of God.

And sometimes God just blows your expectations away.

I mean, he does things you're like, I could never have imagined that.

That is incredible.

Lord, I can't believe this is my life.

I can't believe you've answered a prayer like this.

And other times you have this experience where you're like, okay, this is not what I had in mind.

Sometimes we can even feel disappointed in God.

Not because God has failed to do what he said he would do, but because we have expectations that are perhaps like me, my expectations were out of ignorance.

I just didn't know what that was.

Sometimes our expectations are out of a misinterpretation, not necessarily ignorance, but just we come to conclusions that maybe we shouldn't have come to, and we have this challenge often in life.

Hey, am I following God?

Am I open to God doing what he wants to do in my life, or am I trying to make sure that God matches my expectations?

Palm Sunday is the day that the king, the Messiah, rode into Jerusalem, and it is the day that he came to free the people of Israel and not just the people of Israel, but all people for all time who would follow him to free them from their greatest enemy.

But it wasn't what people expected.

So I want us to examine much of what Jesus did when he came into town on Palm Sunday.

Take just a few minutes to explore this together.

First, I want us to see the care in Jesus.

I want us to understand that Jesus cares so deeply.

Luke's gospel gives us a little bit more details after Jesus rides in, and everyone's shouting Hosanna, and they're celebrating Jesus, the palm branches, the garments.

In chapter 19 of Luke, verse 39, it says, But some of the Pharisees among the crowd said, Teacher, rebuke your followers for saying things like that.

And he replied, If they quit if they kept quiet, the stones along the road would burst into cheers.

But as he came closer to Jerusalem and saw the city ahead, he began to weep.

How I wish today that you of all people would understand the way the way to peace.

But now it's too late.

And peace is hidden from your eyes.

Before long your enemies will build ramparts against your walls and encircle you and close in on you from every side.

They will crush you into the ground and your children with you.

Your enemies will not leave a single stone in place because you did not recognize it when God visited you.

This is a big deal.

Jesus is crying as he comes into town.

He's not crying because he's moved by the crowd and their celebration of him.

He knows what's going to take place.

None of this is catching Jesus off guard.

The cross was not a surprise to Jesus.

He told his disciples plainly, We're going to go to Jerusalem, I'm going to die.

They thought he was speaking in metaphors.

They thought it was impossible for Jesus, this miracle worker they've been following.

He's invincible.

He can't die.

Jesus knows what's going to happen to him.

And he knows more than just what's going to happen to him.

He's talked in in specificity about the fact that the temple in Jerusalem is going to be destroyed.

He's going to talk about how the city of Jerusalem is going to fall.

At this point in time, tensions with Rome are high.

And Jesus is right, just a few decades after he died and was resurrected, it reached a boiling point, and Rome is actually going to march on Jerusalem and destroy the city.

Millions of people died.

The entire city was destroyed.

The temple was destroyed.

All of that.

And what Jesus is saying as he walks in here is if only you could receive me, if only you could, if only you could recognize who I am, and if only you would accept me and follow me, all of that would be avoided.

All of that would be avoided.

If the people would have in mass given their lives to Jesus and followed his way, they never would have had a civil war with Rome.

Wouldn't have happened.

But Jesus knows that he's going to be rejected.

And he's weeping and he's crying.

And I think it's so important for us at the outset to understand that we have a God who cares.

And he cares about us in more than just sort of a surface-level way where he wishes us well.

There's lots of people who care about us like that.

They're like, I hope things go well for you.

But how many people actually weep over you?

How many people in your life have loved you enough to weep over you when they recognize that your life is not what it could be?

That they love you that much, they care that deeply, that they're moved to tears at the thought of you missing what is meant for you.

They're moved to tears at the idea of you experiencing tragedy and heartache.

Most people, very few people, love like that.

And if we do, we love a few people like that.

Jesus loves all of us like that.

He loves every single one of us to that degree where it literally brings him to tears to see us experience many of the hardships that we get ourselves into.

Hardships that, if we're honest, we could avoid many of the times if we if we followed him, and I'm guilty of this.

Most of my problems are of my own making.

And most of them are me not following the Lord, me doing my own thing, my own way, and then I face the consequences.

But even when that's where we are, Jesus doesn't give up on us, he doesn't quit on us.

He cares deeply.

We've got to start there.

He cares enough, he's moved to tears over the people in Jerusalem.

Now, the next thing I want us to see about Jesus, he's he cares, right?

There's the care of Jesus, but then it's the cleansing of Jesus.

Because again, I said that the expectation for the people is that Jesus is gonna march into Jerusalem.

He's gonna go right up to the Roman garrison that's stationed next to the temple.

He's gonna kick the soldiers out.

Maybe he's gonna go to Pontius Pilate, who's the Roman prefect that's in charge of that area.

He's gonna kick him out.

He's gonna get the Romans gone.

Everyone's gonna celebrate.

And it looks like Jesus is about to do that.

But he doesn't go to the soldiers, he goes to the temple, actually, just interestingly, like Judas Maccabeas did.

But when Judas Maccabeus went to the temple, it was overrun by the Greeks.

It wasn't the Jewish people running things, it was it was the Greeks, and they they were doing horrible things in the temple.

Jesus goes to the temple immediately after he gets into Jerusalem and he goes off.

We see this in we'll go back to Luke chapter 19, verse 45.

Luke 19:45

It says, Then Jesus entered the temple and began to drive out the people selling animals for sacrifices.

He said to them, The scriptures declare my temple will be a house of prayer, but you have turned it into a den of thieves.

After that, he taught daily in the temple, but the leading priests, the teachers of religious law, and the other leaders of the temple began plotting how to kill him.

But they could think of nothing because all the people hung on his every word.

Now, some context.

Um other gospel accounts give us more details here.

Jesus goes into the temple, it says that he actually turns over the tables of the money changers.

I'll explain that in a second.

He drives the people out who are selling sacrifices.

Here's the basic idea behind it.

Um, people were being ripped off in church.

And that's something that never happens anymore.

Um so that's good that we've, as a society, we've solved that.

Um, but here's the basic idea.

The people, the Israelites were required by law to bring a sacrifice at the time of Passover.

Now, in order to bring a sacrifice and have that sacrifice accepted, your your animal that you brought had to be inspected by the Jewish leaders who ran the temple.

And the thing is at this point in time, the Jewish leaders have this tendency to reject your animal.

There's something wrong with it, it's not a worthy sacrifice.

But the good news is they happen to be selling pre-approved animals right here.

Now, those animals were selling like for exorbitant amounts of money more than those animals would normally cost.

It's like when you go to the airport and you buy a sandwich for$25, and you're like, why?

And they're like, where are you gonna go?

Like that's basically what was happening.

They've got a monopoly on spiritually approved animal sacrifices.

So you have these people who are traveling miles and miles, making these long journeys, very, very many of them extremely poor.

And they've brought the best they have to offer it as a sacrifice to God.

That was their way of worship in ancient times.

And these leaders are saying, sorry, not good enough, you're gonna have to buy one of these, or you don't get to worship God.

You're now in violation of our laws.

And these people are having to pay more money than they maybe even have just to honor God.

I mean, that infuriates Jesus, and rightfully so.

Then you have these people called the money changers.

In order to make a financial offering at the temple, you had to do it in a very specific uh type of coin.

And it was really a coin that was exclusive to the temple, so you had to get your money exchanged for the temple money, and the exchange rates were insane.

I mean, so it's a racket.

And so here's this temple that's supposed to be a place of of worship and prayer, a place where people can can honor God and commune with God, even and and the people leading it, the the Jewish leaders, not foreigners.

They're using it to make money, to enrich themselves, and they're really creating a barrier between people and God, and Jesus immediately deals with that.

He cleanses the temple, he gets those people out.

And rightfully so.

Now, I love the idea of Jesus my conqueror.

You know, he conquers my enemies.

You know, those external enemies that you have, the people in your life or the forces around you that are like they're the problem.

I love it when Jesus deals with them.

It's fun when Jesus deals with them.

It's not as much fun when Jesus deals with me.

When Jesus deals with us.

See, the people and their expectations, they're all about Jesus the conqueror, but they do not want Jesus the cleanser.

Because he doesn't go to the Romans, he goes to them.

And he says, My first order of business is to deal with some stuff.

Now, when I say this, I'm not saying that Jesus is angrily turning over tables in your life.

He loves us very much.

And in many ways, those those leaders were enemies of God in the way they were behaving.

But Jesus, though I have found in the lives of his followers much more gentle, he is still the Jesus who cleanses.

And we have to be open to that.

We have to be open to Jesus coming into our lives and saying, Hey, I love you.

Some things need to change.

We got some stuff we got to deal with.

Just this morning I went up to uh my boys' room, and I've joked about this before, and it's gonna be a recurring joke until my boys figure this out.

Um, I have three boys, they all live upstairs, and they're just their comfort level with filth is incredible, it's amazing.

And so it doesn't matter how many times, doesn't matter how many times I tell them to clean their room, just doesn't matter.

Uh what I learned this morning, and God's really changing my perspective on this, is that they just don't see it.

Like I walk up in their rooms and I'm like, guys, like some cleansing is going to happen when we get home today, is what I'm trying to say.

Um video game consoles will be flipped over, all kinds of things.

I'm just joking.

It's not gonna be like that.

Um, I'm like, guys, what like explain?

Like how?

Because we cleaned it a week ago and I helped you guys, and we how?

And they're like, what?

And it reminds me, oh, they don't see the pizza that's been laying on the ground for two.

They just, it's not, it's like invisible to them, right?

I remember about a year ago, I was I was really giving it to my oldest about his room, and I was telling him, you know, you like that dad thing where you you you talk a big game and you use you're like, son, it's important that you learn to be a steward of what God has given you.

Now, as I'm having this conversation with him, we're driving in my car, which is a mess.

Okay?

So here we are in the thing that I'm supposed to, like it's my car.

There's just trash in places, and I'm like, I can't, son, you have to take care of the things that God has given you.

It's important, and it hits me like mid-conversation.

Like, oh.

And I'm sure there are times that God looks at me.

I know this, I've talked about this, and he's like, Justin, do you do you not even see it?

You don't even see you, dude.

And I'd be like, what like I don't even maybe I don't see the pride.

Right?

Maybe I don't see the the attitude issues that I have.

I don't I don't see how distant maybe I am from certain people because I'm I'm just in my own head and and consumed with my own stuff.

And I need Jesus, I need Jesus.

I may not want him, but I need him to come into my life and do some cleansing.

That's where Jesus starts.

He cares, in fact, he cleanses because he cares.

But he starts by cleansing what belongs to him.

And if you belong to the Lord, I want you to know that he loves you desperately.

He loves you and he forgives you for everything, of course, but he wants your life to be good, and he wants your life to be filled with good things.

He wants your life to be healthy, and if you'll trust him, he will come into your life.

And again, in my experience, it's very gentle, but he's honest.

There's stuff that needs to go.

So let him do that.

Next, the correction of Jesus.

After he cleanses the temple, he begins to teach.

And he teaches in the temple for a long period of time.

A couple of days, he's just he's teaching.

And and his teaching is challenging.

I'll share a few excerpts of the teaching of Jesus as he's correcting the way that the people think.

In Matthew 21, verse 23, it says, When Jesus returned to the temple and began teaching, the leading priests and elders came up to him.

Matthew 21:23

They demanded, By what authority are you doing all these things?

Who gave you the right?

Jesus says, I'll tell you by what authority I do these things.

If you can answer one question.

Did John, he's talking about John the Baptist, who was a prophet that the people loved and the leaders rejected, he said, Did John's authority to baptize come from heaven, or was it merely human?

They talked it over among themselves.

They said, If we say it was from heaven, he'll ask us why we didn't believe John, but if we say it was merely human, we'll be mobbed because the people believed John was a prophet.

So they finally replied, We don't know.

And Jesus responded, Then I won't tell you by what authority I do these things.

But what do you think about this?

A man had two sons, and he told the older boy, son, go out and work in the vineyard today.

And the son answered, No, I won't go, but later changed his mind and went anyway.

Then the father told the other son, You go, and he said, Yes, sir, I will, but he didn't go.

Which of the two obeyed his father?

And they replied, the first.

And then Jesus explained his meaning.

I tell you the truth.

Corrupt tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you do.

For John the Baptist came and showed you the right way to live, but you didn't believe him, while tax collectors and prostitutes did.

And even when you saw this happening, you refused to believe in him and repent of your sins.

Matthew 22.

We see more of the correction of Jesus, the teachings.

It says, Then the Pharisees met together to plot how to trap Jesus into saying something for which he could be arrested.

They sent some of their disciples along with the supporters of Herod to meet with him.

Teacher, they said, We know how honest you are.

You teach the way of God truthfully.

They're just like, Jesus sees through this.

You are impartial and you don't play favorites.

Now tell us what you think about this.

Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?

There's a huge controversy about that at the time.

Jesus knew their evil motives.

You hypocrites, he said.

Why are you trying to trap me?

Here, show me the coin that you use for the tax.

And they handed him a Roman coin.

And he asked, Whose picture and title are stamped on it?

Caesar's, they replied, Well, he said, give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, give God what belongs to God.

And his reply amazed them, and they went away.

That same day, Jesus was approached by some Sadducees, religious leaders, who say there's no resurrection from the dead.

And they posed this question, Teacher, Moses said, if a man dies without children, his brother should marry the widow and have a child who will carry on the brother's name.

This was an ancient practice that went back thousands of years.

And I'm glad it's not a practice anymore.

All right, well, suppose there were seven brothers.

This is like a ridiculous scenario.

The oldest one married and then died without children, so his brother married the widow, but the second brother also died, and the third brother married her.

This was continued with all seven.

Last of all, the woman also died.

So tell us, whose wife will she be in the resurrection?

For all seven were married to her.

And Jesus replied, your mistake is that you don't know the scriptures.

So you don't know the power of God.

For when the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage.

In this respect, they'll be like angels in heaven.

But now as to whether there will be a resurrection of the dead, haven't you ever read this in the scriptures?

Long after Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had died, God said, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.

So he's the God of the living, not the dead.

And when the crowds heard him, they were astounded at his teaching.

When Jesus said, I'm the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, he was speaking in present tense.

And he's like, Haven't you ever read that?

And so here's Jesus, and after he cleanses, he corrects.

He's changing the way that they think.

We have this word, and it's a word that's not a very popular word today.

It's the word repent.

I doubt any of you have walked up to someone recently and said, hey, repent.

That's almost an offensive word in our culture.

But it's a word that simply means rethink.

And it means rethink like now.

It has some urgency to it, but it means reconsider, rethink.

Jesus is always changing the way that we think.

If we follow him, if we read his word, if we're just open to what he says and does, he wants to change our minds.

And we need him to.

It's amazing how often I just think wrong.

Anyone else like me, you just, you're good at thinking wrong.

You're good at thinking, you're just good at thinking wrong.

Okay.

Not that many of us.

Okay, wow.

Um.

It's amazing how often in the moments of my life where I feel like God has spoken to me the most clearly.

And these are these are moments, by the way, that I view as very loving.

Moments where God I feel like changed my thinking and it blessed me, but they were moments of correction.

Like loving, gentle correction.

One of the most, and I've talked about this one before, but it's such a big one to me.

Um, when Megan and I were engaged and in college, before we get we got married, because that's what engagement is, um, we uh we were attending this church in Kansas City, Missouri, and we really liked it.

But here's here's the way it tends to go in church, especially in our culture today where there's lots of churches and lots of really great churches.

Um you can go to church for a while and just enjoy it and like it, and then you know, eventually, like if you're here for a long time, I'm gonna I'm gonna share some of the same stories.

It's gonna happen.

You're gonna be like, I heard him say this already.

My bad.

Uh things just have a tendency to be less exciting after you experience it for a while, right?

Kind of settles in a little bit.

And so we we've been going to this church for a few months, loved it, but then after a while, it was just getting a little stagnant for me.

And so we walked out of church one day, and I looked at Megan and I said, you know, babe, I just don't know if I'm getting anything out of this anymore.

I said that out loud.

In the parking lot on the way up.

And this was a new experience for me.

I really don't think I can I always want to be really careful when I say God said.

Sometimes we can be too flippant with that phrase, and I've been guilty of that in the past.

But there are moments where God speaks to you and you know it.

Because it does not sound like your own brain.

You know your own thoughts.

And God can speak to you.

You can have a thought in your mind that's like, that is not me.

The second that I said, I'm not getting anything out of this, I hear this in my mind.

What are you putting into it?

And the truth is nothing.

I we were just showing up.

I had this very consumeristic mindset with church.

I was just showing up and being like, all right, gimme, gimme, gimme.

And some Sundays I was like, that was great.

Other Sundays I was like, I didn't like that as much.

You know?

I didn't think that one was as good as last week's.

And and that hit me hard.

What was crazy is just a few weeks later, um, I found out about this internship that the church did in the summertime, and I was like, well, Lord, I want to I want to get involved.

You know, if I can't complain about not getting something out of it if I'm not putting anything into it.

And so I saw this opportunity to be a summer intern, and I prayed about it and did it.

Ended up doing that for almost two years, became an intern at the church, and that was my first experience with youth ministry, and that's actually what led me here to be the youth pastor here.

It really changed my life.

But it all started with God correcting me.

And it was gentle, it was loving, it wasn't angry, but it was it was direct.

He changed the way that I thought.

And that was the day that I went from seeing church as something that was all about me, what I wanted, what I preferred, and it became about something that I took part in, that I participated in, that I contributed to.

And so I share that just because in our lives, again, we all love Jesus the conqueror, who comes to town and he's here to get rid of whatever's in your way to joy and freedom and success.

But man, Jesus the corrector?

Does Jesus have permission?

Not that he needs it, but does he have permission to correct you, to change the way you think?

Are you open to that?

Are you open to Jesus coming to you and saying, hey, I love you.

But just like there's some things in your life that we've got to get rid of, this is standing in your way, this is keeping you from experiencing all that you're meant to experience with God, there's also some thoughts you've got, there's some ways of thinking that we need to work on.

Because these thought processes, they they've got to change.

They're holding you back, you're missing it.

Are we open to Jesus being our corrector?

Being our teacher.

That's what it means to have a teacher.

Someone who shapes and changes the way that you think.

So we've got the care of Jesus, the cleansing of Jesus, the correction of Jesus, one more, and we're gonna wrap up.

And it's the cross.

Everything is is building up to this, and obviously on Sunday, or rather on Friday, we're gonna spend a lot of time focusing on the cross, on Good Friday.

Friday would be the day that He was He was crucified.

The cross is the single most incredible event that has ever happened to you in your life.

The cross is the most significant thing that's ever happened to you.

Jesus said many things on the cross, seven sayings, actually.

In fact, tomorrow night I'm teaching a class on the seven sayings of Jesus on the cross.

Challenge.

Anyone know the first one?

First thing Jesus says from the cross.

Oh, I'm sorry, I put you all on the spot.

I'm sorry.

Anybody?

Shout it out.

Boom.

I didn't even know I asked that because I couldn't really understand anything anyone just said.

It was like a bunch of my bad.

Um, but I heard I heard the word forgive very clearly.

Luke chapter 23, verses 33 through 34.

Luke 23:33–34

When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there along with the criminals, one on his right, the other on his left.

First thing Jesus says, nailed to a cross, Father, forgive them.

For they do not know what they're doing.

I remember when I was uh a decent bit younger, I was going through a really rough time in my in from my perspective, my relationship with Jesus, because I had a, just be honest, I had a sin in my life, and I couldn't, I couldn't get over it, couldn't get past it.

I don't know if you've ever had these experiences, you have an addiction of some kind, and you're like always telling God, help me, this is the last time, I'll never do that again, and then you do it again, and then you're filled with guilt and shame, and it's this stupid cycle, and I was I was in that.

I felt at the time like that sin was the primary factor, influencer in my relationship with God.

And so if I had gone a week or two without partaking in that particular sin, I felt like me and God were good.

But if I had messed up, if I had fallen short, if I disobeyed, then I felt like God and I weren't weren't good.

And this was a, it was just a, I was constantly like back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

And I was having this time of prayer, and it it's it's like kind of a correction, I guess, similar.

But it hit me that my sin is not the primary factor in my relationship with God.

That the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, that is the primary factor in my relationship with God.

It doesn't mean that sin is great and you should just keep on doing it.

No, not at all.

Sin no longer divides us from God because of the cross if we put our faith in Jesus, but sin is still destructive in our lives.

We want it gone.

But the truth is, Jesus died on the cross and he forgave us.

We even see that in the first thing he says, the first thing on his mind.

Can you imagine?

You're being crucified, you're being nailed to a cross.

I mean, it's known historically as one of the most painful methods of death that has ever been created by the human race.

It is torture.

It isn't just death, it is torture.

It's one of the most brutal, barbaric forms of execution that has ever been created.

And Jesus is there, he hasn't done anything wrong.

He's there unjustly, and the first thing on his mind is not vengeance, it's grace.

That's what's consuming his mind is he's hanging there being mocked, being ridiculed.

He's been beaten within an inch of his life already, before he's on the cross, he's in more pain than we could possibly imagine.

He has a crown of thorns that's been driven into his skull, and he's hanging on that cross, and what's consuming his mind is Father, forgive them.

Please forgive them?

He's that's the that's why the cross is the most significant thing that has ever happened to any of us.

It didn't just happen to Jesus, it happened to you.

Because your sins, your failures, your shortcomings, those things that maybe haunt you, those regrets that you have, that you're like, oh, I'd be so embarrassed if anyone ever found that out.

I feel so ashamed that that's been part of my life.

I want you to know this.

From God's perspective, those are dealt with.

Those are completely forgiven.

Those are gone.

Those do not factor into his love for you.

Now, as I said before, if you're still in the midst of that, those still affect our lives.

You want that gone.

Sin, it may not divide us from God, but it still destroys us.

And so pray through that and get help and be surrounded by people who can hold you accountable and spur you on and support you as you move forward in life with that.

But that forgiveness that Jesus asked for on the cross and won on the cross, that forgiveness is whole, it is complete, it is final, it is not flimsy, it is not temporary, it doesn't have an expiration date.

It's not forgiveness, you know, except up to a certain level.

I mean, you've been forgiven, but ooh, that sin, that one's a bad one.

That is not, sorry, that is not covered by your insurance policy.

That's not how this works.

Because it's not an insurance policy.

There's no fine print.

There's no fine print.

If you put your faith in Jesus Christ, all of your sin, all of your mistakes, all the selfishness, everything.

Forgiven.

Now, knowing that, and worship team, you guys can make your way out as we wrap up, knowing that, what do we do?

How do we respond to that?

It's Palm Sunday.

Jesus rides into town.

And we have certain expectations of what he's there to do.

And very often Jesus does things that differ from our expectations.

So first and foremost, we'll kind of work our way backwards.

We start with the cross.

I just, if if you've given your life to Jesus, if you've put your faith in him, celebrate the cross.

Thank him for the cross.

That's why we call it Good Friday.

Why is that good?

It's good for us.

He did a good thing for all of us.

And be filled with gratitude for that fact.

It doesn't matter if things, if maybe, maybe life's going great for you and you've been doing really well, and you even say, like, in my faith, I'm doing well, I'm I'm growing.

Maybe not.

Maybe you've maybe had a rough season.

But I'm telling you that God's love for you, it doesn't change.

It's not fickle.

The cross, it's like a shadow that hangs over all of history.

It covers everything.

You have been completely forgiven.

If you've put your faith in Jesus, thank him for that.

Be filled this whole week with wonder and gratitude for the fact that you have been forgiven because of the cross.

It's a beautiful thing.

If you haven't given your life to Jesus, I just want to encourage you to do that.

Like I would implore you, beg you.

Because He is salvation.

He's the only way to be free of all the guilt and the shame, of all the consequences of sin.

Sin is serious.

It's a real thing.

That's why this world is so jacked up.

And we, in and of ourselves, we can't do it.

We can't be good enough.

And we don't have to be.

We're not called to be our own saviors.

We have a savior.

So if you haven't given your life to Jesus, if you haven't responded to the cross, I just pray that you do that today, right now.

That you would say, Lord, I I need you, I need your forgiveness, and I accept what you did for me.

He's already done it.

Accept it.

But it's not just the cross, it's also the correction.

It's being willing to let Jesus change your mind.

It's being willing to let God continuously correct the way that you think so you see things the way that He sees things.

It's more than just the cross, it's that too.

It's giving him that freedom because he wants you to think the way that you're meant to.

He wants you to see the world the way that you're meant to, so that you have the right perspective about yourself and about him and about everyone around you.

And it's it's about cleansing.

It's about allowing Jesus to say, hey, that's gotta go.

That's not for you.

That doesn't belong in your life.

Giving him the freedom to do that, and ultimately it's about his care, all of this is because he loves you tremendously.

Like our pain breaks his heart.

He loves us that much.

Palm Sunday is the Sunday that we celebrate Jesus riding into town and changing everything.

But he still, he still shows up in our lives because he's alive.

And can this be a day that we say to him, you know, celebrate him, wave the palm branches, throw the garments down, that's great.

But can we actually learn the right lesson from the people that day and not stop there?

But say, Lord, I see the care you have for me.

I will let you cleanse, I will let you correct, and I receive the cross.

Let's take Lord's Supper together.

If you came in, we've got these little cups with bread and juice.

You can always grab one.

If you forgot that, grab one now.

Want everyone to be able to participate in this.

We've got this little uh piece of bread and then some juice.

We're gonna start with the bread, and this represents the sacrifice that we're talking about on the cross.

The bread is his body, and the juice represents his blood that was spilled.

And this is all sacrifice language.

It was Passover whenever Jesus was coming into town, and Passover is the time that they would make these sacrifices to cover the sins for that year.

Thankfully, this is a sin, this is a sacrifice that covers all sin for all time, but it's a sacrifice none the same.

This is Jesus offering himself in our place, on our behalf, wiping away our debt, making us right in the eyes of God the Father, our Creator, and giving us new life.

Let's thank him for this.

Lord, we thank you for this bread and for what it represents.

This is your body broken for us on the cross.

And Lord, I pray that this entire week our mind is filled with reflection upon this.

What you've done for us.

We don't deserve it, but you do it anyway.

We don't have to earn this, we couldn't, but it's a gift.

And just as we take this bread and we receive it into our bodies, Lord, we we pray that in our hearts and our minds that we receive you fully as you are.

All of you, the cross, the cleansing, the correction, the care, all of it.

Lord, let's take the bread.

Now the Jews.

Lord, we thank you for this cup.

This is your this is your blood.

And your people saw blood as a purifying thing.

In your culture, Lord, blood was something that represented life.

And when blood was shed, it was it was viewed as a purifying.

Cleansing.

Lord, your blood, it it cleanses us, it purifies us.

You paid the ultimate price.

You saw us as worthy of that.

And our hearts are filled with gratitude, Lord.

Thank you.

Let's take the juice.