“Sovereign Lord, Dangerous Passion” - Mark 11:1-11

Yet. He gets to this point and he slows down, right? He's going to make sure

that all his hearers understand what's about to take place.

I don't know if you've ever been a part of like a parade, like some sort of winning parade.

I grew up a Mavericks fan and growing up a Mavericks fan was pretty sad. We didn't win a lot.

I can remember I was there. I played like upward basketball and I got to go

and play on reunion floor.

If it's not interesting to you, you can tune this part out. I'll snap whenever

we get to the part that you need to listen to.

And they had just gotten, I believe

it was Eduardo Nahara. Does that sound correct? Zach can check me. Yes.

Me and Zach are going to have a conversation for a minute. We're going to relive

the glory days. Anyway, we were terrible. And I can remember going to that and

thinking, man, Sean Bradley is going to be the next coming of Shaq.

He wasn't. He weighed 105 pounds at 7'6".

And so it was pretty rough. And then I got to college and actually got to kind

of work for the Mavericks. And then 2011 rolls around and Dirk and Jason Terry

and Jason Kidd and all these guys end up winning a championship.

They beat LeBron James, which was the best part of the whole thing. Right.

And then there was a parade in Dallas. And so, of course, we go to the parade

and it's awesome. You've got people there that are like 90.

You know, they're like, I just never thought I'd see the day.

And now I realize that's going to be me with A&M where it's like maybe they

win one when I'm 90 and I'm like, oh, we made it.

It's just one of those things where you love being a part of parade.

It doesn't matter what political party we were in, what religion we were,

what our favorite teams were outside of basketball.

If you were a Mavericks fan that day in that parade, everyone was friends.

You could have been some sort of a criminal that just got out of prison and

I would have been giving you a high five just like I would anybody else.

You could have probably been wearing an orange jumpsuit.

Wouldn't have mattered. We were all stoked to be there. They may have let people

out of prison to come. I don't know. Didn't care. It was a great time.

And for this scene we're walking into, the triumphal entry, which is basically

like having Christmas in October, you're welcome, right? Which they do have

a little Debbie Christmas trees out. We have turned the corner, okay?

But this is a parade. And for a lot of people, this is what they've been waiting on.

There's multiple times in the gospels where they try and make Jesus king.

They try and put him in charge, specifically after he feeds the 5,000,

and John, we see that they specifically tell him, hey, listen,

we're going to take you and forcefully make you king because if you can feed

5,000 plus people with a couple loaves of bread and some fish, you should be king.

And what does Jesus do? Well, he just kind of finds his way out of the crowd

and gets out of there and goes up to the mountain to pray.

And so there's a whole lot of people that have been waiting for this moment,

for Jesus to triumphantly take his place as the king of the Jews and to run

ruckshot over the Romans and everything is going to be great.

We're all going to eat for days and everybody's going to get along, right?

We're going to high five in the streets. We don't care if we disagree on everything

else. This is something we can agree on.

Of course, the problem is, since most of us in here know the rest of the story,

they missed the point of what Jesus is doing.

This shouldn't be a surprise. His disciples have missed the point of what Jesus

has been saying for two chapters, and he couldn't have been more clear, right?

He tells them specifically, if you want to be the greatest in the kingdom, be the servant of all.

And then a couple of passages later, what did James and John come and do?

Jesus, we want to sit at your right and left hand.

He's like, that's not how this works.

You don't understand what I'm trying to tell you. And the reason they don't,

is because of this, because they want a king.

They want the Romans out of their life. They want all this to get taken care

of. And really at the core, they think the people, the disciples,

they still think that their greatest problem is outside of them.

That their greatest problem is outside of them.

And all of us are guilty of this at times, where we play woe is me and we look

at our lives, even as Christians, and we go, you know, if I could get a better

boss, if I could get a raise, if I could get a different job,

if this situation would work out, if that situation would work out,

if these people would get it together, if my teachers would be nicer to me, right?

If they would give us more recess time, whatever it is for you,

my life would immediately get better. Everything would work itself out if I

could just get rid of all these oppressors in my life.

And Jesus has been telling them, and we'll put this on display in the next five chapters.

No, your biggest problem is you and your sin and your greed and your lust and your pride.

That is the biggest issue in your life.

That's not to say the Romans aren't an issue.

That's not to say bad bosses and low bank accounts and bills you can't pay are

not problems. That's not what I'm saying.

What I am saying is those problems pale in comparison to the sin that will kill you eternally.

That's what Jesus is doing. And the people will not get this.

Again, I say all that because it's not like I can surprise you at the end and

go, plot twist, he dies, right?

This is what we know happens. But what I wanna do this morning is kind of give.

In some ways, a biography of the

passage. What's going on? What is Jesus doing? What is the crowd doing?

Why is the crowd acting that way? Why are they doing palm ranches?

Why are they shouting what they're shouting? What is Jesus doing with his donkey?

So let's just do that. Let's just look at these two different things.

I'm going to read verses 1 through 7 to start.

Okay, this is Mark 11, 1 through 7.

It says, now when they drew near to Jerusalem to Bethpage and Bethany at the

Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples and said to them,

go into the village in front of you.

And immediately as you enter it, you will find a colt tied on which no one has ever sat.

Untie it and bring it.

If anyone says to you, why are you doing this? Say, the Lord has need of it

and will send it back here immediately.

No one should try that later, but it is interesting, right? and they went away,

and found a colt tied at a door outside in the street and they untied it.

And some of those standing there said to them, why are you doing,

or what are you doing untying this colt?

Legitimate question, if you think somebody's stealing a livestock animal.

And they told them what Jesus said and they let them go.

They brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it and he sat on it.

Now, what's interesting again about this is Mark goes into an extreme amount of detail.

And again, for a guy who's covered three years and the amount of time he's covered

it insanely quickly, all of a sudden he slows down and gives us a lot of details

about this donkey and a lot of details about what the disciples are asked to

do and what they're supposed to say.

He spends more time talking about this than some of the times that Jesus healed blind people.

All right. He restores someone's sight, like those four or five verses.

And now he's like, you know what? I'm going to spend seven on this donkey.

You really need to get this.

Well, I think what Mark is really trying to do is to draw our minds to,

listen, this is not Jesus coming up with a plan on the spot.

He wasn't walking ahead of the disciples and going, what's the best way for me to do this?

No, this is the sovereign king of the universe fulfilling the plan that was

set before the foundations of the earth.

Jesus sending his disciples to find an unridden donkey is not just a,

well, you know, that seems like a good idea. If I'm going to go into this town,

maybe I can ride a donkey. Listen, this is the only time in all of the gospels

that he rides something.

Every other time he does, he's walking. This is the first time in their time

together that he asks his disciples, hey, can you give me something to ride on?

But this donkey was part of God's plan before the foundation of the world.

He knew before he created anything that he would create a world in which,

in the first century, there would be a donkey tied on the inside of this town

that God's disciples would go in and get and bring to his son.

He knew all of those things.

This is God's sovereign plan at work.

And he revealed part of this plan to Zechariah in Zechariah 9.9,

a verse, again, you've probably heard at Christmas. He says,

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem.

Behold, your king is coming to you, righteous, and having salvation as he,

humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

Even the detail of it being unridden or untamed is an Old Testament,

I think, allusion to how they would have carried the Ark of the Covenant.

What was the Ark of the Covenant? The Ark of the Covenant is God's representation

before his people, that where the Ark goes, God goes. That's why it sits in

the temple. That's where God is.

Well, when they go and move the ark from place to place, what is the requirement

that God gives in Deuteronomy?

The requirement is you need to find an animal that's never had a yoke on it,

that's never been ridden, that's never been tamed.

And here comes Jesus in the first century, not just God represented,

but God in the flesh. And what does he tell his disciples to do?

Go and get an unridden donkey because that's how God is carried.

He tames what he is put on. He takes care of it.

This is a sovereign king walking into and delivering himself up for his people.

All of these little things taking place were the culmination of this perfect

plan that God had set in place.

And listen, it is so important for you to hear that because if you read this

story and you walk away with, I mean, that's really nice that Jesus rode a donkey,

not a horse. He's really humble.

It's really nice that his disciples did what he asked. It's really nice that

that's such a cool story. Maybe we can get a donkey to walk in here one day.

Not opposed to it. I have to clear that with you guys, but not opposed to it.

I may have to keep that outside.

But again, we tend to turn these stories into these, I call them sweet nothings.

They're real sweet. And we really, really like them. And they make us feel really good.

But then we leave and they do nothing for us.

Except for us to think, man, wasn't that a really sweet Christmas service?

I really enjoyed that. When the kids sang, that was great. And they rode the

donkey and they had Mary. That was really cute.

But that's not what's going on here. Again, that gives you nothing.

That gives you nothing to hold on to when you read this passage.

So what I want you to do is maybe this morning, you just need to hear the, listen, God's promises

and plans that he has laid before you are just as true as the ones these first

century people had and were seeing fulfilled before their very eyes.

What he said he would do, he did. And that means that what he says he will do, he will do.

That the promises that he has made to you and to me as children,

as sons and daughters of the king are true and he will do them.

He will accomplish them. I can imagine this crowd that's gathering around them

has a lot of the same problems we have, right? Now they might not know about

as many problems because they can't communicate the way we can communicate.

But a crowd this size has all kinds of issues.

They're struggling with all kinds of things that life has thrown at them,

right? They're dealing with family drama and work drama.

They've got bosses they don't like. They've got kids they can't control.

They've got illnesses and they've got sicknesses. They've got things they can't figure out.

They're dealing with loss and grief. They're dealing with anger and sin.

They have all of these same issues that as they walk in this procession and

they get ready to crown Jesus his rightful, kingly place, they have problems.

They have issues.

But if what they think is going on is, well, this is just a really nice thing

that Jesus is going to do.

And for the next 10, 20, 30, 40 years of my life, maybe things will go better for me.

They're missing the point. And so do we, if we look at Jesus and go,

you know, if I could just get on board with Jesus, or maybe if he could get

on board with me, my life would just get better.

Listen, that's not how this works. Life is hard, right? We tell our kids all

the time and they hate it. Listen, life is really hard. Don't make it harder.

Don't make it harder for yourself.

My life has been pretty easy in comparison to most people's lives in the world.

And I've still had to go through some really hard things. Life is hard.

And what solace should be taken when you read a story like this is,

oh my gosh, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, again, the sovereign King of

the universe is in so much control that he knows exactly where the donkey is.

He knows exactly what question those people are going to ask.

He knows exactly what response they should give.

He knows exactly what he's going to do, exactly when he's going to do it,

exactly how people are going to respond and exactly what they're going to say

about him. He is in control of all of these things, and he is doing all of this for what?

To fulfill the promises that God has already made.

And so despite all of the issues that this crowd brings into that,

if like blind Bartimaeus, they would look at Jesus and go, listen,

he may not solve all my problems, but he has solved the main problem.

He has solved the problem by which I can have peace in the midst of all these other problems.

He is going to take away my sins. He is going to make me righteous.

He is going to gift me with faith. He is going to open my eyes.

He's gonna make sure that one day I will live with him forever and all these problems will be gone.

And so when all of these problems in my life begin to mount up and all of these things are going south,

I can look at Christ and go, listen, Jesus, if this never gets better,

if this only gets worse, I can have peace, I can have comfort,

I can know that everything is okay because you have paid for my sins.

You have paid my debts.

And this 30, 40, 50 years is like a drop in a bucket. It's a vapor compared to what is to come.

That's not a nice nothing. That's everything. That's everything.

When you read your Bible, read it like that. Read it and say,

what is Jesus doing? And what kind of control is Jesus showing?

And how can I trust Jesus more because of what he's doing?

Not, how can I feel better when I leave? You may feel worse.

All of us are capable of getting news in this room before we leave that could

make our day exponentially worse, every single one of us.

But if you know Christ, there There's no news that you could ever receive that

can overcome you, that could overtake you.

If you know this Christ.

Thomas Watson says it this way, God can be trusted even when his current providences,

or you could say his current circumstances, appear to contradict his promises,

as he brings order from confusion and turns crosses into blessings.

With the next five chapters, we're going to see Jesus get put on a cross.

We're going to see people mock him.

We're going to see people spit on him. We're going to see a lot of his disciples

abandon him. and every single one of them are looking at that going,

how in the world did this happen?

Everything was going so well.

He was gonna be the guy. He was gonna take us out of Roman captivity. He was gonna bless us.

And yet the greatest evil that's ever been committed on the face of the earth,

the murder of the son of God is a blessing, is a blessing to his people.

So don't underestimate that what you're going through, what's happening in your

life will some way, shape, or form prepare for you and work on you in such a

way that God is preparing for you future glories.

You go, Brady, how does that work? And why does it work that way?

And I say, I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know why. I don't know why God does what he does. I don't know what

his plan entails. We rarely get to find that out.

Here's what I do know. He's good, gracious, and kind.

That he didn't spare his own son to save you. and that whatever he causes in

your life, he will use for your good, he will.

That doesn't mean it's not sad. Doesn't mean you're not heartbroken.

Doesn't mean you don't weep.

Just means that through the tears and through the sadness, through the anger,

your eyes are fixed on Christ.

That your eyes will always rise to him and say, Jesus, I need your mercy because

I can't get it anywhere else.

That's who Jesus is. That's what Jesus is doing in this passage.

Now, the crowd, now this is quite the reaction from the crowd,

and I would say it's the correct one is what it says. Verse eight.

And many spread their cloaks on

the road, and others spread leafy branches they had cut from the fields.

And those who went before and those who followed were shouting,

Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David. Hosanna in the highest.

Verse 11, And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple.

And when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late,

he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

Again, Jesus is doing something here he's never done before.

Jesus has avoided public spectacle everywhere he has gone.

Every single time the crowd has tried to either make him stay and make him a

prince or make him the king or give him some sort of position, he has left.

So, you know, there's a huge contingent of people that are walking around going,

you know, if Jesus would just take his rightful place on the throne,

he could handle this stuff. He could get rid of these Romans.

And then all of a sudden, here comes Jesus riding in on a donkey.

And they're going, he's doing it.

He's doing it. we're going to take our cloaks off. We're going to put palm branches

down, but we're going to do everything we can do. Cause, cause why we're getting what we want.

We're getting what we want.

Of course, there's a major issue that all of us know because we know the end of the story.

Jesus is certainly the King of Kings, and he's certainly deserving of this kind of entrance.

But the people in this crowd, at least for the large part, we can't speak for

every single person there, they're missing the point. And again,

this shouldn't be shocking.

The disciples missed the point, and they've heard from Jesus more than anybody else.

They quote from Psalm 118, right? the Messiah Psalm, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

They lay down palm branches, which I actually think gives us a clue as to what

they think is happening.

Roughly 200 years before this moment, there was a man named Simon Maccabeus,

who defeated the enemies of the Jewish people and drove them out of Jerusalem.

And when he rode in with his officials, how did he ride in? He rode in with palm branches.

He wrote in with shouts and singing.

And everyone at this crowd would have certainly heard this story.

They would have heard their grandparents and great-grandparents talk about,

man, you had to be there when we were free.

The last time we were free, this guy named Simon Maccabeus came in and he freed

us from this tyrannic rule. And so now they see Jesus coming in and what do they do?

We're going to do the exact same thing our grandparents did.

We've seen this before. I've heard this story.

We have this guy coming in and just like Simon Maccabeus, He is going to do what he did.

Now, Jesus is obviously greater and they treat him with more honor, which is good.

But they still don't see him for who he is. They think he's just a better version,

of a general, a better version of someone who's there to free them.

So as they cry out, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,

they've actually just created an idol that they're worshiping.

They're not worshiping Jesus for who Jesus is. They're worshiping Jesus for

what Jesus can do for them.

In the same way, every pagan religion worships idols.

Why do pagan religions sacrifice to idols? Why do they worship idols?

So that the idols will do something for them.

I'm infertile, so I'm going to go to the fertility god, or it needs to rain.

So I'm going to go to the rain God, or I need money. So I'm going to go to this God.

I'm going to go to this God and do this thing. And they're going to repay me

in like kind. And they're doing the exact same thing to Jesus.

We're going to treat this man like he is supposed to, or we think he's supposed

to be treated because he's going to give me what I want.

And the very second he doesn't, their shouts turn from praise him to crucify him.

Now, I don't know if these are the exact same crowds. We don't get actually

into Jerusalem to the end of this passage. there's a good chance that some of

these people were outside of the city, right? And they may have not actually

been inside the city when this happened.

But certainly some of them made their way in.

To say it's a dangerous thing to have a scripture text in your mouth and a worldly idol in your heart.

It's a dangerous thing to have scripture in your mouth, but an idol in your heart.

And every single one of us has either done that or experienced that.

Whether the idol is money, whether it's comfort, whether it's stuff,

whether it's pride, and we find a verse in the Bible and And we justify our

sinful actions because of something that's in the Bible.

So we have an idol on our heart. We have an idol that we desire.

We have something that we want. And we will justify that by using a scripture.

Their idol is, we want the Romans gone. We want to be comfortable.

We want to be free. And Jesus is their ticket out.

Even though he's receiving the

praise he is due, the people worshiping him have idols on their hearts.

What's so dangerous about this is that this crowd is so passionate.

It's so passionate. There's so much energy, right? You can imagine that Jerusalem

and the surrounding towns, that the energy was already palpable.

John tells us that right before Jesus does this, he's risen Lazarus from the

grave, right? Maybe his greatest miracle, this guy who'd been dead for a while,

who's stinking. Jesus goes in there and raises him from the grave. and word has spread.

There's the feast days coming up in Jerusalem, the greatest holidays,

and the Pharisees are in their corner, and they're getting ready to try and

kill Jesus, and Jesus is outside of town, and all the people are talking about

this. You can imagine the amount of buzz.

What is Jesus going to do? What do you think his next step is?

Man, he's going to come in to Jerusalem. What do you think he's going to do?

And there's people that are on

the religious leader side. It's like two political parties almost, right?

This Jesus group, man, they're the worst. We've got to figure out how to get

rid of them. And then all of a sudden, here comes Jesus on a donkey,

fulfilling Zechariah 9, making it very clear who he is and who he thinks he is.

And there is a ton of tension. And these people that want Jesus on the throne, man, it pops.

It pops. And for miles, for miles, people walk with Jesus and they put palm

branches down and they sing out and they cry out and they sing hymns.

So much passion.

A bit of a warning here. And it is simply that passion does not inherently mean true.

That you can be incredibly passionate. You can even be incredibly passionate

about something that Jesus is attached to and be wrong.

Now, why is that so important? Because it's very easy to get caught up in passion.

And we joke about it a lot, but if you've ever been to like a youth camp,

it's easy to get cut. It's amazing what you can get 16 year olds to do when

there's a lot of passion or a girl they like.

Those are the two things you can get them to do anything you want.

But you can get caught up in these moments and caught up in everything that's

going on. And it can feel so right. You know that everyone in that crowd felt

like this is the right thing to do.

Man, we are doing the right thing. We're high-fiving each other.

They're doing all of the right things, saying all of the right things,

being incredibly passionate.

And yet they are passionately wrong.

They desired a savior for their bodies, but cared not for a savior for their souls.

And they are passionately wrong. And the reason I say that is do not get caught up in near passions.

Obviously, be passionate. Sing loudly. You want to raise your hands? Raise your hands.

Do what you want. I'm not telling you how to worship, how to sing,

how to praise. I don't care.

What I am saying is do not think that simply because you're passionate or the

group is passionate, or I'm a part of a very passionate group of people that

everything in there is right.

Passion is not a proof of truth.

Hope it is. I hope our passions here are proof of that.

But we've all been places where we get caught up in some passionate people doing

passionate things. And we think, man, these people have got to be right.

Look how passionate they are.

They're making some good points, only to find out later, man,

I was going the wrong way.

I got caught up in some weird stuff.

Again, they desired a savior for their bodies, but cared not for a savior for

their souls. And man, that is an easy trap to fall into.

Again, to reiterate, to think that our biggest problems are our problems,

our boss, our bank account, our government.

It's not that these are not issues, but they are not your biggest problem.

And I imagine there's people that every single one of us know,

that think in coming to Jesus, their bank account will be full,

their business will be a success, their marriages will be free from strife,

their sinful passions will magically disappear and their lives will just come

into perfect alignment.

Most everyone I know who was either a part of the church or left the church,

or the word now is deconstructed, comes from this way of thinking.

And you bring up Jesus and they say things like, I tried that.

I tried that. Didn't work. My life didn't get any better.

Man, I became a Christian and my marriage fell apart.

Man, I became a Christian and lost my job. Right? Where was God?

You're going, well, again, And that's not why you become a Christian.

You become a Christian because the sovereign Lord of the universe calls you into his care.

You become a Christian because you want your sins atoned for.

You become a Christian because that's what is the most important thing in your life.

And if you lose everything else, if everything else falls apart,

then like Job to his wife, when she says, curse God and die,

you say, I ain't doing it.

I ain't doing it. There's nowhere else to go. Where else could I go?

A question, right? Do we know Jesus? Are we just relating to him as he fits our needs?

Maybe one of the greatest examples I see of this is when you read a story like

David and Goliath, what do you immediately think?

Just selfishly, I do it too. Man, I want to be David.

How can God help me kill the Goliaths in my life?

You read Elijah and the false prophets, you go, man, I want to call down fire

on some false prophets. How can I get to that place?

Or how can I be Moses? How can I be Abraham? How can I be Noah?

How can I be the hero of my story?

And the issue with that is all of those people in the Bible are not the hero of the story. Christ is.

The Bible speaks of Christ. The Bible wants you to know who Christ is.

He wants you to follow him. He wants you to love him.

He wants you to know him. That's what those stories are about.

Jesus is just a greater David. He doesn't vanquish Goliath. He vanquishes sin

and death, right? He's a greater Moses.

He doesn't just deliver you from physical slavery to Egypt. He delivers you

from the slave that you are to your own sin.

He's the greater Elijah, who doesn't just call down fire on some prophets in

some town, but who will one day call down the fire of heaven on every evil thing that ever existed.

And he will remake this earth into the new Jerusalem.

And you will live with him forever, free from evil and sin.

The Bible is about Jesus. And when we read the Bible and we try and insert ourselves

as the hero, what ends up happening is you follow Jesus as long as you can until

things don't work out. Then you throw up your hands and go, man, this did not work.

This did not work. Yeah, because you thought the Bible was about making your

life easier. It wasn't. It was about saving you from your sins.

Again, we have to stop thinking that the blessed life is one of ease and comfort.

When Jesus has quite literally told us over and over again that it is not.

Tells his disciples over and over again, man, you will suffer.

You will suffer. You will be like a servant. You will be a servant of all.

You will be the lowest of the low.

That as you follow me, as you become more like me, that your status will go less and less.

That your comfort will go less and less.

It doesn't mean you won't have money in the bank. It doesn't mean you won't

have a good job. It doesn't mean any of those things. It just means that in

your own life, you will find that you will be giving up the things that you

want to do the things that God calls you to do.

That's the blessed life. So in conclusion, number one, are you resting in the peace of God's plan?

Are you resting in the sovereign Lord of the universe? I find it...

Sad, honestly, that we sit around and argue about sovereignty because sovereignty

was never meant to be debated.

It was meant to be the pillow that you rest your head on at night.

That when you go to sleep at night, you can know, listen, whatever's going on

in my life, God's in control.

That he knows and knew before the foundation of the world where that donkey would be tied to.

He knows what's going on in my life. He knows what's happening.

He's numbered my days. He's measured my steps. He knows where I'm going to be,

where I'm going to go. I can sleep.

I can rest. I can have peace in that no matter what happens in my life.

Not that it won't be hard and difficult and sad and sometimes soul crushing,

but I can know, listen, God is in control.

He will crush the heads of all of his enemies.

He will throw Satan and all who follow him into the depths.

He will bring us into a new creation where we will not have to worry about any

of these things ever again. He will do it. He will do what he promises.

I don't know how he'll get you there.

For some of us, that road would be more painful than others, right?

For some of us, especially our brothers and sisters that now currently live

in China and in Syria, right? Their road to get there seems an awful lot harder than mine.

It's not my job to figure out why that is. It is my job to trust him.

So we get our head up. And when life is hard and full of trouble,

know that every single one of those troubles is preparing us and shaping us

for the glory that is to come.

And that it will be so wonderful that all of the pain and all of the agony and

all of the issues that we deal with on this side of heaven will be as though they did not exist.

When we see our savior face to face, number one, are you resting in the peace

of God's plan? And number two, are you allowing passion to replace true progress?

One of the things that I learned in Bible college that I maybe wasn't supposed

to learn was it's really easy to do things every now and again to make it look

like I'm progressing than to actually progress, right?

It's easy for me to show up at church a couple of times a week.

Let me say it this way. It was easy for me to show up at church a couple of times a week,

to flash some of the Greek that I'd learned, to drop some theology knowledge on some students,

to do those kinds of things and then go live my life however I wanted,

to go where I wanted to go and do what I wanted to do and spend my money however

I wanted to spend it, to live as selfishly as I wanted, as long as I was back

at church on Sunday and Wednesday to show them how passionate I was about Jesus.

And I think for so many, especially in East Texas, this is how they live their Christian lives.

So I think I go to church on Sunday and steal from someone on Monday at work

and not care anything about it because they'll be right back on Wednesday to

pay their penance, sing worship, and move on with their lives.

Listen, that's no way to live your life.

Paul says to the Jewish leaders in Romans 10, he says, I bear witness that they

have zeal for God, but not according to true knowledge.

In other words, to look at these Jewish leaders is to say, man,

there's no doubting their passion and their zeal for God.

Man, they are on fire for him. and they tithe, and they give,

and they go to church, and they go to temple, they follow the law,

they do all of these things.

But Paul says, but not according to true knowledge.

They sing and serve and shout about God, but never are truly changed by him.

They never truly come to Christ and give their life over to him.

So that everyone around them looks at their life and goes, man,

those people sold out. They're at church, man, they're singing,

they're tithing, they're and all these wonderful things, but they never change.

They're never different.

Question to ask yourself. Are you becoming more like Christ?

Are you just doing things to make people think you like Christ?

You're the only one that can answer that question. I can't do that for you.

I don't know your heart. Can't see it.

If there's anything I've learned in ministry, I'm a terrible judge of who's

doing the right thing and who's doing the wrong thing. Every time I guessed, I was wrong.

All-known people that we thought were just the most solid, God-loving people

that we find out, oh my gosh, how could they be doing that behind everyone's

back? That's how. That's how.

To be passionate but not progressing is such a danger in East Texas,

and I pray that we are becoming more like him. Last thing, are you still trying

to be the hero of your own story?

Are you still trying to be the hero of your own story? One of the saddest things

you'll see is a Christian who says they are saved by grace and then lives like

they have to earn more of it.

That Jesus gave them enough grace to be saved, but he's only gonna give them

more grace if they work out how he thinks they should work out,

if they do what they're supposed to do. That is not the promise of the gospel.

The promise of the gospel is that you receive grace and you receive mercy based

not on your works, but on the works of Christ.

That you receive a righteousness that is not your own. The perfect life of Christ

live is applied to you that you receive forgiveness of sins,

not because of, again, a life you live because a life that's given to you,

that your sins are atoned for, that God is gracious to you.

Why? Because he's gracious. That God is kind to you. Why? Because he's kind.

That God has saved you. Why? Because he wanted to. And there is nothing you

can do to earn more of those things.

To live in the light of that is also though to have to admit I'm not the hero.

Can't save myself. Can't save anyone else. Can't fix everyone's problems.

Can't fix all the church's problems.

Can't get everything the way I think it should go. Never going to convince everyone

to live exactly the way I think they should live. I'm not the hero.

And that's hard for a lot of us to admit.

I like to think that if you give me enough time with someone,

that if I talk to them enough, if I can convince them, if I send them enough

videos and podcasts, that, man, I'll get them.

And Jesus often reminds me, no, you will not. No, you will not.

Is your hero. He saved you. He's redeemed you. He's bought you. He is sovereign.

He is in control. You can trust him.

And I pray that as we live our lives, that when we cry out like the crowds cried

out, Hosanna, Hosanna, come and save us.

That that cry doesn't come with the stipulation that he saves us the way that

we want him to, but that we cry that out knowing that he has already saved us

the way that we needed to be saved.

Let's pray. We'll sing one more song.

Father, as always, thank you for our time. Thank you for your word.

And I pray that as we look at a passage like this one, that we are reminded,

Christ, that you're sovereign.

You are sovereign over all things.

Just as much control as you had over the donkey and the people that cared for

it and where it was tied, you have just as much control over our own lives.

That's good news. That's good news because even in our suffering.