back to index2016-03-20 Palm Sunday: Jesus' Triumphal Entry
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If you can turn your Bibles with me to John chapter 12 verses 12 through verse 19. 00:00:14.000 |
We're going to start us off on the Passion Week and what happened on Sunday. 00:00:24.680 |
The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to 00:00:29.780 |
So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, "Hosanna, blessed 00:00:34.320 |
is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel." 00:00:37.880 |
And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written, "Fear not, daughter 00:00:43.520 |
Behold, your King is coming, sitting on a donkey's colt." 00:00:46.720 |
His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then 00:00:51.040 |
they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him. 00:00:56.440 |
The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from 00:01:02.480 |
The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard what he had done, that 00:01:08.600 |
So the Pharisees said to one another, "You see that you are gaining nothing. 00:01:19.600 |
Heavenly Father, we come before you this afternoon asking for your blessing upon this time. 00:01:25.600 |
As we remember Palm Sunday and what may have been going through his mind and what was happening 00:01:31.380 |
in the crowd, and just to prepare us for this week, I pray, Lord God, that you give us soft 00:01:36.320 |
hearts as you are the potter and we are the clay. 00:01:40.420 |
We desire to be molded according to your purpose. 00:01:44.000 |
We ask, Lord God, that our time of celebration and remembering would have its effect that 00:01:53.760 |
I'm going to ask you a question this morning. 00:01:57.080 |
Again, it's a question I'm not asking you to say it out loud. 00:01:59.720 |
Just think to yourself, what is the prayer request or prayer that you've been offering 00:02:12.880 |
If somebody asked you, "How can I pray for you?" 00:02:20.200 |
Is there a prayer request that you've been asking? 00:02:22.260 |
Maybe for the last year or maybe even longer than that. 00:02:25.440 |
Maybe there are some prayers that you've been praying for many, many years. 00:02:33.720 |
I just want you to think about it for a second. 00:02:37.280 |
I want to ask you this question and it may sound like a strange question. 00:02:41.120 |
Have you ever considered that the very thing that you've been praying for may be the reason 00:02:47.300 |
that causes you to be blind toward who Christ is? 00:02:53.640 |
Maybe the very content of your prayer, the longing of your heart, is the very reason 00:02:59.280 |
why you have not been able to have an intimate relationship with God or maybe feel distant. 00:03:06.920 |
If you, again, you don't need to turn your Bibles there, but as we've been studying through 00:03:10.960 |
the book of Isaiah, God sends Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, and Hosea and different prophets to 00:03:18.640 |
warn the nation of Israel that judgment is coming upon them. 00:03:22.600 |
And the judgment that's coming upon the nation of Israel at the particular time wasn't because 00:03:32.520 |
They're financially, politically more stable than they were in the previous years, at least 00:03:39.820 |
And they were very busy at the temple offering many sacrifices. 00:03:43.920 |
And yet God says that these sacrifices were meaningless. 00:03:48.000 |
He says in Isaiah 58, "Cry aloud, do not hold back, lift up your voice like a trumpet, declare 00:03:53.580 |
to my people their transgression, to the house of Jacob their sins." 00:03:58.040 |
And again, he's telling Isaiah to say this on my behalf to the nation of Israel. 00:04:02.240 |
"They seek me daily and delight to know my ways as if they were a nation that did righteousness 00:04:08.240 |
and did not forsake the judgment of their God. 00:04:17.380 |
Why have we humbled ourselves and you take no knowledge of it?" 00:04:19.960 |
In other words, we've been praying and fasting and coming to the temple, but they're frustrated 00:04:25.320 |
"Behold, in the day of your fast, you seek your own pleasure and oppress all your workers. 00:04:30.680 |
Behold, you fast only a quarrel and to fight and to hit with a wicked feast. 00:04:36.680 |
Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high." 00:04:42.000 |
And that pretty much summarizes the judgment that was coming upon the nation of Israel. 00:04:48.840 |
They're making many sacrifices and fasting even. 00:04:52.520 |
But God says to the nation of Israel, "Your fast is only for your own gain. 00:05:03.600 |
All of the content of your prayer has nothing to do with me." 00:05:09.440 |
In fact, God says again, it's much stronger than that in other passages where he actually 00:05:21.440 |
Now why I say this this morning is because when we think about Palm Sunday, Palm Sunday 00:05:25.260 |
is a day where Jesus, after three years of ministry, makes a triumphal entry into Jerusalem. 00:05:33.320 |
And he's making an emphatic statement because for the last three years of his public ministry, 00:05:37.960 |
there has been this question lingering over him. 00:05:43.440 |
Now, at the beginning of his ministry, he wouldn't say it clearly. 00:05:47.680 |
You know, he would just kind of give him hints and this is what it is and he would perform 00:05:53.120 |
And then as he is getting closer and closer to the cross, he makes it absolutely crystal 00:05:59.320 |
He says to the Samaritan woman, he says again, over and over again, "I am." 00:06:04.040 |
And then now, as he has revealed himself clearly to the disciples, he said to them three separate 00:06:09.720 |
times that he's going to be crucified, he's going to be resurrected on the third day. 00:06:13.880 |
He tells them to go find this donkey that he's going to ride on into Jerusalem. 00:06:19.280 |
Now anybody who's been paying attention to scripture at that particular time would have 00:06:23.840 |
clearly known that this was a sign of the coming of the Messiah. 00:06:28.840 |
Zechariah 9.9, 550 years prior to Jesus entering into Jerusalem, has declared, "Rejoice greatly, 00:06:37.400 |
O daughter of Zion; shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! 00:06:40.120 |
Behold, your King is coming to you, righteous and having salvation as He, humble and mounted 00:06:45.520 |
on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey." 00:06:52.480 |
It was a public declaration, an exclamation mark that in case anybody was wondering who 00:06:58.260 |
he was, Jesus was going to ride on this donkey after he performs probably the greatest miracle 00:07:04.400 |
of his three years of ministry, raising Lazarus from the dead. 00:07:08.120 |
So people have come all over, anybody who had any kind of question that maybe he isn't 00:07:12.800 |
the Messiah, maybe just we're misinterpreting, he says it emphatically, "I am He." 00:07:20.040 |
And as he is riding on the donkey, in the book of John, he said people were greeting 00:07:27.360 |
The reason why they were greeting him with palm branches was because palm branch represented 00:07:36.040 |
Typically at that time when an army would go out to war and they came back in victory, 00:07:43.600 |
And so strange thing is, typically that kind of celebration was reserved for a military 00:07:55.760 |
The significance of the palm branch wasn't started when Jesus came into Jerusalem. 00:08:03.520 |
Solomon himself, when he built the temple, had the image of the palm branches all over 00:08:10.280 |
the temple, inside the wall, outside the wall. 00:08:14.720 |
It was actually even printed upon the coins that they used. 00:08:18.800 |
Because again, it represented prosperity, it represented victory. 00:08:24.460 |
And then in Revelation chapter 7 and 9, it actually tells us that at the end times, when 00:08:30.080 |
people are gathered together to worship God, that they are waving their palm branches because 00:08:35.760 |
of the final victory that we're going to have in Christ. 00:08:42.400 |
Even though it was a fulfillment of a prophecy, and we say it's either Palm Sunday or triumphal 00:08:49.560 |
But typically when a king or a leader or general would walk in after conquest, they would ride 00:08:58.560 |
And understandably because they're in battle, they're about to fight or they just finished 00:09:05.320 |
Typically they would ride on a donkey to signify that we're in peace, that there is no war 00:09:13.160 |
So anybody who was paying attention would have seen that as a, well, Jesus is coming 00:09:19.440 |
And we think that he's going to come and maybe overthrow the Roman government, and yet he's 00:09:25.640 |
In fact, there's something else that's not mentioned here that is very significant. 00:09:31.120 |
In Luke chapter 19, 41 through 44, it says, "When Jesus drew near and saw the city in 00:09:37.840 |
Jerusalem as he is riding on a donkey," it says, "he wept over it." 00:09:45.260 |
Now this is in the context of a lot of commentaries believe that there are probably maybe over 00:09:52.120 |
Now again, we live near Los Angeles and New York and these big cities. 00:09:56.240 |
We fly to Beijing and these cities, like one million is a drop in the bucket. 00:10:00.520 |
But at that particular time, a million people was probably the largest crowd that they may 00:10:08.440 |
And so typically during the Passover week, there would have been hundreds of thousands 00:10:16.920 |
But remember there's three years of murmuring going on all through that region, telling 00:10:22.200 |
their friends and families that maybe this is the Messiah. 00:10:26.440 |
This is the guy that our great, great, great, great grandparents have been telling us and 00:10:31.240 |
Every time that we had a Passover meal, we were told that the One is coming. 00:10:36.480 |
And maybe if they paid attention more closely, they would have known that God promised that 00:10:46.340 |
So you can imagine, you can imagine the kind of crowd that was gathered and was waving 00:10:55.280 |
There wasn't this kind of like, "Ah, we've got to put in our time like the previous years. 00:10:58.920 |
Oh, we've got to make this what good Jews do." 00:11:01.520 |
There probably was a kind of excitement that they've never seen before, right? 00:11:07.580 |
It's in the context of this celebration, this parade, that it says in the midst of this, 00:11:17.880 |
It doesn't, because it's a very strange scene. 00:11:20.520 |
It's like having a birthday party and the birthday boy is sitting there weeping in the 00:11:29.040 |
We're all just cutting cake and celebrating, high-fiving, watching TV, and we have no idea. 00:11:37.880 |
It's extremely significant because there's only two places in the New Testament, in the 00:11:45.800 |
First time that happens is in John chapter 11, 35, where his disciples and his family 00:11:52.120 |
friends and Lazarus, Mary, and Martha is begging him to come because Lazarus is about to die 00:11:58.080 |
and Jesus deliberately takes his time, waiting for him to pass away. 00:12:03.160 |
So by the time he comes, Lazarus has already been dead for three days. 00:12:07.160 |
Martha and Mary come weeping and he goes to the tomb and all these people are weeping. 00:12:13.200 |
And it says, the shortest verse in the Bible, John 11, 35, that Jesus wept. 00:12:20.360 |
That's the first time we hear where Jesus was weeping. 00:12:23.360 |
You know what's interesting about that word though, is those of you who are with us when 00:12:26.880 |
we're studying through John, that that word here described for Jesus as weeping, even 00:12:31.040 |
though in our English Bible it's translated weeping, the word for weeping in the Greek, 00:12:39.520 |
The word that was used to describe the crowd and Mary and Martha weeping is a different 00:12:43.880 |
word than the word that is described for Jesus weeping in front of the temple. 00:12:48.920 |
The word that is described for the crowds was an outcry of emotion, which we would expect. 00:12:54.600 |
A younger brother, you know, who passed away before his time and everybody is mourning 00:12:59.960 |
over this, crying out loud, uncontrollable, weeping. 00:13:06.300 |
But the word that is used for Jesus is a silent tear, you know, a man tear. 00:13:11.800 |
I think that's the best way to describe it, where it's just kind of, you just don't notice 00:13:18.440 |
So when the scripture says he wept, that's again, not the most accurate term. 00:13:24.920 |
But when we come to Jesus walking into Jerusalem, the word that is used to say that Jesus wept 00:13:31.480 |
was that actual word, but uncontrollable outburst of emotion of weeping. 00:13:50.480 |
When everybody was celebrating him, they were citing a psalm, "Save us, Hosanna, Hosanna, 00:13:58.760 |
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. 00:14:12.280 |
And that's an important question that we need to answer this morning. 00:14:18.280 |
In the second instance where he's actually weeping, like he's so overwhelmed by his emotions. 00:14:25.780 |
It says in verse 42, Luke chapter 19, saying, "If you have only known on this day, the thing 00:14:43.640 |
In other words, they were looking for shalom, which is the Hebrew word for peace. 00:14:50.200 |
Even though they were celebrating him, even though they were praising him, even though 00:14:55.880 |
And they traveled miles, days probably, many of them, to come just to witness him. 00:15:00.920 |
He said all of that may have been for nothing because they completely missed who he was. 00:15:08.000 |
And as a result of that, he says, "For the days will come upon you when your enemies 00:15:11.280 |
will set up a barricade around you, surround you, and hem you in on every side, and tear 00:15:17.480 |
you down to the ground, and you and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone 00:15:21.480 |
upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation." 00:15:26.000 |
That you're in a context of celebrating, worshiping, crying out, and yet you completely missed who 00:15:37.440 |
See, he says, "If you only knew what would truly bring peace, you would know why I came." 00:15:47.320 |
Now, that's at the center of why Jesus was weeping. 00:15:51.720 |
And that's at the center of him coming into Jerusalem. 00:15:58.880 |
You can come to church all your life and be celebrating and worshiping and praying and 00:16:03.840 |
And at the end of it, Jesus could say, "I never knew you." 00:16:10.120 |
I think that's the greatest tragedy of Christianity, especially in North America, because we are 00:16:22.160 |
We have freedom like no other country in the world. 00:16:25.720 |
We have a problem when we can't say, "Merry Christmas," because we had all kinds of freedom 00:16:32.480 |
And in the midst of all of this freedom, all this access to Scripture, all this access 00:16:37.720 |
to sermons and seminars and education and fellowship and church, that at the end of 00:16:50.720 |
See, Palm Sunday, even though it wasn't an official rejection of Christ, as far as he 00:17:03.440 |
Even as they were praising him, he knew that at the end of this, they would reject him. 00:17:10.740 |
What does he mean that they missed the peace? 00:17:13.920 |
We need to understand, if that's at the core of why he was weeping, what was it that they 00:17:18.840 |
Well, when we say peace in the English, you know, we think of state of tranquility. 00:17:23.800 |
You know, maybe your life is hectic and you need to meditate and go into the woods and 00:17:28.560 |
do some yoga or whatever, you know what I mean, to get you centered. 00:17:37.680 |
We're not, at least not in our immediate area. 00:17:40.280 |
There's no riots, there's no war that we're actively engaged in. 00:17:45.840 |
I mean, there's stuff going on outside the country. 00:17:54.600 |
Maybe you've had some problems with people and you're sitting down to make peace with 00:17:58.640 |
And typically, all of these things, the meaning behind it is included in this meaning. 00:18:03.640 |
But the word shalom that the Jews use, which is the translated peace in the New Testament, 00:18:17.640 |
Some of you who may have lived in Hawaii or visited Hawaii or have family members in Hawaii, 00:18:31.040 |
So in Hawaii, there's a, you know, this is their greeting for everything. 00:18:43.280 |
Mahalo means pretty much mahalo for everything, right? 00:18:48.880 |
Mahalo for the surfers, mahalo for the governors. 00:18:58.120 |
Well, at the core of the Jewish culture was shalom. 00:19:04.920 |
They said shalom when they greeted one another. 00:19:08.000 |
Shalom was at the center of everything that they did. 00:19:10.760 |
In fact, in the Jewish Talmud, which was basically a commentary of the Old Testament, it's a 00:19:20.960 |
All that is written in the Torah was written for the sake of shalom. 00:19:27.440 |
All that is written in the Torah, and Torah basically is the law that they were trying 00:19:31.720 |
to abide by, Old Testament, was written for the sake of shalom. 00:19:39.000 |
This is written by Jewish scholars who are interpreting the Old Testament, and they recognize 00:19:43.200 |
that the core of everything that God was doing was shalom. 00:19:48.640 |
So we need to understand, if it's this significant, when Jesus said, "I'm weeping because judgment 00:19:54.640 |
is coming because you missed, if you only knew what would bring shalom, this judgment 00:20:02.920 |
The meaning behind this word is, again, extremely important. 00:20:06.360 |
So if you're clicked off right now, click back on. 00:20:13.680 |
This is one of those sections that I would tell you that if you missed it, go back. 00:20:22.720 |
Ask somebody because it's at the root, at the core of what Christianity really is about. 00:20:29.040 |
So when Jesus is talking about, "Oh, only if you knew that, you know, what is going 00:20:33.160 |
to bring peace between you and the Romans, or what's going to bring peace between your 00:20:36.320 |
husband and wife," He's talking about the essence of everything that God's been doing 00:20:41.600 |
in human history is represented in this shalom. 00:20:47.240 |
Well, the root word where we get the word shalom in Hebrew is shalayim. 00:20:53.640 |
And the word shalayim means completion, to be whole. 00:20:58.640 |
So the idea of shalom means to be whole, to be made perfect, to be restored to what God 00:21:09.180 |
So when they said shalom, they weren't simply talking about, "Hey, you know, have peace. 00:21:16.560 |
When they said shalom, shalom basically meant everything that was lost in the fall may be 00:21:25.160 |
See, again, this idea of shalom is so deeply rooted into the scripture. 00:21:30.480 |
And if you don't pay very close attention to it, you might miss it. 00:21:34.640 |
If shalom means to be complete, to be made whole, remember when God created the earth 00:21:44.000 |
And then after He was done, He went, entered into what? 00:21:50.920 |
So when He entered into Sabbath, did He enter into the Sabbath because He needed to rest? 00:22:03.640 |
We need at least Saturday, Sunday, maybe partially Monday or whatever, right? 00:22:17.320 |
Every quality that He has does not change, does not wither, right? 00:22:22.800 |
So when He entered the Sabbath, He's not simply talking about, "Okay, take a break, and I'm 00:22:26.360 |
going to give you an example of what it means to take a break." 00:22:29.280 |
The idea, or the biblical idea of Shabbat is that everything is complete and now you 00:22:39.400 |
So remember, what was Jesus' last words as He was being crucified and He gave up His 00:22:55.080 |
See, when God created the creation after six days, what did He say? 00:23:10.560 |
So the idea of Shabbat, Sabbath, is to enter into completion. 00:23:19.320 |
And so it was at the fall that the Shabbat was broken. 00:23:25.500 |
What God intended, this completeness, was broken. 00:23:28.600 |
So ever since then, mankind has been looking for this shalom, to be made whole again. 00:23:36.380 |
So to a Jew, to say shalom is, whatever has been broken in your life, when God comes and 00:23:47.720 |
What's interesting is in the New Testament, we have an equivalent word to this word shalom. 00:23:53.040 |
And we would think, oh, it's the word grace, or it's the word peace. 00:23:56.400 |
Actually, 1 Corinthians 13.10, there's a passage that says, "When the perfect comes, the imperfect 00:24:04.000 |
Now some people translate that verse as, "The perfect is the Bible." 00:24:07.200 |
So once the Bible came, all the prophecies and speaking in tongues, all that would disappear. 00:24:12.480 |
But actually, the word that is used for complete in that word, in that text, is teleos. 00:24:17.120 |
Now remember, I did a whole paper when I was in seminary on just that word, because of 00:24:23.620 |
The word, and most scholars will agree, is talking about an intended purpose carrying 00:24:36.840 |
That we see Him partially, but then when He comes, we will see the complete version of 00:24:41.400 |
Or, many people will translate that as, "The completion of salvation for us." 00:24:45.840 |
That He started a good work in us, we'll carry it on to completion, teleos, when He comes. 00:24:52.280 |
Whatever way you translate that word, the word basically means to bring us into wholeness, 00:25:01.460 |
So all of what we know about God's creation, all of what we know about the fall, all of 00:25:07.320 |
what we know about God sending His only begotten Son, and salvation and sanctification, second 00:25:13.160 |
coming and restoration, and heaven, all of that is symbolized in this word, shalom. 00:25:21.800 |
All of what we know about Christianity, about Jesus, is about shalom. 00:25:26.920 |
In fact, this shalom is so important, in Isaiah 54 verse 10, the covenant that God makes with 00:25:38.060 |
In Judges chapter 6, 24, the Lord is called the Lord our shalom. 00:25:45.540 |
In 1 Thessalonians 5, 23, in the New Testament, God is introduced to us as the God of shalom. 00:25:53.140 |
The preaching of the gospel is described as preaching shalom, peace, to those who are 00:26:01.020 |
In Romans chapter 5, 1, describes salvation as having shalom with God. 00:26:06.780 |
And then finally, ultimately, in Isaiah chapter 9 verse 6, a prophecy of the coming Messiah, 00:26:23.580 |
So Jesus wasn't simply saying, I'm coming in and you just, you know, you don't fully 00:26:28.340 |
A lot of times in husband and wives or, you know, marriage counseling, we get that, we 00:26:34.860 |
Like you understand some stuff, but there's some things that you don't understand. 00:26:38.260 |
What Jesus was saying, basically, that you don't understand a part of me, you don't understand 00:26:46.880 |
These people were praying to Him, they were crying out to Him, they were worshiping Him, 00:26:53.800 |
they were shaking palm branches of celebration of Him coming into Jerusalem. 00:26:59.580 |
And yet, Jesus is saying, you have no idea who I am. 00:27:10.420 |
It says in John chapter 6, 15, that the multitudes who tasted the heavenly bread, the miracle 00:27:21.380 |
After they tasted His bread and it was eyewitnesses of this miracle, there was a stir, let's make 00:27:31.020 |
And it says in John chapter 6, 15, they were trying to get Him and forcefully make Him 00:27:37.800 |
So Jesus knowing this, He deliberately takes His disciples and sends them across to see 00:27:44.100 |
And so Jesus basically breaks away from them. 00:27:46.700 |
These people wake up in the morning, find out that Jesus is not there, so all of them, 00:27:50.140 |
within thousands of them, pack up their bags and they go look for Him on the other side. 00:27:54.620 |
They finally find Him and they say, Jesus, when did you come here? 00:27:58.460 |
Jesus seeing right through, right through their motive, and He says, you're not coming 00:28:02.740 |
after me because you saw signs and you know who I am. 00:28:07.060 |
You're coming after me because you ate and you want more. 00:28:12.060 |
It's in that conversation where Jesus tells them, because He knew their hardened heart, 00:28:19.420 |
Up to that point, they wanted Him to be King. 00:28:23.660 |
I mean, right now we're in election season and these politicians are making all kinds 00:28:28.300 |
of promises that if you just elect them, they're going to bring peace, they're going to bring 00:28:32.860 |
I mean, if they do 1% of what we do, we would be in a much better situation, at least what 00:28:46.740 |
Lepers who were shunned from society were able to go and have a normal life when He 00:28:51.900 |
Even in the midst of storms where death was imminent, Jesus just wakes up and says, be 00:29:04.220 |
All these legal stuff that they were wrestling with, Jesus says one thing, right? 00:29:09.260 |
And His figure, give to Caesar what's Caesar and give to God what is God, boom, answered. 00:29:20.140 |
When these scribes and Pharisees were teaching, they were saying good things, but they were 00:29:33.580 |
If you're hurt, He comes and draws near to you. 00:29:39.900 |
If you're dejected, He will come and save you. 00:30:02.340 |
See those people missed Him because Jesus saw right through it and is like, you know, 00:30:05.700 |
because He knew the moment you don't get fed, you're going to turn from me. 00:30:10.620 |
The Pharisees, they prayed every Tuesday, every Thursday, they fasted, they sacrificed 00:30:17.140 |
money, they came to the temple, they tried to obey the law and they prayed. 00:30:21.680 |
They probably prayed more than we prayed, much more than we prayed, but they clung to 00:30:27.540 |
God and they prayed and prayed and prayed that if they obeyed the law well enough, that 00:30:37.800 |
And when Jesus came and said that was not the way you need to be born again, they couldn't 00:30:43.100 |
When He completely shunned their system, He said, He can't be the one. 00:30:48.980 |
The Sadducees, the political leaders, the senators of Israel, they've given up on prayer 00:30:58.580 |
And they decided that by their money, with their power, with influence, that somehow 00:31:02.820 |
they're going to manipulate and get the nation to get the favor of the Romans. 00:31:06.820 |
And so they had all this plan and Jesus comes in and He shuns all of that. 00:31:10.500 |
He starts saying things that are offensive to people. 00:31:14.340 |
This guy is going to ruin what we've been building all these years. 00:31:18.540 |
If we worked hard enough, if we were smart enough, if we're clever enough, if we have 00:31:23.300 |
enough influence enough, that we would get Shalom. 00:31:33.540 |
These zealots were the kind of guys who were walking around with a knife ready to go at 00:31:39.420 |
Imagine how excited they must have been when Jesus was entering into Jerusalem. 00:31:43.700 |
You know, up to now they probably have different commanders and maybe they were caught and 00:31:47.900 |
they were crucified and they just couldn't muster up enough strength. 00:31:51.340 |
And then here comes Jesus who can calm storms, feed thousands just by His will. 00:31:58.220 |
If He was our commander, for sure, if we had any chance of overthrowing the Roman government, 00:32:05.820 |
And yet when Jesus comes and He gives Himself up to the Romans, they're watching Him from 00:32:15.540 |
Because they thought that if they were powerful enough, if they willed themselves enough, 00:32:21.780 |
if they trained themselves, if they had the backing of enough power, that they would be 00:32:30.980 |
But it wasn't just these disciples from a distance. 00:32:38.060 |
You know, these ten lepers that, imagine what they were praying for. 00:32:45.540 |
If you asked a leper, what was your primary desire in your heart? 00:32:58.900 |
Immediately, if there was any trace of leprosy, you would be shunned from your very home. 00:33:03.180 |
In your mother and father's home, you would be shunned. 00:33:07.580 |
Not only did you have to live outside with other lepers, every time you made any contact 00:33:12.060 |
with any other Jew, you had to cry out, "Unclean! 00:33:18.460 |
And if he got any close, by the law, they could stone him for not obeying that command. 00:33:26.060 |
So imagine, someone who had leprosy, what his prayers were. 00:33:32.860 |
Not only him, his mother, father, anybody who loved him, would pray day and night for 00:33:39.500 |
And yet, when Jesus cleansed them, they thought they had their shalom. 00:33:45.220 |
They thought they had their shalom, and nine of them returned. 00:33:47.780 |
And they go back, they completely forget, because we got it! 00:33:51.940 |
And only one Samaritan comes back and recognizes, recognizes that that wasn't the shalom. 00:34:01.860 |
Even the disciples, even as Jesus clearly spells out that he's going to the cross and 00:34:08.340 |
die, they couldn't help but thinking, "Well, once that happens, who's going to be glorified? 00:34:11.700 |
Who's going to sit on the left or to the right? 00:34:18.080 |
They thought if they stayed near to his power, that somehow they were going to get his shalom. 00:34:23.180 |
And so when Jesus was humiliated and humbled and beaten and crucified, they watched him 00:34:28.300 |
from a distance because they just didn't get it. 00:34:40.100 |
And they're in utter confusion, and they scatter. 00:34:49.940 |
Even though they're praising him, even though they're waving palm branches, they're crying 00:34:54.740 |
out, and even in their fasting, and their many sacrifices, they didn't really understand. 00:35:04.620 |
In John 1, 5, it says, "The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood 00:35:11.500 |
See, Palm Sunday is about rejection of Christ. 00:35:26.180 |
You know, years ago, I was trying to help a guy that I met on the street. 00:35:32.380 |
He was a drug addict, and I just thought that if I spent enough time with him and got him 00:35:36.740 |
out of the street and put him in a hotel, that somehow he's going to be able to get 00:35:40.940 |
out of ... Because he was a great guy, and I know there's few people in this room that 00:35:47.700 |
It was frustrating because we would check him into a hotel, and then he'd be good for 00:35:52.020 |
a while, for 10 days, and then he'd disappear, and then he'd come back and weeping because 00:35:58.020 |
he somehow found crack, and he was gone for a week. 00:36:01.380 |
Then, we moved him further away from Santa Ana, so maybe we thought if we take him farther 00:36:05.620 |
and farther away from Santa Ana, he's not going to have access to cocaine. 00:36:08.260 |
Then, he'll be doing good for a while, and then after a while, he'd disappear. 00:36:13.380 |
I remember the church guys bought him brand new basketball shoes, expensive shoes because 00:36:20.540 |
We played basketball after church, and then he disappeared, and he would show up barefoot, 00:36:26.300 |
I was disappointed in him, but at the same time, I was just like, "What do we do? 00:36:33.860 |
We made a decision, "Okay, maybe if he'd live with us, and I can watch him and be with him, 00:36:40.020 |
Well, he was doing fine for a while, got a job, good paying job because he was a machinist, 00:36:44.420 |
and then two, three weeks passes, and the next thing I know, he disappears again. 00:36:48.940 |
The bike that we got him to travel back and forth, he sold that and then got crack. 00:36:53.500 |
In the end, I was so frustrated, it's like, "This is beyond me." 00:37:00.700 |
It was about the second or third guy that was trying to help with that, and every single 00:37:07.060 |
At the end of that, it's like, "Man, I have no idea what to do." 00:37:10.980 |
I just remember thinking at that time, "Unless the Lord sets you free, it's just bandage. 00:37:25.860 |
It's just like somebody has cancer, and you're just dealing with the symptoms, but there's 00:37:38.020 |
And yes, the lepers got healed, but eventually, they died. 00:37:42.060 |
Yes, the lame started walking, and eventually, they died. 00:37:47.380 |
The hungry were fed, and eventually, they died. 00:37:51.900 |
And all the hopes and the prayers, sometimes, that we offer up to God are just consequences 00:38:00.700 |
And we're asking God to deal with the symptoms of these things, not recognizing what it is 00:38:14.260 |
Because the very core of the things that we pray for is what causes us to be blind. 00:38:24.540 |
Is He the God that I've created and longing for in my heart? 00:38:35.540 |
And obviously, anybody who's ever lost a wallet, you know exactly how that feels. 00:38:38.500 |
And especially for me, because I'm going out of town in a couple weeks, and I was thinking 00:38:45.740 |
You know, and like, "Am I going to be able to get through security? 00:38:49.380 |
And I was thinking, "You know, you're not going to get a duplicate driver's license 00:38:52.860 |
So I was like, "Oh my gosh, I'm in big trouble." 00:38:55.660 |
And so, as soon as I came home, I canceled all my credit cards, about four or five of 00:39:00.180 |
them, my wallet, my debit card, canceled all of that. 00:39:03.620 |
You know, I had two checks in my wallet, so I sent an email to Joe and Kevin and said, 00:39:10.780 |
"Hey, those two checks, you know, I didn't clear yet. 00:39:15.300 |
And I was thinking, I had a Costco gift card in there, and I don't know how much is in 00:39:23.020 |
And I had a Costco rebate check that I didn't, you know, I didn't clear yet. 00:39:32.380 |
And then I was thinking, "Okay, so that's lost." 00:39:33.380 |
I was going through all of this and going back into my car and looking for it. 00:39:37.860 |
And so I stayed up late dealing with all that and went to sleep. 00:39:41.300 |
And then, so nobody at home knew, you know, I came home late, so they were all sleeping. 00:39:46.900 |
I woke up early, went to the leaders meeting. 00:39:49.280 |
And then, you know, me and Jeremy, my oldest son, had to switch cars. 00:39:53.420 |
So I took his car and went to the leaders meeting. 00:39:55.820 |
And then Jeremy took my car, and he's out of town now, you know. 00:39:59.260 |
And but on the way out, he calls me around 8.30 or 9 o'clock. 00:40:03.620 |
And he doesn't even know that I lost my wallet. 00:40:05.460 |
He called me and he said, "Hey, Dad, you left your wallet in the car. 00:40:12.740 |
So I'm, you know, all this stuff is going through my mind. 00:40:15.540 |
I'm thinking, "Did you steal my wallet and then put it back?" 00:40:28.260 |
To this day, I don't know how he found it, you know, because he went out of town. 00:40:33.060 |
He's probably going to say, "It was right there," you know. 00:40:38.260 |
It must have been because he didn't even look for it. 00:40:40.980 |
He, all he did was, he sat in the car and he was about to drive away. 00:40:50.100 |
So even now I'm thinking, like, "Where could it have been? 00:40:53.500 |
I went to the, you know, and I said this to the first service, and people started coming 00:40:57.260 |
up to me, "Did you check underneath the seat?" 00:41:10.700 |
They're not here, so I can rip on them, all right? 00:41:22.900 |
Obviously, it was in plain sight because he didn't dig anywhere. 00:41:26.660 |
So the only thing I could think of is maybe I dropped it and it was behind, maybe I was 00:41:34.860 |
You know, my wallet is dark tone, so maybe it just kind of blended. 00:41:38.940 |
So I'm thinking all this stuff, but wherever it was, all he did was open the door and looked 00:41:47.140 |
Other than the fact that I'm not good at looking, which is, Esther always tells me that, right? 00:41:53.140 |
She walks into the garage, comes back, "It's right here. 00:42:03.300 |
And all of a sudden, it popped back out, right? 00:42:10.660 |
Sometimes we get so accustomed to doing certain things, so accustomed to that, and we become 00:42:19.980 |
Like, you come to church and you hear sermons in small groups and cleaning and Bible studies, 00:42:28.460 |
Sometimes we see what's obvious, but there are certain things that ... So a lot of times, 00:42:32.060 |
somebody comes outside from the church and they immediately see, "Oh, this church is 00:42:34.740 |
like this," or, "Oh, it's this and that," and then say, "Oh, that's good," because they're 00:42:38.020 |
coming and they see a different perspective, right? 00:42:41.780 |
The reason why things like Passion Week is important to us is because sometimes we can 00:42:46.620 |
get caught up in routine, just like the Jews. 00:42:48.980 |
They had all this stuff that they were doing wrong and God was not pleased with, and all 00:42:53.220 |
they thought was, "Well, if we keep giving sacrifices, God's going to be pleased. 00:42:57.660 |
And it wasn't until God sends Isaiah and says, "No. 00:43:04.780 |
So it's important for us to take time, especially when it's not just us, it's not just locally. 00:43:10.900 |
All over the world, Christians are going to take this week to meditate and think upon 00:43:16.100 |
who He is and what He has done so that when we get to Sunday, that we're actually celebrating. 00:43:24.780 |
It's a lot of things that, especially those of you who have been around for a while, it's 00:43:35.280 |
Every funny joke is not funny anymore, right? 00:43:37.700 |
And it's just, it's become so routine that we become blind to the things that are amazing. 00:43:44.860 |
And it's important for us to take time to re-examine, take a deeper look at the things 00:43:50.740 |
that we celebrate every single week so that we're not just coming and going like we've 00:43:59.140 |
That every celebration is a true celebration. 00:44:02.340 |
So again, as we start off this Passion Week, I want to encourage you guys to take time, 00:44:08.340 |
not to simply go through the same routines that you've been going through. 00:44:12.140 |
Even if you can't join us physically, to take some time to think and meditate deeply. 00:44:29.980 |
And take some time this week to really walk through Christ that again, when we come to 00:44:34.220 |
celebrate that we'll be impacted as this day ought to. 00:44:38.780 |
Would you take some time to pray with me as I invite the praise team to come up? 00:44:45.140 |
Can take some time to pray as we discussed this morning about this shalom, this peace 00:44:55.700 |
Do I find my completion in Christ and what He has done? 00:44:59.100 |
Or am I looking for shalom in all these other places?