If you can turn your Bibles with me to John chapter 12 verses 12 through verse 19. Okay. We're going to start us off on the Passion Week and what happened on Sunday. John chapter 12 verses 12 through 19. Reading out of the ESV. The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem.

So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, "Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel." And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written, "Fear not, daughter of Zion.

Behold, your King is coming, sitting on a donkey's colt." His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him. The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness.

The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard what he had done, that he had done this sign. So the Pharisees said to one another, "You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him." Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you this afternoon asking for your blessing upon this time.

As we remember Palm Sunday and what may have been going through his mind and what was happening in the crowd, and just to prepare us for this week, I pray, Lord God, that you give us soft hearts as you are the potter and we are the clay. We desire to be molded according to your purpose.

We ask, Lord God, that our time of celebration and remembering would have its effect that you've intended. And so we deliver this time to you. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. I'm going to ask you a question this morning. Again, it's a question I'm not asking you to say it out loud.

Just think to yourself, what is the prayer request or prayer that you've been offering up to God in the last couple of months? Okay, don't say it out loud. Just think to yourself. Okay, what was that one thing? If somebody asked you, "How can I pray for you?" What have you, how have you answered that?

Maybe go on further. Is there a prayer request that you've been asking? Maybe for the last year or maybe even longer than that. Maybe there are some prayers that you've been praying for many, many years. Can you think of what that is? Again, don't say it out loud. I just want you to think about it for a second.

I want to ask you this question and it may sound like a strange question. Have you ever considered that the very thing that you've been praying for may be the reason that causes you to be blind toward who Christ is? Let me say it again. Maybe the very content of your prayer, the longing of your heart, is the very reason why you have not been able to have an intimate relationship with God or maybe feel distant.

If you, again, you don't need to turn your Bibles there, but as we've been studying through the book of Isaiah, God sends Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, and Hosea and different prophets to warn the nation of Israel that judgment is coming upon them. And the judgment that's coming upon the nation of Israel at the particular time wasn't because they were busy worshiping idols.

In fact, they were very busy at the temple. They're financially, politically more stable than they were in the previous years, at least in the southern kingdom. And they were very busy at the temple offering many sacrifices. And yet God says that these sacrifices were meaningless. He says in Isaiah 58, "Cry aloud, do not hold back, lift up your voice like a trumpet, declare to my people their transgression, to the house of Jacob their sins." And again, he's telling Isaiah to say this on my behalf to the nation of Israel.

"They seek me daily and delight to know my ways as if they were a nation that did righteousness and did not forsake the judgment of their God. They ask me righteous judgment. They delight to draw near to God. Why have we fasted and you see it not? Why have we humbled ourselves and you take no knowledge of it?" In other words, we've been praying and fasting and coming to the temple, but they're frustrated because God's not answering.

"Behold, in the day of your fast, you seek your own pleasure and oppress all your workers. Behold, you fast only a quarrel and to fight and to hit with a wicked feast. Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high." And that pretty much summarizes the judgment that was coming upon the nation of Israel.

They were very busy at the temple. They're making many sacrifices and fasting even. But God says to the nation of Israel, "Your fast is only for your own gain. You're not seeking me. You're not seeking my glory. All of the content of your prayer has nothing to do with me." So therefore, he says, judgment is coming.

In fact, God says again, it's much stronger than that in other passages where he actually even says, "I detest it. I detest your gathering. I detest your singing. It has nothing to do with me." Now why I say this this morning is because when we think about Palm Sunday, Palm Sunday is a day where Jesus, after three years of ministry, makes a triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

And he's making an emphatic statement because for the last three years of his public ministry, there has been this question lingering over him. Is he the Messiah? Now, at the beginning of his ministry, he wouldn't say it clearly. You know, he would just kind of give him hints and this is what it is and he would perform miracles.

And then as he is getting closer and closer to the cross, he makes it absolutely crystal clear. "I am." He says to the Samaritan woman, he says again, over and over again, "I am." And then now, as he has revealed himself clearly to the disciples, he said to them three separate times that he's going to be crucified, he's going to be resurrected on the third day.

He tells them to go find this donkey that he's going to ride on into Jerusalem. Now anybody who's been paying attention to scripture at that particular time would have clearly known that this was a sign of the coming of the Messiah. Zechariah 9.9, 550 years prior to Jesus entering into Jerusalem, has declared, "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." It was a clear sign. It was a public declaration, an exclamation mark that in case anybody was wondering who he was, Jesus was going to ride on this donkey after he performs probably the greatest miracle of his three years of ministry, raising Lazarus from the dead.

So people have come all over, anybody who had any kind of question that maybe he isn't the Messiah, maybe just we're misinterpreting, he says it emphatically, "I am He." And as he is riding on the donkey, in the book of John, he said people were greeting him with palm branches.

The reason why they were greeting him with palm branches was because palm branch represented victory, that all that is good. It was a kind of way to celebrate. Typically at that time when an army would go out to war and they came back in victory, it was their way of having a parade.

And so strange thing is, typically that kind of celebration was reserved for a military conquest. But this was for an individual. The significance of the palm branch wasn't started when Jesus came into Jerusalem. In fact, it was all over Israel's history. Solomon himself, when he built the temple, had the image of the palm branches all over the temple, inside the wall, outside the wall.

It was actually even printed upon the coins that they used. Because again, it represented prosperity, it represented victory. And then in Revelation chapter 7 and 9, it actually tells us that at the end times, when people are gathered together to worship God, that they are waving their palm branches because of the final victory that we're going to have in Christ.

But something strange is happening. Even though it was a fulfillment of a prophecy, and we say it's either Palm Sunday or triumphal entry of Jesus. But typically when a king or a leader or general would walk in after conquest, they would ride on a horse, right? And understandably because they're in battle, they're about to fight or they just finished it.

But he's riding on a donkey. Typically they would ride on a donkey to signify that we're in peace, that there is no war going on. So anybody who was paying attention would have seen that as a, well, Jesus is coming in. We call it a triumphal entry. And we think that he's going to come and maybe overthrow the Roman government, and yet he's riding on a donkey.

In fact, there's something else that's not mentioned here that is very significant. In Luke chapter 19, 41 through 44, it says, "When Jesus drew near and saw the city in Jerusalem as he is riding on a donkey," it says, "he wept over it." He wept. Now this is in the context of a lot of commentaries believe that there are probably maybe over a million people, right?

Now again, we live near Los Angeles and New York and these big cities. We fly to Beijing and these cities, like one million is a drop in the bucket. But at that particular time, a million people was probably the largest crowd that they may have ever seen in their life.

And so typically during the Passover week, there would have been hundreds of thousands of people in Jerusalem anyway. But remember there's three years of murmuring going on all through that region, telling their friends and families that maybe this is the Messiah. This is the guy that our great, great, great, great grandparents have been telling us and passing down.

Every time that we had a Passover meal, we were told that the One is coming. And maybe if they paid attention more closely, they would have known that God promised that the seed of the woman is coming. Maybe it's Him. So you can imagine, you can imagine the kind of crowd that was gathered and was waving these palm branches.

It wasn't just passive, you know. There wasn't this kind of like, "Ah, we've got to put in our time like the previous years. Oh, we've got to make this what good Jews do." There probably was a kind of excitement that they've never seen before, right? It's in the context of this celebration, this parade, that it says in the midst of this, Jesus was weeping.

It doesn't tell us what the disciples saw. It doesn't tell us how they responded. It doesn't, because it's a very strange scene. It's like having a birthday party and the birthday boy is sitting there weeping in the corner and nobody notices. We're all just cutting cake and celebrating, high-fiving, watching TV, and we have no idea.

There's no mention of it. It's extremely significant because there's only two places in the New Testament, in the account of Jesus, where it says Jesus wept. First time that happens is in John chapter 11, 35, where his disciples and his family friends and Lazarus, Mary, and Martha is begging him to come because Lazarus is about to die and Jesus deliberately takes his time, waiting for him to pass away.

So by the time he comes, Lazarus has already been dead for three days. Martha and Mary come weeping and he goes to the tomb and all these people are weeping. And it says, the shortest verse in the Bible, John 11, 35, that Jesus wept. That's the first time we hear where Jesus was weeping.

You know what's interesting about that word though, is those of you who are with us when we're studying through John, that that word here described for Jesus as weeping, even though in our English Bible it's translated weeping, the word for weeping in the Greek, it's two different words. The word that was used to describe the crowd and Mary and Martha weeping is a different word than the word that is described for Jesus weeping in front of the temple.

The word that is described for the crowds was an outcry of emotion, which we would expect. A younger brother, you know, who passed away before his time and everybody is mourning over this, crying out loud, uncontrollable, weeping. That's the word used for the crowd. But the word that is used for Jesus is a silent tear, you know, a man tear.

I think that's the best way to describe it, where it's just kind of, you just don't notice it, he just kind of sat in it. That's the word that is used. So when the scripture says he wept, that's again, not the most accurate term. But when we come to Jesus walking into Jerusalem, the word that is used to say that Jesus wept was that actual word, but uncontrollable outburst of emotion of weeping.

It wasn't a silent tear. It was in the midst of this huge parade. Jesus was actually weeping over Jerusalem. That's strange. Why was he weeping? When everybody was celebrating him, they were citing a psalm, "Save us, Hosanna, Hosanna, we pray. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

We bless you from the house of the Lord." They were praising him and worshiping him. And yet Jesus was not simply crying. He wasn't just sad. He was weeping. What caused him to weep? And that's an important question that we need to answer this morning. Because again, there's only two instances.

In the second instance where he's actually weeping, like he's so overwhelmed by his emotions. It says in verse 42, Luke chapter 19, saying, "If you have only known on this day, the thing that would make for peace." In other words, if you only knew why I came. In other words, they were looking for shalom, which is the Hebrew word for peace.

And they completely missed it. Even though they were celebrating him, even though they were praising him, even though they were worshiping him. And they traveled miles, days probably, many of them, to come just to witness him. He said all of that may have been for nothing because they completely missed who he was.

And as a result of that, he says, "For the days will come upon you when your enemies will set up a barricade around you, surround you, and hem you in on every side, and tear you down to the ground, and you and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation." That you're in a context of celebrating, worshiping, crying out, and yet you completely missed who I am.

See, he says, "If you only knew what would truly bring peace, you would know why I came." Now, that's at the center of why Jesus was weeping. And that's at the center of him coming into Jerusalem. If you missed this, you missed Christianity. You missed Christ. You can come to church all your life and be celebrating and worshiping and praying and fasting.

And at the end of it, Jesus could say, "I never knew you." I think that's the greatest tragedy of Christianity, especially in North America, because we are bombarded. The name of God is written on our money. It's in the Constitution. We have freedom like no other country in the world.

We have a problem when we can't say, "Merry Christmas," because we had all kinds of freedom for so many years. And in the midst of all of this freedom, all this access to Scripture, all this access to sermons and seminars and education and fellowship and church, that at the end of it, he says, "Why do you keep coming to me?

Your fasting has nothing to do with me." See, Palm Sunday, even though it wasn't an official rejection of Christ, as far as he saw it, he was being rejected. Even as they were praising him, he knew that at the end of this, they would reject him. What does he mean that they missed the peace?

We need to understand, if that's at the core of why he was weeping, what was it that they missed? Well, when we say peace in the English, you know, we think of state of tranquility. You know, maybe your life is hectic and you need to meditate and go into the woods and do some yoga or whatever, you know what I mean, to get you centered.

Or freedom from civil disturbance. We're not, at least not in our immediate area. There's no riots, there's no war that we're actively engaged in. You're not being recruited to the army. I mean, there's stuff going on outside the country. We think of peace that way. Or maybe harmony in relationship.

Maybe you've had some problems with people and you're sitting down to make peace with one another. And typically, all of these things, the meaning behind it is included in this meaning. But the word shalom that the Jews use, which is the translated peace in the New Testament, has a much deeper meaning than that.

It was at the core of their culture. Some of you who may have lived in Hawaii or visited Hawaii or have family members in Hawaii, you know what this is, right? Hang loose, right? Hang loose, or you know. It's a very kickback culture in Hawaii. So in Hawaii, there's a, you know, this is their greeting for everything.

It's a mahalo, right? They say mahalo when they see you. They say mahalo when they say bye. Mahalo means like, you know, peace. Mahalo means pretty much mahalo for everything, right? Mahalo for the surfers, mahalo for the governors. It's just mahalo. This signifies like kick back, relax, right? That's at the core of the culture in Hawaii.

Well, at the core of the Jewish culture was shalom. They said shalom when they left. They said shalom when they greeted one another. Shalom was at the center of everything that they did. In fact, in the Jewish Talmud, which was basically a commentary of the Old Testament, it's a Jewish commentary of the Old Testament.

This is what's stated in one of their pages. All that is written in the Torah was written for the sake of shalom. Okay, let me say that again. All that is written in the Torah, and Torah basically is the law that they were trying to abide by, Old Testament, was written for the sake of shalom.

Now, this is not written by a Christian. This is written by Jewish scholars who are interpreting the Old Testament, and they recognize that the core of everything that God was doing was shalom. So we need to understand, if it's this significant, when Jesus said, "I'm weeping because judgment is coming because you missed, if you only knew what would bring shalom, this judgment would not be coming to you." The meaning behind this word is, again, extremely important.

So if you're clicked off right now, click back on. This part is extremely important. This is one of those sections that I would tell you that if you missed it, go back. Go back and listen to the sermon online. Ask somebody because it's at the root, at the core of what Christianity really is about.

So when Jesus is talking about, "Oh, only if you knew that, you know, what is going to bring peace between you and the Romans, or what's going to bring peace between your husband and wife," He's talking about the essence of everything that God's been doing in human history is represented in this shalom.

So what does He mean? Well, the root word where we get the word shalom in Hebrew is shalayim. And the word shalayim means completion, to be whole. So the idea of shalom means to be whole, to be made perfect, to be restored to what God originally intended. So when they said shalom, they weren't simply talking about, "Hey, you know, have peace.

Don't be stressed out. Hey, relax, mahalo." Right? When they said shalom, shalom basically meant everything that was lost in the fall may be restored. At least that's the way we understand it. See, again, this idea of shalom is so deeply rooted into the scripture. And if you don't pay very close attention to it, you might miss it.

If shalom means to be complete, to be made whole, remember when God created the earth and mankind in six days, He was complete. And then after He was done, He went, entered into what? Sabbath, right? Shabbat. So when He entered into Sabbath, did He enter into the Sabbath because He needed to rest?

Now the word itself means rest. Was God exhausted? He needed to take a break? Like you and I need to take a break. We need at least Saturday, Sunday, maybe partially Monday or whatever, right? To get back and ready. Is that what God was doing? Let's take a break.

Six days, a long time, right? No, obviously not. He is immutable. Every quality that He has does not change, does not wither, right? So when He entered the Sabbath, He's not simply talking about, "Okay, take a break, and I'm going to give you an example of what it means to take a break." The idea, or the biblical idea of Shabbat is that everything is complete and now you are in this permanent rest.

So remember, what was Jesus' last words as He was being crucified and He gave up His last breath? What was it that He said? It is finished. It is finished. See, when God created the creation after six days, what did He say? He said, "It is good. It is good.

It is good. It is good." He said, "Look, that man is not good." And then He created Eve. He said, "Now it is good." And then He created the Son of God. What was that? He says, "It is finished." So the idea of Shabbat, Sabbath, is to enter into completion.

Wholeness, what God intended in creation. And so it was at the fall that the Shabbat was broken. That this rest was broken. What God intended, this completeness, was broken. So ever since then, mankind has been looking for this shalom, to be made whole again. So to a Jew, to say shalom is, whatever has been broken in your life, when God comes and He blesses you, you will be restored.

What's interesting is in the New Testament, we have an equivalent word to this word shalom. And we would think, oh, it's the word grace, or it's the word peace. Actually, 1 Corinthians 13.10, there's a passage that says, "When the perfect comes, the imperfect shall pass away." Now some people translate that verse as, "The perfect is the Bible." So once the Bible came, all the prophecies and speaking in tongues, all that would disappear.

But actually, the word that is used for complete in that word, in that text, is teleos. Now remember, I did a whole paper when I was in seminary on just that word, because of the importance of that word. The word, and most scholars will agree, is talking about an intended purpose carrying it, being carried out to its fullest intent.

So some people will say, "That's Jesus. That we see Him partially, but then when He comes, we will see the complete version of Him." Or, many people will translate that as, "The completion of salvation for us." That He started a good work in us, we'll carry it on to completion, teleos, when He comes.

Whatever way you translate that word, the word basically means to bring us into wholeness, to completeness. What was lost in creation. So all of what we know about God's creation, all of what we know about the fall, all of what we know about God sending His only begotten Son, and salvation and sanctification, second coming and restoration, and heaven, all of that is symbolized in this word, shalom.

All of what we know about Christianity, about Jesus, is about shalom. In fact, this shalom is so important, in Isaiah 54 verse 10, the covenant that God makes with His people is called the covenant of shalom. In Judges chapter 6, 24, the Lord is called the Lord our shalom.

In 1 Thessalonians 5, 23, in the New Testament, God is introduced to us as the God of shalom. The preaching of the gospel is described as preaching shalom, peace, to those who are far and to those who are near. In Romans chapter 5, 1, describes salvation as having shalom with God.

And then finally, ultimately, in Isaiah chapter 9 verse 6, a prophecy of the coming Messiah, and He is called the Prince of Shalom. So how important is this shalom? It's everything. Everything. If you miss shalom, you missed everything. So Jesus wasn't simply saying, I'm coming in and you just, you know, you don't fully get me, right?

A lot of times in husband and wives or, you know, marriage counseling, we get that, we talk about that, you don't fully understand. Like you understand some stuff, but there's some things that you don't understand. What Jesus was saying, basically, that you don't understand a part of me, you don't understand at all.

These people were praying to Him, they were crying out to Him, they were worshiping Him, they were shaking palm branches of celebration of Him coming into Jerusalem. And yet, Jesus is saying, you have no idea who I am. And that's why He was weeping. It says in John chapter 6, 15, that the multitudes who tasted the heavenly bread, the miracle of feeding the 5,000.

After they tasted His bread and it was eyewitnesses of this miracle, there was a stir, let's make Him our King. And it says in John chapter 6, 15, they were trying to get Him and forcefully make Him His King, make Him their King. So Jesus knowing this, He deliberately takes His disciples and sends them across to see a reality, I'll meet you on the other side.

And so Jesus basically breaks away from them. These people wake up in the morning, find out that Jesus is not there, so all of them, within thousands of them, pack up their bags and they go look for Him on the other side. They finally find Him and they say, Jesus, when did you come here?

Jesus seeing right through, right through their motive, and He says, you're not coming after me because you saw signs and you know who I am. You're coming after me because you ate and you want more. It's in that conversation where Jesus tells them, because He knew their hardened heart, they up to that point, they loved Him.

Up to that point, they wanted Him to be King. Who wouldn't want Jesus as King? I mean, right now we're in election season and these politicians are making all kinds of promises that if you just elect them, they're going to bring peace, they're going to bring financial prosperity. I mean, if they do 1% of what we do, we would be in a much better situation, at least what they're promising.

But Jesus actually healed people. He fed people who were hungry. Lepers who were shunned from society were able to go and have a normal life when He was around. Even in the midst of storms where death was imminent, Jesus just wakes up and says, be quiet and it calms the storm.

They couldn't even trap Him. All these legal stuff that they were wrestling with, Jesus says one thing, right? And His figure, give to Caesar what's Caesar and give to God what is God, boom, answered. His teaching was different. He was speaking with authority. When these scribes and Pharisees were teaching, they were saying good things, but they were so hypocritical.

And yet Jesus speaks with authority. Who wouldn't want Him as King? If you're sick, He heals you. If you're hurt, He comes and draws near to you. If you're hungry, He feeds you. If you're dejected, He will come and save you. I mean, why are we following Christ? What is our motive?

What drew you to Him? What is the content of your prayer? See those people missed Him because Jesus saw right through it and is like, you know, because He knew the moment you don't get fed, you're going to turn from me. The Pharisees, they prayed every Tuesday, every Thursday, they fasted, they sacrificed money, they came to the temple, they tried to obey the law and they prayed.

They probably prayed more than we prayed, much more than we prayed, but they clung to God and they prayed and prayed and prayed that if they obeyed the law well enough, that somehow shalom is going to come. And when Jesus came and said that was not the way you need to be born again, they couldn't understand that.

When He completely shunned their system, He said, He can't be the one. So they rejected Him. The Sadducees, the political leaders, the senators of Israel, they've given up on prayer a long time ago. We've tried that and it didn't work. And they decided that by their money, with their power, with influence, that somehow they're going to manipulate and get the nation to get the favor of the Romans.

And so they had all this plan and Jesus comes in and He shuns all of that. He starts saying things that are offensive to people. He said, we've got to get rid of this guy. This guy is going to ruin what we've been building all these years. If we worked hard enough, if we were smart enough, if we're clever enough, if we have enough influence enough, that we would get Shalom.

And so they missed Him. They had the zealots. He had zealots even among His disciples. These zealots were the kind of guys who were walking around with a knife ready to go at any time. Imagine how excited they must have been when Jesus was entering into Jerusalem. You know, up to now they probably have different commanders and maybe they were caught and they were crucified and they just couldn't muster up enough strength.

And then here comes Jesus who can calm storms, feed thousands just by His will. If He was our commander, for sure, if we had any chance of overthrowing the Roman government, it would have been Jesus. And yet when Jesus comes and He gives Himself up to the Romans, they're watching Him from a distance.

Wait a second. This doesn't make any sense. Because they thought that if they were powerful enough, if they willed themselves enough, if they trained themselves, if they had the backing of enough power, that they would be able to find Shalom. And they missed Him. But it wasn't just these disciples from a distance.

These lepers. Remember these lepers? You know, these ten lepers that, imagine what they were praying for. We don't even have to imagine, right? If you asked a leper, what was your primary desire in your heart? It would be cleanse of leprosy. I mean, we don't even have to guess.

Because leprosy ruins someone's life. Immediately, if there was any trace of leprosy, you would be shunned from your very home. In your mother and father's home, you would be shunned. You'd have to live outside the city. Not only did you have to live outside with other lepers, every time you made any contact with any other Jew, you had to cry out, "Unclean!

Unclean!" And if he got any close, by the law, they could stone him for not obeying that command. So imagine, someone who had leprosy, what his prayers were. He probably prayed day and night. Not only him, his mother, father, anybody who loved him, would pray day and night for cleansing.

And yet, when Jesus cleansed them, they thought they had their shalom. They thought they had their shalom, and nine of them returned. And they go back, they completely forget, because we got it! We got what we wanted! And only one Samaritan comes back and recognizes, recognizes that that wasn't the shalom.

And they come back to thank him. Even the disciples, even as Jesus clearly spells out that he's going to the cross and die, they couldn't help but thinking, "Well, once that happens, who's going to be glorified? Who's going to sit on the left or to the right? Who is the greatest among us?" And even they didn't get it.

They thought if they stayed near to his power, that somehow they were going to get his shalom. And so when Jesus was humiliated and humbled and beaten and crucified, they watched him from a distance because they just didn't get it. How can he give us shalom on the cross?

How can he give us shalom if he dies? What was it? And they're in utter confusion, and they scatter. See, Jesus sees all of it. He sees all of it. Even though they're praising him, even though they're waving palm branches, they're crying out, and even in their fasting, and their many sacrifices, they didn't really understand.

In John 1, 5, it says, "The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it." See, Palm Sunday is about rejection of Christ. Yes, there's celebration. This is the parade. It is a triumphal entry. You know, years ago, I was trying to help a guy that I met on the street.

We became good friends. He was a drug addict, and I just thought that if I spent enough time with him and got him out of the street and put him in a hotel, that somehow he's going to be able to get out of ... Because he was a great guy, and I know there's few people in this room that was there when we were doing this.

It was frustrating because we would check him into a hotel, and then he'd be good for a while, for 10 days, and then he'd disappear, and then he'd come back and weeping because he somehow found crack, and he was gone for a week. Then, we moved him further away from Santa Ana, so maybe we thought if we take him farther and farther away from Santa Ana, he's not going to have access to cocaine.

Then, he'll be doing good for a while, and then after a while, he'd disappear. I remember the church guys bought him brand new basketball shoes, expensive shoes because we became good friends. We played basketball after church, and then he disappeared, and he would show up barefoot, weeping. I was disappointed in him, but at the same time, I was just like, "What do we do?

I'm trying everything." We made a decision, "Okay, maybe if he'd live with us, and I can watch him and be with him, that somehow that's going to help him." Well, he was doing fine for a while, got a job, good paying job because he was a machinist, and then two, three weeks passes, and the next thing I know, he disappears again.

The bike that we got him to travel back and forth, he sold that and then got crack. In the end, I was so frustrated, it's like, "This is beyond me." He genuinely wanted to change. Again, he was not the first guy. It was about the second or third guy that was trying to help with that, and every single one, humanly speaking, was a failure.

At the end of that, it's like, "Man, I have no idea what to do." I just remember thinking at that time, "Unless the Lord sets you free, it's just bandage. It's dealing with symptoms. Symptoms. If you're hungry, you feed them. Just a symptom. It's just like somebody has cancer, and you're just dealing with the symptoms, but there's no cure for cancer." See, what Jesus came to do was not to patch.

And yes, the lepers got healed, but eventually, they died. Yes, the lame started walking, and eventually, they died. The hungry were fed, and eventually, they died. And all the hopes and the prayers, sometimes, that we offer up to God are just consequences of our sin. And we're asking God to deal with the symptoms of these things, not recognizing what it is that we are in desperate need of.

That's why Jesus was weeping. Because the very core of the things that we pray for is what causes us to be blind. Is He the God of the Bible? Is He the God that I've created and longing for in my heart? On Friday, I lost my wallet. And I looked everywhere.

And obviously, anybody who's ever lost a wallet, you know exactly how that feels. And especially for me, because I'm going out of town in a couple weeks, and I was thinking like, "I need my driver's license." You know, and like, "Am I going to be able to get through security?

Is the passport?" And I was thinking, "You know, you're not going to get a duplicate driver's license in a week and a half." So I was like, "Oh my gosh, I'm in big trouble." And so, as soon as I came home, I canceled all my credit cards, about four or five of them, my wallet, my debit card, canceled all of that.

You know, I had two checks in my wallet, so I sent an email to Joe and Kevin and said, "Hey, those two checks, you know, I didn't clear yet. You know, can you cancel that?" And I sent that. And I was thinking, I had a Costco gift card in there, and I don't know how much is in there.

So, okay, that's lost. Okay, there's no way I can replace that. And I had a Costco rebate check that I didn't, you know, I didn't clear yet. So I was like, "Okay, that's lost. They're not going to give me another one." And then I had some cash in there.

Okay. And then I was thinking, "Okay, so that's lost." I was going through all of this and going back into my car and looking for it. And so I stayed up late dealing with all that and went to sleep. And then, so nobody at home knew, you know, I came home late, so they were all sleeping.

Nobody knew that I lost my wallet. I woke up early, went to the leaders meeting. And then, you know, me and Jeremy, my oldest son, had to switch cars. So I took his car and went to the leaders meeting. And then Jeremy took my car, and he's out of town now, you know.

And but on the way out, he calls me around 8.30 or 9 o'clock. And he doesn't even know that I lost my wallet. He called me and he said, "Hey, Dad, you left your wallet in the car. What do you want me to do with it?" So I'm, you know, all this stuff is going through my mind.

I'm thinking, "Did you steal my wallet and then put it back?" Because I looked everywhere. You know, I was frantic looking for that. Checked all the side pockets and all this. To this day, I don't know how he found it, you know, because he went out of town. So when he comes back, I'm going to ask him.

He's probably going to say, "It was right there," you know. It must have been because he didn't even look for it. I didn't ask for it. He, all he did was, he sat in the car and he was about to drive away. He said, "Oh, I see Dad's wallet," right?

Because he didn't know I lost it, right? So even now I'm thinking, like, "Where could it have been? I went to the, you know, and I said this to the first service, and people started coming up to me, "Did you check underneath the seat?" No, I checked everywhere but that.

That's what happened, okay? How about the side? No, I didn't check that either, all right? Glove compartment? They're not here, so I can rip on them, all right? In my mind, I checked everywhere. I checked everywhere. So I'm curious where it was. When he comes, I'm going to ask him, right?

Obviously, it was in plain sight because he didn't dig anywhere. So the only thing I could think of is maybe I dropped it and it was behind, maybe I was sitting on it, I didn't feel it. But I got out of the car and I looked. Maybe it was too dark.

You know, my wallet is dark tone, so maybe it just kind of blended. So I'm thinking all this stuff, but wherever it was, all he did was open the door and looked in and there was my wallet, right? Other than the fact that I'm not good at looking, which is, Esther always tells me that, right?

It's like, "Oh, I can't find it." She walks into the garage, comes back, "It's right here. It's right here." So it could be one of those situations. But this is in a tiny little space. Where could it have gone? And all of a sudden, it popped back out, right?

It's a mystery. I'll find out when he comes home. Sometimes we get so accustomed to doing certain things, so accustomed to that, and we become blind to certain things. You know what I mean? Like, you come to church and you hear sermons in small groups and cleaning and Bible studies, and we become so accustomed to that.

Sometimes we see what's obvious, but there are certain things that ... So a lot of times, somebody comes outside from the church and they immediately see, "Oh, this church is like this," or, "Oh, it's this and that," and then say, "Oh, that's good," because they're coming and they see a different perspective, right?

The reason why things like Passion Week is important to us is because sometimes we can get caught up in routine, just like the Jews. They had all this stuff that they were doing wrong and God was not pleased with, and all they thought was, "Well, if we keep giving sacrifices, God's going to be pleased.

Why wouldn't He be pleased?" And it wasn't until God sends Isaiah and says, "No. You have no idea where you stand with me." So it's important for us to take time, especially when it's not just us, it's not just locally. All over the world, Christians are going to take this week to meditate and think upon who He is and what He has done so that when we get to Sunday, that we're actually celebrating.

It's not just, "Ah, Easter." Our church has been around almost 20 years. It's a lot of things that, especially those of you who have been around for a while, it's just everything has become routine. Nothing is new. Every story has been told 10 times. You know what I mean?

Every funny joke is not funny anymore, right? And it's just, it's become so routine that we become blind to the things that are amazing. Amazing. And it's important for us to take time to re-examine, take a deeper look at the things that we celebrate every single week so that we're not just coming and going like we've always done.

That every celebration is a true celebration. So again, as we start off this Passion Week, I want to encourage you guys to take time, not to simply go through the same routines that you've been going through. Even if you can't join us physically, to take some time to think and meditate deeply.

Who is this God that I worship? Who am I? Why did I need saving? Why did it have to be that way? Am I missing shalom? Do I truly know this shalom? And take some time this week to really walk through Christ that again, when we come to celebrate that we'll be impacted as this day ought to.

Would you take some time to pray with me as I invite the praise team to come up? Can take some time to pray as we discussed this morning about this shalom, this peace with God. Is there a rest? Is there a complete? Do I find my completion in Christ and what He has done?

Or am I looking for shalom in all these other places?