The Church of Eleven22 - Palm Sunday

Episode Date: March 28, 2021

Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. - Hebrews 12:3

Amen. Amen. What an incredible story. What an incredible testimony. Every week, weekend and week out, we get to sit here and hear these stories of life change and of God's faithfulness and of God's goodness. And it's always so encouraging. And hopefully we never get over it. God is good, as Bruce said.

And it's an exciting time to be a part of the movement of 1122. As we kick off Holy Week today and we head toward Easter. Hopefully you are ready. And anticipation is in your heart as you've been praying. fasting with us through the Lent season and you are excited to celebrate next weekend the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. It is the cornerstone of our faith. And so hopefully you've already picked your service time and you know who you're going to invite and bring with you to attend our Easter services. It's not just Easter we're excited about, but today is a very special day

in the life of the movement because today is the first day of our St. John's campus. It is officially launched. Amen. Amen. If you're joining us as a part of our St. John's family, we say welcome. We're so excited about what God's doing in the St. John's part of the neighborhood and that he's called us there and we've been praying and we've been practicing generosity and we've been serving waiting on God to make a way for us to be in the St. John's part of town and here we are at Creekside High School and so we're so glad to be there and we're so excited to see what God's doing. This is not the finish line when campus is launch. It's not like we're there. This is just the starting line and I know that with this movement God is not done yet. He is actually just getting

started. So it's exciting to see what God's going to be doing in and through our church. If you have your Bibles today, go to Matthew chapter 21. That's where we're going to be spending our time is in Matthew chapter 21. And if you've been around Bible study at all, and you know about Jesus and his teachings, one of the things that's true about Jesus is that he was always, and is always a really good question asker. He asked really good questions and one of the most pointed and purposeful questions that Jesus ever asked in his life and ministry, he asked to his really close friends, to the people who had been around him. And he looked at him and he asked him this question, who do you say that I am? And this question for us today is still the most important

question ever to be asked. The way we answer the question, who is Jesus Christ of Nazareth, has every implication in our life and has implications on our eternal trajectory. It is a really, really important question. Who do you say that I am? Now, when Jesus asked this, he didn't ask it of his opponents. He didn't ask it of his enemies or people that were just kind of hanging around and passing by. He asked it of people who had been very close to him. His friends, and in context, the implication is this. The implication is that it is possible to be around Jesus' teachings. That it is possible to be around. miracles of life change as done by Jesus.

It is possible to be around Jesus' people and still somehow completely missed the thing that Jesus is really all about. We're going to dig into this today through the lens of Palm Sunday when Jesus entered into Jerusalem. We just finished the Song of Solomon series as a church and it was awesome. Amen?

Amen. Amen. Praise God for the Song of Solomon series. Praise God for the Word that he gave Pastor Jobi and the relationships that are being restored, the health that was breathed into relationships. God is so good that he put a book in the Bible that is dedicated to our love lives and to our relationships. And one of the things that we heard through the Song of Solomon was that oftentimes conflict in relationship comes because of miscommunication and missed expectations. That the majority of interpersonal conflict arises because of miscommunication or missed expectations.

Song of Solomon has been awesome for me in my marriage, and I know that that truth has played out in my marriage. I can't count how many times you go back to the early days of us being married. My wife would ask me simple questions like, hey, babe, can you come and help? And I would respond with what I do now. Right? Or she would say, hey, can you come help me with this thing? And I'd be like, what didn't I do that I was supposed to? She's asking a simple question.

But in between her question and my response is layers of insecurity. and fear, it's layers of filters of arrogance and ego and self-defenseiveness. Isn't it amazing sometimes the gap between what is said and what is heard? The gap between what is meant and what is experienced. I mean, think about it in the context of parenting. I tell my kids, hey, I need you to go clean your room. And five minutes later, I go to their room and they're either on their tablet or in my situation, they have somehow decided that it's the best time to change all of their dolls' clothes. And I'm like, what happened? What words did you hear when I said clean your room? What were the words that you heard come out of my mouth? Because we're obviously

missing each other somewhere. History and personality and culture plays into this. Hey, look, I grew up in the South. I grew up about an hour north of Atlanta in a rural farm town. Now, I am the most city farm boy you have ever met in your entire life. I can't build anything. I can't grow anything. I can't fix anything. I do know a cow when I see one. But other than that, I got nothing. But I grew up in a rural farm town. I know southern culture. I know sweet tea. I know R.C. Cola, moon pies, and I know Mountain Dew. Right? My friends, when I was growing up, they would put Mountain Dew in their cereal. It was just a staple. It's just a part of life. Right? And if you're familiar with Southern culture, we speak 50% common English. And we

speak 50% Southern, which means we just make stuff up. It doesn't make any sense to anybody else. For example, phrases or words, a phrase like, Warren slap out, you ever heard that one? How you doing, Warren slap out? I know exactly what you mean, but if you're not from here, you're like, you want me to hit you in the face? Like, I don't understand. What about hold your horses? Like, hey, babe, it's time to go. You need to hold your horses. I don't have any animals. Like, I don't, what do you? What do you? My favorite, one of my favorites is, uh, is, uh, fixing to?

F-I-X-E-N, fixing. Hey, can you take the garbage out? I'm fixing too. Hey, guys, it's not a word. It's just not a word. And even if you put it in context and you spell it right, F-I-X-I-N-G, fixing and about their different words and they don't mean the same thing. We just make stuff up.

You ever heard, you ever heard twice? Have you been to that new restaurant? Well, we've done been there twice. Well, it's crazy as half of y'all are like, oh, I didn't know that wasn't. It was like, that's not the right way to say it. Best one I ever heard. Looked at a friend of mine.

He got a rich cracker with some summer sausage on it and a little colby jack cheese. He takes a bite of that thing. He takes a bite of it, and I say, that looks good. And he goes, that day are so good to make your tongue beat your brains out. Yeah, all right.

Now, if you've heard that before, you are from so deep in the south that it's hard to believe. If you're joining us online and you have never had a true Southern experience, we invite you to come. We invite you to come. If you've never experienced 95 degree heat with 110% humidity, come join us for vacation.

We have sand gnats that will carry you away. We have vampire mosquitoes that will physically abuse you and you're welcome. You are welcome. I'm familiar with Southern culture. The truth is we all have filters. We all have history. We all have preferences by nature and by nurture.

We have built a worldview. And this worldview is how we see the world. It's how information passes to and from. It's how we make decisions. And often, if we're not careful, we can let the dominant worldview or of the dominant culture we grew up in or the dominant culture we live in

begin to filter and to shade even the most important things in life like what the scriptures have to say. Oftentimes it's like we are interpreting the information of Scripture through what is like a foggy glass is the best way I can explain it, that we can see it and here it is truth, but when it comes to applying it and internalizing it, sometimes it begins to be a challenge. Now, the good news of this is that we stand with the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 1 when he says, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation for all who hear and believe. and here's what that means that the gospel has the power to save anybody from anything at any time, period.

It is the power of God unto salvation, and it can break through anything. It can break through addiction. It can break through generational abuse. It can break through generational sin. It can break down lies. It can break down dominant cultures. It even shines so bright that it can break through our own personal agendas and our own set of preferences. The gospel shines through.

It is the power of God unto salvation. So we're going to hold on to the gospel today as we go through this text. Palm Sunday is globally celebrated. Across the world, believers celebrate Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem. It's recorded in all four gospel accounts. Matthew Mark, Luke and John, today we're going to be in Matthew 21, starting in verse 1. And here's what it says. Now, when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Beth Page to the Mount of Olives,

and then Jesus sent two disciples saying to them, go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied and a cult with her, untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, the Lord needs them, and he will send them at once. This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet saying, say to the daughter of Zion, behold, your king is coming to you,

humble and mounted on a donkey on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden. The disciples went and did, as Jesus had directed them. They brought the donkey in the donkey, the colt and put on them their cloaks and he sat on them. Verse 8. Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, Hosanna to the son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,

Hosanna in the highest. And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up saying, Who is this? And the crowd said, this is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee. What we join with believers all over the world today to celebrate is God's faithfulness to his promises. We just read a messianic prophecy in the text as given by the prophet Zechariah hundreds of years before Jesus was ever born. And he gave us a very specific details around how Jesus would, enter into the city of Jerusalem when he rode in on this day. This is not the only Old Testament prophecy that Jesus fulfilled.

There's actually about 360 messianic prophecies, which means that anywhere from hundreds to thousands of years before Jesus came, God spoke words to prophets, and they wrote them down. They gave us very specific details around what the Messiah was going to be like, where he was going to be born, the family line he was going to be born into, the kind of priest that he would be. Very specific details like the kind of animal he would ride in this situation. When you get to his death, the prophet Isaiah, 5, 600 years before Jesus was born,

the prophet Isaiah gives us very specific details around things that were going to happen to Jesus on Calvary's cross. Words, specific words that Jesus is going to say, 360 plus times in the Old Testament, we are given evidence that the Messiah is coming and what he would do in Jesus, and Jesus the Christ fulfilled every one of the messianic prophecies. This is simply mind-numbing. And so what we celebrate on Palm Sunday is God's faithfulness to his promises. When he speaks a word, he will bring it to past.

And most importantly, we celebrate the fact that Jesus Christ is the yes and amen to all of God's promises. That all of God's promises are yes and amen in Christ, Jesus. As we get down on the street that day in Jerusalem, we see a couple of things at play. As Jesus enters the city, the crowds begin to cry out this word, Hosanna. And Hosanna means save us or Savior. It is a declaration of praise saying, save us. And then the Jews in the crowd that day, they use these really specific words. They say, blessed is the king of Israel, the son of David.

Or in other words, what they're saying, according to their agendas and their preferences and their worldview, what they're saying is, blessed is the one who has come to overthrow Pilate, Herod, and Caesar. You see, in a lot of ways, Palm Sunday is a curious case in missing the point. If you follow Jesus' teachings, you know that one of the things, the main thing that Jesus came to teach us about was the kingdom of God. And everywhere he went, he would teach people what the kingdom of God is like. His most coin phrases, repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. He would use parables to explain what the kingdom of God was like.

And so Jesus came not just to teach us about the kingdom, but to also show us what the true kingdom of God is really all about. And if it's not for God's grace, we can easily lay our definitions, lay our cultural preferences and lay our personal desires over Jesus's teaching and miss completely out on the purity and the beauty of the gospel and the kingdom of God. Make no mistake about it, that what we all want from deep down in our soul, from a deep place in our guts, what we want is the kingdom of God. It's what we want. King Solomon says that eternity has been stamped in the hearts of men and that from the inside out we are looking for something. something that can eternally satisfy. And what we want is total forgiveness. What we want is

absolute acceptance, unconditional love. We want joy unending. We want to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. We want to walk and to live in true freedom. What we are all looking for from the inside out is we are looking for the kingdom of God and what our heart wants is the king. and Jesus came to show us that he is the king and he has a different kingdom than this world has ever known. All the people on the street that day, the crowds as referenced in verse 8 and verse 9, here's what they thought. They thought that they wanted to see the kingdom of God.

And here's the key. What they actually wanted was the kingdom of themselves and they wanted God to give it to them. You see, in their mind, in Jerusalem that day, the Jewish crowd, according to their filters and preferences, what they wanted was the fully reestablished independent kingdom of Israel. And now Jesus, Hosanna, had come and he was their best chance to get their best version of their best preferred life right now. There are a few worldviews at play, a few divisions or groupings of people on the street that day, and I'm going to unpack two of them. The first one is

the Pharisees. The Pharisees, we hear a lot about them in the Bible. They were Jesus' chief opponent, they actually ended up stirring up the crowds seven days from now, and they actually leading the people to revolt against Jesus and lead to Jesus' crucifixion. But the Pharisees, ultimately, their worldview was that they were religious law-centered elitists. They held the high standards of purity externally. They were very, very hyper-focused on external behavior. They had incredibly specific details that they were very adherent to around Sabbath observance. Jesus would heal people or help people on the Sabbath and it would enrage the Pharisees. They were very, very focused on external behaviors, ritual cleanliness. They were men of

principle and they thought that if the Lord would send, that the Lord would send the Messiah, if they would just behave with more purity externally. They're the people at the party that will say things like, well, you know what the world needs. The world needs to, and they have a laundry list of all the behaviors that need to change. order for the world to be a better place. Listen, then and now. Do you know what the world needs church? It needs Jesus Christ. That's what it needs. It needs Jesus. It needs to be captivated by the grace of God as revealed through the person and work of Jesus Christ. Here's the thing. When Jesus grabs your heart, your habits will surely follow. Your habits will surely follow.

The Pharisees had missed the relationship part completely and they were very focused on the external realities and the spirit that was at work within the Pharisees. is still at work among professing believers today. We don't call it Phariseeism anymore. It's a different name now, and it's called legalism. It's called legalism. Legalism is ultimately rules minus relationship. It is an incredibly high standard that everybody bumps into.

It's an incredibly disappointing worldview. Legalism is being very, very focused and constantly disappointed that there's a standard that you can't live up to and nobody else can live up to either. The letter of the law, according to legalism, is acceptance based on behavior. If you do more good than bad, then you will be good to go.

You will be accepted. It is a focus on external realities. The letter is acceptance based on behavior, but the spirit of legalism is this. It is a failure to be amazed by God's grace. It is a failure to be amazed by God's grace. that he who knew no sin became sin on our behalf so that we might

become the righteousness of God. It is a failure to be amazed that we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus, not of works, lest any man should boast. The spirit of legalism is the failure to be amazed that I have been accepted by God freely

because of Jesus. Legalism is incredibly destructive and it has wrought a lot of damage over the years. Ultimately, what legalism produces is joyless, impatient, judgmental, angry, and condemning people. I believe that more damage has been done over the last hundred years in and around the church

by legalists than by abuse and addiction combined. But the good news and the power of the gospel is this, that Jesus can set us free from anything, including legalism, and even the most joy-robbing of bents that we might have. Jesus can set us free. In Luke chapter 5, verse 31, and 32, Jesus has this interaction with the Pharisees.

It says this, that the Pharisees gossiped. Pharisees loved to gossip. The Pharisees gossiped to his disciples. Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners? But Jesus overheard them and said, Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. What Jesus is not saying is that he's not saying he came only to see.

save people that seem to them need to be saved according to human standards. Jesus is saying that he came to save you and me. He came to save people who realized that they need saving. Jesus can set us free from legalism. Listen, church, behaving will never replace believing. Behaving will never replace believing and trying will never replace trusting. And so if you're here today and you're walking around with anger in a constant state of disillusionment. Your relationships, even your relationship to yourself is filled with angst. Just underneath the surface, you're on nine, man. You're just running hot all the time.

And you just can't help but to be angry. And you don't have any real relationships. You're barely known at all. And you don't really know anybody. And you live wracked in the state of fear and disappointment and constant disillusionment. I want to invite you today to the grace of Jesus. And I want to say, be free in his name today. Be free in Jesus' name today.

Do you know what you're mad about? Ultimately, if you peel away all the layers, what you're mad about is that you haven't and you don't live up to an impossible standard. And neither does anybody else. Be free in Jesus' name today because the grace of God agrees with you. You don't live up to an impossible standard.

And neither will anybody else. But the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that he lived up to the standard. He lived up to the standard and because he lived up to the standard, in our place, we can now stand firm in His grace. Be free today. If you're here today and you would say, Pastor, I've lost the joy of my salvation. I'm spiritually apathetic.

I'm lethargic. I feel like I've got 100 pounds on my, I just don't have any joy in my relationship with God. Then maybe today you would join with the psalmist and you would pray, restore to me, oh God, the joy of my salvation. My invitation to you this holy week is to fix your eyes on Jesus. Fix your eyes on Jesus. Look to him. Don't look externally at your situations. Look to Jesus through his scriptures.

And as you look to him and you read about him and you set your eyes on his face, your heart will be endeared to him and it will become enthralled by him. It's just what he does. So the Pharisees and the spirit of legalism, they missed it because they thought Jesus had come to set up everybody free from bad behavior, but they didn't realize that he had actually come to do a deeper work, a more permanent work. The second world view at play is the Sadducees and the Sadducees. A good way to remember it is that the Sadducees were very sad. You see, you're welcome. I promise you this, you will never unhear that. For the rest of your life, every time you hear the word sadducees,

you're going to be like, that guy. Ultimately, what the Sadducees had was an if you can't beat them, join them attitude. They had succumbed to the power of Rome, and they had decided that it was just better for them if they just played the political game. If they built relationships, and they tried to garner influence through relationships, and what they had done is they had taken some core tenets

of the Jewish faith, and they had blurred them with popular, pervasive culture in Rome, and the Roman Greek culture. And so they ultimately took kind of some anchors of a belief system and twisted and turned them in order to mesh with popular culture. And this is how they lived their life. It's actually called culturalism or syncretism. When you take a staple belief system and you begin to blur it into popular culture

in order to create a belief system that works for you. But it is an abandonment of what it originally started out to be. This culturalism or this syncretism, the game that the Sadducees were playing is that they were ultimately trying to arrive at a position. They believed that the Savior would come and restore them unto their first-class citizenship. They felt like they had a plight in life and that their status was not what they wanted it to be.

And Jesus that day, this prophet and teacher from Nazareth and this miracle worker, maybe he's the one that can restore us back to the position that we think is rightfully ours, ours. And so they put their preferences and their agendas on Jesus that, that. day, the culturalist spirit, the syncretism is still at work among professing believers today, is still at work, specifically in our country. So I want to take the next few minutes and I just

want to talk about this very subtle, very deceptive, very dangerous and joy-robbing worldview that is pervasive among people who would say they are professing believers in God and in Jesus. And so for today's purposes, we're going to call this world view Americanism. Americanism. Now, I said this on Thursday night, and about half the room leaned up, like they were ready to throw blows. So just take a breath, okay? Take a breath.

I'm not making a political statement. What I'm saying is that there are appetites of popular culture in America. There are desires that exist that are very pervasive and prominent in our culture, specifically the desires for comfort, for convenience, and for control. And these desires that are very profasive in our country, they have taken words from biblically faithful Christianity, and they have hijacked them and redefined them to mean something that they do not mean. In order for us to really get our head around Americanism,

I just want to take a minute and root us down in some gospel truth. And so if this is an Americanism worldview, let me over here, I'm just going to give us a gospel. centered worldview. And if you have your your church belt, I would highly recommend you buckle it, because we are about to get down for the getting down right here. Y'all ready? All right. So this is a gospel-centered worldview. We're going to root down in truth. Ultimately, the gospel is the story of God as revealed to us through the Bible. The Bible for the believer is our authority. And the Bible, We don't just trust it because it has been historically reliable and it's historically true and has proven itself time and time and time again.

We also trust it because it's trustworthy and that it has stood the test of time and that it shows us what God really is all about. And the Bible tells us ultimately the story of God and that God has eternally existed in three persons, father, son who has a name and his name is Jesus. and Holy Spirit. And that God, this Trinitarian, this God of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit has eternally existed in complete self-satisfaction forever and ever and ever. He did not begin when the beginning began. He began the beginning. He has always been, and he is completely satisfied in and of himself.

The Trinity's experience is one of lavishing glory and honor and praise and respect. Their practice, their relationship is mutual, voluntary submission where there is no pride, there is no ego, there is no contest. They are completely satisfied. Father, son, and spirit in and of himself, always and only and totally. He has need of nothing. The Bible tells us that God is love. He is love. And so if you are love and your experience eternally has been self-satisfaction, what is the most loving thing that you can do? The most loving thing that you can do is to share yourself. If you are complete contentment and joy,

the most loving thing you can do is to share yourself. And so God created man. God created man so that he could share himself with man and man could enjoy him in the same way that he has enjoyed himself for all of eternity. Now it did not take long for man to mess this whole thing up. Ultimately, man resisted God's protection and God's provision and God's rule and God's reign,

all of which God's heart was for man to flourish, man resisted flourishing under God's provision, and ultimately what they did was reject relationship with God. And this is known as sin. And what sin does is that sin ultimately separates us from God. The Bible calls this separation death. It says, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. And we're going to get to that. The wages of sin is death that we are separated from God.

Ultimately, what it means to experience eternal death, it means that you have been separated from the giver of life. But God in his goodness and his infinite compassion and his love and his intentionality, he did not leave us languishing separated from him, but instead he sent Jesus to come into this world to do what? To save us. To save us. He sent Jesus to be our Savior.

And Jesus lived the life that we could never live. He stood in the gap and he took the due penalty for sin on Calvary's cross, paying all of the price, ransoming back for God, God's people, so that through faith in Jesus, people could be restored back unto right relationship with God. Ultimately, what Jesus does is he saves us from the due penalty of sin, the separation from God, and he saves us for God's glory. And what this means to be saved for God's glory is ultimately that God has made us holy, which means he has set us apart when we place our faith in Jesus Christ as the full and final payment for sin.

And we see him as the son of God who he is and we surrender our lives under His lordship as the king of kings and the Lord of Lords. The spirit of God indwells us as a people. And for lack of a better terms, what it does is he marks us with glory. And these glory marks are being called or set apart for holy living. And quickly, there are a ton of distinctives to what it means to be holy. But I'm going to give you three very quickly. Number one, to be holy means that you have been given God's presence. You have been given God's presence.

Here's what that means you don't have to go anywhere to get God. You don't have to do anything to earn a right to be before God, that God has holy and fully given himself to you. And that we can boldly now approach his throne of grace. with confidence knowing that he is a good dad who wants good things for his kids and he welcomes us with open arms. He has given us his presence and his presence does a few things. It convicts us. It calls to us. It challenges us. It changes us. It leads us into truth. And ultimately what he's doing is making a way for us to step into the promises of God and the faithfulness of God in

our life day after day, week after week, year after year. We have God's presence, but not just just his presence. God also gave us his power. And maybe this is the word you need to hear today, believer. Maybe you need to be reminded that you were not given a spirit of fear. You were given a spirit of power and of love and a sound mind. Maybe you need to be reminded today that nothing in the world can separate you from the love of God that is yours in Christ Jesus. Maybe you need to be reminded today that you are more than a conqueror in and through Christ Jesus.

That he who is at work within you is greater than he who is at work within this world. That there is no weapon formed against you that shall, prosper in Jesus' name. You were given God's presence and you were given God's power. And finally, being set apart means that we have been given God's promise. God's promise. And it plays out here for God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him shall have eternal life. The promise of God is that we don't go through this life, nor will we ever taste in eternity. hopelessness. We have a hope, a future hope, a future grace that we have, because of Jesus Christ, we have been restored into right relationship with God and that we get to enjoy him forever

in the way that he created us to enjoy him. This is the gospel. Ooh, many words. Now, this is the anchor of our faith. It's the core tenets of what the The Bible tells us it's the story of God and his redemptive work on behalf of man to bring them back to himself. Americanism, this subtle, deceptive spirit that's at work, like I said earlier, what it has done is it has taken words from what is biblically faithful Christianity and has changed the meanings completely. And so Americanism peddles a version of God. The problem is it's just not the God of the Bible. You see, the God of the Bible created man in his image. image. Over here, what has happened is that man has created God in their image for their purposes.

And the Bible is not our authority, which means the Bible is God's spoken word. It means that God's not ultimately our authority. Here, over here, what our authority is are our feelings. It's the dominant feelings in popular culture. And ultimately, we're trying to, what Americanism peddles is that you can have all of these feelings. You're trying to remove negative emotion from our life and feelings are not good or bad in themselves they're just feelings however feelings are not god and they will only leave us feeling wanting and disappointed so in god they have man has created a god in their image and their ultimate authority is feelings nobody wants to be wrong nobody everybody can just do whatever they want to do the way they want to do it and ultimately this god is far more like a genie in a

bottle and he's not really all involved in the details of our life we just if we need something we call on him and we like the idea of having someone out there who is watching over us to give us a sense of security. It's just not a real God. It's certainly not the God of the Bible. Americanism will even peddle a version of sin, but it is far more of an external reality. It is a problem out there that we use as a convenient point of conscience in order to explain things that are just difficult to explain. Americanism will use this word sin, but what they mean is that there's a problem. problem over there. It will affirm that there is a problem out there somewhere and that somewhere

some people need to change. However, it denies the fact that the problem is in here. There is a problem in this world. The problem is just not my problem. Things need to change, just not me, because I'm okay. Americanism peddles a version of sin that's just not the real thing. A word you will never hear or rarely would hear in Americanism is the word repent. Repent. Ultimately, Jesus preached this message, repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. And if we do hear the word repent, and according to Americanism, it's like a harsh word or it's a condemning word and we kind of repulse against it and we push back and we receive it in a defensive spirit. When ultimately Jesus, when Jesus says repent for the kingdom of God is at hand, it's not a condemnation. It's not a

condemnation. It's an invitation. It's an invitation to a better kingdom. It's an invitation to be surrendered unto a better word in our life. It's an invitation to walk according to a better promise, to be submitted to a better authority. Repet for the kingdom of God as a hand is, return home son, return home, daughter. It is an invitation to walk in the fullness of God as God created you to do. In Americanism, there's no need to change kingdoms. You build your kingdom according to your standards, according to your desires. And so repent out. Americanism even peddles a version of Jesus. It's just not Jesus Christ of Nazareth. It's a made-up Jesus. It's a functional, it's a functional fictitious piece of imagination.

It's not the Jesus Christ of Nazareth has given witness through the apostles in the New Testament. He's a cheap date. He's a knockoff. He's a flu shot. He gives you just enough to inoculate to the real thing. This is not the Jesus Christ of the Bible. Ultimately, what this Jesus is he's a fanboy, just trying to get more Instagram followers, hoping that some people will pay attention to him. But that is not Jesus Christ. What Americanism ultimately rejects is the fact that Jesus Christ is the king of kings and the Lord of Lords. Why? Because we don't need a Lord. We got it. We don't need a Lord. We got it. Here's the deal. According to the Gospel Center worldview,

Jesus is the final word. He is the final authority. He is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. Right now, he is seated on the throne. That's who he is. That's where he is. Jesus gets to call the shots because on Calvary's Hill, he took all the shots.

And he came out the other side, having beaten death and hell, and now he is the king forever. Amen. Amen. And last but not least, when it comes to holy living, it has been watered down and traded for some temporary situational version of happy. And this is an external happiness rooted in external realities changing or shifting or us getting some kind of conditional temporary thing on the outside. It peddles a really cheap version of happy, according to the scriptures, to be holy,

is to be happy. To be holy is to be happy in God. It's from the deepest points of our soul to find fulfillment and contentment and joy and confidence that he is working all things together for the good of those who love him and who are called according to his purpose. Ultimately, what Americanism peddles is that it teaches that there is a,

that is possible to have the reward of Jesus' death on the cross without being surrendered to the man who died. on it. And what blew them away in the streets of Jerusalem 2,000 years ago and what they missed completely, completely missed. What they completely missed is that Jesus didn't come to save them from Rome. He didn't come to merely work on their external situation to give them their best version of their best life now. What Jesus came to do is to save them from themselves.

He came to save them from a, he came to do a deeper work, a more important work, an eternal work. He came to save them from themselves, us too. You've heard this sentence a thousand times if you've heard it once. Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Jesus, he died for you. He died for you. Jesus died for you. Think of it like this. Jesus died instead of you. He came to live the life that we couldn't live and to die in our place so that we don't have to be separated from God, but that we can be restored into right relationship and whole relationship with God. And so our invitation this week, church, as we start Holy Week is this, turn your eyes upon Jesus.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face. Maybe for you that week, that looks like you're going to study the scriptures. is Matthew 25, 26, 27, 28. You're going to do a deep dive into the Passion Week in the events of Jesus' life that give testimony to Jesus' death and suffering and ultimately his resurrection.

You're going to look on his face. You join us for our Good Friday services on Tuesday, and we together join our hearts and the sufferings of Christ on Calvary's Road as he builds expectation in our hearts toward Easter. Your invitation this week is to turn your eyes upon Jesus. to look full in his wonderful face. The author of Hebrew says it like this,

and I'll close with this, therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight. Do you have any idea how heavy this is? To be trapped in the cul-de-sac of normality and silliness, chasing external things like they could ever satisfy? putting our hope and our anchor in momentary fleeting feelings of happiness.

It's so heavy. It's so burdensome. Let us lay aside every weight and sin that so closely entangles and let us run with endurance. The race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfector of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of God. Consider him, church, Christ the king. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself

so that you may not grow weary or faint-hearted. Let's pray together. Father, we love you and we need you. and we thank you for your presence. We thank you for your power. We thank you for your promise. I pray that you would do a work of faith within us. That you would grow our affection and our love

and our want for your kingdom. Jesus, anywhere, that we are looking to the things of this world to satisfy or we're putting our eternal confidence or our hope in these things, God, would you turn our hearts toward you? I pray for my brothers and sisters, all across the city and online, if they are experiencing the weight of heavy burden in their life, if they are trapped in a cycle of spiritual lethargy and apathy, God, if they are bound up in the

chains of addiction or harm or self-abuse, Father, I pray that in Jesus' name and by the power of Jesus' blood that they would be freed. I pray that you would break through our cultural agendas and our personal preferences and all the stuff, all the stuff that we can bring. God, would you break through it all and peel back the layers so that we can see the purity and the beauty and the hope of the gospel. Would you help us? Jesus, we thank you for coming to save us. And we look to you and we pray all these things in the power of your victory and by the power of your blood and in your precious name. And all God's people said, amen. Amen. Church, if you would stand with me, respond to the good news of the gospel. We do this in a couple of different ways. We respond by singing.

You're invited to sing. Turn your eyes upon Jesus. We do this by praying if you would come and pray. Maybe you have one more that you have been praying for and you're wanting them to come with you on Easter. Come and pray. There's nothing magical about coming down front to pray. However, there is something special when we posture our bodies in the way that we want our hearts to be postured. And so we invite you to come and do business with the Lord through prayer. And we bring, we bring our first and our best through ties and offerings because God has graciously given us his first and best through Jesus. We sing, we pray, we bring, let's respond.