Palm Sunday

So I'd like to welcome you to Bridge Gospel. I'm glad you're here this morning with us.
If this is your first time, I'd especially like to welcome you. I know it can be awkward or strange
to visit a new church. We don't have any assigned seats. We have some free coffee. You can bring it
in here. We try to make it less awkward. Maybe we make it more awkward. I don't know. I'd also like
to welcome everyone who's listening online. I'm glad that you're here with us, and I believe that
God will bless you right where you are. So I just have a couple of announcements. We kind of
announce all our events for the month, kind of at the beginning of the month, so you can get a
little picture of that if you want. It's all on the website. We have a prayer meeting Wednesday at
7 o'clock. It's certain to be a highlight of my week. We pray for the church. We pray for our city.
We pray for each other, and whatever else comes to mind, every week's a little different.
We have women's and men's Bible study throughout the week. First Thursdays, we have healing rooms,
so that is this week, right? That is this week. There's a lot of wonderful testimonies that have
come out of healing rooms, so there is an anointing on this ministry. I encourage you to
invite your friends that need healing or show up if you need healing. You can also go to their
website, and there's all kinds of testimonies and stories about people that have been to healing
rooms all over the world through this ministry and have been healed of incurable things, Parkinson's,
cancer, you name it. So there is an opportunity before you to receive that or for your friends or
family to receive that. So I encourage you to come out and receive. Amen? And we're having a good
service, a good Friday. It'll be a good service. It'll be a good Friday service. It will be a good
service, I promise. It will be Friday at 7 o'clock right here. Some of our leaders are going to be
sharing some scriptures and things, so I won't be up here talking the whole time, which is good.
So those are my announcements. A number of our ladies are on a retreat this weekend, so we're going to be
praying for them. Also, if you have been following along, Sharon, our missionary in Cambodia, her
six months there is about up. So she will be returning the week of right after Easter. So we'll
also be praying for that, and we will pray for the offering. We're not going to pass a bucket or a
plate or put anybody on the spot. We have a box in the back you can give online, or you can make your
checks out to Two Rivers Church, and put them in the box back there. So dear Heavenly Father, we thank
you for everything that's going on. We thank you for all the touch points that you have in our
community, Lord. We thank you for the ladies that are on the retreat at this very moment. I pray that
they are refreshed and encouraged, that they come back with a supernatural vision of who you are and
where they're going with you and what's going on in their lives, and I pray that they return with
richer and deeper and more meaningful friendships. Lord, we thank you for Sharon. We thank you for her
six months in Cambodia. We thank you for the doors of ministry that you have opened to her, of sharing
the gospel in schools and orphanages, meeting with government officials. It's almost unbelievable.
Lord, so we're believing for a continued call to Cambodia. We thank you for those relationships
and opportunities that you are establishing. And Lord, I also want to pray over our upcoming Easter
service, Lord. We know that a lot of people come to church on Easter, and that's it, or Easter and
Christmas. So Lord, I pray for each and every family member, Lord, that maybe hasn't been here for
a while, that this can be a weekend to overcome some church hurt, some confusion, some distance from
God, Lord. But we pray that this is their moment. We are believing that you will bring people into this
house on Easter to meet you, maybe for the first time. And Lord, finally, we pray over the offering.
We thank you that every good and every perfect gift comes from you. And Lord, we give back through
our tithes and offerings. We thank you for wages, bonuses, gifts, inheritances, everything that you
bring into our life that's increased. We thank you for it. We know that as we give and as we sow a seed
into the kingdom of God, that it may leave our hands, but it never leaves our life. In Jesus' name, amen.
Amen. All right, so it is Palm Sunday. It's a very familiar story in the Bible to a lot of people.
It's kind of like this little hallmark moment in some ways. You know, Jesus is coming into town.
They got the palm leaves. They're spreading their cloaks out. But I think there's a lot more going
on below the surface of this parade, this celebration, this story. And we've been in this series about living
in a supernatural world. And we're talking about how the world is broken, not just because of
human sin, but because of spiritual rebellion and darkness and evil that exists in the world.
I don't think I need to convince anyone in this room that there is a devil, that he is alive,
that he's doing things, that he is seeking things to devour, that he is destroying lives and families
given the opportunity. So we can't be naive. But there is a spiritual battle going on that we cannot see.
So Palm Sunday isn't just this cute moment where Jesus comes in and gets celebrated. It's about
Jesus riding into the city, Jerusalem, his city, by the way. It's his. And he's coming in as the king,
and he's openly presenting himself. And he's opening up this whole confrontation that ultimately leads
him to the cross. And he does this in a way that not anyone expects. We'll be reading in Luke chapter 19.
Starting at verse 28.
It says,
After Jesus had said this, he continued on ahead going up to Jerusalem.
Now when he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of
the disciples, telling them,
Go to the village ahead of you. When you enter it, you will find a colt tied there that has never been
ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, why are you untying it? Just say the Lord
needs it. Don't take your neighbor's car. So those who were sent ahead found it exactly as he had told
them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, Why are you untying the colt? They
replied, The Lord needs it. Then they brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt, and had Jesus
get on it. As he rode along, they spread their cloaks on the road. As he approached the road, leading
down from the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with
a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen. Blessed is the king who comes in the name
of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest. But some of the Pharisees in the crowd
said to him, Teacher, rebuke your disciples. He answered, I tell you, if they sleep silent,
the very stones will cry out. So I want you to notice three things about this story right out
of the bat. You see, the first one is that Jesus is in complete control of everything that is going
up. This isn't spontaneous. Jesus arranged it. He had a plan. He had this colt. He sends the disciples
ahead of him. He tells them exactly what they're going to find. He tells them exactly what to say.
So this is not just Jesus having a Holy Spirit carry me away moment. This is Jesus very clearly
understanding and saying that my hour has come. And I just, I want to encourage people that maybe
can't experience God without, you know, just feeling free or feeling in the moment. But God sometimes can
have a plan and, uh, he will carry that plan out. And it is a good thing. Number two, uh, this is a
royal moment. And you pick that up from all this language. They're laying their cloaks on the ground.
People are praying, you know, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. It's all from, uh,
Psalm 115, I think, 118. And it's this whole like coronation language. It's like a king is being
installed, but it's, it's not, it's not the coronation that they're expecting. And we'll get
to that in a little bit. And number three, the Pharisees feel threatened. It says that they were
in the crowd along with all the other disciples that were cheering him on. And they, they tell
Jesus, you know, rebuke your disciples, tell them, shut this down, shut them down, control your people
and shut them down. You see, because I think they understood deep down what was happening.
You know, they knew that this, this wasn't a party. This wasn't just a little bit of worship.
Wasn't just a little teaching that Jesus was going to do. This was a thing. This, this was a, a, an event
in the kingdom of God. And they knew it. And it was an announcement that a rival kingdom was coming.
And Jesus says something to them. It almost feels sarcastic. He says, if they keep silent, the stones
will cry out. And in other words, he's saying that there is no way that you are going to stop
what God is doing in this moment. There is no way. Now, how many of you have had some Pharisees in the
crowd around you of life? How many of you, yeah, I got a few laughs already. We're just getting started.
How many of you have had some, some haters? How many of you have had some, some naysayers? How many
of you have experienced people who do not clap when you win? Watch those people. They're the kind
of people that tell you what you can do. They're the kind of people that tell you what you can't do.
They're the kind of people that try to tell you what God can't do. All right. That's who we're
dealing with here. Now, watch what happens. Verse 41. Now, when Jesus approached and saw the city,
I circled this. He wept over it, saying, if you had only known on this day, even you,
the things that make for peace. I underline that real strong. The things that make for peace.
But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will
build an embarkment against you and surround you and close in on you from every side.
They will demolish you, you and your children within your walls, and they will not leave within you
one stone on top of the other because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.
Now, if you study the history of Jerusalem, you will find out that Jesus' words came to pass
exactly the way he described. They built siege ramps. They took the entire city. They demolished it.
Demolished it. Now, I think this is one of the most underrated moments in the Gospels.
You know, Jesus is riding in like a king, and all of a sudden he's weeping. And, you know,
I think he's weeping because they don't understand. They don't understand. They don't
recognize what kind of a king he is. And he's weeping because they misunderstand. He's weeping
because there's this judgment coming that God has to deal with this. And they didn't understand.
You see, they wanted peace, but they didn't want God's peace. They wanted salvation, but
not from their own sin. You see, they wanted deliverance, but not from deliverance of the
spiritual evil power of the world. They wanted the Messiah that they could use, that they could
get a political victory, that they could take over power and control. That's why it says that they did
not, they didn't understand these things that were made for peace. And Jesus is weeping because
they're missing everything. You see, listen, you could be around Jesus. You can sing about Jesus.
You can celebrate Jesus and still miss Jesus. You can want him to improve your life, but reject him
as Lord. And I think that Palm Sunday kind of exposes that idea a little bit. You see, the crowd is
expecting Jesus to do the obvious thing. They're expecting him to come in to cleanse the city of
the Romans, crush the Roman political system that is oppressing God's people, take over the throne,
punish all the wicked people, and restore Israel's dominance. That's what they expected. That was the
Savior that they had a grid for. But Jesus is doing something so much deeper. You see, because Rome was
not their biggest problem. You see, Rome was a very real problem. The corruption, the injustice, the
brutality of the Roman Empire was a very real problem. The corruption was real, but Rome was not
their deepest problem. Their deepest problem was their own sin, their own separation from God,
the bondage and the darkness that was over them. And if the deepest problem that they faced is sin,
and the deepest enemy is death, and behind it are all of these rulers and spirits of evil and authorities,
then the victory that Jesus brings must be deeper than politics. It must be deeper than what we see
and experience. It has to go so much deeper than that. So Jesus is riding in, and everybody is,
oh, Hosanna in the highest. They're singing that song. How's that song go? Hosanna in the highest.
That wasn't right. Anyway. But by the, by the, thank you. But by the end of the week, this city is
completely divided because Jesus doesn't match their expectations. You see? So this is where I think
Palm Sunday connects to this arc of, of God's story that we've been talking about. And yeah, the Pharisees
are watching, the Romans are watching, Jerusalem, everybody's up in arms, but, but there's this other audience
that's watching this entire thing unfold. And Paul talks about them in a couple different spots. He calls
them the rulers, the authorities, the powers. So what looks like in our, our world as a parade that we read
about in this story in Luke 19 is also this, this signal and this event that is happening in the
spiritual realm. First Corinthians 2.8 says, none of the rulers of this age understood it. Talking about
Jesus being risen from the dead here. If they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of
glory. So what Paul is saying here is that if, if the spiritual world was understanding what was
happening and if the, the human world was understanding what was happening in the, in, in this big picture
of Jesus going to the cross, they would have never done it. They would have never done it. So the human
rulers wouldn't have done it. The spiritual principalities and demons and, and authorities would
have not had done it. And Paul's point here is, is shocking that they did not see the resurrection
of Jesus coming. It wasn't on their grid. They did not realize that the cross was a trap.
They didn't understand what the cross could accomplish, which means that the cross was not a
setback. It was the plan. You see, the cross was not Jesus losing. The cross was the trap.
Colossians 2.15 says, disarming the rulers and authorities, he, talking about Jesus,
has made a public disgrace of them, triumphing over them by the cross. Now that is the language
of victory. And you see the irony here. You see the cross to the world, it looks like the shame of
Jesus. He, he failed. He's over. He's dead. It's done. But it becomes the source of shame for everyone
who tried to overpower him. It became the shame of the Roman empire. They could not keep him dead.
That's a problem for business. The spiritual world could not keep him in the grave. He rose over
victory. He had victory over death. And what looks like God being defeated was actually the defeat of
every source of evil and death of this age. So how does this work? You see, the powers of evil often work
through, through accusations and they work through getting us into agreement with things that aren't
true. Romans 1 calls that exchanging the truth for a lie. And they work through a certain sense of legal
claim and agreement that we make with, with their claims and their accusations. So the enemy has always
kind of had this idea of like, well, humans die because they sin. Wages of sin is death, right?
So therefore humans belong to, to us. And Palm Sunday is, and the resurrection is really Jesus
showing up as a true king, not just to take over a throne, but to break the claim that sin and death
have had over humanity ever since the Garden of Eden. Because here's the key. Unlike the serpent and
unlike the sons of God that we talked about in Genesis 6, Jesus enters humanity legitimately.
Legitimately. He doesn't use any deception. He lives without sin. He carries no guilt. He's completely
innocent. So when the evil powers of the world and of the spiritual realm kill him, they've completely
crossed their boundaries. They've, they've overreached. They're taking something that they were never
legally entitled to take. And that is what breaks their claim and their power over people. You see,
the powers of evil thought that the cross would be this trophy. Man, you know, this, this son of God,
we shut him down. He got crucified. He's, he's done. He's over with. They thought that they would
somehow shame Jesus. But the cross became their point of exposure. They killed the Lord of glory.
And in doing so, in so many words, they forfeited their legal right because they had no right to kill
an innocent man. So they exposed the injustice and the lie of the whole order of evil in the entire
world. You see, death is the wages of sin. But see, Jesus had no sin. He carried no guilt of his own.
So when this sinless son of God was handed over to death, the powers were defeated. And what looked like
their victory became their moment of exposure and defeat. And in the resurrection, God publicly declared
that death has no right to his son. And no right to those who belong to his son through faith.
Hallelujah. So, so we need redemption from sin and death. And the word redeemed in scripture,
it literally means, it literally means that we are bought back. You ever been to like a, a pawn shop?
You know, you go there, you don't have any money. So you bring something in and they give you some money.
And then when you get some money, you go back to the pawn shop and then you give them a little more
money and then you get your thing back. Right? So it's, it's that same idea. Literally, Jesus is
buying us back from the devil. That's that word redeemed. It literally means he purchased us back.
And the resurrection is God giving this verdict of, you can't own humanity. You know, the devil doesn't
own the nations. The devil doesn't own the future. He has control over nothing. He's completely
defeated. He doesn't even have control over death. Acts 20, 28 says that God purchased the church
with the blood of his own son. So let's get back to Luke 19 here a second. So Jesus, why did Jesus,
he wept? You know, he wept because the city couldn't see what kind of deliverance and what kind of
solution that he was actually bringing them. You see, they wanted Rome gone. They wanted to win.
They wanted to be validated. Uh, they wanted power back. And I don't think that we understand as
Americans how, how much dignity we get out of our freedom. I think that's a really important concept.
You see, like, you know, you can go places and as soon as you feel like your freedom is taken away,
you kind of feel a little less than human. You kind of feel like a less than, you know, it's even weird
when you go places and there's cameras all over the store and they're watching you're checking out
and you're scanning your thing and they're watching you. It's like, you feel like there's an aspect of
your freedom is gone. So it feels like there's an aspect of your, your dignity and your humanity is
gone. Right. And the, the Jewish people, they have their homeland and they have been, they have been
fighting to, to have their homeland for themselves. I mean, they, they remember the exodus. They remember
being their, their nation being destroyed. They remember being dragged out of their homes and
dragged into slavery. And, you know, just think about the freedom that we have in the fact that
we can just own our own house. You know, and I can go into my own house and I can shut the door
and I'm free. I can do whatever I want in there. Right. I can put polka dots on the wall if I want
and it's mine. I am free. Right. And there's a certain sense of dignity and, and freedom that comes
with that. And you can come to my house and say, wow, this is something. And you might not stay
real long. Right. But it's mine. I can do what I want. So that's, that's this dignity and freedom
that they desired so strongly that the Romans would not give them because there is nothing more
demoralizing and dehumanizing than to take away people's basic freedom and sense of dignity and
sense of direction in their own lives. But Jesus came to remove something even worse than that.
You see, they wanted an administration and comfort, but Jesus came to break the dominion of sin and
darkness and came to give them spiritual freedom first. And he wept because if you missed him as a
king, you didn't just miss this moment. You missed the whole point. You see, there's a peace that Jesus
could bring that Rome could not establish, that Rome could not give them, that Rome could not
hold through the sword. But there's a war that Jesus fights that, that no army can, can fight and win
besides Jesus. And it is the victory over sin and over death.
Now, some of us at times in our life, we feel like we're fighting something that, that feels bigger
than ourselves. And I don't think that we're crazy. And I also know that we're not helpless. But
Palm Sunday is showing us that there is something going on that is much greater than ourselves. It's
greater than the circumstances that we find ourselves in. And this, this event that happens on,
on Palm Sunday is, is an ambush of sorts. And it leads up to Easter to prove that death is lost.
And it proves that Jesus didn't just forgive us, but he actually broke the legal claim
that the devil had on every single one of us.
So I have a couple different application points I'd like to share.
Um, the first thing that I want to talk about is, is just renouncing our agreement with accusation
that comes into our lives. Um, the spiritual powers, they operate through accusation. They
operate through manipulation and, and making people feel like less than they are. They, they
get us to agree with things that are like, well, I'm, I'm too far gone that, you know, this could
never change. Uh, you know, God doesn't want to help me or isn't going to help me or this
thing is, is too small for God. I think we were talking about something like that this
morning. Uh, you know, our, by past define all these lies, right? And, and these things
come into our lives and we, we start to build these little agreements with them. Well, yeah,
that, that, that's true. And then the tape starts to kind of play over and over and over
again. The devil is a liar, people. We don't need to be his salesman, right? I, you can be
the, you can be the devil's best salesman just by playing these tapes in your head. Nobody
loves me. Nobody cares about me. God's not going to come through for me. The devil is a
liar. That is not the voice of the shepherd. And the cross didn't just cover our sin, but
they actually disarmed our accuser, which was Satan. So the best thing that we can do
is, is to declare our victory, to declare that we belong to Jesus, to declare that we
are, are not condemned. We're not owned by sin. We are not trapped by sin, but that we
have been set free. You see, every promise of God in scripture is for you. Everything.
And if you, if you read through scripture, you find promises of a hope, future, prospering,
success. There's a plan for your life. And I'm here to tell you that every single one of
those promises can be yours all day, every day, all the time. God doesn't have any bad
days, right? And there's a future version of you that has every promise of God. There's
a future version of you that has every promise of God. And walking with God is how you get
there and become that person. The other part of this scripture I want to talk about, this
is my second point, is he talks about things that were made for peace. Things that were made
for peace. Jesus was telling him, if you only knew the things that were made for peace. And
the Jews were thinking about all these things that they thought could give them peace. They
thought about victory over the Romans, political victory would give them peace. Having their own
homeland would give them peace. Being vindicated and validated and being proven right would give
them peace. They thought being in control would give them peace. They thought being free
from discomfort would give them peace. But Jesus was setting them free from so much more.
He was giving them a peace that passes all understanding. And I think it says that because sometimes we
don't understand, we don't understand, we don't understand, we don't understand the things made for peace.
What do you think would make peace in your life? Having enough money? Being in control? Winning the family argument?
How's that going for you?
But Jesus brings real peace through the forgiveness of sin. And when we can live from that eternal perspective
that we are right with God, that we have peace with God, that perspective is what really matters.
And suddenly being right and winning the argument is less important than being patient and loving.
You see, you can be right and be hated and be a jerk, right? You can win a fight and destroy your whole family.
I know people that have destroyed their family because they were right. They were right. And they destroyed their family because they were right.
They were right. There's more to life than being right. See, you can win in so many ways and lose the bigger picture.
You can have money and still have problems. How many of you know that's true?
Some of the richest people I know have some of the biggest problems. I don't know how that works.
The last thing I want to share. I think this is the hard part of Palm Sunday.
See, Jesus is the king, but he's walking a road of suffering.
And if you follow Jesus, you'll have moments where you don't understand what he's doing.
You'll have moments where you don't understand what is the point of what's happening in my life.
What is the purpose of this suffering that's in my life?
And Jesus is asking us and asking them to do something that ultimately he got crucified for.
And Jesus is modeling before their eyes that before you get the glory, before you get the victory,
that before you get the resurrection power, you better be ready to be willing to be nailed to something.
And Jesus was calling them to something so much greater than they could even ask for or imagine.
Jesus was giving them a purpose, a vision, a plan.
He was giving them the entire kingdom of God.
You know that we all inherit the kingdom of God.
We all do. We inherit the whole thing.
That is what makes us peculiar people.
We have inherited a kingdom, the whole thing.
We have inherited a system where anything can happen.
We have inherited a system where not even death has the final say.
We have inherited a system that God answers our prayers, that God heals, he saves, he delivers us.
We have inherited this whole thing.
It's all ours.
But in that, you will have prayers that don't get answered when you want.
You'll have some moments of obedience that feel very costly.
You may not be the most popular person in the room.
And you'll have seasons where it looks like you're losing.
How many of you have lived through a few of those?
How many of you have lived through a season where everything feels like a loss, where nothing is going right,
where your prayers just seem like they're not going to any place?
And God just gets really quiet and you just wonder, where is all this going?
But I want to show you in this message that the cross shows us that God does his deepest work in this place that the enemy thinks is victory.
And I believe that God can show up in the middle of any kind of mess, in the middle of any kind of disunity, any kind of health, any kind of setback, any kind of business drama.
I have experienced all of it.
And God, in some way, will show up in the darkest hour of our lives.
And I think he does it to show us that he's God.
And he does it to build our faith and to build our dependence on him.
And the easiest way to get robbed of that victory is to misunderstand what Jesus is calling us to and walking away from that calling because it's hard,
because it looks like a cross, because it looks like shame and pain and doubt and all these things.
And the temptation is to walk away.
So Palm Sunday puts a decision in front of everyone.
Will you receive Jesus as King?
Because the crowd loved him when he looked like a solution to their problems.
But you see, Jesus doesn't just come to solve our circumstances.
He comes for our hearts.
And today, if you have never known Jesus, he could ride into your heart.
He could ride into your city.
He could ride into your house and ride into your heart and reign over the heart for the rest of your life.
And if you're here today and you feel surrounded and outnumbered and trapped and you feel like all the powers of hell are against you,
I want to encourage you that Jesus is not intimidated by that.
I want to encourage you that Jesus is always strong when we're weak.
And that today can be a day of freedom.
So dear Heavenly Father, we give you our allegiance.
We acknowledge you as King.
We acknowledge you as the Lord of our lives.
And we call upon you to save us.
We surrender to you.
And Lord, I pray that you can help us to recognize and reject the accusations of the devil.
Lord, I pray that we can reject the lies that we are not enough, that we are condemned, that things will never change, that our past controls our future.
So Lord, we just renounce those agreements with shame.
Lord, and we say that we belong to you.
And Jesus, I pray where the enemy has gained ground through sin and through trauma, through unforgiveness, bitterness, through fear,
I ask you to break that in the mighty name of Jesus.
Lord, to fill your people again with your Holy Spirit and with fire and establish your peace in each and every family and household represented here this morning, Lord.
So I pray a blessing over each and every person here as they work this week that the things that they set their hands to are successful.
Lord, I pray that there can be peace and hope in every single family and household represented here, Lord.
And I pray that you can establish your peace, your kingdom here in this place, starting in our hearts.
And all God's people said, Amen.