Essentials Of The Faith / Sunday Morning Sermon Series / Special Services / Easter Season 2003

Palm Sunday 2003

Intro:  The story is told of a visiting pastor who stood in the pulpit to begin the worship service. He tapped the microphone to make sure that it was on. Hearing nothing, although it was working fine, he tapped again. And nothing. He leaned closer to the mic and he thought he was saying this to himself, but it made it through the pa system. He said ‘there is something wrong with this thing.’ The congregation being well trained church people immediately responded ‘And also with you’

What this story shows us is the power of the familiar. We can be so steeped in routine that we stop paying attention to what we are doing. The power of the familiar. This is the danger we face when we come to Holy Week. We all know the details to the story, the events in that last week of Jesus’ life.

They are so familiar to us that we celebrate on Palm Sunday, mourn on Good Friday and rejoice on Easter often without the truth of the events ever touching our hearts. Why? Because it is familiar?

The challenge that faces us this morning and for the rest of Holy Week is to look at these events
     -with a renewed passion,
     -with a vigor that takes us out of the rut of what we know in our minds and leads us to what we can experience in our
      hearts…and then demonstrate in our lives.

This mornings and continuing on Thursday night we will look at ‘What did Jesus do?’ Specifically, what did Jesus do his last week on earth.

ILL: A man who stopped by the store to pick up some items, quickly noticed another man with a 4 yr old in the cart whining for a candy bar. The dad said ‘be patient Billy we’re almost finished.’ The two men passed on another aisle and the little boy was getting louder, ‘I want a candy bar, now’ ‘We’re almost done Billy be patient.’ At the check out the little boy was really shouting now, ‘I want a candy bar.’ The dad said calmly, ‘Hang on Billy we’re almost to the car’.
The man followed the dad to the car and commended him for his great patience with is son Billy. The dad said’ You don’t understand, I’m Billy!’

We can identify can’t we? We are such an impatient people. Me included. I am the chief of impatient people. Many times we get in a hurry and jump ahead of things….sometimes even God. From our study of Genesis we have seen that to get ahead of God is to jump into trouble.

What does all this have to do with Palm Sunday and the triumphal entry? Lets set the scene. The people on their way to the Passover Celebration joined Jesus as he journeyed to Jerusalem and began to shout, and proclaim Him as king of Israel.

The people standing outside their homes on the road to Jerusalem get caught up in the excitement of the moment. They want a new king, one who will destroy the Romans and make Israel the great people their God told them they would be.

But in their excitement of the moment, in their impatience to find peace at any cost, they mistook Jesus’ purpose. Their shouts of joy and praise were, I believe sincere, but they came from a mistaken identity.

In the midst of the joy and shouts of praise, in the midst of the excitement of the moment, they missed the significance of that day.

That may be true for you as well.
    -Perhaps this morning you are going through   the motions of ‘spiritual things’ ‘Christian activity’ but your mind and heart are
      somewhere else.

     -Perhaps there is praise on your lips this morning, but no peace in your hearts.

     -Perhaps, you too are missing the significance of this day.

You see, the triumphal entry, Palm Sunday is not so much about a man riding a donkey into the city of Jerusalem,
as it is a day of triumph as Jesus was on his way to pay the price for our sins. To bring peace with God.

     -The Jewish leaders could not stop him.
     -The Roman soldiers couldn’t stop him.
     -Satan and all the power of evil couldn’t stop him.

Why? Because he was on a mission. A mission that began in eternity past.

What did Jesus do that first Palm Sunday? What made it significant? It’s the same thing that makes today significant.

What did Jesus do?   He came for one purpose, for one reason, HE CAME… FOR YOU!

Do you want the praise on your lips to be matched by joy and peace in your heart?

Then let Jesus do more than come into Jerusalem, let him come into your life, by faith. Trust him with your life, because in triumph, he came to give his life for you.

Lets imagine, for a moment that the Roman authorities had gotten wind of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and that the religious leaders wanted him silenced, or better yet, dead. I would imagine in order to protect the peace, they would have sent a centurion to keep an eye on Jesus, for his and the publics protection. I don’t think this is far from what might have happened.

Monday morning came and there was a shout. Centurion wake up. We have trouble in the temple with this Jesus you were supposed to be watching. Go check it out. When the Centurion arrived he found Jesus causing a fit in the Temple, specifically in the Court of the Gentiles.

      -He was overthrowing tables, throwing out the merchants and their wares.
     -He set the pigeons and goats free from their cages.
     -Coins going everywhere, tempers rising, voices raised at Jesus for what he was doing.

Then Jesus shouted back. ‘My house, MY HOUSE, shall be called a house of prayer. But you have made it a den of thieves.’

I can just see the crowd cheering Jesus on. They knew they were being ripped off with the sacrificial animals they had to buy there. But there was nothing they could do. The people wanted to worship God but didn’t want to get robbed doing it.

And the Centurion, who was a gentile, didn’t stop Jesus. Why? Because I believe he would have been thankful. You see the only place the gentiles could go to worship God in the temple was in the Court of the Gentiles, the very place that had been transformed into a smelly, noisy marketplace.

Certainly no place to seek God and no place for honest and sincere prayer. The gentiles were kept from worshipping God because of what the religious leaders had done to the temple.

And Jesus cleansed the temple as if to say to the Centurion and all gentiles, ‘I did this for you’.

For those of you who may be here this morning and may be new to the church scene or perhaps you have been away for some time, I want to apologize for what the church has become. The church, not this church, but the church in general has become a place where it is hard for a gentile, one who is not yet a Christian, to find God.

Many churches have done one of two things.
     -They have kept the style of worship and the language used in worship as if it were still the 1950’s. The modern gentile,
       if you will, doesn’t know the Christian lingo and by the churches outdated traditions many gentiles have given up on the
      church.

     -Other modern, contemporary churches have made worship so chummy, chummy with God, so music driven that the
      modern Gentile is not unlike the person in the crowd that first Palm Sunday.. they praise God but they don’t really know
     why or who He is…But they shout anyway.

However, I believe God is beginning a new work in His church today, especially in the area of worship. God is calling His church to clean up its act.

By that I mean to express our worship to God in ways that are intelligible, in ways that even those who come with no church background, will understand and see Jesus Christ lifted up in corporate worship.

A place where even those who are yet to express faith in Jesus can come, feel welcome and find God.

The cleansing of the church, in modern times, is
     -a cleansing of personal and corporate pride,
     -a cleansing of our private comfort zones,
     -a cleansing of our likes and dislikes.
     -a cleansing of Pharisaic practices and attitudes.

It is a cleansing so that God’s house can be what it was intended to be, a house of prayer for ALL nations, for ALL people.

For that to happen, the Court of the Gentiles, this worship center, this worship service has to be readily accessible to everyone, relevant and intelligible, and not just to those who have been around long enough to know the lingo.

And I believe, with all my heart, that CBC is such a place. Breaking down barriers so that all, regardless of their background may come to know the joy of life in Christ.

And it starts with one, then another, then more coming to the foot of the cross, seeking God’s forgiveness for their sin and for their part in making God’s House a fortress against the world instead of a welcome center to the world.

One strong, central part of each worship service here at CBC is our Prayer of Confession. This is our time to get right with God, individually and as a church fellowship.

Let’s seek God’s forgiving face.

The temple in Jesus’ day had been a place of hurting for many people as I have already mentioned. People were coming to worship and they were being ripped off with the purchase of the animals for sacrifice. The Gentiles who were allowed to worship in the Court of the Gentiles were prohibited from doing so by the noise, smell and crowdedness of the merchants. They too saw the temple as a place of hurt not healing.

It is interesting and comforting at the same time, that the immediate event following the cleansing of the temple, was entirely different ‘The blind and the lame came to him at the temple and he healed them.’

The place of hurting, by the presence and power of Jesus Christ, had become the place of healing.

You don’t have to attend a church for very long before you realize that many come to worship who are hurting in one way or another.And they all come seeking to be healed. They come to find comfort and respite from their pain in and through the company of other Believers, as we all come together, before the presence of Almighty God.

We need to remind ourselves that as a church, as a gathering of God’s people, we not only are a place where Biblical teaching takes place, but even more so a place for spiritual, emotional and yes, physical healing finds a home.

The church should be a place where no matter what the burden on our shoulders; whether sin, loneliness, fear, misunderstandings, or physical distress, we can come and lay it at the foot of the cross in the company of God’s people…and find peace, find healing from God.

Jesus desires to come each Sunday morning, to this place, in the midst of God’s people, and bring healing.

    Will we, in all humility, servanthood and love, let the church be the church God intends it to be?
    Will we let God do his work in our midst?
    Will you come to Jesus to find healing for your life?

    What did Jesus do?  He Came, He Cleansed, He Healed…and  Jesus did it all…for YOU!