Main idea: Jesus aims to reset your worship.
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Good morning. We are setting for Holy Week. This week David introduced that so well for us, please stand with me for the reading of God's Word with with that song in mind from the words of Isaiah, 53 Jesus came to Jerusalem with a mission. Luke, chapter 951, it says he set his face like flint on this mission, we're going to read the triumphal entry, but before we do that, I'm going to read a passage that ties what Mitzi just did, sign language for us through to to this next section, Matthew 20, verse 17, just, just so you know that the triumphal entry is not an accident. This is something Jesus has set in purpose. Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, and he took the 12 disciples aside, and on the way, he said to them, see we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn Him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day. It's all part of Jesus saving plan for us. I'm going to read 21 through 721. One one through 17, this morning. Now, when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, 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 colt 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 Ian, 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 and the colt and put them on their cloaks, and he sat on them. Most of the crowds 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. And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons, he said to them, it is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you make it a robbers den. And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did and the children crying out in the temple Hosanna to the Son of David. They were indignant, and they said to him, do you hear what these are saying? And Jesus said to them, yes, Have you never read out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies, you have prepared praise and leaving them. He went out of the city to Bethany and lodge there. This is the word of the Lord, our God and Father. We thank you as we come into our Holy Week, starting with Palm Sunday, moving to Good Friday and resurrection, we are reminded that the whole of the Old Testament has been driving to this that you have ordained these things through the prophets and brought them to pass through the Lord Jesus. Lord Jesus, we thank you for the humility of of not only taking on human flesh but going all the way to the point of death and death on a cross. As we reflect on the words of Isaiah 53 we marvel and wonder at the great agony that you went through. And as this week started, it seemed so triumphant, and as it ended on Friday, it seemed so devastating. But we praise you that you are risen from the dead, and the Hosannas that we bring today are to call you to return and finish what you have started in redemption, Father, we pray that You would help us this whole week and beyond, many people need to get reset this week. Many of us need to keep our focus on. You this week, and for some here, they have not yet ever worshiped or bowed down. And this is the invitation to come to the Savior and healer of the soul, father. Pray for our churches and our city. I do. Pray for Indian Trail church. Pray for their labor in the Gospel, for the pastors and the members that they'd be a faithful testimony. And pray for fourth Memorial Church that you would strengthen them. Help Scott and his team as they lead worship. This morning. We pray for churches across the South Hill, Lincoln Heights, congregational church, Pastor Randy. Pray that You would help, help him. And we want as your people, whatever church we are in, to glorify Jesus Christ, make him known to love him and help us be a testimony in all that we do in Christ's name. Amen, you may be seated.
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What does this these phrases have in common? I bet you'll be able to guess pretty quick. Turn it off, turn it on again, Unplug it, wait 15 seconds, plug it back in, restart your machine. What do all those statements have in common?
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Best answer so far, but not correct. It's resetting your any electronics like, you know, you called the help desk and they said, Did you turn it on? Did you turn it off? You need to reset. Have you ever felt like your life was the buffering icon on a machine, you know, it's just stuck. If you ever felt like that, you need a reset. You know, our machines often need a reset. Sometimes our souls, we're stuck like that. We need a reset. Lots of things freeze us up. News, what to think about it. Government, how to fix it, work, how to finish it, loneliness, how to fill it, worry, how to be rid of it. Guilt, how to be free from it. Addiction, how to beat it. Like all those things can almost paralyze us or so distract us. We end up missing the most important and helpful part of our life and our relationship with our Creator. We need a reset to our worship, the Holy Week, as the church has celebrated it for 2000 years, celebrates a successful reset of worship, the realities of Jesus' death and resurrection are the center of living and loving God as God intended us to do it. If you've never read the Bible, if you're here at church for the first time, it's a good week for you to start, because we're going to look at the essential message of Christianity. And you may need a restart. You may need more than a restart. You might need rebirth. You might be dead inside. And this is the place to find life. Today, we're going to look at the triumphal entry, Jesus cleansing the temple. Friday, Weber going to look at the crucifixion. Sunday, we're going to look at the resurrection. And it is through these that Jesus has changed the world. He's given new life. He provides the spiritual reset that everybody needs. And the church, over the 1000s of years, has recognized the importance of this, just like the Jews had Passover as their yearly reset. Who are we? Why are we? What are we about? Christians have this very important week as we look to it, especially to the purging or cleansing of the temple. Jesus aims to reset your worship. I would say that's the big idea out of this passage, is Jesus clears out the temple, talking about what our heart should be toward him. He wants to reset your worship. There are all kinds of things that are going to demand your attention. They're going to demand your affection. They're going to demand your emotions. And sadly, very, very often the return to the core message often feels like, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. I should remember about the death and resurrection of Jesus, as if it's the low rung on the high ladder. Well, of course, you know, I should, I should make sure I remember the resurrection. But the real stuff is, is something else? The real thing somewhere high up on the ladder. And what this reminds us is that Jesus, His life, His death, His resurrection, His soon return, is the ladder. It is essential to us today. I want to look at six reality. Expertise of Jesus that provide a spiritual reset for our souls. The older I get, the more I love just returning to the Gospels and seeing and savoring Jesus Christ, looking at him, what he has done, who he is, who the Transcendent Lord is that we have, who is going to return. We're going to do that today. Six realities. If you're with us, normally, you're thinking, Well, that's an hour and a half sermon for Dan, because it usually takes me an hour to get through three of anything. But I think we're going to get it done in time. We're going to take an overview here. And I want to encourage you, what do you need a reset for? What is the thing that's been preoccupying you? What do I mean by preoccupying? It's, it's made it so you're too busy to pray. It's made it so that you don't have quiet moments to bring the churning issues. It's, it's so preoccupied you, the list is so long you get up and you've got to get to the list, or you feel like you're never going to get to the end of the day without the important things done. What's preoccupying you? For some it's really, really serious things, a new diagnosis of a disease. It's a loved one who is in the Ian conflict. For others, it's the more aches and pains of life. Jesus aims to reset your worship in this passage, let's look at those realities. First, let's look at how Jesus is in authority or He is in control. Jesus was in control all the way to his death. We're talking about Jesus' ability and his command of this whole situation. I just read this section in Matthew 20 because he had predicted what was going to come, and it's critical for us, because Jesus isn't wasn't carried away by circumstances beyond his control. It's a kind of a common thought. Is Jesus, you know, he was a good man, and he was a good teacher, and he just got swept up in circumstances beyond his control. But Jesus had set a course to be the universal King, redeeming his people through His death and resurrection as he was going up. If you looked back at Matthew 20, he told his disciples this and in the little headings in my ESV, Jesus foretells His death a third time. If you patched all of the different times that he told his disciples, it was probably six different times he told them, and they didn't get it. They didn't understand it. But the point is, he is on his way to Jerusalem. He has a mission in mind, and he's in control. One of the interesting things in 21 one is this little scene about Jesus getting a foal, a young donkey, and its mother. 21 one. Now, when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, there's a large mountain overlooking Jerusalem to the east, the Mount of Olives. And there is a little village just at the other side of the crest called bethphage. And as he's approaching this he tells his a couple of his disciples, I want you to go to the village. I want you to find a young donkey that's never been written with its mother, and I want you to Untie it and bring it, and if the people who own it protest, Hey, what are you doing? You need to tell them, the Lord has need of it. The Lord has need of it. The Lord has need the Lord has need of it. All the Four Star Wars Fans, thanks for that. And somehow, somehow they were already followers of the Lord Jesus. Something prepared, but Jesus, even in these little details, is in command. So they go in, they immediately find it just just as he said, just as He directed them. And with this, the disciples don't get it at first, but after the resurrection, they start reviewing in their mind all these things that are happening. Jesus is telling his disciples, I have even the little details under control. The little details are under control. The little details to fulfill His mission. If you look ahead, one of the things that you can see is this surprise scene. We're going to unpack it a little bit in a minute, but just to dry. The point home here when Jesus goes in to drive the money changers and the animal sellers out of the room or out of the temple precincts, they had temple guards. They had a police force that would not allow somebody to do this, and yet Jesus was in such command that certainly everybody stood with their backs against the walls and let him do what he was going to do. Over the large over the small. Jesus was in total command reset number one. Jesus is in control of the details of the donkey's owners, their local police force, the government. He is sovereign over all of these things, maybe to say it for us personally, nothing on the path of your salvation is random, chance or accidental. Jesus is overseeing and in control of all of it. Let me ask you this. How many things are you controlling successfully? How well can you manage all of your life? Predict all of the details, live with no surprises, not a day and yet,
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well, a weeks, weeks, well before Jesus is going to be arrested and crucified, he knew what was going to happen. He had set a plan in motion. Jesus is in control second. The second reality to this is that Jesus is executing God's ancient plan. God's ancient plan. He's carrying it out all through the Gospels. You're going to find these, these realities again, if you're new to the Bible, I'll show you a little bit how they look. The large numbers are chapters, the smaller numbers are verses, the very small, faint letters are usually references that help you know where things come from or what they're tied to. Verse Five is a quote from Zechariah. So there's your little clue, this little call out box that something's happening, and this is a prophecy from about 450 years earlier from the prophet Zechariah. Now I highlight this because from Genesis all the way into the New Testament, there have been various threads pointing ahead to God's great redemption plan. I put just a couple of them in your notes. There is a purple thread royalty, starting in Genesis, 49 there is a promise that Judah, from Judah, there would come a king, and he would rule over the nations, the obedience of the peoples who is to come to Him. There is many more than this. The most famous of all of them is a promise to King David in Second Samuel, chapter seven, in which he was told that he was going to have a descendant who would sit on his throne forever. The people who are surrounding Jesus, some estimates are in the hundreds of 1000s. A couple of million people would visit Jerusalem during the week of Holy Week, their Passover week. You had to come four days early to get your official sheep that was approved by the temple priest. Then you could take it back to your tent, to your Airbnb, where you got for your family for Jerusalem celebration week, and you'd have to keep it for the four days like there's there's lots of people. There could have been 200,000 people here. They were expecting a messiah to come who would deliver them from the oppression of Rome, from their foreign adversaries. It's an ancient promise a king, there would be a white thread. There would be this sense all the way from the Levitical laws to the present, that the people were dirty or unholy because of their sin, and by the time Jesus day comes, they're fixated on washings. You go out to the market, you have to have a ceremonial washing before you can go eat in your house. Or if you were going to go to Sabbath, you had to go through a public bath. And if you were going to go to the temple, there would be public baths. There were 50 or more before people went into the temple, they were called mikvah UT, or mikvahs, and every person who was going to go up into the temple would have to take this quick plunge in a ceremonial bath that would make them clean or holy. I. Cleansed on the outside, but not on the inside. What was largely an unknown was the scarlet thread. They were going to go make sacrifices. But even though there were many verses, we're going to look at them on Friday night, predicting the suffering of Messiah like Mitzi, just saying, it was largely unknown, if we're really good people, then God will give us Messiah to chase out the Romans, they had the purple thread and the white thread emblazoned on their minds. They had the Old Testament and Jesus had a particular animal in mind, go get me a donkey and its mother. Why a donkey and its mother? Because the donkey had never been ridden. It would need its mother to comfort it and to make it feel safe as the first rider rode with it. Matthew makes it explicit. 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, would have signaled. This would have signaled Messiah is here, and he is coming to make peace. And here is this fulfillment of Zechariah 99 and in Zechariah 99 Israel still wasn't worshiping God. After much discipline and judgment, God promised today where he would cleanse them from sin through the death of Messiah, the pierced one, and restore them to new life and right worship. But here's the point I want to make, especially if you've not really read the Bible yet, not read the Bible yet, the whole of the Old Testament, first half of the Bible, is proceeding on a direct path to the Messiah. When Jesus comes, he is fulfilling and executing God's ancient plan. The God who made predictions, not only knows where and when He will fulfill them, but he has the power to carry them out. There is no one like this. Let's talk about what you're predicting is going to happen next week. You fill out your brackets. Some of you did. Are you? 100% none of you are. We just think about how life goes in any given week. There's a certain set of rhythms you can predict. There's a certain set of things that happen, but there is always something in the way. How often have you said I didn't see that coming? Most every day, Jesus Christ carried out his Father's plan with no interruption, with no barrier. He carried out his Father's plan. The scripture is the only powerful truth in your life, like this and the god, who's revealed in the Scripture, is the only one who can promise and deliver. Jesus is carrying out this plan. Number three, Jesus is exuberantly worshiped. He picks the donkey he is going to fulfill the Scriptures. And we see this worship. The crowds see Jesus, and the crowds have sat in synagogue many times, and they knew some of the signs, maybe even the ones here, predicted by Zechariah, and they erupt in praise and worship. Remember this 100,000 behind and 100,000 before. Remember who this is. This is Jesus who raises the dead to life. He had just raised Lazarus about a week ahead of this on the way. He had just given this sight to a couple of blind men, to Bartimaeus. He's cleansed lepers, he's cast out demons. He's healed the sick. Some even heard of him walking on water. He's fed 1000s of people in different times with a few loaves and a fish. He's taught righteousness, and he's brought good news to the poor, and here he is sitting on the donkey, a sign of a king coming for his procession to be coronated. And he is coming in peace. The Messiah has arrived. Most of the crowds verse eight spread their clothes. Folks on the road and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. It's symbolic of bowing to his rule. It would be, it was be, as to say, I bow at your feet. I lie prostrate to You the King. The crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, Hosanna, to the son of David. Hosanna is a little phrase that means, save us, O Lord. But it was said like a like a praise and extolling. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord? Notice he uses the son of David language. And so that is the promise from Second Samuel chapter seven, here is this son of David, the great Promised Messiah, and he has come blessed. Praise be to he who comes in the name of the Lord Hosanna in the highest he is exuberantly worshiped. Save us. Now, that's a particular quote from Psalm 118 25 and 26 save us. We pray. O Lord. O Lord. We pray. Give us success. Psalm 118 was about a victory over enemies who had been oppressing them. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord? Praise be to
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God who comes representing Yahweh. Kings and Satan were saviors in that they delivered people from oppressive enemies, and 1000s join this procession. But here's what we need to note, they were looking primarily for a political deliverer. I'm going to encourage you to take time between 21 and 28 going through some of these passages this week, and there is a there is a lot of political intrigue going on. There are various political factions. Let me give you the picture in real life time. As we look at this, if you are in the crowd making your way off the Mount of Olives across the Kidron Brook the valley and down to the south side of the temple. The temple mount is picture three football fields side by side. The middle football field at about the far 30th yard line would have been the temple proper, and this end here, if it's the south side, according to my map, you're on the other side of the temple, would have the staircase, and it'd be about 150 feet just to the elevated plateau, and then 60 to 80 feet of walls around it. By the time you made it, and you looked up to the right, you would have seen the Mount of Olives, and you would just follow this very long staircase. You went through your ceremonial washing, you walked up the long staircase, and they are shouting Hosanna all the way up. And as the worshipers, especially those right around Jesus, hit the Eastern Gate, the one that opens to look to the Mount of Olives, they would have taken a hard left and stepped up to another plateau, and on the right, one of the football fields. Over on this side, on the right would have been the political buildings, the administrative buildings that would have been housed with the Sadducees, who were in collusion with the Romans for control of the Temple Mount, and what you would see at the highest peak in the far corner was the fortress of Antonia, which was where the Romans soldiers monitored to make sure There were no riots. The people despised what was going on here. If you look to the left, there would have been a grand stand underneath it. They called it Solomon's portico. The early church met there. You'll see it in Acts, if you read on, and it's a couple of stories tall, and there's a entrance from below that that worshipers could come. And in that football field was what they called Annas bazaar. It was where they sold all the sacrificial animals. You couldn't bring your sacrificial animal from home because the priest would never let it pass. So you had to go in and buy your sheep, your little lamb that you're going to slaughter. You have to buy it. It's got a marking. You bring it over to the priest in the middle football field, who says, Yeah, this one's good. So you could take it home. Crowds were lining the place. It was full. There were not only those things, if you're coming from a long ways away. Might be an appropriate time to offer various other sacrifices. And so pigeons were for sale for the poor. There were other animals. There were other things going on throughout this week before Passover day hit, and the sheep, the lambs, the pigeons, at this time of year were often sold for 10 times their normal value. Imagine being a poor Israelite needing to pay 10 times more than the normal value for a pigeon and only this was the one that was going to get past. It was a racket.
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Which way did Jesus turn? Jesus turned to the left. He turned to the worship
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people weren't really unhappy with this, but what everybody had really wanted drive Rome out, but Jesus was more concerned with the worship than with the politics. He turned left. This is an important reset for us. Certainly we all want the well being of our families, our nation, our fellow citizens, politics are important, but they pale in significance compared to our need for reconciliation with God and our worship. Every way we live in our culture has to flow out of worship focused on what Jesus did in the Gospel, which leads to the fourth Jesus focused on true worship. The crowds extolled him. The crowds extolled him, but they didn't have it quite right. Now, I could say before we jump into this next point, we do know the whole story. When we say Hosanna, when we say, save us now, we are talking about a salvation for those of us who are still in wearing out human bodies, still in a world that is not worshiping Jesus, still in a world where there is unending conflict and fighting Lord save us now is to a resurrected Jesus. I want to finish with some thoughts about that. As Jesus turned left into the Temple Mount, he focused on true worship. Jesus drives out the corrupt businesses profiting from God ordained worship. Verse 12 says Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and He overturned the tables of money changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. I just just pause to think of the physicality of this again. Don't picture a tennis court. Picture a football field filled with all the stalls for the various kinds of animals that are for sale that can be then taken to the priests to be approved. And then you didn't just have to buy the temple animals. You needed to use temple money. So there was a temple shekel, you might bring your Roman currency or any other currency, and then it had an exchange rate, and very often a 25% fee was added to this. Jesus pauses. The other gospel writers talk about Jesus stopping weaving together a whip. He is in control, and he starts walking in. And he takes table after table after table, the currency sellers, resellers, the animals he's kicking over the stools of the guys who sat by their bird cages. I'm sure animals are going everywhere. Feathers are going everywhere. Animals are being driven out. Jesus goes through all of this market with a whip in hand,
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he said to them, it is written, we're going to talk about experts in the Bible. It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you make it a den of robbers. The temple guards that should have protected the worshiper and guarded against extortion were protecting the extortioners and abusing the worshiper. This was. So large this, this area, the one other aspect that's so crucial, the the two football fields here, as we're just using that idea, had a four foot wall that ran from one end to the other end. And it was the wall that the the mothers and grandmothers, the children and any Gentile that wished to come and worship, would be able to come and stand at they would be able to come up with their families, as dad or grandpa went and bought the lamb, or as dad and grandpa brought the Passover lamb. They could watch, they could pray, they could sing, they could celebrate, and it was all filled with the overpriced market. I mean, you think airports are bad, airports are cheap compared to what was going on here. And Jesus was incensed. Jesus was incensed. This is the place to pray for mercy, for forgiveness. This is a price place to give thanks and worship. The first and third of the 10 Commandments. The first commandment is, You shall have no other gods before me was violated because the gods in this market were money, power, politics. The third command you shall have no other. You should not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. Means you shouldn't make the Lord common or degrade his place or his preeminence, greed and business on one side of the temple, political intrigue and collusion on the other side of the temple was robbing God of his worship. Jesus came to focus on worship. It's the idea that's sort of possessed me this week about the need for a reset in worship, and we should ask ourselves the question, what real world matters? Keep me from prayer, keep me from confession, keep me from worshiping Jesus for His death and resurrection. Jesus wants calls demands us to turn to Him. If you're here visiting today and you know something is not quite right in your heart, Jesus is calling you to bow to him, confess Him as Lord, to believe that God raised Him from the dead, To commit to worshiping him. My first version of a sinner's prayer was, Lord, you know, I'm ruining my life. It's all yours. I remember on my knees saying something that might be you when my worship started to change. That might be you today, for those, for others of you, I mean, it could just be the long list of responsibilities for homeschooling. It'd be the long list of responsibilities at work that just so pre occupy that there's no room for worship and no trust, and Jesus is calling us to put him first. Leads us to the fifth Jesus focused on worship. Remember, he was in control all the way. He came to execute God's ancient plan. He was exuberantly worshiped, although misguided at that time, doesn't need to be misguided at ours. And fourth, he focused on worship. And fifth, here's a precious surprise. Jesus healed. Jesus healed. It's a riveting part of the story. He heals the blind. At the end of chapter 20, after driving out the money changers animal sellers, he appears to be the only one who cares for the poor. Verse 14, and the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. Now, this is a real puzzle to put in your mind, isn't it, he had formed a whip, drove out the vendors. He tipped over money, tables, coins, sprawling, animals, bleeding. This was a controlled violence by Jesus. Here we have Jesus, the noble prince, wielding weapons of righteousness, prophecy, equity, sincerity, justice, the temple police, the temple guards that were there, that were certainly being.
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Experts in the law, memorizers of vast tracts of the Old Testament, the Psalms and the Proverbs. Have you never read like do you guys read? Of course, we read. We're experts. I don't think so. Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies, you have ordained praise. Oh, they had read this. Who is this for Yahweh, this is for Yahweh, what is Jesus saying? I am Yahweh, if
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Jesus is going to come out swinging with a whip driving out the money changers, this is swinging with the whip of theology, I am Yahweh. I deserve praise. Even children give praise and worship when they see God work.
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What are you really indignant about? You want to stand in place of God, but I am here, and I am God. You should be worshiping Me. I mean, is this not the right place to end as we begin the Holy Week? Is this not the right place to end? So let's ask some questions. Last Friday, what had the upper hand in your affections? Often we talk about being clogged up, that reset that's needed. What had the upper hand in your affections? What were you fired up about seem to get all there. What were you forlorn about? What were you devastated or sad about, and what tomorrow afternoon will have the upper hand in your affections you get up in the morning, what's going to what's going to draw you into time with him, or what's going to keep you away from him? Whatever that that is for you. For some, it might be very serious, a really serious medical diagnosis. For others, it could just be a full an impossible to finish day. For others, it could be something like one of our brothers is flying planes in the Ian conflict, like like, there's real burdens.
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What's occupying your agenda, your mind or affection? Is it a life worshiping and serving Jesus? Is Jesus preeminent to trust and worship over all those things, or is it something else? On Friday night, we're going to look at the crown of thorns placed on Jesus, who gives his life in our place. Now you might be here, and for the very first time, you might be confronted with the realization that your religion might be busyness or business, it might be politics, it might be parenting, it might be gaming or getting a spouse for you. Jesus' death, life, death and resurrection might just be the first rung that gets you on the steps to the first ladder. But that's not what Jesus does. Jesus is the whole ladder, and he will not settle for anything else. So I invite you this week. I invite you this week to take the deep dive into Holy Week. Holy Week meditations. Who's got an iPhone close by somebody? Dan, do you have something Okay? Could you just say Hey, Siri, give me Holy Week readings. Okay? It's going to take like, eight seconds, and he's got like, three options, and he's got every day, he's got some Holy Week readings to it. You don't need to read them all out to us. But I want to say this is not hard for you to do. It's not hard for you to do. Like, how hard was that, Dan? Did we make it, like, within a few seconds? So every day tomorrow is holy Monday, and then you've got Tuesday, and then you got Wednesday, and there's different readings. And here's what I would invite you to do. You know, we have a whole choir and orchestra that have been thinking about these realities, preparing for Friday night and for Saturday. So here's what I would invite you to do this week. Take time every day. Let's say you're have some kind of artistic ability. You like to draw, draw something, if you're a stick figure person, do that read and then make yourself think about it in some creative way. Could be stick figures. It could be painting. It could be drawing. Ai animation things Frank told me, showed me one of. Those like, make something for me, but think about it. Like, take some time, read it, think about it, share it, pray it. Oh, but I'm not creative. Just find some songs that you like. Just read out loud one of the verses to a friend. Write a poem. Yeah, but Dan, none of those are me. Do you know how to use a spreadsheet? Pull up Excel title the top of it, Holy Week readings. Place them in and then whatever seems to be competing for you and your attention that day, put them under that and put Jesus over that. You can do that. You can do that with a paper list without an Excel spreadsheet. You can just do it with paper. But here's my point, here's the point. Today, Jesus is calling us yet again for him to have first place in all our worship, and you have a wonderful opportunity to do that this week, to see Him in His glory, to throw, as it were, your hearts, the cloaks to him. I bow to you, Jesus, the one who has come to save me from my sins and heal me and make me new. You. If you do this, you're going to find your soul at rest. We're going to be ready to worship together again on Friday. Let's pray, Father, thank You for this word. Thank you for your command. Holy Spirit. We, thank you that you oversaw the writing of all of the Scripture, all of the prophecies and Lord Jesus. We, thank you that you carried out every prophecy for your death and resurrection in meticulous detail, down to the prepared donkey and its mother, all the details. And what confidence we have that as you call us and we entrust ourselves to you, you are the God over the details of our life. Lord Jesus, you are worthy of our worship, our obedience, our proclamation, our songs. Help us sing this week. Help us make every other concern or consideration bow. Make it bow at your feet for Your good pleasure, you are worthy of it. It's in your name we pray.
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Amen.
Dr. Dan Jarms is lead pastor at Faith Bible Church in Spokane Washington, as well as associate dean at The Master's Seminary in Spokane. He has been married for over 30 years to Linda, and has three adult children. He earned his B.A. in English at the Master’s College, B.Ed. at Eastern Washington University, M.Div and D.Min in Expository Preaching at The Master’s Seminary. His other interests include NCAA basketball, woodworking, and art.
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