Palm Sunday

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

Amen and good morning. Our sermon series that we've been going through is called Kingdom Next Door. And it looks at how Jesus describes the kingdom of God that is near. So the kingdom of God being near was something that Jesus said very often. He would, to begin his ministry, he would say, repent for the kingdom of God is near. Repent for the kingdom of God is near. And sometimes when we hear that phrase, and I can't help, I just keep going to it, when we hear that phrase, we think of just the guy on the street corner with the big, you know, the big board, and it says, you know, he's like ringing a bell, like repent for the kingdom of God is near. And what that guy means is that the world's going to end soon, right? Like that the world's going to end. When we see that word near, we think of it in terms of time, okay? The kingdom of God is near, in other words, we think Jesus is saying somehow

that we need to hurry up and repent because the time is running out. That's actually not what he's saying. That word near, it means proximity, it means close to you. And when Jesus is beginning his ministry and he says, repent for the kingdom of God is near, he's talking about himself. He's saying, I'm close to you. I'm bearing the kingdom of God, I'm right next to you. And so to kind of flesh this out a little bit more, and what this all had to do with Jesus' ministry, I want to look at, we're just doing this kind of leading up into Easter and going into Easter. We're talking about the kingdom next door, the kingdom that's right there. And the interesting thing about the kingdom is that there are people that we think, we kind of look at them, we're like, they're totally getting into the kingdom. And they're not, they're actually really far off. And there's other people that we kind of look at

and we think, oh, they're outsiders, like there's no way, but then they're actually just right into the kingdom. And so today, what we're gonna do is we're gonna continue in Luke 19. And we're gonna find people that maybe aren't way inside or way outside, they're kind of in the middle. These people are the crowds. The crowds is who we're gonna be looking at today. How do these crowds fit in the picture of a kingdom that is right next door? Today we are celebrating Palm Sunday. Christians all over the world are celebrating this today. Some of our brothers and sisters in, in some denominations are gonna be celebrating it next week. That's kind of a different story. But most everybody's celebrating it this week, okay.

And Palm Sunday, it's named Palm Sunday for the palm branches that are laid down as Jesus is making this, what's called the triumphal entry Jesus is making this entry into Jerusalem. And so as he's coming in, he's sitting on a donkey and people are throwing their cloaks on the ground. People are, and they get, they get palm branches and they put palm branches down. So he's walking on these, or he's riding on a colt that's walking on these palm branches. And that's why we call it Palm Sunday. And so the interesting thing is that on a Palm Sunday, you usually aren't going to hear the Gospel of Luke read for Palm Sunday. And it's because the Gospel of Luke actually excludes the palm branches. There's really no mention of palm branches at all in the Gospel of Luke. I think that's kind of interesting. Let's look at kind of why. Let's look at where he's, where is Luke focusing?

Okay, we're gonna be in Luke 19. Sorry, I didn't tell you this before. Luke 19 starting, gonna start in verse 37. We're going all the way through 44 today. Luke 19, 37 and 38. And if you have a Bible, you're gonna follow along with us. If you don't, we're gonna have a lot of them on the screen here. And so you can kind of follow along that way if you choose. Luke 19, 37 through 38, it says, as he was drawing near, this is Jesus, already on the way down from the Mount, although, excuse me, already on the way down the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen saying, blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord, peace in heaven and glory in the highest. Okay, so the situation is starting to develop here and we have disciples, a multitude of disciples.

So we aren't in the crowds yet. We have a multitude of disciples that are shouting these things out loud. They're praising, praising Jesus, okay. Now, something that is helpful to know is that the Mount of Olives, where Jesus was coming down from in Jerusalem, by way of donkey, that's about a 20 minute endeavor, okay. Or by foot, it's also kind of a 20 minute endeavor. And you have to go through this really deep valley and then come up, okay. So you're going down from the mountain into the Kidron Valley and then you are making your way back up, it's about a 20 minute deal. And so what you see later, you see a larger crowd of people eventually come and join in that procession. What we're reading about here in Luke 19:37-38 is the beginning of that procession as he's coming down from the Mount of Olives. What develops later, and this is what we see in other gospel accounts like in John 12, for example,

you see other people come and they see what the disciples are doing, they hear what they're chanting and they jump in. You see the larger crowd kind of jump in. These are people, according to a lot of the other gospel writers, these are people that had not been following Jesus as his disciple, right. These are people largely that have seen miracles. In fact, in John 12, it says specifically, these are people that saw him, saw Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead, okay. So these are people that have seen his miracles, that have heard about him, they heard he raised Lazarus. These are probably people that were fed, okay, that were fed by the fishes and loaves. These are people that maybe their uncle was healed, maybe they were healed, right. These are people that have benefited and seen and been amazed by the ministry of Jesus, okay. This is a larger crowd and they're coming later.

So the larger crowd then joins in shouting and praising and this is very on brand for what the crowds do in Jesus' ministry, okay. When you read the gospels, if you kind of look at what the crowds are doing, typically when Jesus does really amazing things, like raise a guy from the dead, the crowds just blow up. And when he says really hard things, like you have to eat my flesh and drink my blood, people kind of freak out and they walk away, okay. The crowd thins and in this scene, what we see here in 37-38, this is an upswing. In fact, this is probably the highest point of his crowd approval, okay. Not that Jesus is concerned with such matters but this is the highest point of his crowd approval in his entire ministry, okay. And so Jesus, it's a really interesting thing that he's so popular at this point but Luke chooses to tell it a different way. So why does he do that?

Why does Luke exclude a lot of these people that are coming later, why does he exclude the palm branches, why does he exclude all these things and you'll see in a couple of verses, I mean he's gonna be approaching the city. So in the timeline here, Luke got the beginning and got the end but excluded kind of this rabble, this friendly mob of people that were throwing down palm branches.

I think what Luke seems to be highlighting here as he's kind of describing this is a bit of a bandwagon effect. That he's talking about how the disciples are the ones who are starting this whole thing. They're starting to praise, they're starting to lay things down, the crowds are coming later. I don't know if you've ever been interested in a restaurant and said hey, that restaurant, maybe the signage looks good, maybe it has cuisine that you are interested in, okay, and you look at it, what's the first thing you do? You read reviews, that's the first thing you do. Isn't that funny? You don't go try it yourself, why not? Because you want to see if it's good first. The way you determine if it's good is if other people think it's good. Okay, this is something we all do. Okay, I'm not trying to cast aspersions here, I'm not trying to be judgy. But we believe in our hearts that if a lot of other people

like this restaurant, then it is objectively good and we will go to it, we'll give it a shot. Okay, it is not bad to bandwagon on a restaurant. However, it turns very toxic when you let it determine your life, how to raise your children, who you're willing to hang out with, what you choose to believe. Okay, these are bad things to do as a bandwagon, okay. If you're not sure what you believe, there's many other avenues to go down. I would love to help you go down those avenues actually. Our churches would love to help you go down those avenues, but just the last thing you wanna do is just say, well, what do a lot of people believe? Okay, I'll believe that. That's a really terrible idea, don't do it, okay.

But whenever we're looking at kind of what's going on with Luke and he's highlighting the bandwagon effect, it helps us anticipate what we read next in verse 41. Luke 19, 41, it says, and when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, okay. He's near the end, he's through the Kidron Valley, he's coming up, he can see the city, and he begins to cry. So the disciples have been praising, the crowds have come up and they're starting to praise and what's Jesus doing, he's weeping, he's crying. Here's what he says, Luke 19, 42, it says, saying, would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace, but now they are hidden from your eyes. So we can tell here that Jesus is lamenting for the city, but what is he talking about exactly? Well, what we need to understand is that Jesus is beginning to address the city like an Old Testament prophet, okay.

So as we read what's going on, this is gonna sound, this should sound to the reader, if you're familiar with like Jeremiah and Isaiah and all these Old Testament guys that are pronouncing judgment on a city, this is kind of how it begins. There's this heartbreak, this moment where it's just like, oh, you know, just, you could have had it all, but you didn't. He's preparing to pronounce judgment, and so he says, they had not done the things that make for peace, which is a really interesting way to put it. It says, would that you, even you had known on this day the things that make for peace. In other words, there was all these things at your disposal, all these things you could have done that would have made for peace.

And from the beginning, God's people, particularly, oh, the religious elite, they continually found ways to rebel against God, to do things their way, to do it better, to do it just different than how the Lord wanted. They're not making for peace. We're gonna explore that in just a bit, it says now that they're hidden from your eyes. So Jesus drawing near the city marks a finality, an end, a break, and he's more than just a little sad about it. He's weeping over it, and this is why he's weeping, because he knows what's coming. He tells us, Luke 19, 43. It says, for the days will come upon you when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side. So Jesus is beginning to announce judgment on God's people, okay, and he's announcing what sounds like a siege. If you're unfamiliar with what a siege is, very quickly, a siege, most cities have a wall around them,

but those cities still needed goods to come in and things to leave, right? They were invested in commerce, okay? They couldn't grow their own everything. There were things that they needed, and a lot of times, they didn't have big orchards inside the city walls, they had them outside. So if you're an army and you're gonna take that city, you build a whole big compound around that city. You don't let anything in, you don't let anything out. For weeks, months, you starve them out. You make them do really terrible things, because they're so hungry, okay? That was a common war practice in Jesus's day, and this is what he's announcing. So he's announcing, it sounds like a siege. Look at verse 44, it says, they will tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.

It sounds like Jesus is saying, I'm weeping over you, Jerusalem, because you're going to fall in a siege, and that is exactly what happened in 70 AD. Jerusalem fell in a siege, just like Jesus talked about. 40 years after he said it, Emperor Titus, the Roman Emperor. Have you ever heard of the Western Wall? That's kind of a big, you know, like if you're gonna go visit the Holy Land, or if you're gonna know anything about it, the Western Wall. You know why that Western Wall is so famous? Because it was the only thing standing after the siege. It's the only wall that stayed up. The Western Wall. It's historic because it's just a remnant. So Jesus is saying, this is going to come, this is going to come upon you, I know it for sure, I'm sad about it, and if only things would have been different. He's specifically lamenting they did not know their day of visitation,

because they did not recognize that Jesus was coming. But ironically, if you would have been reading along, if you would have read Luke, even John 12, other gospel accounts, it does, it kind of seems like they recognized their day of visitation, right? Jesus is saying they didn't recognize it, but all the crowds and all the people, they're quoting the Old Testament. They're throwing things down for him to walk on. And he's crying, Jesus is crying because he's saying, you didn't know your day of visitation. But it looks just like they knew their day of visitation. Weren't they cheering in the streets? Weren't they hailing him as the Messiah? Yeah. This is what Luke is highlighting with the bandwagon effect. He's saying there is a way to cheer Jesus on. There is a way to root for him, there's a way to be excited about him without following him. There is a way to cheer Jesus on,

be excited for him without following him. If you would poll the average burlesonite, you would hear a familiar religious slash spiritual story. They grew up in church, they had fun, they did youth group things, there's great memory, there's great people, there's great potlucks, there's just all this kind of fun. There's things they didn't like, but generally they were like, yeah, yeah, I mean, church was great. And as adults, I mean, maybe they head up church every once in a while, they identify as a Christian, but they don't really follow Jesus. And look, I'm not really trying to equate attending a church service with following Jesus. However, what I am saying is that there are people that will say, I'm a Christian, yeah, yeah, I go to church sometimes, but they do not follow Jesus. And they're not, these people aren't destructive people. They follow the law mostly, I mean,

everybody speeds, right? They're not rude, well, most people speed, sorry. I just out of myself, if you don't speed, God bless you, okay? I don't know who you are, you perfect person, but it's, okay, so these Burleson, these Burlesonites, sorry, I just got a glimpse of somebody who definitely doesn't speed, and so I'm now, I'm just. They're not destructive, they're not rude, but they don't follow Jesus. They might tip well at the restaurant, but they don't follow Jesus. They might let somebody who's older than them go in front of them and hold the door of them, but they don't follow Jesus. They might not drink and smoke and chew and run with people that do, but they don't follow Jesus. Right? They don't follow Jesus. Clean living, friend, clean living. But they don't know Jesus as their Lord. They cheer Jesus on, or they're excited about it. Yeah, let's get prayer back in schools,

but they don't follow Jesus. There is a way to have a feeling, a very strong feeling that does not lead to a relationship with Jesus. I tell this story often, I'll tell it quickly. There's a guy in London, I was on a mission trip to London, England, and we would go to pub trivia's and we would find people to sit with. We would invite ourselves, like total Americans, onto an English person's trivia team. So we're just sitting there, we're talking with him, and we're just bringing up spiritual conversations, sharing our story, et cetera, et cetera. So I'm talking with this guy named Tom, and Tom tells me this, he said, I have a story and you won't believe it. And Tom is in his 60s, and not trying to impress me, because he's an Englishman, but he said, I have a story and you won't believe it. And so he proceeds to tell me this really wild story about how he had heavenly light blinding him in a graveyard.

He went to visit a graveyard, it's a long story. He's sitting, and by the end of it, he's in the fetal position, rocking back and forth, crying his eyes out, and hearing, I love you, I love you, I love you, over and over again, okay? So, no kidding, Tom had a sign from heaven, literally. And he believed every word of that story. And my question to him was, oh, okay, well then what happened next? He said, what do you mean? I said, what'd you do with that? He goes, well, I went home. I said, no, after that. He goes, nothing, I didn't do anything.

Was I supposed to do something? I'm like, yeah, yeah. I said, look, that was the invitation, right? That was the beginning, but you gotta accept that. You have to do something with that, right? And I don't think Tom, the Englishman, is that different than a lot of people, even in Burleson, where they mistake the invitation for the relationship. There was a way to have a strong feeling, a spiritual feeling about something, be moved, deeply even, and then to not have a relationship with Jesus. There's a way to know the Bible and not know Jesus. There's plenty of people that know the Bible that do not know the Lord. And Jesus, hear me, Jesus will judge each and every one of us on that basis. He will not judge us according to how much religion we had or how many feelings we had. He will judge us based on our relationship with Him. And if it sounds weird for me to say that Jesus

is judging people, let's not be confused. Let's keep it together, the gospel of Jesus and the judgment of Jesus. Many are quick to point out, rightly so. Well, Jesus took judgment on the cross, right? It's all grace now. There's no judgment. There's no, no, it's just all love, just God is love. That's what the Bible is all about, God is love. There's no judgment. But the Bible's actually super clear that Jesus taking on someone else's judgment is dependent. It's dependent on what it calls the obedience of faith. It's dependent on what they believe. It's dependent on who they follow.

And for clarity, I wanna look at just two things Jesus said about judgment. I think this is helpful. Many of you know John 3 16, but I thought we could look two verses later, right? Jesus says whoever believes in Him is not condemned just talking about Himself. God. Jesus said whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already because He has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. To have a spiritual experience or to do religious things is not the same as entering Jesus' kingdom. For that, it takes personally laying your life down to Him, to give Him the keys, as it were, to your life. John 5 39 through 40, Jesus is talking to the religious leaders. These are the pastors. So it's Jesus and a bunch of pastors. And so what does He say? He says you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life.

And it is they that bear witness about me. Yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. Jesus is judging, condemning the religious elite. And it's because they refuse to follow Him, even though they know the Bible, even though they are extremely religious. They are way more religious than you can imagine, okay? They are counting everything and making sure that God gets a tenth of it. They are doing things in fear of God leaving them or something. They teach other people spiritual things. These are the religious elite. These are people that many other people in the community respect and look to and say, please train us about religious things. Please show us how to be spiritual. That these people. And what does Jesus say to them? He says, oh, you search the scriptures because you're looking for life there, but you're missing it. You're missing life. You're gaining death because you miss me, Jesus says.

What an indictment. How judgmental of Jesus to say such a thing. And yet there it is. Plenty of other places actually. Jesus talked about hell a ton. Jesus was unashamed to talk about judgment. And look, you can know a lot of Bible. You can go to a lot of church. You can do all those things. And you can miss Jesus. You can still, when the judgment comes, Jesus is still going to look at you and say, look, I know you did all those religious things, but I didn't know you. So be gone. Go away from me. I don't know you. So what's the way around this judgment? Let's look at Jesus' own words. Luke 19:42, let's go back and read what we read already. Okay, so Jesus, look at what he says to the city of Jerusalem. And we can kind of understand a little bit. Luke 19:42, it says, would that you even you had known on this day the things that make for peace, the things that make for peace,

you know what makes for peace? What the crowds and the religious elites miss in this moment, what they miss, what they don't accept is the fact that they are at war with God. They don't see it. They're not looking for peace because they don't think they're at war. They don't think there's a problem, so they're not looking for a solution. And the crowds and the religious elites are the same in this respect. Ephesians two calls us, before Jesus calls us children of disobedience. Romans five says that we were enemies of God at war with God. In a war, we weren't going to win. The crowds and the religious elites' problem is that they thought that God was on their side. But let me just tell you quite simply, God's not on your side, God's on his side. Okay, God invites us to be on his side. And so I know what we mean when we say God's on our side. Look, I get it. I'm not trying to just mince words here.

What I'm trying to help you understand, though, is that there's a way to think that you are kind of in with God because you go to church every once in a while and you had a spiritual feeling and you're kind of religious and you don't hurt people. So God's going to like you. But you must, you must come face to face with the fact that God is looking for perfection and you aren't it. I know that might be a disappointment for like a handful of you. Some days it's a disappointment for me. God is not looking for perfection. God is looking for perfection and I'm not it. Anything less than perfection. Anything that we bring to him that we think is so great, the Bible calls that filthy rags. Just not worth much. And anything less than perfection is a sin and it's an offense against God. That's a big deal. So look, if you want to know the things that make for peace, you have to first accept

that God's holiness, your sin, are incompatible, they are at war. And there's so many ways to do this. There's so many ways that you can accept this. Prayer is particularly helpful. And so here's my encouragement. Get alone often and pray. Pray and confess your sin to Jesus and ask for forgiveness. I realize that some of you say, you could say to me, well like I did that a really long time ago. That's great. But just like, you ever hear of the husband who's there in marriage counseling and the counselor tells the husband like, hey you need to say I love you, like more often he goes, well I told her at the altar, what more does she want? It hadn't changed. I told her one time in front of God and everybody, I said I love you for our wedding vows. And it's been 30 years, but I didn't say I didn't love her.

What you are in with the Lord, what the Lord wants with you is a personal relationship. The way that that, part of the way that that personal relationship turns is when you go before the Lord and you say, look Lord, I understand, I remember why I got here. I remember that I'm a sinner. I sin still, I need your forgiveness. I need to confess these things to you. And it's not, look, it's not 40 lashes, right? You don't need to go in your prayer closet and just get the whip out and start hitting your back. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about self-loathing. I'm talking about understanding a new, fresh, that you are a sinner before a holy God. And that really helps you remember your place in the universe. And it helps you remember God's place in the universe. When you have unconfessed sin in your life, that will destroy you from the inside out.

Make it a daily habit. Come to grips with your sin and run. Don't walk, run. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Go to Jesus with your sin. You're always gonna be glad you did. You're always gonna be glad you did. In fact, we looked at it last week, the tax collector. Jesus tells us illustration, this parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. What's the tax collector do? He just beats his breast and he says, God have mercy on me, a sinner.

That's a really great prayer to pray. That's super great. If that's the first prayer you ever pray, that's a great first prayer. But my encouragement, man remember, remember what makes for peace. Confess and repent before the Lord. So if we're gonna do right, if we're gonna handle that judgment that Jesus is going to need out, if we're gonna handle that rightly, we need to know what makes for peace. But he pointed out something else whenever he was pronouncing judgment. Look at Luke 19:44.

It says, at the end of the indictment, he says, you did not know the time of your invitation. Knowing the time of your invitation, no, invitation, visitation, excuse me. Knowing the time of your visitation. There are a few ways that you can miss your time of visitation. I will tell you two of them. And the first way to miss that visitation. And really, missing the day of visitation would be like, just God coming to you and you not expecting that, right? You missing that moment, okay? The first way you can miss that is to think that you have more time. Many people make the mistake of believing that salvation is like this open elevator that will never close. It'll just stay open, it's just gonna sit there and wait. And if you wanna follow Jesus now, that's great. But you can always follow Jesus later. There's always this moment, there's always time to do that. I'm gonna get religion later.

I'm gonna get with Jesus whenever I get older. I'm gonna wait till I have kids. I'm gonna wait till I retire. I'm gonna wait till I have more time. I'm gonna wait till I'm not as invested in my job. Thinking that you have more time. Hebrews five, excuse me, Hebrews 3:15 through 19. It's a little extended, but it's totally worth reading. It says, this is Hebrews talking, it's just kind of a sermon to a church. It says, as it is said today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. It says in the rebellion, for those who were, for those who heard and yet, excuse me, for who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt, led by Moses? And with whom was he provoked for 40 years? Was it not those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient?

So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief. There are people that will cheer Jesus on who saw the miracles. There were people there that were hailing Jesus to the Messiah that had every opportunity to understand that they needed to follow him personally. They knew who the disciples were. In another gospel account, on this exact moment, like in the Luke 19 account that we're reading, a parallel account in John, there's people who seek out the disciples, a disciple and say, hey, we wanna talk to Jesus. The crowd knew who the disciples were. The Pharisees knew who the disciples were. They could talk, these people could talk to the other people that Jesus healed. They could see that he was just more than a good teacher. They could see, they could listen to him. They heard Jesus say several times, like, follow me.

It's not as if Jesus were, you know, just had, it's not as if he were being hard to get, playing hard to get. It's not as if he was preaching and then people were like, man, I don't know what he wants me to do, but it sounds really good. Like, no, Jesus was extremely clear. Follow me. They could examine Jesus firsthand, but they wasted that opportunity because they did not know the time of salvation, the time of their visitation.

Another way to miss your time of visitation, not to think that it'll always be around, but to think that it may have already happened. You think your time of visitation already happened? And it's not, it's confusing the invitation for the relationship. And this is where the crowds and the religious elite do the same thing, but for different reasons. The crowds and the religious elite, they respond the same way, but for different reasons. The crowds believe that because they have tasted spiritual things, because they've experienced spiritual things that they had salvation, that they knew. I say, oh, Jesus healed me. He healed my sister. We have a relationship. Jesus gave me that job. We're friends now. The war's over. Jesus solved my problem over here, and I'm really thankful. So now we're on good terms. We know each other now. It's good, but it's not the same thing as a relationship.

If you were walking down the street and you saw a celebrity, we'll just pick one at random. We'll pick Adam Sandler. He's on the brain for some reason, so we'll just go with him. You're walking down the street, you see Adam Sandler. You have this big pile of papers maybe, and you drop them, and Adam Sandler is there, and he helps you pick him up. And you just think to yourself, man, what a great guy, Adam Sandler, helping me pick up my paper, right? How cool is that? But let me just help you understand. Like, if you go to his house after that and knock on his door, you might not be welcomed as a friend, okay? You're gonna think, because he helped you do something, that you guys are besties, but you're not. You're just not. There's no knock on Adam Sandler. I'm sure he's a great guy. Whatever, I don't know. He could be terrible. But it is to say it's not the same thing as a friendship.

You aren't going over for Thanksgiving, okay? He helped you do something one time, but it's different than a relationship. If Adam Sandler, though, after helping you do that, if he said to you, oh hey, by the way, I'm Adam Sandler, and you're like, I know, because you're big in this illustration, you're a big Adam Sandler fan. And I'm Adam Sandler. Listen, I can see that you need a place to live. Would you come stay at my house, and would you eat at my table? Okay, that's an invitation, right? But if you don't go, you can rant and rave all you want about the invitation, but you're like, no, I already have a house, already have a table, I'm doing just fine over here. I don't need to live with you, Adam Sandler. I don't need to, it's so weird to think of Adam Sandler this way, but I don't need to live with you, Adam Sandler. I don't need to eat at your table. You have rejected that invitation.

We need to be clear with Jesus helping you do something, and then you following Jesus, eating at his table, living in his house. Those are two different things. And a lot of times, man, a lot of times, especially in the Bible Belt South, especially in Burleson, Texas, there is a great confusion over, Jesus did something for me that one time, and we have a relationship. A lot of times, they could put together, and they're not the same thing.

And it is ironically tragic that people die and go to hell, and at the judgment seat, they're going, but wait a second, I mean, they are surprised, because they thought they were following Jesus their whole life. And if you don't think that's going to happen, read Matthew seven, it totally happens. Jesus gives an illustration of such that there were people that said to Jesus, hey, didn't we cast out demons in your name? Didn't we prophesy in your name? Did we do all these great things in your name? And what did Jesus say? Jesus doesn't say, no, it wasn't good enough. Jesus doesn't say, like, no, I mean, it wasn't my flavor. I didn't want you to deliver that guy. I wanted you to leave the demon in. No, no, he didn't say anything. He says, I didn't know you. Jesus judges everybody on the basis of knowing him, a personal relationship with him. And look, I understand that's kind of like

ABC's gospel stuff, that's introductory stuff, that's great, but a lot of times that gets confused with a whole lot of other things that we don't need it confused with. We gotta be clear on that. The crowds think that they had tasted, because they had tasted spiritual things, they had spiritual experiences, they thought they had salvation, but the religious elite thought that because they knew spiritual things, they had salvation already. They knew it. They could recite John 3 16, they could even recite the whole Bible, probably. These were people that were raised in church. Their daddy was a deacon, their mama was the church secretary, their grandfather was the minister of music. I mean, they had the heritage. They're ready to go, they knew it all. But they did not have salvation. Don't miss the time of invitation, the time of visitation because you think it already happened.

Jesus can and does offer salvation multiple times over, and he continues to do so. That is the world in which we live. Jesus does that, but it all comes from grace. Jesus owes this to no one. His offer for salvation comes from his compassionate grace. In fact, it is grace because he doesn't owe it. Otherwise, it would just be a debt that Jesus is repaying, but it's not. Jesus doesn't owe us anything. He graciously offers that to us. So let me just encourage you.

Seek out and hold on to salvation now. Before the storms come, before your life changes unalterably, before you, I've seen it happen a lot, actually, in the lives of people that I know, some of them dear friends of mine, that they think they have time. And it's not like they just die in a car wreck when they're 20, right? It's that their life changes and all of a sudden, they become, I don't know, in their minds, God makes them a raw deal or something, and they're mad at God, right? So they kind of grow up thinking, okay, I've got more time to follow God, I've got more time to follow God, I've got more time. And then they become paralyzed, or their wife leaves them, or they don't get their dream job, they don't get into college, they flunk out. Something happens, or they get addicted to drugs. Something happens in their lives, right? And there's this moment, and it changes their lives,

and it can never go back to the way it was. And for some reason, in that moment, they think either, I'm damaged, good, God never wants me, it's been too long since I've been in church, I'm never gonna go back. All these excuses start flooding in, and it's just the enemy trying to keep them from the Lord. Seek Jesus out today, do not assume that you will get around to it. The story that, kind of this passage, the travel entry, it has a funny line in the middle, and I just wanted to end with this, Luke 19, 39 through 40. It says, and some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, teacher, rebuke your disciples.

And Jesus said, I tell you, if these were silent, these disciples, if they were silent, the very stones would cry out. What Jesus is saying in this moment is that, look, all these people, this is like a default response. This is me coming in my majesty, and these people can't help it. I'm just here, being great, being majestic. Of course they're gonna worship, of course they're gonna cry, and if they didn't do it, the very creation would cry out. Somebody would have to. You and I get the choice of if we're gonna cry out or if we're gonna let stones do it for us. My encouragement today, during our time of response, as we kind of end with a song, I want you to consider not just maybe how you've handled salvation, but maybe even as we were talking about it, there were some people that popped into your mind. Maybe there were some people that you've been praying for

that they've had opportunity after opportunity after opportunity, right? And I know some of you, and I know your lives, and I know there's people that you love that are just like this, right? I have people in my life that are just like this. They're kind of like Christian adjacent. They sort of love and respect Christians, and they would go to church, but they don't feel like they're kind of able. They don't feel like they're ready. They don't feel like they're worthy. Something's holding them back. My encouragement, just like if as we were going through and talking about salvation, if you were just like, yeah, look, I know, I follow the Lord, I know I'm saved, that's good. Okay, what about the people that aren't? What role can you play in their lives? How can you help them not just see that, but begin to come to grips with that? How do you need to begin praying now for those people?

Besides, more often, how can you pray? We have home groups that are starting this week. That is a great place for not just people to connect, but also for you to just say, look, I'm praying for this person, and I want you to pray for them with me. Prayer is good. It avails much. That's my encouragement. Lean into that. As we sing and we respond here, I'm gonna be back there by the couches and chairs. Man, if there's somebody even just burdened on your heart and you wanna pray for a man, just meet me back there, we can pray. You can pray in your seat if you want to. Lord, we thank you for the opportunity that you give us. We thank you for the opportunity for salvation that you give us, and the opportunity to see that happen in other people's lives, people that we care for, people that you've put in our lives. Lord, help us to do that in a way that is honoring to you.

Just however clumsily forward we need to walk forward with that, help us to just take a step. It's your name that we pray. Amen. Would you please stand as we sing.