Matthew 21:1-13 What If The Savior You Want Is Not The Savior You Need

A cheering crowd. Palm branches on the road. A humble donkey. Then, almost immediately, an uproar in the city and a confrontation in the temple. Palm Sunday is not a soft-focus Bible moment for us; it’s a test of what we really want from Jesus.

We open Matthew 21:1–13 and walk through three surprises for the “flaky crowd” and, honestly, for us too. First, Jesus rides into Jerusalem knowing exactly where it leads. The triumphal entry isn’t Jesus getting caught in a trap; it’s Jesus choosing the cross on purpose. We talk about why the donkey matters, what meekness actually is, and why the Savior we want is often different from the King we need.

Next, we dig into worship and the meaning of “Hosanna.” We explore the gospel as the only bridge across the gap our sin creates, and why Jesus deserves our full worship beyond a Sunday song. We also address the quieter places faith gets shallow: trying to control God, trying to earn love, or refusing to see ourselves as God’s image-bearers.

Finally, we watch Jesus cleanse the temple and refuse shallow expectations. That moment is about holiness, repentance, and a church that does justice with real presence, not just posts. We end with a call to return to our first love and hold fast to Jesus in both victory parades and dark nights.

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Transcript

Welcome And Why Church Matters

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Welcome to the City Life Church podcast. We hope it encourages you. If you'd like to learn more about City Life or our mission, connect with us online at CityLifesandiego.org. And while podcasts and Sunday mornings are helpful, they are no substitute for deeper personal relationships in the church.

Reading Matthew 21 For Palm Sunday

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So today we're in Matthew 21, 1 through 13. That is Matthew 21, 1 through 13. And did you guys find it in your Bibles? Does anyone have a physical Bible? I left mine in my office, so I can't even mine up. Oh, there's one. There's one. There's one. All right. Well, I'm so glad that you guys have your Bibles out to Matthew 21. This is Palm Sunday, which is celebrated in a lot of like more like liturgical churches. But there are some things them old churches do that I think are amazing. As you know, we do Ash Wednesday here. There are lots of old things that churches do that they're old because they've stuck around for a long time. And I think sometimes it's really good to follow those schedules. I'm not saying that we should follow every tradition of every church, but uh I love the idea of celebrating Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem. And so that's what we're doing today. So I hope you're there, Matthew 21, 1 through 13. Let me read to you from God's word. When they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethpage at the Mount of Olives, Jesus then sent two disciples, telling them, Go into the village ahead of you. At once you will find a donkey tied there with her colt. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them, and he will send them at once. This took place so that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled. Tell daughter Zion, see, your king is coming to you, gentle and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt the full of a donkey. The disciples went and did just as Jesus directed them. They brought the donkey and the cold, and they laid their clothes on them, and he sat on them. A very large crowd spread their clothes on the road. Others were cutting branches from the trees and spreading them on the road. Then the crowds who went ahead of him and those who followed shouted, Hosanna, Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest heaven. If you don't know what that means, we'll cover it, don't worry. When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in an uproar, saying, Who is this? The crowds were saying, This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee. Jesus went into the temple and threw out all those buying and selling. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves. He said to them, It is written, My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it into a den of thieves. Friends, this is God's word. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you for being who you said you would be. When we have deserved justice, not in a good way, you have offered us grace and mercy. You are our conquering king who topples unjust systems and unjust people, not by spilling their blood, but by spilling your blood of your son. Father, as we welcome your son Jesus today, and by extension, your Holy Spirit, we want to welcome all of you, every part of you, not just the words we like, not just the rules we agree with. We want all of you. Your justice, your mercy, your law. Help us to obey, not just when you are seen as a conquering king, but when you are hated and you are spat upon. Make us more and more like your son. Please teach us this morning. May the words of my mouth and the thoughts of our hearts be pleasing to you. We pray this all in Jesus' name, and all God's people said, Amen.

Palm Sunday And A Flaky Crowd

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Well, I didn't grow up in church. Um I don't know how many of you guys grew up in church, but a lot of churches uh they celebrated Palm Sunday. Um did did you guys did anyone here like grow up celebrating Palm Sunday? All right, yeah, a lot of you guys. Uh I had no idea. The first time I saw it, I was not all the way through the New Testament yet. I was just finishing up the Old Testament. The first time I saw it, I was like, these people are crazy. But you know what? I saw a lot of things with church people that I thought were crazy that I do now. Um I didn't grow up in church, so I didn't know what Palm Sunday was. I didn't know why kids would be like waving palm fronds around. Um hopefully one day we can do more with it, but uh I really wanted to preach on the text of Palm Sunday today. Now it is kind of a weird celebration, though. Let's just be real, okay? Um, it's a perfect description of us, Palm Sunday is. Why? Um because like when Jesus showed up, people were excited. People were praising him, people were saying all kinds of things about him, but it didn't last. When Jesus showed up to fix things, we were like, ride or die, we're with you, Jesus. Bring on the conquering king, that's who I need. But then when Jesus was on his way to a horrific death on the cross, his fans split. Like his best friends left. There was just a few faithful women who stuck with him in those dark moments, waiting for some semblance of hope, waiting for a sunrise. But today, Jesus' followers, we are ride or die. We worship him at victory parades, and we hold fast when the crowd hungers for a different kind of king. So today I'm gonna give you three surprises for the flaky crowd on Palm Sunday. Three surprises for the flaky crowd on Palm Sunday. My

Surprise One The Cross Was Planned

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first surprise is this Jesus' death was always his plan. Jesus' death was always his plan. Said when they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethpage at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two students, telling them, Go to the village, and once you and once you will find at once you will find a donkey tied there with her colt, untie them and bring them to me. So he's like, I have an Uber waiting. If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them, and he will send them at once. This took place so that was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled. Tell daughter Zion, see your king is coming to you. Gentle and mounted on a donkey and on a colt, the follow of a donkey. The disciples went and did just as Jesus directed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and they laid their clothes on them, and he sat on them. Now, Jesus knew exactly what he was walking into, friends. He had planned ahead. You think that if he didn't know about the like you think that he just knew about the donkeys and he didn't know what's coming next? No, no, he was there and he knew what was coming. His ride was there waiting for him, and something worse was coming once he got there. He knew about this before time. Before time existed, Jesus knew this would happen. Yes, he was walking into a trap. He was aware. But guys, God cannot be trapped. God cannot be deceived, no matter how much we like to think that we can deceive him. And Jesus could not be murdered without consent. He was walking into the devil's home turf disguised as this religious utopia. He knew it and he still chose it for you. While being celebrated with cheers, he knew the plan was for his murder. Can you just imagine? He's just like waving, oh, I love you too. Y'all about to kill me so quick. Yeah, it's so good to see you. Yeah, I know what you're about to do. Oh, you're gonna spit on me. Hey, hey, hey, what's up? Good, hey, good you, you're you, you know. But like he's keeping this good attitude, but he knows exactly what they're all about to do. I'm so glad to be here. And yet Jesus continued on, right? Because the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. And in God's great faithfulness, he bolted into the city. Was he sick about it? Yes. And still Jesus went. Still, he marched on with love. Now we see this prophecy being fulfilled here in Zechariah 9:9. Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion. Shout in triumph, daughter of Jerusalem, look, your king is coming to you, righteous and victorious, humble and riding on a donkey, on a cult, the foal of a donkey. This was written in the 6th century BC. It's a long time for them to wait. Finally, it was coming true. They had been waiting for this hundreds and hundreds of years. And and it wasn't just a cult. Actually, the book of Mark stated that it was a cult that had never been ridden, which is interesting. Like, um, how how many of you guys here have you ever like walked a dog for the first time? How did that go? Like, you walk a dog for the first time, it's either pulling you or it's like choking itself, right? Getting wrapped up, like it does not know what to do. Now, you have a donkey for the first time being ridden by someone. I kind of like to think that it was funny. Like, he it's like Jesus is riding in on a puppy that doesn't even know what to do. Now, Jesus could certainly, in his divine power, cause it to be still. But I like to think that this donkey was just kind of like doing whatever, sniffing things, like doing doing whatever it wanted. And here is Jesus, this regal king coming in on this on this little baby. Doesn't even know what it's doing. Now it's interesting that mom is there, almost like maybe mom is there to help out. I don't know. But Zambian scholar Joe Coppolo, he says this the crowds in Jerusalem would have probably preferred the Messiah to be riding on a war horse. Jesus, however, while still claiming to be the true king of Israel, entered the city not on a white charger or the head of an army column, but sitting on a donkey, a beast of burden. He was meek and who came to serve rather than be served. He entered Jerusalem, his city, as a humble or gentle king on a donkey. But the people were bursting with pride and relief. Like if we had felt the same oppression of Israel, if we had been sitting under Roman occupation, we'd have been in the street cheering too. We would have. We would have absolutely been there. Yes, Jesus, yes, here he comes, the one that our ancestors prophesied about. He's gonna free us from our chains. I heard he can make tap water and he can make monster energy drinks out of it. I heard he can multiply food where there is none. He is gonna free us from our oppressors, he's gonna set the captives free. So what do they do? They stripped off their jackets and put it at his feet. Don't miss that. The palms are important, but they did their jackets first. That's that's an important thing. Your jacket. When people ran out of their own coats, they put out the palm fronds. Now, Diane Chen, she says this is the equivalent of a modern-day red carpet. Jesus was there to set the captives free, but the problem was it wasn't in the way that they thought. He wasn't gonna kill the Roman leaders like they wanted, he was gonna kill death. Now, when a king rode in on a donkey instead of a war horse, that had meaning too, friends. It was the announcement of peace. Peace. Now, I think the people at the time were probably fine with peace in some ways. So long as it meant a transition of power from Rome to Israel leadership. Peace, okay, sure. I'm fine with peace. But the peace Jesus was offering was something they weren't looking for. Peace? Seriously? That's where they would be soon enough. Jesus, these oppressive people are raping our daughters. Don't you care? Our friends disappear in the night and they never return. There are secret police all around us. How can you be a savior without saving us from this evil? But Israel didn't want Jesus kind of peace, did it, did they? And let me just say, we're much more like Israel than we're not. Let's be clear. They wanted death. They wanted vengeance. They wanted death to Rome, to the people who had killed tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of their ancestors. Jesus was coming into a city for victory, no doubt, but the victory was coming through death. And here's the crazy thing through that death, he would save many of the hated Romans. Jesus came to give hope to Israel and to the enemies of Israel. Jesus came to give hope to enemies. Now is that unrealistic? Yes. To anyone but God. To anyone but God. Jesus came to adopt his enemies, sinners and religious people alike. The Bible says we all belong to the kingdom of the devil, and Jesus came to transfer us to the kingdom of God's beloved Son. To adopt us into his family, enemies. That's something to cheer about. But it's it's easier in retrospect, right? The crowds didn't understand. So they cheered for a show. And I think sometimes that's how our faith is, right? Like we understand that Jesus is kind, and we will say yes to Jesus. But he keeps inviting us deeper and deeper into what it means to truly follow Jesus.

From Shallow Faith To Deeper Waters

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We often don't understand how he offers to make us holy. But sometimes we have this very shallow version of our faith. And I'm not mad at you if that's where you're at. You know what? It's fine to start that way. Just don't stay there. Keep growing. He wants to offer us a better way. Our faith is perfectly described as an ocean. It's very shallow. And it's very easy to get into the shore a lot of times. Giving your life to Jesus is a starting point, though. It's not the end, friends. Sometimes you'll get baptized and then you'll dip. But we're like, no, no, no, you just said you're starting. That's like you just got your piece on the monopoly board and you're like, oh, I won. Guys, giving your life to Jesus is the starting point, not the end. But the ocean, it continues to get deeper and deeper and deeper into more than any human could handle. Like thousands of feet down into the Mariana Trench. If we talk to face to if we talk to God face to face, I believe our heads would explode. It's much like going deeper and deeper and deeper into the water too fast. But he's drawing us slowly deeper into this relationship. Our journey often looks like this, like this ocean. We give our life to God and we hand him all our sin. Here you go. Take it all, Jesus. I don't want any of it. Get rid of it. It's like asbestos. But over time, we realized that we left out a lot of sins, didn't we? Maybe some of them we didn't notice, and maybe some of them we thought that he wouldn't notice. So he continues to expose certain sins through his church and through the word of God. And he encourages us, hand those to me. Hand them over. And we get something in our palm and we're like a dog, right? Like, just like that dog. We're like holding on to it. And he's like, leave it, leave it. And we're like, no, I want this. It's like we got poison. We're like, this is mine. And he's like, I'm gonna force it. You know, he's not gonna like start rubbing our, you know. Like, there's things that God will do, but he's not gonna force us to give those things up. He's waiting for us because he loves us. But we want a king made in our image. Instead, we get a God who cannot be controlled. He offers grace when we sin, but he challenges us constantly to better because he loves us. Now, for others, we give our lives to God and then we start dying to our sin. Way to go. But it's still immature faith. Um, if we don't recognize our own sins, then more than we recognize the sins of the people around us. Like some of us, we start to give God our sin and then we start looking at everybody else who's worse than us. That's not it either, is it? Still shallow. Now, for others, early on, it's really easy to recognize our sins and to repent of them. We aren't judgmental at all. We know we stink, um, we've given our lives to God, and that sounds pretty good, but then many of us try to keep earning God's love. That's the mark of immaturity as well. Like, we say it's about grace, but we don't realize uh it's a grace that we try to stand on by our works still. We don't do good works, though, to earn anything with God. We don't have to. You've earned it. Well, you didn't actually. He's earned it, is what I meant to say. We do good things because he's earned it for us, because he's given it up for us. Friends, we need the real Jesus who will challenge us, not the God made in our own image. Don't throw a parade for Jesus if you're gonna ignore his words. You are not worshiping Jesus if he agrees with you on everything either. You're just worshiping an idealized, uh, an idolized version of yourself. That God who wants you to marry that dude you have a huge crush on that you don't even know yet, like that dude that doesn't love Jesus, like that's probably not God, okay? That God who tells you this is your season for a promotion and for money, that may not be God, okay? But it's weird, the same God wasn't able to warn anybody about COVID in 2020. I cannot tell you how many pastors out there that that they like, they're like all my buddies are like, hey, what kind of graphic you got for 2020? Does it have glasses? And I'm like, probably. You know, and so you had all these dudes, 2020 vision. In 2020, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do this, and they'd be like, the Lord told me. And it's like, then COVID happened, and apparently the Lord was like lying to everybody, which we know is not true, right? So here's the thing we knew that this was the year of God's favor in 2020, and we had no idea that God has a different idea of favor, doesn't he? That he humbled many of us, that he he caused us to rely upon him, and that some of us had to work on our sermons while while their child had this fart button that they just kept pressing all day long. I thought I knew. I thought I knew that like God's favor was on me, and then I was working on a sermon with that. That God tells people to get a divorce when they fall out of love with somebody. And I'm like, uh, God hates divorce, that's not God. If God ever tells you sin is okay, it's not God. It's not. That's you making God in your image. That's either you or the devil talking. Now, Israel was so sure that God wanted them to conquer Rome that they missed Jesus' posture. It was a beautiful posture when he was riding into town. Meekness. What is meekness? Do we remember? It is it is power, what? Under control. We always say it's like a Dodge Viper going 65 on the freeway. He came in meek. Can a viper go faster than that? Oh, yes. It has a beautiful signing engine, it's a truck. Okay. Guys, it was the posture of a meek and humble king. Jesus wasn't the conqueror they wanted, he was the king they needed. It was always the plan to die, but not so that we can just take forgiveness for us and be greedy with it, friends. No. His good plan was for us to die with him and be resurrected with him. For us to put others first, just like he did. In Matthew 16, Jesus said to his students, If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will find it. Well, man, that is a lot different from what some people are telling you. This is your season, this is your season, maybe to die to yourself. But if you die with Jesus, you are resurrected with Jesus. While the old selfish version of us is dying now, he is creating a new version of you, empowered by his spirit to radically care for others around you, even your enemies. Guys, Jesus can make you holy. Friends, you may not, you may have hoped that Jesus was going to make life easier on you when you chose to follow him, but but in some ways things seem harder than ever. Yeah. Even still, Jesus promises joy and sorrow. He blesses us with hardship for our growth and for the sake of others. You may be suffering right now in your work, in your family, in your relationships, but God is present in the middle of those things. He loves you and he wants you to walk through it with him. Jesus didn't die to make you happy. Hear me. Jesus didn't die to make you happy, he died to make you holy. Because Jesus' followers are ride or die. We worship him at victory parades and we hold fast when the crowd hungers for a totally different king. We worship God in the good and in the bad, but we cannot stop worshiping him. Which brings us to our second surprise for the flaky crowd on Palm Sunday.

Surprise Two God Deserves Full Worship

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God deserves our full worship. God deserves our full worship. I'm not raising my hand like I figured this all out, okay? Don't hear condemnation. Hear that God deserves it. Guys, if I were not a believer, I would tell you this is also something kind of weird sounding. Like one of the other things is when I went to church for the first time, A, I saw people with their hands held high, their eyes closed. I was like, what kind of freaky thing did my friends bring me to? It was weird looking. I don't know if any of you guys felt that way when you went to church for the first time, maybe, and you saw people doing this with their eyes closed, their hands in the air, like looking like they were dancing with somebody that wasn't there. Like that was weird for me. But as I've come to understand what that is, it's beautiful. Everyone was singing, holy, holy, holy, holy. And I was like, it's weird. Everybody was singing, I could sing of your love forever. He is good, he is glorious. We sing songs to God, we celebrate him, we tell him how awesome he is. And I once heard a show that said God sometimes comes off a little, um, I don't know, actually, people kind of like push back on that. Sometimes God comes off a little thirsty to people. Now that sounds funny. Like he needs our praise constantly, like he needs us to tell him how great he is. But that's not how it works, friends. Beautiful things deserve praise. I've never seen a gorgeous sunset and been like, that is so dang ugly. No, why would I do that? We praise and Beautiful things, movies, songs, books. I would say, even if you show up here and you sing these songs with us every week, most of us would still praise other things far more than this. I mean, we celebrate food on the TikToks and the Instagrams, right? All the time. Some of you take amazing pictures, beautiful. We celebrate it because it's good or even it just looks good. But do we really celebrate God that way? And I'm not just saying like your social media needs to suddenly have just all Bible verses. No, no, no. I'm saying in your heart, when nobody is looking, do you celebrate God? He deserves praise more than any food, any song, any athlete. But we often reserve it for these celebrations only. Friends, worship is not less than singing songs on Sunday. But it's so much more. Yes, in the moment, the Palm Sunday crowd was amped. It was and rightfully so, like you would agree, right? Like a very large crowd in verse 8 spread their clothes on the road. Others were cutting branches from the trees and spreading them on the road. The crowds who went ahead of him and those who followed shouted, Hosanna to the Son of David, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest heaven. This is a party happening right now. The people cheered for Jesus because salvation had come that day to Israel that they had been waiting for for hundreds and hundreds of years. It had finally come true. They didn't fully understand what we now get to see. The salvation was better than they could have imagined. The salvation is what we call the gospel. The debt between us and God, the chasm between us and God by our own sins. We could never make them up by doing enough good, but I just tell you, I've not met anybody, even a very selfish person who doesn't think they need to do some good for others. I think that's in us. But the chasm between us and God was too wide. There was nothing we could do to make up for our sins, to atone for our sins. There could be no way to fix our relationship with God. So he did something about it. The Father sent his son to this earth and he lived as a sacrifice. He lived a perfect life on our behalf, one that we could never live. And he bridged the gap. He died as a sacrifice for us, but then he showed that he was bigger than sin and death. Why? How? He rose again. This is what we celebrate on Easter Sunday, right? Like you can celebrate Muhammad as much as you want, you can celebrate the Buddha as much as you want, you can celebrate the Dalai Lama, you can celebrate all Zeus, whatever you want. None of them died and came back in the same way. This is a man, fully God, fully man, came back to life because he was bigger than sin and death, bigger than the devil, bigger than every sin you have and I have. He conquered it. But Jesus didn't come to just save the people like they thought, as a conquering king who would crush Rome under his feet. No, no, no. Jesus crushed sin and death. It's funny though, that's much more difficult, though, isn't it? Like lots of people can crush like another uh a big uh imperial power, like we've seen it happen uh again and again and again. But who can crush death? Only one. Only one has ever truly done it. It's much more difficult. But we just want our relationships to be easier sometimes. It's like, yeah, Jesus, I know what you did, I know I know what you did, but could you help me with my relationships? I feel that. Like we just we just want to own a home. God, I know what you did, but could I own a house? Could I get that job? Can I just find a spouse that's like hot? Like you just want Jesus to help you with your medical condition. You just want to stop going to the doctor and and getting a call to come into the office. You just want to be done with that. But instead, he offers you a different path towards death and holiness. He offers you something. He he came as the Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world. This is not why we must worship him. Not to earn anything, but because he deserves it. He deserves it. If that's you, we want to pray with you. We want to baptize you. We want to walk you through what it means to walk with God. We want to do this with you. And and there will be times when you disagree with us. There'll be times when you feel like we're too harsh. And guess what? There will be times when we're wrong. Or we are too harsh. We're trying our best. But we want to walk on this journey with you. And coming to faith in Jesus means a lifetime of love for God. That's what it means. Continuing, continuing, continuing. So, yes, it's fine. Um, join us in worship, join us in celebration, join the crowd in celebrating Jesus. But guys, these people were cheering, they were singing it, they were breaking into tears of joy. Hosanna, Hosanna to the highest. That meant something. Salvation has come from the Son of David.

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Dr.

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Tony Evans he says, by calling Jesus Son of David, they weren't merely acknowledging who is great, great who his great great grandfather was, excuse me. They recognized this itinerant preacher from Nazareth as the Messiah, the promised king. So Hosanna, meaning God save us or salvation has come. This is what they were saying, and this is what they were saying through tears. This is why they would be willing to put anything down in front of Jesus. Because God should be worshiped, right? Have you actually been around somebody who just says things like that are negative all the time about everything they see? That's the worst. Super negative. I gotta tell you, uh, when people like put music in front of me, I'm like that sometimes. I apologize. It's out of tune. Um, I'll say that kind of stuff. But there's just people that hate movies, there's people that hate meals, there's people that like I tell you, you guys, many of you guys know I like to surf. And I will get out there and I will paddle into the water. And and like on certain days, the water looks like tinfoil. I don't know if that makes sense, but the water looks like tinfoil, perfectly reflecting the sky. And the sky is pink and puffy and red and purple, and we're out there in water in the middle of like times that other people are out working or you know, still sleeping in their beds, and it's the most glorious thing you've ever seen. And there will be people out there that are like, get out of my way. And it's like, what? Dude, are you serious? Like, they're mad because somebody got in their way, or they're mad because there's too many people out there. And I'm like, can you not see the beauty around you? Can you not celebrate the creation of God? But they're so in their head, unable to see the beauty, they're unable to worship God for what he's created, and I feel so bad for them. We were made to worship God in Luke 19. When Luke told of this event, though, he speaks of the religious leaders urging Jesus to silence his followers from praising him. Says some of the Pharisees from the crowd told him, Teacher, rebuke your disciples. He answered, I tell you, if I if they were to keep quiet, the stones would cry out. Now it matters where Jesus is. That surrounding him is all these graves nearby, these graves along the hillside. Some of them are even family members, stones, rocks. It also matters that we know when Jesus is resurrected that there will be saints who rise out of the grave and proclaim his goodness to others. So if you don't praise me, these dead people are gonna rise. Now let me ask you: did Jesus mean stones or did he mean graves? I don't know. If you think it's the stones that they would cry out, I'm fine with that interpretation too. But I'm just letting you know it can go deeper than that too. Because God should be worshiped, friends. I don't want to be the person who's always negative. I want to be the one who's always drawing attention to the beauty of God. Let me say one more thing on praise. God made you in his image. You are his beautiful creation. God has created you in the Imago Dei, the image of God. When you think less of yourself than you should, that is also sin. God made you beautiful. God made you understand complex ideas. Yes, you are not where you should be, but praise God that he made you in his image. Give glory to him by seeing yourself as you are, not as others want you to be, not as you think you should be, but as you are. There are some who've told you bad things about yourself all your life. They're wrong. You are not ugly. You do not deserve abuse. No creation of God does. Continuing to think of yourself as anything less than a beloved child of God is giving others power over you. Don't do it. You are an amazing creation. Don't let anyone tell you different. Great things need to be praised. Okay, so God came to challenge shallow faith. We got that. And he was doing it in a big way. He was about to destroy everything, and that brings us to our third and final point, and it's a

Surprise Three Jesus Confronts Sin

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little big. I'm sorry, I couldn't get it shorter. Point number three our holy God confronts sin and refuses to bend to shallow expectations. Our holy God confronts sin and refuses to bend to shallow expectations. Now many of you are not oppressed by abusive leaders and systems like Israel was at the time. You're abused by sin. You've been lied to sometimes by yourself. Sex, power, and money cannot free you. It cannot. They cannot save you. Only Jesus offers you freedom. In verse 10, it said, When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in an uproar. Now, I it's always funny the words we decide to use in translations. Uproar translates in some of your Bibles a little bit differently as turmoil. But also the word was the word that it was closest to this word is closer to like an earthquake. Like the whole city was quaking. It was shaking. You feel that? From Jesus' entrance, the city was moving. Saying, Who is this? The crowd said, This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee. Then Jesus went into the temple and he threw out all those buying and selling. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves. He said to them, It's written, My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it into a den of thieves. Jesus showed himself as defender King. It's no surprise that children loved him. It's no surprise that the blind and the poor and the injured loved him. Friends, it is beautiful to me that people will come in here on a Sunday and you will be able to smell them from far away. We had someone come into the first service, and the fact that she knew she was safe here. Didn't matter if you could smell her from the other room, it doesn't matter. She was welcome and loved here by many, many of your friends. This is the way the church is supposed to be. God is for the blind, the poor, and the injured. Society tells certain people that they're worthless. Jesus gives value to them. A few things we must understand about this moment, though. The Passover. This was an important time for the Jewish people. Dispersed Jews would come from all over to worship God in the Holy Land. Acts 2 talks about the different people who were in Israel at the time of Passover. I'm glad that Pastor Mark is teaching our kids right now because he won't correct all my poor pronunciations of all the different people that were there. Parthians, Medes, Elamites, those who lived in Mesopotamia, in Judea, Cappadocia, Pontius, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, and the parts of Libya near Cyrene, visitors from Rome, Cretians, and Arabs. That's a lot of different types of people, isn't it? Now Mosaic law forbade using money with the image of a man on it when you were going to the temple. So you had money changers who were there to help. Definitely they weren't taking anything off the top, right? Like they were just like, it did magnanimous, right? Oh yeah, okay, we'll change exactly one for one. That's exactly what they were doing, right? We know that's not true, right? Most of the money from these foreign people on pilgrimage, they had a man on it. But this opened people up to serious financial abuse. Money changing with desperate people from out of town who made the one-time trip here, the exchange rate wouldn't be so good, would it? Also, they would do something pretty funky with the doves. Um, doves were needed for poor families to make sacrifices, they were also used for other things. But the sellers of the animals would do something so crazy. Um, it's kind of like baseball cards. Um, you can buy a Shohei Otani baseball card for like 20 bucks, all right? But if you send it in and you get it graded and it comes back as like a 10 in good condition, you can get that same card for like hundreds of dollars more. Now that it's been pre-graded, you know that it's an expensive card. The difference between a graded Tatiste rookie and a non-graded rookie is hundreds of dollars. Now, this is what happened with the doves, too. So you could buy outside, you could buy five, uh, you could buy a dove for five pieces of silver. You come in, hey, you want a pre-inspected dove that you know will make it? That's 72 pieces of silver. Because you wouldn't want to get all the way to where your sacrifice is happening and then have it be rejected, would you? So they could take advantage of you. Oh, I got a buddy who would pre-approve it. Oh, it's pre-approved. They don't even need to check in. Jeremiah 7, the prophet said, Do you steal? Do you murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and follow other gods that you have not known? Then, do you come and stand before me in this house that bears my name and say, We are rescued? So we continue doing all these detestable acts? Has this house which bears my name become a den of robbers in your view? Sound familiar, den of robbers? Yes, I too have seen it, the prophet said. See, now we love it when Jesus confronts other people, right? Like, man, that's awesome. Like you're on the sidelines, you're like, get him, Jesus, get him. But but there are the same things in all of us, right? Things that we consistently justify that Jesus hates. Might be certain sins that we call a sin of commission, something we commit, right? But it also might be a sin of omission, something that we fail to do, where we fail to care for others when God has called us to do it, where we fail to do the things He calls us to

Justice That Shows Up In Person

SPEAKER_00 36:09

do. Friends, the church is called to be the voice for justice. You have been rescued to be a rescuer. You know that, right? So, what does it look like to be about justice? Our city groups do justice. Often it means trying to serve a local, underserved school in your community, helping the PTA, helping the teachers, tutoring and reading. These are some of the things we do. Mount Hope. Mount Hope is an underserved community in areas of education and healthy food, police enforcement, recreation resources. But we often have like one to two people that come to our meetings. It's a little depressing. Like I've left Mount Hope meetings because we don't have a quorum. Our city groups in Mount Hope, Logan Heights, Lemon Grove, and Mission Valley are needed in your community. Maybe you can help with food insecurity. Maybe you can help to advocate for fair policing. Maybe you can help with the homeless in your community. Either way, the church has to be a voice for justice. Not online, not online, not online, not online. Not online, not online, not online. I uh like I know that like posting online about injustice will make you feel like good, but I'm not saying it's bad that you post online. And some of you may have a voice, but for most of us, there is an algorithm that will prevent anybody who disagrees with you from seeing it. So you're only going to speak up to people who agree with you. It is much more difficult to be in a meeting with two other people who disagree with you when you stand up for justice. It's much more difficult to call the police chief and talk about the injustice. Those are the things that cause change. You have to do the difficult work of showing up, being disliked, and still standing up for the justice of God. Lastly, I want to quickly talk to the men in this story, to our men about this story,

Redefining Strength For Christian Men

SPEAKER_00 37:53

excuse me. Um, Jesus was a manly man. I hope we agree on that. Now in the other gospels, Jesus literally actually like makes a whip here and he starts taking it and whipping people. Just because it's not in our text doesn't mean it didn't happen. He just didn't include it. But we have one occasion, one occasion where Jesus turns over the tables. And you have pastors out here writing entire like MMA books about Jesus, about how manly Jesus was and how he was all about whipping and kicking stuff and knocking stuff over, and we should be like that. And I'm not saying we shouldn't in the right cases of injustice. However, there are many more recorded occasions where Jesus cried, openly wept, went off to pray alone. Hebrews even mentions him crying and wailing many times. The American definition of manliness is weak. Men, let me remind you what a manly man does. He lays down his life for those he loves like Jesus. A manly man abhors his own sin and refuses to have sex with a woman who is not his wife. He cherishes her and honors her. He refuses to look at sexual images of women that are not his wife, too. He is a servant first, like Jesus. He never uses his strength to hurt the weak, but protects them. If you are a man and you abuse a woman, you are not manly. You are the opposite of manly. You are a weak child. You are made to protect women. This man is faithful like Jesus. He is meek, kind, loving, joyful, peaceful, gentle, and he has self-control. He stands up to bullies. Sin is a bully too, though, isn't it? Friends, Jesus gives you his spirit, his helper, so you can stand up to the biggest bully that you've ever had to fight, and that's your own sin. I'll

Return To Your First Love

SPEAKER_00 39:47

close with this. The people cheering for Jesus, they were us. They were us. The people yelling to crucify Jesus, they were us. The same disciples who walked with him for three years were hiding, cursing, denying him soon after he was paraded into town. Now, if you feel like that right now, I just want us to all take a second. Just take just I want you to close your eyes right now. Just close your eyes. I'm not gonna throw any like Skittles at you with your eyes closed, not again. I want you to close your eyes, and I want you to take a deep breath right now. And in your heart, I want you to apologize to him for your sin. And to ask his spirit to help you move forward with him and to commit to pursuing God in holiness moving forward. There's only one crowd here, one that praised the salvation of Jesus in the same crowd yelling, Crucify Him, just moments later. But Jesus followers, we are ride or die. We worship him at the victory parades and we hold fast when the crowd hungers for a totally different type of king. Man, everyone abandoned Jesus so quickly. When the going got tough, they got going. Does this describe any of us? Was there a time in your life when Jesus was everything? When you would take off your jacket so a dirty farm animal could walk on it just so you could honor and thank Jesus? Was there a time when you would cut your hand, tearing down palm branches just to honor God? Jesus got first pick of everything in your life. Not just Sunday afternoon, but every moment. But then perhaps someone you love died. And you had prayed for God to save that person. Maybe you lost that job. Maybe you struggled with anxiety. Maybe you found someone who got you to start compromising your faith. It's okay. He is kind and gentle. Just repent. He is willing and ready to forgive you. Hold tight to Jesus in the good times and the bad. He will not fail you. He is trustworthy. It's time we remember our King. Your King died for you. He did everything so you might have life. Return to your first love and you will find true joy. City Life Church and guests, Jesus' followers are ride or die. We worship him at victory parades, yes. But when things get rough, the crowd hungers for a different king, an easier king, an inattentive king who won't notice our sins, a king who lets them run wild. When the world thirsts for that, we church, we hold fast to Jesus, our good and conquering King. Will you pray with me? Father,

Confession Repentance And Closing Prayer

SPEAKER_00 43:02

uh, we we got such a long list of sins in the room. And uh it's just, I mean, we got a long list of sins on the stage, and there's only two of us up here. And still, God, that you would show us compassion, we don't deserve it. You would show us kindness, we don't deserve it. But we thank you for it, and we're gonna take it. So, Father, in this moment, we are gonna come to you and we are gonna silently in our hearts confess our sins and repent of them, choosing to go the other direction. Kind, gracious, compassionate, sacrificial Father, we have sinned against you by what we have done and by what we have left undone. We have put ourselves at the center of the story. And yet we know that we're just here to give you praise. Father, we thank you that as far as the east is from the west, so our sin is from your sight when we truly repent. That when you look upon us, Father, you see the righteousness of your Son Jesus. Not because we deserve it, but because He did. And so we praise you. We thank you. And God, um, we pray that you would help us to go a little bit deeper into that ocean. We pray that you would help us to surrender just a little bit more. That we'd be a little more humble about what we think we know. That we would not just celebrate you at the parade, but in the darkness, in the brokenness, in the hurt. Lord, we love you and we pray this all in Jesus' name.

unknown 45:10

Amen.

Communion Begins

SPEAKER_00 45:11

Well, guys, on the night that Jesus was betrayed, he took the bread and he broke it.