Palm Sunday

John 12:23-26 & Luke 19:28-44

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hey everyone, good afternoon. This is Chapman Brandon Boyles, and welcome to Soldier for Christ Podcast. So we are on episode number 19. Man, it's amazing to me that we've gotten to 19 episodes now. Very exciting. Thank you for joining me today. Um, so what I'm gonna do is take a little pause, actually, from the book of Revelation. So I apologize if you were really looking forward to that. We will go back to that, but we are getting close to what we call the holy week, right? So this is the time of the year, probably the most famous time of the Christian holiday, Christian calendar, where uh we are talking about the last uh few weeks of the life of Jesus Christ and his ministry on the earth before he died and was buried and resurrected. Um I want to take a little bit of a recess, go into um the whole entire duration, I guess, of the last couple weeks of Christ so you can really understand, again, the pivotal quintessential moments of Christ, right? You can really understand Palm Sunday, you can release another Last Supper, you can really understand the necessist, the necessity of the crucifixion, the burial, and of course the resurrection and how they really are the entire, I mean, the entire meaning of the gospel, right? Everything behind that, the Holy Week, is the basis of the Christian faith, right? And in understanding that and understanding Christology, and understanding that Jesus loves you, and understand that Jesus has a plan for you, understand that Christ alone is sufficient for your salvation, that his blood is the only thing that can wash away your sin, only thing that can justify you having the right to go to heaven, to be among, see the Father, um, to go to the throne of God, to be completely forgiven of all sin, uh, to be raptured, as we talked about, to be, to have a new mind, a new spirit, a new body. Um uh this is your spirit, of course, being born again, as we we've talked extensively about that, right? So all of it, all of it is centered around the Holy Week. Um so I am going to go into um the Palm, so it's not quite Palm Sunday, but I'm gonna go into the Palm Sunday passage, the meaning, because most people um understand or they they have some kind of idea that Palm Sunday was the time when Jesus rode into Jerusalem, and he did, and he rode in on a actually on a donkey, okay. So he didn't ride on a majestic horse of any kind, but he rode on a very lowly cult donkey. That I personally love donkeys. Um remind me much of that movie uh Shrek, if you've watched that movie, um, you know, Eddie Murphy's character. But I I I think donkeys are very um uh kind of a charming, uh cute little animal, and uh, you know, but also they have a kind of a reputation to be ornery and stubborn and um you know just kind of their own in their own way. Um but uh people have wondered why, of course, did Jesus decide to ride in on a donkey and in his in his grand entrance, right? Um when he was going, of course, to the cross, to the the great city of Jerusalem. Why did he pick that animal? Well, today I'm gonna really explore that. I want I want you to understand that, and I want you to really understand that in so many ways, the donkey, the animal itself, uh, he represents us. He represents people. You and me, okay? Um, we are God's donkeys, right? That's that's really what it what it gets down to. And I'm gonna explain what that means so you can really understand the meaning behind Palm Sunday today, okay? Um, and I'm gonna be I'm gonna be starting off in the Gospel of Luke. I'm gonna jump from Luke to uh I think the Gospel of John. Um but we're gonna start in Luke chapter 19 today, and I am gonna start 19, uh, chapter 19, verse 28 today, and I'll give you some context. I'll get into this scripture here, um, and we'll really uh dig in and and and interpret it together. Um, before I do, let me go into a word of prayer, and let me uh pray for us and pray for you, wherever you're listening. I pray that this uh, I mean, all this all these episodes, this podcast really blesses you and gets you on the right path with Christ today. Let me pray for you. Thank you, Lord, for this wonderful day, and thank you for blessing us with your holy scriptures. Thank you, Lord, for illuminating our hearts and our spirit, our mind, that we can really understand your truth and your word. We know that you love us. We know, Christ, that you died for our sins. We know that you resurrected from the grave, and we know that you are coming again to rapture your church soon, uh, to make a final end uh and to make all things new and all things right, to put an end to sin and the devil and all of the awful mess of the world, Lord, that you are alone, the Alpha, the Omega, the Almighty God, the Son of God, the one who sits on the right hand of the Father. We know that you are coming again very soon. And we know, Lord, that your truth, your word stands forever. I pray that all those who listen to this podcast today uh will be encouraged and will know, Lord, that you are with them, that you love them, and that your Holy Spirit is drawing them to you now. We pray this in your holy name in Christ's name. We pray. Amen. Okay, okay, so let's go into um this passage here. So, okay, so this is um palm Sunday, right? And and you've heard probably the heard the term palm sundae, um, where typically people get palm branches, right, from palm trees. And um, some churches still get, you know, palms and they lay them down in the kind of in a procession in the middle of the uh the row or something like that. And people can, you know, typically walk over palms, and then sometimes people lay their closing, clothed down, clothing down or articles down. Um but you may ask why, you know, why why in the world was there a tradition where when a big king or ruler or emperor or uh or a great general or someone powerful or wonderful great came to town, why would people, historically, why would they lay down palm branches? Well, palm branches were a it was a it was a symbol of great respect and honor, okay? A great uh a great moment where when someone was had in Copten Times uh won a great victory, let's say, um, over an enemy, uh, a great military leader or a great king, and he had, let's say, won a great battle or something of that nature. Um, typically his subjects would honor the great king or general, whoever it was, by by laying down palms as there was a big procession into the city. Um, okay, so it was a symbol of great respect, right? Great fidelity, uh great uh just in a sense of like great um being being wanting to serve or to subjugate or to come to a place of submission, of laying down a palm representing that we honor you, okay? Uh so the Greco-Roman time, very nice, very historically, uh, great kings and emperors and so forth, they you know, the Caesars and all that, uh, were they just they expected their subjects to honor them by laying down their own garments, money, and palms, okay, just depending on uh the wealth and the social status of that citizen. So Jesus, it's interesting because Jesus, when he comes to Jerusalem during this holy week, as we call it, as the Christians call it, there was a procession uh into the city of Jerusalem. Okay, so the city of Jerusalem, of course, was a city that sits still, it sits on a big hilltop, and it was a city that was a walled city. And before Christ actually got into the city, there was this procession, and this was a very important thing because this fulfilled the prophecy of the Old Testament. But more importantly, this is not just a moment where people were honoring Christ and praising him, but they, of course, they were. But this is a moment that was meant that is meant to teach us an important lesson about ourselves, who we are, in this whole story of Palm Sunday. So let me start reading from uh Luke 19. And now remember, this is when Jesus is now 33 years old. He has done three years of ministry, he has 12 disciples, one that's about to betray him. He has just raised Lazarus from the dead, as we talked about that actually. Um there were many, many witnesses to that. So he rose Lazarus from the dead. The Pharisees, being the religious Jewish leaders being insanely jealous, have just made it up in their minds that the only thing they're they're going to do is to is to kill Christ at all cost, okay, because they hate him with a passion. They're completely filled with um with the enemy. I mean, they're completely filled with evil in their hearts. And so they look at Christ as their great enemy. It's it's amazing to me. It's the greatest irony of all time that the ones that studied God their whole life looked at God with such hatred in their hearts, okay? Because they could not, they were just spiritually blind. And unless God opens your eyes, your spiritual eyes, um it really does not matter how many Bible stories you hear or how many uh churches you go to, um, unless God removes the blinders from your eyes and opens your heart, your spirit to receive the truth, uh, you cannot be saved. So you and this is why I ask that you always pray that God opens your heart and your mind and humbles you and gets you into the place that you can receive, receive him, okay, like a gift. So this is the context. Christ is coming into the city right after raising Lazarus from the dead. He knows he's coming into Jerusalem. And he's also coming in on Passover, the Passover feast. Okay, it was because that historically, remember, was the time when the Jews would celebrate their exodus from Egypt, when Moses was, you know, Moses was a great man of God, instructed the people that they had to slaughter a goat or a lamb, and they had to spread his blood on the door, their doorpost while they were in Egypt, and the death angel would pass over them. Okay, and then they, of course, left Egypt as slaves, but they were they left as slaves, and they passed as free children of God through the red, see, kind of like a symbol symbolic of their baptism, into the promised land. All of that to symbolize as we Christians will leave the bonds of slavery, of sin, and the master who is the devil, the little God of the world, baptized under the Holy Spirit with a new heart in Christ, a new heart and a new mind, and we're going to the promised land, which is heaven itself, God's own country. Okay. So, in that whole context here, Christ coming into Jerusalem during the Passover celebrations. He had to be, of course, he had to be crucified on Passover because he is the Lamb of God. Um, this is the account of what happens. So it says here, and this is starting at verse 28. After telling the story, Jesus went on to Jerusalem, walking ahead of his disciples, as he came to the towns of Bethanage and Bethany on the Mount of Olives, he sent two disciples ahead. We don't know what two they were, but he sent two disciples ahead, and he said to them, Go into that village over there. He told them, as you enter it, you will see a young donkey tied there that no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks, Why are you untying that cult cult? Just say the Lord needs it. Now, you you probably wonder, you know, I sometimes I think to myself, kind of funny enough, like like the if I was Jesus' disciples, I would always ask, like, well, how do you know, Lord, there's a donkey in that town over there that nobody's ever ridden before? But at this point, I don't think they even question the Lord anymore because God knows all things, right? He Christ knows exactly where this donkey is. He is tied up, okay, in the village here. Um, and no one has ever ridden on this donkey before. Christ says, You got to go and untie it and bring it to me. Okay. And he says, and if anybody asks, you know, why are you untying and taking this colt away, this donkey away, just he says, the response you need to give is the Lord has need of it, the Lord needs it. Now, this is an amazing, just just this seems very simple, but this is an amazing little bit of scripture right here because notice that the donkey is tied up. Okay, the donkey symbolizes you. The donkey is a wild animal. No one has ever ridden it. He is tied up in a similar sense as we, you and I, have been tied up with sin in our life, right? We are stuck, we are trapped, we are completely tied and at the mercy of whatever master has us all tied up right here. Um, and you know, and sometimes this is really interesting because sometimes um the Lord can keep us tied up. The Lord keeps us sometimes in places that it feels like we're stuck, you know, and and we're not going anywhere, and we're very frustrated, and you know, and in and I I've I've I've felt like that, you know, when you feel like you're just spinning your wheels in life, you're not going anywhere, you're not moving, not doing anything, and or you feel like you're addicted and you're or you're bogged down, or you're you're just tied and you're tired, you're exhausted, and um, and you want to be loose, you want to be free. Um you really think about like the understanding that this animal, okay, is just a wild animal, is tied up, but Jesus knows where it is, okay. Just like Jesus knows exactly where we are. He knows where we are in our life, he knows what we have done, he knows what we've said, we've thought, he knows the sins that have us bound and locked up. Okay, I wonder that that's that's the picture. That's what I really understand. That now, when you're when you're bound and locked up, you and you have no way of freeing yourself, you're at the mercy of whoever has you locked up. And in many sense, as the devil, oftentimes, he of course is the master liar, manipulator, he could lock us up in all of his lies, harden our hearts, get us so addicted, so depressed, so broken up, that unless Christ himself comes to free us, okay, lose us, when you think of that, uh, we're we're we're bound. We're bound up. Okay, but Christ knows what the donkey is. He sends his disciples, okay. Just like there are one, there are, even if you're listening to this episode today, like it, it's this is Christ's way of speaking truth to you, that when you hear the message, you hear the God, you hear the truth of God, it's like a it's it's it's it's the it's the it's the blade that cuts the rope free. That's what the gospel does. The gospel is the truth that sets you free of sin. And so he sends his disciples, they untie the cult, and it he says, if anybody asks what you're doing, he says, just says the Lord needs it. There's gonna be people, you know, it's funny, when you get saved and you're loose and the and the and Christ frees you from sin and the devil, there'll be a lot of people in life, and the devil too, where people ask you, like, hey, hey, hey, why are you leaving? Where are you going? Um, I know you like this world of smut and lies, and this, this, this double, you know, I know you like the sin and stuff that you've been used to for so long. Like, where are you going? And you have to say, you have to see what Christ is saying. Christ has need of you. You're not meant to be a sinner, to wallow in the mud. You're not meant to be depressed, you're not meant to be broken, you're not meant to be addicted, you're not meant to be bounded up. Just simpler, like if you think about Passover, the Jews were slaves to the Pharaoh of Egypt. Okay, and they got used to it. It's it's it's an interesting mentality. They got used to being told what to do, what to wear, how to think, how to live. I mean, their whole life was controlled by their masters. And they had to be loose, freed. And then, and then oftentimes the irony of it is that the the ones who were freed, the Jews that were freed when Moses led them out of Egypt, many, many, many times they thought to themselves, maybe we should go back to Egypt, maybe we should go back to slavery, maybe we should go back to our old, you know, addicted, evil, broken slavery ways. It's it's but but this is not an uncommon thought, even in Christians, because the world is a sneaky place, and I really want you to get that. Sin is a sneaky thing. The devil is a master liar. If you want to hold on to your life and you want to live your life, and you want to have peace in your life, if you want to have salvation, and if you want to belong to Christ and be free of the traps of the world, you have to let go of the world. You have to desire freedom. You have to say goodbye to the sin and the smut and the lies of the world. You have to. And you have to say, and you have to make it, it's it's a commitment. You have to say, you know what? I'm committed to Christ. I'm committed to following him, I'm committed to just going his way, not the way of the world anymore. So that's the meaning of the cult. Okay. Because Christ has, I mean, let me tell you real quick. I'm gonna, if you're hearing this, listen to me real good. Jesus loves you, Jesus has a need for you, Jesus wants you in his family, Jesus wants to give you a life and a life with meaning and purpose behind it. And that is nothing that the world can offer you. Not the world, the the world has nothing but garbage to what God Himself can truly offer you. Um, the world, it it's like it's just an illusion of mess. Until it's like, it's like I always think of sin and it's like plastic, you know, like like plastic fruit or something. Like I love fruit, of course. I love oranges and apples. I I love, you know, I'm as I'm talking, I'm literally drinking some orange juice, but um, I love um oranges, especially from Florida and great orange juice. Um, and I, you know, I I've seen imitations of fruit, like plastic imitations of fruit that look very, very good, very real. And that reminds me of like exactly what sin is. Sin looks good on the outside, but it is fake. You can't it's you can try to eat it, I guess, but it'll make you sick. Uh, it's disappointing. And no matter how flashy it is, it's fake. Okay, that's the world in a nutshell. And Christ wants to loose you, free you, and he has a mission for you, he has a purpose for you, which is life itself. So let me let me go back to this. So 32, it says, So they went and they found the colt just as Jesus had said. And sure enough, as they were untying it, the owners asked him, Why are you untying that colt? And the disciples simply replied, The Lord has need of it. So they brought the colt to Jerusalem to Jesus, and they threw their garments over it for him to ride on. And as he rode along, so now so so think now you have to think of this. Now, Christ, they brought the the disciples brought the donkey to Christ. Okay. And some of these folks here try to stop and say, Hey, like, what are you doing here? And they just simply responded exactly how Christ said, just the Lord has need of it. They the disciples put their their garment, their like their jacket over the colt. Okay, now this is a wild animal. If you know anything about wild animals, by the way, a wild horse, a donkey, or whatever, a bull, you know, god forbid, um, you know, why did it why, like, for example, here in America, we have lots of rodeos, um, especially if you're from Texas, and uh really fun to watch. Um, if you've never seen a live rodeo, it's it's highly entertaining, I highly recommend it. But it's also amazing to me because if you attempt to ride a wild horse or bull or donkey, I mean, it's the first the moment you sit on its back, it's gonna, of course, try to buck you off. It's a what it's it's it's not it is completely uncomfortable with someone trying to sit on its back, right? So now, in that perspective, think about it. This is Jesus sitting on a donkey that has never had a human being on its back before. And it's going into a major city with people screaming and yelling, um, and you're gonna find that this donkey is at complete peace. He's completely calm. He I kind of Imagine like just like Shrek, you know, he's he's just laughing and singing, he's having a good old time. Because with Christ, this is the picture of this. If Christ, Christ has to, he has to. Christ has to sit on you, he has to rest on you, he has to take hold of you. That's the only way you're ever gonna have peace. That's the only way you're gonna be able to go through all of life with complete peace, complete joy, complete complete love, complete satisfaction, complete goodness, and and and the and and just complete assurance. Jesus has to sit on you. What I mean is that he has to take control of your life, he has to fill you with the Holy Spirit, he has to, you have to know that you belong to Christ. Okay. And if Jesus is is is in your life and he's sitting on you, he's resting on you, and his Holy Spirit is inside of you, living in you, um, it does not matter what is going on in the world. And there's always, always something crazy and messy and horrible going on in the world. If Jesus Christ sits on you, you're good. You're good. Okay. So 2036 it says here, as he rode along, the crowds spread their garments on the road ahead of him, and when he reached the place where the road started down the Mount of Olives, all of his followers began to shout and sing as they walked along, praising God for all the wonderful miracles they had seen. They said, Blessings on the king who comes in the name of the Lord, peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven. But some of the Pharisees among the crowds said, Teacher, rebuke your followers for saying things like that. But he replied, If they kept quiet, even the stones along the road would burst into cheers. Jesus says that, because you know, I what I love about the Lord is that all of creation, all creation, everything on this earth, every tree, every rock, every star, every ocean wave, every animal, uh, everything, every bit of our creation, it all belongs to Jesus Christ. He's the one that spoke it into existence in the first place. And this was the moment when Christ would come in, and the see, what's interesting is that the people here were very excited, they were so pumped up, they were so enamored. They had seen the great miracles, the feeding of the thousands, they had seen the healing of the sick and the blind, they had seen the dead being raised back to life, they had seen all these miracles, right? And they looked at Jesus as a political leader, like David was, like King David was in the Old Testament, and they saw him as the answer, as the man who was going to rid all the Romans, all the tyrannical authority over them. They saw him as a man who was gonna get the Romans out forever, and they were gonna, he was gonna restore Israel as a great nation, great political, economic power. Okay, but that is not what Jesus came to accomplish. Christ came to die for your sins. He came that when the mission he came was to destroy the hold of sin on your life and pay the price. Because God is a just God, he is a holy God. You will, you, you know, I always ask, I ask people this question would you rather have the justice of God or the forgiveness of God? The justice of God or the forgiveness of God. And of course, most people would always say, I think almost all people would say, well, you know, I'd rather have the forgiveness of God, of course. Of course, so would I. You'd be crazy to because God is a just God. You you you you cannot go to heaven, you cannot assume that you can be good enough, holy enough, pray enough, whatever. Um, I mean, you will have to give an account for every word you say, every thought you have, every careless action, um, everything. I mean, there is not a person that can even go, I don't think, a day of your life in complete perfection before God. You have to have the forgiveness. And how do you have the forgiveness? By the blood of Christ. You have to ask for the blood of Christ to wipe away your sins. That is the whole entire good news message that I pray proclaim all the time. That if you now you can, you can ask for the justice of God if you wish. You can reject the forgiveness of God, which is his son, Jesus Christ, and you can say it like, I want to take on the full weight of my sin and the full account of God's justice. Now, God's justice is horrible. We're gonna go into Revelation uh as we started to actually talk about how how great God's justice is gonna be in the end times, and it's gonna be really bad. I mean, it's it's it's God's we we you know, we'd like to think of God as always as very loving and kind and merciful, and he is. But he is also a holy, just God. He hates sin, he hates iniquity, he hates our sin. Okay. Now, he gave us Jesus Christ as the only way that we can come to God, and he is the only one who can make the payment for our sin. So when you accept the grace of God, which is undeserved, unmerited faith, just you just it's the grace, think of grace as a gift. It's like Christmas. It's just you you you ask Christ to get forgive you, and you just say, I want your gift, I want your forgiveness, I want your salvation, I accept you. That's and and by saying that, you're also saying, I, and I give you my life, I give you my full commitment, my full trust, my full life, I surrender everything. So, in this situation here, Christ is saying here that look, the stones themselves would cry out, this is the moment where all of creation and and and the people were excited and enamored and ecstatic, and everything was it was like happy and joyful and so forth, but they did not understand. And I want you to make sure that you understand. Um Christ did not come to just make you rich, he did not come to give you worldly success, he did not come to make a single nation great, he did not come to uh, you know, get you health and wealth and whatever. That that if he if he blesses you, that's wonderful. But he that's not why he came. He did not come to make you a celebrity, to make you uh famous, to make you powerful, to make you rich. Okay, he did not. I mean, the completely opposite. I mean, here he came to free you of sin. And even the stones and the nature, they realize that right there. That is why this is what Christ says here in 41. But the closer he came to Jerusalem, he saw, and as he saw the city ahead, he began to weep. Why did Jesus weep? Because he said, How I wish today that all of you people would understand the way to peace, but now it is too late, and peace is hidden from your eyes before long. Your enemies will build ramparts against your walls and encircle you and close in on you from every side, and they will crush you into the ground, and your children with you, and your enemies will not leave a single stone in place, because you did not accept your opportunity for salvation. It's a very hard um word right there. Christ is saying he's so Christ is is grieved during this procession. And he's not fooled, by the way. You know, I and I always tell you, don't be fooled when people praise you, and you know, people tell you how great you are, wonderful. People can tell you how wonderful you are one day, and then they'll they can betray you the next day, but the praise of man is actually rather worthless. Be obsessed with the praise of God, not with the praise of man. Christ did not care about the praise of men because he knew that these same people that were praising him would also say, crucify him. Okay. He knew that he's no now. Christ says very clearly, he says, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. He says, I wish that you people could understand the way to peace, because Christ says the Prince of Peace, like the way the peace that comes from God is Jesus. And you could accept the He wishes they could they could accept him as their Meshiach, their savior, the Messiah. He says, but it's too late now, and peace is hidden from your eyes. Now, why was peace hidden from their eyes? Now, breaks my heart, but I mentioned before, over and over again, when Christ talks about your eyes and your ears, he's not talking about your physical eyes and your physical ears. He's talking about your spiritual eyes, your spiritual ears. There are people that can see and not see. There are people that are just blind, there are people that can hear and just not understand because their hearts are like rocks. They're hard, and their ears are deaf, and their eyes are blinded. And God here, so Christ says that he says, your eyes are like it's now, it's like the truth is hidden from you. You're blinded, you're blinded. Um, you had an opportunity. I mean, I believe that God does everything he can. He makes it so obviously painfully clear who he is. There is no excuse. You cannot go and stand before the king, and we all will one day and say, like, I didn't know, I didn't hear, I didn't understand. You can't say that. Because Jesus basically says, I'm the way, the true life. Yeah, I'm the Son of God, I am the resurrection of life. The way is painfully clear. Now, Christ says, before long, your enemies are gonna come. He's talking about the Romans here. He's talking about, we're talking about two enemies. He says, one, your enemy, the Romans are gonna come, they're gonna encircle the entire city of Jerusalem, they're gonna destroy the entire city on every side, and they're gonna destroy the temple of Nehemiah so completely that not one single stone that builds up, that this temple was constructed, made up built upon, will stand on top of each other. They're all gonna, it's gonna, it's of course, in 70 AD, the entire city and the temple was completely destroyed. Why? Because they had rejected their chance for salvation. They had rejected Jesus Christ. But he's also talking about the enemy who is the devil. Satan is your enemy. You have an enemy. You have an enemy who's after your soul, who's after your mind, who's after your heart, who's after your salvation, and he wants to encircle you, close you in from every side. He wants to addict you, break you, exhaust you, depress you, and ultimately crush you and your children. Anybody that comes after you wants to break you. Why? Because the enemy hates you, because you are made in the image of God, because God loves you and he does not love the enemy. There's no chance for the enemy to ever be saved. You have a chance. You have a chance. Um, you are God's donkey. I want that to really sink in right there. You are the Lord's donkey. You may be tied up, but God wants to set you free. You may be bounded and you may be all crazy and you may be like a wild animal, but God wants this rest on you and set you free. Let me let me go one more, one more scripture here, and this is I'm gonna turn now quickly to the gospel of John. Okay, so if you're with me, just flip over real quick. Uh, we're gonna go to John. This is chapter 12. You know I love the book of John. And and and I'm gonna start with 20, verse 23, okay, because it's important. You want this is this is all part of the of of Palm Sunday. It says here 23, it says, Jesus replied, Now the time has come for the Son of Man to enter his glory. But I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels, a plentiful harvest of new lives. Those who love their life in this world will lose it. Those who care nothing for this life in this world will keep it for eternity. Anyone who wants to be my disciple must follow me because my servants must be where I am, and the Father will honor anyone who serves me. Okay. This is the whole gospel in a nutshell, right here. And then I love this passage where I'm gonna end right here. So Christ says that he now he knows when he's going into Jerusalem, he knows, as I mentioned before, he knows he has to be crucified, he has to die. And why? Because his death is the only payment of your sin. It's a blood payment. His blood is literally the payment of your sin. And he says that just like a kernel, this is I love this analogy, like a kernel, like a I think of like a seed, right? Unless a seed falls off a tree and it dies and it falls in the soil, um, it unless it's it goes in the soil and it's death, like falling off the tree in a soil, it unless that happens, or Christ said it will not grow up and produce many more. Uh abundance of a harvest of life. Okay. Just like it's it's it's it's amazing how Christ loved agriculture. He loved vines, he loved figs, he loved fruit, he loved all these, because he constantly tells us over and over again that he is the one who has to die. He's gonna be planted, he's gonna go, he's gonna be buried, he's gonna be crucified, he's gonna go under the earth, okay, because his death is going to produce life, the payment of sin. That's gonna free you from sin. But he says, this is very, very, I'm what you understand this so well. He says that if you if you love your life in this world, if you love this world, if you love the pleasures of this world, the things, which is what, of course, all the lures, the money, the your your pride, your career, your your your uh whatever it is, the sex, the the fame, whatever, whatever you love in this world, if you say Christ says, if your priority is this world, you're gonna lose your life. But those who care for nothing, they don't care for that, they don't, they, this world does is not their love. Christ says, those who care nothing for their life in this world will keep it. It it's it's a it's a paradoxical statement, what he's saying right here. He's like, if you love your life, what Christ is saying, if you love your life because you love the world, you're gonna lose your life. If you love, if you don't love, if you have no love for this world, you have no love, if you have, if you care nothing for your life in this crazy world, what he's saying here is that you'll keep your life, okay? You have what he's saying here is you have to be willing to give your life to me. You have to surrender your life, you have to give me your life. Your life does not belong to you. It's almost like ownership. He's talking about ownership that you have to say, I'm not, the devil does not own me. The world does not own me. Even my boss, my organization, whatever it is, like I mean, I work for the army. The army does not own me. Christ owns me. The government does not own me, Christ owns me. Um, the world, the devil, the sin, they don't own me. Jesus is my master. So he says here that if you want to be my disciple, if you want to follow me, you have to come to me, and you have to go with me wherever I'm going because that, because I'm he's saying, I'm going to the Father. I'm going to heaven, and I want you. What he's saying, what he's inadvertently saying is, I want you with me in my father's house in the kingdom of heaven. That's where you belong. Now, I'm gonna tell you real good. There's nothing in this world. I mean, there's no place in this world. There, I mean, Hawaii is a nice place, the Swiss Alps are a nice place. I've been there. Um, there's there's no amount of wealth, even if you're a trillionaire, there's no amount of muscle, there's no amount of uh college degrees, there's no amount of things that can even suffice for one single day of heaven. Nothing. If you if you could just see heaven for a single, I would say a single hour, you you would never come back. You would never want to ever, even if you even if your life on this earth was was good, I guess. Um what God has for you is so good, so incredible, so beyond human imagination, that it makes well first of all, it makes all bad days and hard days, and every every trial you're gonna have for Christ seem very trivial and very very meaningless. And he wants, so this is what I love about Christ is that Christ is not, he doesn't want he doesn't want you tied up and belong to the world. He came that you would be delivered from the world and that you belong to him. Okay. You're the donkey, you're tied up, you can't go anywhere, you're stuck. Christ wants to free you, he wants to loose you, he wants to unbound you, he wants you to have a need for you, he loves you, he wants to rest upon you, he wants to take ownership of you. That's the meaning of Palm Sunday. I hope that you really understand who Jesus is and that he loves you. You're his donkey. If you want to be free and unbounded, loosed by the devil and all the worldly, all the addictions, all the smud, all the crap of the world, then let me pray with you right now. Pray this prayer with me. Even if you've been praying it a hundred times, even if you don't know where you stand, even if you're you're not sure or you're uncertain or whatever, pray with me anyway. Just pray together. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Christ. Thank you so much, Lord, that you are the Son of God. I thank you, Jesus, that just like the donkey, that we, Lord, are bound, we are caught up, we're tied up, we're we're chained up to the evil of the world, like that we have no power over our lives. We can't make a single hair black or white, we can't stop the sun from going up or going down. Because we we can't even, we we are, we are, we are sinners and we are slaves of sin and evil and the devil in this world. We we are we're we're addicted, we are broken human beings, Lord. But Jesus Christ, we know that you came to give us life, to free us from sin, to free us from death, to free us from the judgment of hell and the justice of God. But you came to pay the ultimate price, which was your blood on the cross. And Jesus, I just pray now that anybody that listened to this podcast would just that believe that they they know you're real, they they they they hear your voice, they believe your truth, they believe you are the son of God, they know you are the son of God, they trust you, and their hearts are aching and begging to be free. I pray they would just say this prayer. They would just say, Dear Jesus Christ, you are the King of kings, the Lord of Lords, the Son of God, the great I am. And Jesus, I am a I am a sinner, I am a slave of sin, I am an evil man or woman, and I want you to free me, to loose me of my sin and of my addiction and my my depression and my pain and everything. The way the devil's got me locked up, free me, Lord, like you freed the donkey. Rest on me, fill me with your Holy Spirit, clean me up, put me, put it, put a new, put a new heart and a new mind inside of me, Lord. Fill me and anoint me with your Holy Spirit, that I may be born again and live with one purpose, that you have complete ownership on me. I reject the things of the world. I repent, I turn my mind around, I focus now on you, Christ, because you are now my savior and my Lord. I will obey you and I will follow you, Lord, wherever you lead. I pray this prayer in your holy precious name, name of Jesus. Jesus, I pray. Amen. Y'all, thank you. I hope this podcast blessed you. And I look forward, we're going to go into uh the rest of this Holy Week passage for the next couple weeks, and then we'll return to Revelation. But God bless you wherever you are. I hope you have a wonderful, wonderful day. Bye-bye.