March 29, 2026 - Death to Self

On this Palm Sunday, Dan MacGillivray preaches on Death to Self.

For further information about Fort St John Alliance Church, check out our website fsjalliance.ca

Our desire is to become a community of people who practice the Way of Jesus together, and through the empowering of the Holy Spirit, live on mission to meet the social and spiritual needs of the world around us. Each week, we gather as a community to worship, learn from God’s Word, and be encouraged in our walk with Christ.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Fort St. John Alliance Sermon Podcast. I'm Nate Perry, the youth pastor here at the church. We're so glad you've joined us today. Our desire as a church is to become a community of people who practice the way of Jesus together and, through the empowering of the Holy Spirit, live on mission to meet the social and spiritual needs of the world around us. Each week we gather as a community to worship, learn from God's Word, and to be encouraged in our walk with Christ. In this podcast, you'll hear the latest message from our Sunday service. Whether you're listening from right here in Fort St. John or from afar, our prayer is that God will speak to your heart and strengthen your faith. Let's lean in together as we hear today's sermon.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

The scripture won't be on the screen today, but I am going to be reading from Matthew chapter 1, verses 1 to 13. As they approached Jerusalem and came to Beth Page on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, say to the Lord that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away. This took place to fulfill what the Lord what was spoken through the prophet. Say to daughter Zion, see your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt the foal of a donkey. The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, Hosanna to the Son of David, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest heaven. When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, Who is this? The crowds answered, This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee. Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. It is written, he said to them, My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robberts. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated.

SPEAKER_02 2:19

It's good to be with you. Good to see just everyone here today. Um if this is your uh first time with us, I am so excited that you're here this morning. Really, really glad you're with us today. I hope this morning for you just feels right at home. Um I've been looking forward to this uh just this entire deciding season all together. Uh so I'm just really glad that you're all with us today. As well for those of you who are watching online, glad that you are with us as well this morning. Um, who here remembers YC uh youth conference that they used to hold years ago? Who remembers those things? Uh those are the good old days, weren't they? A little bit, somewhat. Um, for those of you who maybe don't know what it was exactly, um YC was a uh youth conference they would hold in Red Deer to start in the kind of late 90s. It eventually moved to uh Rex Hall Place in Edmonton, which began this huge, huge thing. Um and for most of my time as a teenager, I went to that. I loved YC. It was loads of fun. Um I even got to go um as a youth pastor in uh 2009. So then it was finally my turn to take a bunch of students to go, which was way more stressful. I had lots more uh sympathy for those who uh, oh man, this is what this is like. Okay, this is not as easy as it looks. So uh, but man, it was loads of fun. Like I always had an experience with Jesus every time I would go. It would just be so impactful for my faith journey. So good, so fun. I remember though my very first year that I went was YC 98. So this was back when it was held in Red Deer. And my uh my uh my uh uh favorite band was actually playing on the Sunday afternoon. And so I was so excited for this band to come. I was like, man, this is gonna be the greatest day. It's gonna be so good. I remember when I woke up that morning on the Sunday, I was so excited just to watch this band play later that day. I thought, man, this is why I came. Was this moment so exciting? I was imagining all day, okay, this is what the concert's gonna be like. It's gonna be so much fun. It's gonna be great. We get there that morning to the arena. We have our uh morning session, we hear from a uh a uh speaker, I think it was Miles McPherson at the time. Uh, and then when that was all done, the uh director of YC, he gets up on stage and he's about to share with us what's gonna happen for the rest of the day, right? So he says, you know, you're gonna get a chance here to go play some games. There's gonna be other things going on in these other halls around here, so you can just go and have all the fun that you want. And then he says, there's also a change of plans for the concert later on this afternoon that we're all gonna get together again. Because there's the band that is on their way, their tour bus broke down, and so they can't make it now. But he said, but it's okay because we're still gonna have a really fun afternoon. It's gonna be really good. And I'm thinking, no, it's not. Like, this is why I showed up. This is why I came. Like, I have been waiting for this. I've been waiting all this entire year for this concert. This is what I am, you know, this is what I'm here for. I even started to tell myself, you know what, this is probably some kind of a prank. It's a good one, but it's a prank. And uh, and for sure they're gonna show up. There's no way they are not going to be here. This is just a weird joke. I remember turning to my friend who was also really excited for this concert. He was really, really looking forward to it. And I look at him and I just said to a man, my day's ruined. It's just ruined. He looks at me and says, Dan, relax. Settle down. He said, I bet this afternoon is gonna be better than what you think it's gonna be. Okay, that's fine. How do you react when things don't go your way? How do you react when things start to shift for you? When maybe something happens that you weren't expecting. How do you react when plans change? When you plan a day to go outdoors but it rains instead? How do you react when that happens? When you decide, hey, here's a job I really want to apply for, right? You want it really bad, right? You know, you apply for it and you don't end up getting it. How does that impact you? Or maybe you look forward to this next summer kind of thing. There's a holiday coming up, but maybe the trip changes or it decides to shift or get canceled or everything. How do you react when things in your life, in your home, at your job, in your just right? You know, how do you react when things shift, when things don't turn out the way that you thought they would be? What about when it comes to God? How do you react when in the midst of your heart, just deep in prayer over something for months and months? God seems to answer it, but he answers it in a different way than what you expected him to. In a very different way than what you expected him to, or even of what you wanted. Or you get the sense that maybe God has this door open for you. Say, man, this is gonna be a great opportunity, only to feel like it shuts on you at the last minute. Plans change. Like it feels like he's letting you down sometimes. Like he's not the God that you think he is or that you hope he would be. In fact, I think we all experience these kinds of moments in our lives where what we think God is going to do, what we hope he's going to do, what we want him to do, doesn't always end up the way that it looks in reality. And then we're left with, okay, well, what do I do now with how I'm feeling in this level of letdown at times? We all have these moments. Here's what I want you to know this morning. Here's what we all need to know this morning that the God that we need is far better than the God that we think we want.

unknown 7:52

Right?

SPEAKER_02 7:52

The God that we need is far better than the God that we think we want, that he has your best interest at heart, even when things don't go your way, even when things in your life feel like they are falling apart, to trust that God knows what he's doing, that he definitely has your best interest at heart, and that he sees my need and your need, our deepest needs for grace, mercy, forgiveness, salvation. He sees everything that you need more than you think you do. He knows everything about your heart, everything that you need, and he is better than what we think he is. So maybe you've been a part of the church for a long time, maybe just a short time. Maybe you're here today because someone said, Why don't you come for lunch later this afternoon? And you said yes. So that's why you're here today. But regardless of why you are here this morning, here's what I believe is true: that we have an invitation this morning to pause and slow down in a busy season and behold Jesus for who he actually is and not just who we think he is. That we would look at him in all of his goodness, his grace, his mercy, his justice, his kindness, his sovereignty, and that we would say, This is who Jesus is, and that we would simply behold him. We would worship him this morning for who he is as we dive into the word, that we might give space for him to reveal himself in a deeper way, that on this Sunday that we might just really behold him. So here's what we're gonna do this morning. If you have your Bible, go ahead and turn to Matthew chapter 21. That's where we're gonna linger today, just like we heard this morning here from um Aaron here. Um we are gonna linger in this, just I'm gonna have a passage for the morning. It's about uh 13 verses, it's not very long, but there is a lot here for 13 verses. And there's so much here that it shows who God is and what he is all about and why he came and what the people expected of him when he showed up. Because just like you and I, they have expectations of who Jesus is. They think this is how he's going to act, this is how he's going to be. They put all of this on him, and what we are going to read in the text is that what they see is a different Jesus than who he actually was. How they experience him. Okay, so we're gonna pick it up in Matthew 21, verse 1, just to give some context. This is the just, I mean, a holy week. This is an important week in our calendar as a Christian church, as this is the beginning of the last week of the life of Jesus. This is the start of the end for him. And this is such a significant week. It's so important. And it starts off looking at Jesus marching into the city of uh uh Jerusalem. And so Jesus just before that is still in uh Bethany, which is where uh Lazarus was actually raised from the dead. This actually happened just a few days before he gets to the city, as far as it goes in the timeline. And so he's not too far away from Jerusalem. He's a close walk, he's not far, but he's been hanging out here in uh uh uh Bethany for the last while. And over the last just, I mean, a couple days of the story, he has been enjoying his time there, I'm sure. Good meals. This is a place he visited often, and so he is lingering behind and staying in Bethany, resting well. I'm sure loads of people coming to visit because they have all heard the story of Lazarus. They all because they don't live too far away, they have heard what has happened, and so all the attention starts to come to Jesus. All the crowds from the city start to come to see Lazarus. They want to see if what actually happened, if what they're hearing is true. And so the hype is building around Jesus. Everyone is looking to him like this guy is different. He's not who we think he is, because somebody who was dead is now alive. They would be thinking so many things at this point in their history. In fact, we have to understand that this is the week of uh Passover. And so every time this would come around, they would always anticipate that just maybe the Messiah would finally show up during this moment in the calendar. Because it would be fitting that Jesus would show up, right? The Messiah would come at a time when the nation looked to celebrate what God had done in Egypt and in the just how he just, I mean, how how God decided back then but to bring his people out of Egypt, right? How he rescued them and saved them from a people who was over them. And so in this moment, they're looking and saying, perhaps the Messiah will come now. And in particular, they're excited because now they see, well, there's this guy who just raised someone from the dead, actually. And he's just a couple, like he's not very far away. So just maybe Jesus is the Messiah that they've been waiting for is what they're thinking. That God is going to rescue them, right? How fitting in their minds that during this Passover week that God would do it again, that he would rescue his people. So imagine this scene. Jesus has been moving all through the country for the past three years, the buzz is building around him, and as the story of what he's doing spreads, the miracle in just what what he does there has everyone thinking, could he really be the Messiah? Right? So after the weekend goes by, Sunday morning comes. And this is what happens in verse 1. As they approached uh Jerusalem and came to Bethpage on the Mount of Olives. Okay, we're gonna just pause it right there, right? So this just I mean, a Mount of Olives holds some deep significance, significance for the people of Israel. Not only was this the mountain where uh uh uh uh excuse me, where uh King David hid during his son's uh rebellion at the time, right? So this is years ago, making it a mountain of kings, so to speak. It's important that way. But this is the same mountain where it was foretold, right, that God would stand on this mountain and defeat Israel's enemies. We see this in uh Zechariah. And so, in fact, in the anticipation of the Messiah coming from this mountain, this mountain was held deep significance to the people. In fact, this mountain became a uh uh cemetery, as a matter of fact. They believed that when the Messiah would come, that the dead would rise from their graves and they would walk with the Messiah to the city where he would take his rightful place as king. This is what they thought would happen. And so to see Jesus on the mountain was deeply significant. They thought this is it, he's gonna come into the city just as it was. In fact, for those who were on that mountain in the cemetery, they would be buried with their feet facing towards the uh the uh uh uh city, so that way when they finally rose from the day, they would simply get up and walk in the right direction. That was the idea behind it. They were so anticipating that this would happen. They are expecting a kingly march full of spectacle, full of awe. And so this is the stage that Jesus is setting. And so in verse 2 it says that Jesus went to two disciples, saying to them, Go to the village ahead of you, and once, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, and her colt by her, untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, tell him that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away. This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet. Say to the daughter of Zion, see your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. Again, this moment is looking back to this moment in uh Zechariah 9, that the king is going to come, but in a different way than how most kings would enter a city, especially during a time what would be considered war almost. It's a different time. You see, typically when a king arrived in a city, especially in their home city like this, you would not choose a donkey, you would choose a horse. Every big king rode in on horses to show their might, to show their power. This is what they did. I have not spent much time around a uh uh donkey at all. But what I do know is that they're not overly intimidating, are they, when you look at a donkey? In fact, they're a little ridiculous when you look at them as animals. They make ridiculous noises, right? Have you watched them online? Like really pathetic at times, right? Like not very intimidating. Very useful animals, very, very good animals for that regard. But they're not exactly intimidating, right? They're not making a statement here, right? As you actually see a donkey. In fact, notice Jesus says those two to sorry, that when he just, I mean, it told the two to go get the colt to get the mom as well, because particularly the colt would be a little all over the map without the mom walking beside him. That's why he says that. Because as he's riding on this colt, this donkey, this is gonna look silly if it's gonna be all over the place. Right? It does not look like a king's ride heading in. It looks a little nuts as he walks in there. It wouldn't actually be completely uncommon, though, for a king to be in a donkey every now and then, but they only did that in times of peace. Remember, Israel is under Roman rule. This is not a time of peace for them. They're not expecting their king to come in like everything is fine. They want their king to come in like everything is not fine, and we're gonna go to war over it. That's what they are expecting. There are just, I mean, a passionate people all over the nation that are actively warring against Rome in that time, and even those in charge at the time are expecting the Messiah to come and to rescue them from Rome, just like God did in Egypt. This is what they're anticipating. This is the expectation. In fact, in um, this is the expectation. Over the years, the desire for this nationalist-type movement overshadowed Zachariah's words. They didn't look to those words anymore and interpret them the same way. Instead of a king of peace, they're expecting a king who is ready to make war, to liberate the people. That is what they expect when they see Jesus. But from the get-go of Jesus' ministry, he's not the king that they expected. He's the king that they need, but selfishly not the one that they want. He's not coming in at a horse. He's not coming in with this massive, massive army behind him. But this is how we act though as people. What we want isn't always what we need, isn't that true? What we want isn't always what we need. I remember years ago I was at an outdoor uh theme park here with Christy. It was in uh California, not Disneyland. I talked about Disneyland before, different one. On a really hot day, plus 35, right? So sweltering day uh to be at a theme park. And when you're just, I mean, yeah, younger, we were kind of in like our mid-20s. You don't notice your body start to tell you things sometimes when you're that young. You just kind of think it's no big deal, and you just kind of push through, even though you're feeling something like, uh, I don't, I don't feel quite right, but you just kind of keep on going because you're having fun. And you ignore some of almost kind of like the warning lights in your body that says, I need water, for instance. You just kind of put that to the side because you're waiting in line for a roller coaster, right? Now, cognitively, I know that on a hot day walking around outside, standing around in lines, all that stuff, that my body will need water. I know that. Okay, like, right? That is a need that I cognitively know. But when you're at a theme park, surrounded by all the junk food options, all the good things that when those warning lights start to go off, which for both of us started with a massive headache, like we were throbbing headaches by about an hour or two into the day, I interpret that to be well, I'll have a Tylenol chased with a Pepsi, that sounds good, followed by a funnel cake, and that's what I did. Because that's what I wanted, though, right? Like that's what my body not necessarily needed, but that's what I definitely wanted. By the time the day was done, I was so dehydrated and sick, we barely touched water all day. It was not great, not a good idea. But I did not pick up on what my body actually needed. Instead, I just gave in to what I wanted. It's amazing how so often we just choose what we want over what we need. We just continually do that. God says, you may think you know what you want from me, you may have expectations of me, of how I ought to make your life better, but he says to us, I know what you need. I know the deepest parts of your heart. I know the things that you're actually longing for. Let me ask you this. How many times in your prayer life have you come to God with an agenda or a list of things that would make your life better? Right now, understand, I'm not saying that you can't ask God for things. He actually invites us to ask him all the time. He says that. Paul even makes it known. He says, Let all your requests be known to God. We hear that as well from Jesus. Ask me for what you want. This is a common theme all throughout scripture, so I'm not saying do not ask God for the things that matter to you. Please keep asking, he says. Ask away for those things. And understand that the kingdom that Jesus is building is not a temporal kingdom that only lasts here. He is building an eternal kingdom that goes far into eternity. And so the things that you ultimately need, things that you and I ultimately desire, will last far into eternity. Far into the things that he can form and shape us into to look more and more like himself. He is building what is called a now and not yet kingdom. It is now and not yet. This is a quote from uh Martin Lloyd Joins. He says, or sorry, Martin Martin Lloyd Jones, he says this if we regard the kingdom. Of God as the rule and reign of God. The kingdom was here when our Lord was here in person. It is present now wherever the Lord Jesus Christ is acknowledged as Lord. But it is to come with a greater fullness when everybody and everything will have to acknowledge his Lordship. So we can see that the kingdom has come. The kingdom is among us, and the kingdom is yet to come. That's what that means. It is a now and not yet kingdom. We can experience so much of what Jesus has for us on this side of eternity, and there is more of him to come. There is more of the kingdom to experience. Jesus has brought and is bringing about a liberation, but it is a liberation of the heart. It's a liberation of the soul. There is so much more than what we see just externally. Your current realities. Hear me, church, when I say this, what you are currently going through matters to Jesus. Don't ever think it doesn't. It deeply, deeply matters to him. He cares so much. He cares more than you could ever know about your suffering, about the things that you are experiencing. And his primary work is to heal and restore the deepest needs of our heart. That he would save us from who we are, that he would rescue us from sin and death. That is the deepest work that he could ever do. And he is doing that. He deeply cares about that, to rid us of our sin and our shame that we carry, and to invite us into practicing his way where we live a spirit-empowered life on mission for him and the things that he's invited us into. His arrival into the city is not marked by force and earthy power, but by humility and service. It's vastly different than what they expected because we need saving, not just in the way that we think. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of them and those that followed shouted, Hosanna to the Son of David, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, Who is this? The crowds answered, This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee. You see, as Jesus rides by the crowd, he is just, I mean, they're recognized in this kingly moment, even though they may have different expectations of him, they understand that something deeply significant is happening. And so they lay down their cloaks in this act of saying, You are our king. That's what that meant, that we will give you everything, that we are submissive to whatever it is you are asking for. Imagine that. They don't fully understand who he is yet, but they're telling him we will give you everything, which is really going to be put to the test in the next little while for the nation of Israel. They start to cut off just, I mean, a palm branch is symbolizing just, I mean, this moment of, I mean, a Jewish uh uh nationalism. It was like they were declaring victory already, right? They have these high hopes for what Jesus is going to do, that he's gonna come in and he's gonna rid their nation of Rome. There are crowds on either side of him, some who have come from the city and some who are following him from behind. They are hemming him in as he's coming. This is a monumental moment. And they are shouting, Hosanna, son of David. Hosanna is essentially saying, save us. Right? Like they are trusting that this is the Messiah, this is the moment. And again, they recognize that Jesus is coming as a king when they say son of David, coming from that line. And yet, even though they recognize him as king, they are completely missing his arrival. They're completely missing it. 150 years ago, previously, to this moment, though, there was a man by the name of uh Judas Maccabeas, and he conquered an invader in Israel. He came in and he ran them out of the city. And as a way to celebrate it, he took branches and he would have a little imprint of a branch stamped on their coins to symbolize the victory that's coming. So when they lay down palm branches, they are fully expecting that this is an act of war. Right? That man, this is a moment in which God is going to do the same thing. Now they're expecting the same thing. They're saying save us, but expecting liberation, a conquering of Rome instead. You know, it is completely possible to spend your whole life in the church and completely miss Jesus. Did you know that? It is fully possible to spend your entire life here and completely miss out on who he is. Completely all throughout history, Jesus has been used as a means to an end. He's been used as a wellness coach, as someone to prop up for just politics. He's a, I mean, he is a good, just I mean a teacher, a uh uh social activist. He's been propped up to push forward harmful ideologies, watered down versions of the gospel as well, and his words twisted and distorted to encourage hedonism and selfishness all throughout the centuries. This is how Jesus has been used. To fit agendas rather than to accept him and to embrace him for who he actually is. One of the saddest realities that the church faces in this cultural moment is the fact that so much of the world sees Jesus as a subjective truth that you can cherry pick to fit your agenda rather than the Lord and King that he actually is. We just simply take what we like. As long as he fits my agenda, as long as he helps me move forward, as long as I experience power and might and all these things on this side of eternity, whatever he does to make me feel good about me, I will take that part of him. This is how the world embraces him. And if we're honest, this is how some of us embrace him. We cherry pick what he has to say and what he's done. And just like it says in the text, his arrival has stirred everybody up. This is a this is a deep stirring of the heart that he's doing. From those who shout praises of Hosanna and lay down cloaks as a king, marching in to save them from Rome, to the crowd that just sees him as a prophet who's been stirring up trouble in Galilee. All the different ways in which they see Jesus. Just like so many others, the Jesus that rides on the donkey could be the Messiah that actually fits their agenda, is what they're hoping for. But the road Jesus finds himself on isn't one that leads to an earthly throne. But, friends, it's leading to the cross. It is leading to suffering, it is leading to die, it is leading to pain, it is leading to harm, it's leading to all those things, it is leading to his humiliation. Not like an earthly king. It's leading completely different. Jesus has come to save, but not in the way they think. In verse 12, we see the story kind of shift a little bit here. And we see this moment that actually happens on the Monday, but in the book of Matthew, it's captured right away afterwards because of the close tie that I think the author wants us to see. And so this is what it says in verse 12. Jesus entered the temple area and he drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. It is written, he said to them, My house will be called a house of prayer. But you are making it a den of robbers. Again, the arrival of Jesus and the clearing of the temple to the author speak hand in hand for what Jesus came to do. You see, Jesus enters the temple and he finds himself in the marketplace, in the entry part of the temple, which was fairly common. It wasn't uncommon to see things being sold at the beginning of the temple as you walked in, because a lot of people had to come from way out of town, and when they got out of town, when they got into town, they would buy something for a sacrifice. That was not uncommon practice. Anyone who was there outside of Jerusalem knew they had to come for worship in the sacrificial system, and so they would have an opportunity to buy it in the temple courts, on the outer court like that. But the practice of this wasn't what God had fully in mind. For one, they were charging over and above what would be considered normal prices for these animals. They were profiting off of the sacrificial system. They're making money off of people. In fact, the doves that is mentioned in the text, they were sold to the poorest people. They had very little value, they were worth next to nothing, but yet these were jacked up in price to make it harder. These were reserved for folks who could not afford anything else. But those selling and the money changers are making this about a commercial operation. Not only that, the market is in the outer court, which is where the Gentiles, right? So the non-Jews, this is where they actually pray. But it's been turned into a marketplace. It's been turned into something that they had never intended it to be that way. It is transformed into a shopping mall instead of a place to come and worship and pray. This is why Jesus says, My house will be called a house of prayer, because he is standing in the outer court where people come to pray. This is the intention of it. But he says, But you have made it into a den of robbers. In other words, instead of using my temple for what it was actually made for, you have used it to meet your own agenda. Sound familiar? You're using it for what you want it to be, not for what I want it to be. They have put worship and repentance behind a paywall. And have said, this is what it costs for you to actually move forward. Jesus says, not in my house. This is not what it's for. But the symbolism here goes even further. You see, in the New Testament, Paul rightly asserts that because of what Jesus has done on the cross and has raised us to new life, that the sacrificial way of doing things before, that system no longer applies because of the sacrifice of Jesus. He is the perfect spotless lamb that has died. We don't have to buy anything anymore at the temple courts and sacrifice it because Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice. That's the point. And because that is true, his presence, God's presence, no longer dwells in the middle of the temple as it used to. But Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3, this is what he says, do you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him, for God's temple is sacred, and you are that temple. You see, Jesus has come to clean out everything that does not belong. Everything that should not be there, to restore you and I for what we were made for, for you and I to take seriously the condition of our hearts and give him space to make us holy. That is his agenda. This is why he came. This is why he's marched in. This is why he goes to the temple to set a standard that says, I am doing something that you need, not just what you think you want. His entry to the city was not this road to an earthly throne, but it's a road to the cross. Salvation wasn't found in defeating Rome. It can't be bought or earned at the temple gates like that. It's found in Jesus defeating sin and death to restore relationship between us and God, because Jesus is not a means to an end. Jesus is the end. Jesus is the end. He is not a means to an end. He is not just here just to make your life comfortable. He is not just here just so you can say, oh God, can you please help me with this and that's that? And you leave him to the side. Jesus is the end. He's everything we need, everything we could ever want is found in him perfectly. He is the servant king that has laid down his life. That came humbly on a donkey. While everyone else was waiting for him to shout war, he brings peace. And Jesus is inviting us to behold him, to look at him for who he is, to shout our praise, to lay down our hearts to him, to put aside our wants, our desires, our agendas, the things that we think we need him to do, the things that if he were to do right now would make our world better, and recognize that Jesus is the only one that we need. He's who our souls long for. And I think the invitation this week as we enter Holy Week is just to simply behold him as we approach Friday, as we approach this weekend. That we would look at him for who he really is. You know, sometimes I think we enter into seasons like this and it just becomes another day on the calendar where we look to Easter and think, man, I can't wait for Easter, and then it just simply goes by. Time flies so fast that we miss out on the invitation to slow down and let the moment we are in be a formational moment. I wonder what it must have been like to stand on the side of the road and just for a moment be present as you watch Jesus march in to the city of Jerusalem. What would it have been like for us to have been standing there? Would we have done the same thing? Would we have actually taken off our outer coats and put them on the ground? Would we have waved those just how many palm branches in a moment of victory? Would we have done that? Would we have slowed down to recognize the moment that we're in, or would we have just brushed past it? It's a formational moment that Jesus invites us into. That just maybe instead of acknowledging the weekend that's to come, acknowledging this beautiful moment on the calendar, it's Jesus inviting us to ready our hearts for this weekend. To ready ourselves for him, to examine where our lives, where our hearts are out of alignment with him, to put aside any agenda we have and just behold him for who he is. I like what um Alan uh Redpath says. Before we can pray, thy kingdom come, we must be willing to pray, my kingdom go. You know what? I think back to YC, I thought back to that moment of that afternoon when I was so let down that I didn't get to watch this band that I was really hoping to see. I just thought, man, this whole weekend is ruined now. Because I don't get to see what I want to see. And I remember looking at my friend as we got to that afternoon session, and I said to him again, I said, John, man, I don't know if this is gonna be a good time. And he said, Dan, just hold tight. I bet it's gonna be great. I actually bet it's gonna be great. And so they actually brought up, just I mean, they invited up just at the time the uh the uh uh uh worship band. They had a speaker up there and all these things. And I have to admit, I was engaged in the worship, I was engaged with the speaker, but still let down. I still thought, man, this is not what I expected, this is not what was on my agenda. But at the end of the afternoon, the speaker got up and he asked for those who were still in the room if they wanted to give their life again to Jesus, who had maybe not done it yet to that point. Right? There was a big ask on Friday, but you know, not everybody gets up necessarily on the Friday night, but it was an opportunity. If you were here this morning, make and make a move towards Jesus. And so I looked down the row, and there I see my friend John, who had been waiting for the concert, same as me, walk up to the front to accept Jesus. That is so much better than a concert. That was so much better than what I had in mind. I love it that God had an agenda beyond my wants and saw something way more important, something eternal, something that would last way, way, way, way into eternity. I will forget most concerts I've ever been to. But I remember that moment. I remember that. And it was a moment in which I said, Jesus, you can do whatever you want because you are better. You are better than any agenda, any expectation that I might have, anything on my heart today, anything that I think you should change in the world, you are better than that. And so, church, here's what I want to do here this morning, just as we close here with a song here in just a moment. In a world full of noise and distraction where things move at the speed of light, I think Jesus is inviting us into a practice just to slow down and ready our hearts, that we would have hands open that said, Jesus, you can do whatever you want this week. You can mold me and shape me. That just maybe this week Jesus is going to get us on his agenda to challenge us to transform our hearts into places of worship where we might deal with the things that don't belong, that we don't miss the invitation to slow down and walk with Jesus through Holy Week. And so here's how we're gonna do this. I'm a fan of uh uh spiritual uh uh formation, huge fan of it. It is a practice of wanting to become more and more like Jesus and rearranging our lives in such a way that gets us on God's agenda. It's about shifting things in your own life to make room for him to move. And this kind of moment, this kind of transformation takes more than just an hour a week, friends. It takes more than that. And so I have a challenge for us this week. Here is the practice. Starting today, on the Bible app, there is an eight-day walk through the week. It's called uh uh Holy Week by uh June Tavares, and so it's on the Bible app. It is only eight days. It will take you no more than seven minutes each day to do it, even less. It's not a long read, it's not much, but here's what I know Jesus is inviting you to pay attention this week to the steps that he took. Did you know that everything that we shared and talked about, that those moments actually happened? Right, that those were real moments in the life of Jesus. He walked into the city of Jerusalem, he walked into the temple on the Monday, and as the week goes on, you're gonna experience each day that Jesus had in his final week. That we might ready our hearts for Friday and for Sunday that is thankfully coming. And so my challenge to you is to take some extra time this week. I know many of you are already doing loads of things in the Bible. Here's what I would say to you do more. Just do more. You will not look back at the end of your life and think, man, I read the Bible too much. No one will say that. In fact, most of us will say the opposite. I wish I would have read it more. I wish I would have been invested more, I wish I would have slowed down, I wish I wouldn't have hurried just to get through a season, but instead would have slowed my heart and said, Jesus, you can have whatever you want from me. And so this is my challenge for us this week. So here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna pray for us, I'm gonna pray for you, and then we're gonna close with one more song here, and then Aaron's got some announcements for us. So let's pray this morning. So, Lord Jesus, thank you that you in fact are the God that we need. Jesus, as I look around at our world today, I see so many things that I would think. If you did it my way, if you just changed the things that I want you to change, then everything would be good. Jesus, how many times have so many of us said that? That Lord, if you would just do this or just do that, then you would be good. But Jesus, the beautiful news is that you are already good, and that you are king, you are a humble servant who rides in not on a horse to declare war on another nation, but you ride in on a donkey to serve us in such a way that you would take our sin and our shame, and that you would be led to a cross. And you would take all of our sin, all of our shame, all the things that we've ever done, and they would be nailed to that cross onto you. You would take every burden, everything we've ever done wrong, everything that separates us from God. You said, I will take that on myself. And in a moment, I Your own pain as you were hanging on that cross, you look to the father and you say, Why have you forsaken me? Because in that moment, we know Jesus that the Father cannot look upon you. How lonely you must have felt, Lord Jesus, on the cross. But yet you are our King. And that is what a good King does. He lays down his life for his friends. That we might have abundant life, that we might live life to the full, that we might seek to live an eternal kind of life that doesn't just look to the temporal agendas that we have, but looks to the eternal kingdom that you are building. So Lord Jesus, thank you for the invitation. And this morning we don't want to miss it. So Lord, I pray for each one here today. Father, if there are parts of our hearts today that don't line up with yours, Jesus, just as you entered into the temple, you got rid of the things in the temple that did not line up with you. Because you care deeply about what's going on in the soul. So Lord Jesus, I pray that you might start to bring to mind where our hearts are out of alignment with you, where we have our own agendas, where we have said yes to sin and have just really indulged it because we want to. Where we know we're doing the wrong thing. Where we know we're starting to slip into some gray areas. Where we are using our hearts and our minds and our bodies in ways that don't reflect what we were made for. Lord Jesus, I pray that you would just do a good work in us today. That you would reveal and show what it is you want to deal with. And so I just ask now, Lord, Holy Spirit, come. Would you just fall fresh here on each heart and mind today? Would you bring to mind the things that need to be addressed? And would we look to you, Jesus, and ask for your forgiveness? That we would change our ways, that we would repent, that we would turn. And that for the rest of this week in particular, we might pause. That we might walk with you, Jesus, through your last week on earth. We might sit in these moments and ask, Jesus, what is it you are asking of me? So Lord, thank you that you have come. Thank you for the kingdom that you have built, the kingdom you are currently building, and the kingdom to come. So Lord Jesus, I pray for your hand on each one of us this week that we might know you more and experience you in deeper ways. So Lord Jesus, thank you. In your name. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 47:00

We just invite you to stand if you're able.