SPEAKER_00: This podcast is a ministry of Grant Parkway Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: Helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about Grant Parkway, visit Grantparkway.org.
SPEAKER_01: Have a seat.
SPEAKER_01: If you have a Bible, I invite you to take it and open it up to Luke chapter 19.
SPEAKER_01: Luke chapter 19.
SPEAKER_01: I want to talk to you this morning about the one story that God loves to tell.
SPEAKER_01: I was not here last weekend.
SPEAKER_01: I was teaching at a college retreat in Destin, Florida.
SPEAKER_01: Somebody's got to go to Destin, Florida, and teach the Bible to college kids.
SPEAKER_01: I nominate myself.
SPEAKER_01: I thought about you as I got to my condo at the Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort on this side of the suite.
SPEAKER_01: I looked out on the ocean.
SPEAKER_01: On this side over here, I looked out on the golf course.
SPEAKER_01: And the guy said, You can do whatever you want while you're here.
SPEAKER_01: We just want you to teach the Bible and hang out with students.
SPEAKER_01: If you want to play golf during your free time, you can do that.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, No, brother, I've come to give myself to the word.
SPEAKER_01: It rained on Saturday.
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, but one of the things that I was reminded of is, and I told them, I said, y'all got to change the way you think about the Bible because here's the way we think about the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Most people do.
SPEAKER_01: You think the Bible is like a collection of stories.
SPEAKER_01: Some are easier to believe than others, but there's these different one-off stories all through the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: The story of the Ark, I mean, they may move a movie about it, but I mean, come on, you don't know about that.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus walks on water, and this, and this, and this.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to say to you, that's the wrong way to think about the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: It is not a collection of stories, some of which are more believable than others.
SPEAKER_01: It is one story that God tells all through the Old Testament, all the way to the New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: Don't separate old.
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's kind of the old mean old God, but Jesus comes on the eye.
SPEAKER_01: I like Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Don't like God, but I like Jesus because he's kind of soft and loving and sweet and he rides a donkey and he kind of a pacifist, you know.
SPEAKER_01: He just kind of but he got himself in trouble, and the Romans killed him.
SPEAKER_01: You don't understand the story of God.
SPEAKER_01: And so I want to just kind of I want you to stay in Luke 19.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to get there in about eight minutes.
SPEAKER_01: You got eight minutes?
SPEAKER_01: Because I just want to summarize, because I mean when Jesus rides into Jerusalem on what's called the triumphal entry on Palm Sunday, I want to, there's the understatement of the day.
SPEAKER_01: He's been a long time coming.
SPEAKER_01: So don't just drop in if you're visiting today.
SPEAKER_01: Don't just drop in and go, well, it's Palm Sunday, and we're just checking out of church to see where we want to go for Easter.
SPEAKER_01: And this was close to the house, and we'll just kind of see.
SPEAKER_01: Glad you're here.
SPEAKER_01: But don't just think, oh, here's another episodic little narrative from the life of Jesus who kind of rides in and, you know, gets himself killed.
SPEAKER_01: Not at all.
SPEAKER_01: You say, What do you mean?
SPEAKER_01: The one story God loves to tell.
SPEAKER_01: Well, if you started in the beginning and you read the first page or the first verse or the first book of the Bible, you would read these words.
SPEAKER_01: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was void and formless, and darkness was over the surface of the deep.
SPEAKER_01: And then it says this, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.
SPEAKER_01: All that was dark and void and formless and unshaped and nothingness, God was kind of just hovering over it.
SPEAKER_01: And the first thing the Bible tells us is that from nothing God made everything.
SPEAKER_01: He could have made anything, but he made something very particular.
SPEAKER_01: And he made a man named Adam and put him in the garden.
SPEAKER_01: And he says to Adam, You're free to eat of any tree of the garden, but of this one tree, do not eat.
SPEAKER_01: The first command of God to his ultimate creation, humanity, was not no, but it was yes.
SPEAKER_01: You are free.
SPEAKER_01: Say that to your kids today.
SPEAKER_01: You're free to eat of anything you want.
SPEAKER_01: The first service, two little shenanigans, little my little buddies, the Snyder boys, sat in the back of this section right here.
SPEAKER_01: They came to me in the floor and said, Pastor Neil, can we have some of those donuts over there?
SPEAKER_01: Because we have a worship abroad project going on today.
SPEAKER_01: If you're new to our church, what that means is that men and women from our church, we find need in our city, and we just descend on it in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: And about a three weeks ago, maybe I talked about my wife and I walking and found this, met this guy in my neighborhood, and there are people from our church right now who are ripping out their cabinets and installing new cabinets and new countertops and new tile that you paid for.
SPEAKER_01: We were walking last night and I saw the guy getting out of his yard and I said, Hey, how are you having visitors in the morning?
SPEAKER_01: He said, Yeah, 8 45.
SPEAKER_01: And so guys showed up dressed in camouflage, and one of them I think had a dip.
SPEAKER_01: I couldn't verify that, but I was like, I think that brother's got a pinch between his sheek and gum right there.
SPEAKER_01: And so they're just, because God hovers over nothing and makes something out of it, they are ripping out their cabinets out of the wall, the glory of God, and putting new ones in and say, we just want to bless you in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: And so that's going on because, not because we're great, because that's reflective of who God is.
SPEAKER_01: And if you just move from Genesis 1, 1 and 2 to Genesis chapter 1, verse 26, you hear this.
SPEAKER_01: This is what I mean when I say that Jesus has been a long time coming.
SPEAKER_01: It's not like halfway through the story, it's not going well.
SPEAKER_01: And so God writes a new character into the story.
SPEAKER_01: Baby Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: No, somebody that Ricky Bobby can pray to.
SPEAKER_01: No, not at all.
SPEAKER_01: Not at all the story of God, okay?
SPEAKER_01: The story is bigger and deeper and more expansive than that.
SPEAKER_01: And so Genesis chapter 1, verse 26.
SPEAKER_01: You ain't got to turn there, but it says this.
SPEAKER_01: God speaks and says, Come, let us, plural, make man in our plural image.
SPEAKER_01: What is God got multiple personality?
SPEAKER_01: No, it's a triune God, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: You read in Colossians 1, it writes of Jesus that before all things he existed, and all things were created by him, and for him all things were made.
SPEAKER_01: He was active, he was the agent of God in creation.
SPEAKER_01: So when God speaks in Genesis 1 and says, Come let us make man in our image.
SPEAKER_01: He's like, Hey, hey, Jesus has been here all along.
SPEAKER_01: So when he rides in in Luke 19, he's been a long time coming, people.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't stop there.
SPEAKER_01: He goes from that to Genesis chapter 3 because he puts them in the garden and says, You're free.
SPEAKER_01: And what do they do?
SPEAKER_01: They don't trust God.
SPEAKER_01: They're afraid God's somehow holding back on them.
SPEAKER_01: Oh man, I will he might be, you know, the the serpent might be telling the truth here, and God might be lying.
SPEAKER_01: Despite the fact that the Bible says over and over, God is not a man that he would love.
SPEAKER_01: And so they sin and they and sin is into the world.
SPEAKER_01: We live in a fallen world now because our original spiritual parents, Adam and Eve, did not trust God.
SPEAKER_01: And so God says there's got to be a consequence for sin.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, if you don't teach your children, there's a consequence for violating God's law and violating your law.
SPEAKER_01: You're the law in your house.
SPEAKER_01: You know that, right?
SPEAKER_01: You know, like, well, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: You hadn't been to our house.
SPEAKER_01: I'll come whip your kids today.
SPEAKER_01: So I can just be reminding them, hey, there's law here.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you you you gotta, because if you don't teach your kids, hey, there's authority, when you violate this authority, there's a consequence.
SPEAKER_01: If there's no consequence, when your kids violate authority, you're gonna be in trouble, my man.
SPEAKER_01: It's cute now when they're three and six, but when they're 14 and 17, it's destructive.
SPEAKER_01: And so God says, hey, there's got to be consequences in Genesis 3.
SPEAKER_01: He looks at the serpent and he says, Hey, because you've done this, you know, you're gonna crawl on your belly the rest of your life and you're gonna eat dust.
SPEAKER_01: And then he says, This, I'll put enmity between the seed of the woman and between you, this sense of hostility.
SPEAKER_01: And then he says, uh, it's the first messianic promise, Genesis chapter 3, verse 15, and he says, He will crush your head and you will bruise his heel.
SPEAKER_01: You see, because Jesus has been a long time coming.
SPEAKER_01: And so it goes from Genesis 3, this story, this one story that weaves all the way through the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: You get to Genesis 6, and God looks down and he sees that just people are just running everywhere.
SPEAKER_01: And if you've ever like volunteered in some kind of a drunken stupor, if you volunteered to coach like a like a five-year-old soccer team, you get this, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Because our our daughter, when we she was little, one play soccer, and I was like, ooh, really?
SPEAKER_01: How about ballet?
SPEAKER_01: Your mom can take you to that.
SPEAKER_01: No, she wanna play soccer.
SPEAKER_01: And so I went out there, the coach showed up for one practice, and in our first game, he wasn't there, and they said, Oh, Mr.
SPEAKER_01: McClane, you seem to like kids.
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_01: I like my kids.
SPEAKER_01: I don't like your kids.
SPEAKER_01: Well, the kids don't have a coach.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I had to step in and coach, and we did plays, and I drew up plays, and I had little flashcards, and I would show them.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, here's what we're gonna do.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna move the ball in your pants.
SPEAKER_01: And then the game came up, and a butterfly flew by the hello, butterfly, hello.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm just like, and the other kid team has always got some Brazilian, like genetically engineered, Pele's grandchild.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, there's no way you should be playing like elite traveling.
SPEAKER_01: This is the YMCA.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody gets a trophy, and they're just running everywhere.
SPEAKER_01: And finally, after about 10 minutes of the first game, here's all I would say: kick it like it's your brother.
SPEAKER_01: And they're like, oh yeah.
SPEAKER_01: And they're just everywhere.
SPEAKER_01: They don't listen.
SPEAKER_01: Well, the Bible says in Genesis chapter 6 that God looked down and he was grieved and he was sorry that he ever made man because every intention of his heart was evil continuously.
SPEAKER_01: So when Oprah comes to town and fills up the Toyota Center and looks at all you non-discerning women and says, Follow your heart.
SPEAKER_01: You you shouldn't be encouraged by that.
SPEAKER_01: And so God says, Here's what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna wipe out everybody and start over.
SPEAKER_01: And so Noah built this ark, and he builds this ark, and he fills the animals, and the ark with animals, and and then God wipes out creation, man, and animals and starts over because the ark was the only way to be saved, and by entering through this one door of the ark, it's the only way that you could be saved.
SPEAKER_01: Sound familiar?
SPEAKER_01: And so you move from Genesis 6, and then he starts, you know, through the descendants of Noah, and you get to Genesis 12, he's got this guy, Abram, and he says, now I want to start working through relationships.
SPEAKER_01: You got Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and it's going along there, and it's this narrative, and it just unfolds, and you get to Exodus chapter 2, and God looks down, and the people cried out there in bondage.
SPEAKER_01: They're kind of like, you know, God, it kind of feels like maybe it should be better than this.
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever been there in your life where you just kind of look around and you go, I don't really like my wife, my kids drive me crazy, and I fantasized about killing my boss twice a week.
SPEAKER_01: But enough about my job.
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, enough about my life.
SPEAKER_01: Tell me about yours.
SPEAKER_01: And so the Bible says that God looked down and he saw and he remembered.
SPEAKER_01: He looked down.
SPEAKER_01: God saw, he heard their cries, he saw, he remembered, he does something about it.
SPEAKER_01: So in Exodus 3, there's this guy, Moses, who's already killed a man and fled, and he's living in hiding.
SPEAKER_01: They got posters of him on America's Most Wanted.
SPEAKER_01: If you see this man, be sure and call the FBI.
SPEAKER_01: And Moses is trying to eke out existence.
SPEAKER_01: So one day he looks up and there's a bush on fire, and he's like, Hello, check that out.
SPEAKER_01: That thing ain't burning up.
SPEAKER_01: And he walks over and God says, I got it, I got his attention now.
SPEAKER_01: Because God will do whatever he has to do to get your attention.
SPEAKER_01: You know that, right?
SPEAKER_01: Because he's like, Hello, I want to communicate with you.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not up in the sky watching from a million miles away, kind of going, get it sorted.
SPEAKER_01: He's like, hello.
SPEAKER_01: And Moses walks over and says, Let me let me check this thing out.
SPEAKER_01: That this thing burns, but it's not consumed.
SPEAKER_01: And God spoke and said, Take your shoes off.
SPEAKER_01: The ground you're standing on is holy ground.
SPEAKER_01: And Moses is like, something can happen here.
SPEAKER_01: And so God begins to work because God works through relationship and God involves people in his story.
SPEAKER_01: It's not just a dictation, it's an invitation.
SPEAKER_01: It's not like the boss calling his secretary and going, write this down.
SPEAKER_01: It's God saying to people, Don't you want to be involved in what I'm doing in the world?
SPEAKER_01: And Moses reluctantly said, Yes.
SPEAKER_01: He's like, Well, how about I do I don't really talk well?
SPEAKER_01: How about my brother?
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_01: You're my man.
SPEAKER_01: Go to Pharaoh.
SPEAKER_01: Exodus chapter 5, go to Pharaoh.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you are thinking right now, dude, you're in Exodus 5 and we're in Luke 19.
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna land this plane, okay?
SPEAKER_01: We got to get out of here in an hour, okay?
SPEAKER_01: You're not even you're not even out of the second book of the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: Exodus 5.
SPEAKER_01: He goes to Pharaoh and says, Pharaoh, God said, Let my people go.
SPEAKER_01: And here's what Pharaoh says.
SPEAKER_01: Who is the Lord that I should obey him?
SPEAKER_01: I do not know the Lord and I will not do what he says.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, that's the fundamental question of parenting right there.
SPEAKER_01: You've got to raise your kids to get the right answer to that question because your kids and their little heart are asking, Who is the Lord that I should obey him?
SPEAKER_01: And if they don't know the Lord, they don't leave your house and have a right knowledge of God, they are going out the deep end first chance they get.
SPEAKER_01: Who is the Lord that I should obey him?
SPEAKER_01: I do not know the Lord and I will not do what he says.
SPEAKER_01: And God says, Hey like frogs and flies and gnats and boils, and I'm gonna start off easy because you know I'm putting on stun.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna turn the water, the river and the water to blood, just so you'll know who you're jacking with here.
SPEAKER_01: And he just ratcheted it up, ratcheted it up, and he gets all the way to the first nine plagues, and you would think the Pharaoh is kind of going, uh, I think I've bitten off more than I can chew here.
SPEAKER_01: But the Bible says he doesn't.
SPEAKER_01: His heart just gets harder and harder and harder, and then you get after the nine plagues, and God's getting ready to do the tenth and final plague, the most devastating, he's gonna kill the firstborn of everything in all creation in the country of Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: That's people and animals.
SPEAKER_01: God's gonna say, Don't jerk with me.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible says, because he's merciful, he's not, he's not just angry going, I'm gonna kill stuff.
SPEAKER_01: He says this in Exodus chapter 12, verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, this month shall be for you the beginning of months.
SPEAKER_01: Hear this, beloved.
SPEAKER_01: Hear this, because we're we're getting close to Luke 19.
SPEAKER_01: This month shall be for you the beginning of months.
SPEAKER_01: This is the first month of your calendar.
SPEAKER_01: It's called Nisan in the Jewish calendar.
SPEAKER_01: It'll be the first month of the year for you, and tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month, the tenth day of Nisan, every man shall take a lamb according to their father's houses, and a lamb for a household.
SPEAKER_01: And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he's nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons, according to what each one can eat, you shall make your count for the lamb.
SPEAKER_01: Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old, you may take it from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.
SPEAKER_01: Now, and you select your lambs on the tenth day of Nisan, and you keep it for five days.
SPEAKER_01: And so 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, five days.
SPEAKER_01: Passover was celebrated on the fifteenth day of Nisan, the first month of the year.
SPEAKER_01: God says, You select this, and then you make sure it's it's got to be without blemish.
SPEAKER_01: And so for five days they examine it to make sure there's nothing wrong with it.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 7, then they shall take some of the blood after you sacrifice a lamb and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the house in which they eat, and they shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, they shall eat it.
SPEAKER_01: Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted with its head and its legs and its inner parts, and you shall let none of it remain until the morning.
SPEAKER_01: Anything that remains until the morning you shall burn.
SPEAKER_01: In this manner you shall eat it, with your belt fastened, and your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand, though we're just posture of readiness, and you shall eat it in haste.
SPEAKER_01: It is the Lord's Passover, for I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast, and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments.
SPEAKER_01: I am the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord throughout your generations, as a statute forever.
SPEAKER_01: You shall keep it as a feast.
SPEAKER_01: God delivers them parts of the Red Sea, and they come through and Moses' sister, her name's Miriam, she just burst into spontaneous song.
SPEAKER_01: When's the last time you bursted into spontaneous song?
SPEAKER_01: When's the last time you just felt so good?
SPEAKER_01: You just started singing something.
SPEAKER_01: Other day I was just walking through my house and I just started singing in John Deere Green in letters three foot high.
SPEAKER_01: He wrote, Billy Bob loves Charlene.
SPEAKER_01: And the whole town said that he should have used red in his love note to Charlene.
SPEAKER_01: In John Deere Green.
SPEAKER_01: And my kids are like.
SPEAKER_01: Somebody's going to hell for that.
SPEAKER_01: You're like the little narcs they are.
SPEAKER_01: They ran to their mom.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, mom, Dad said we're going to hell.
SPEAKER_01: What?
SPEAKER_01: He bursts into song and she says, Who among the gods is like you?
SPEAKER_01: Awesome in glory, majestic in holiness, and working wonders.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, could it be any better?
SPEAKER_01: And then they marched through the Red Sea and they got out in the wilderness and they turned on God and they shook their fist and said, Why'd you bring us out here just to kill us?
SPEAKER_01: Well, not enough graves back there.
SPEAKER_01: Are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_01: What is going on here?
SPEAKER_01: And they fashioned for themselves a golden calf because they didn't get in their way.
SPEAKER_01: And they said, You are the gods that brought us out of Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: And God said to Moses, get out of my way.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to wipe them out.
SPEAKER_01: And I'll make you the father of many nations.
SPEAKER_01: And Moses stood in between them and God as a mediator, as a type and shadow of what was to come.
SPEAKER_01: Someone that would stand before uh the wrath of a wronged deity and these people who just who knew better but did it anyway.
SPEAKER_01: And Moses says, Oh, God, please have mercy.
SPEAKER_01: Do not blot these people out.
SPEAKER_01: Take blot me out, God, but don't wipe them out.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible says God relented of the evil that he was going to do because of a mediator, somebody that stood between God and man.
SPEAKER_01: And it begins to unspool through the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: And you see that despite their best efforts, people can't do the right thing.
SPEAKER_01: They know right and they do wrong anyway.
SPEAKER_01: And so the Bible comes along and God begins to make these promises.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible calls them prophecies.
SPEAKER_01: And one of them he says is in Isaiah chapter 9, he says, For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
SPEAKER_01: And of the increase of his government and of the peace, there will be no end.
SPEAKER_01: And on the throne of David and on over his kingdom to establish it and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.
SPEAKER_01: And the people are just incredulous.
SPEAKER_01: They're just like, Are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_01: Because this is in Isaiah chapter 9.
SPEAKER_01: But if you read in Isaiah chapter 8, like you probably got a burning desire to do what God talks about is a coming invasion of Assyria.
SPEAKER_01: Assyria, this devastating army.
SPEAKER_01: God has said, they're coming.
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, I'm bringing them down on you to punish you because you don't believe me.
SPEAKER_01: And then people are like, What do you mean there's going to be this person's gonna come?
SPEAKER_01: This wonderful counselor, mighty God, Prince of Peace, are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_01: We're just getting ransacked.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because even back then, people had a capacity to hear what the Bible said and look at it through the lens of themselves.
SPEAKER_01: Instead of hear what the Bible says and look at it through the lens of God and say, Okay, you said it, I got it, that settles it.
SPEAKER_01: And so they go from there, and God's like, okay, I don't think y'all would believe in me, so let me get real specific.
SPEAKER_01: And so he says in Zechariah chapter 9, verse 9, Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion.
SPEAKER_01: Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: Behold, your king is coming to you, righteous and having salvation as he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
SPEAKER_01: And then you get into the New Testament, and you read in Luke chapter 2 that in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.
SPEAKER_01: And this was the first registration when Quyreneus was governor of Syria.
SPEAKER_01: And they all went to be registered, each to his own town.
SPEAKER_01: And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and the lineage of David to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.
SPEAKER_01: And you hear that, and you're like, Oh, I was supposed to be reading that during Christmas time.
SPEAKER_01: No, you read it on Palm Sunday to remind yourself that God orchestrates political events for his will to be realized.
SPEAKER_01: And Luke goes on and tells us that she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the end.
SPEAKER_01: And this baby grows up and he goes, begins to teach, and he calls twelve disciples to himself.
SPEAKER_01: And all through the gospel of Luke, we're getting close.
SPEAKER_01: Are you still in Luke 19?
SPEAKER_01: Just stay in Luke 19.
SPEAKER_01: Let me just read from Luke's gospel how often and obvious Jesus makes it that this is why I came, this is what I'm all about.
SPEAKER_01: The triumphal entry is not Palm Sunday, is not just oh, another isolated incident for you to decide true or false.
SPEAKER_01: This is just the story is getting close, and all of a sudden, the central character of the story is to his final.
SPEAKER_01: Earlier in Luke's gospel, he writes these words.
SPEAKER_01: It says, Now it happened that as he was praying alone, his disciples were with him, and he asked him, Who do crowds say that I am?
SPEAKER_01: And they answered, John the Baptist, but others say Elijah, and others, one of the prophets of old is risen.
SPEAKER_01: And then he said to them, But who do you say that I am?
SPEAKER_01: And Peter answered, The Christ of God.
SPEAKER_01: And he strictly charged and commanded them to tell this to no one, saying, The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised.
SPEAKER_01: And if you just skip down later in that very same chapter, he says these words, but while they were all marveling at everything he was doing, see that was one of the tendencies of the people, they would marvel at what Jesus did and miss who Jesus was.
SPEAKER_01: And we'll read in a minute in Luke 19 when he rides in, they're praising God for all they had seen past tense.
SPEAKER_01: Yet his greatest accomplishment is unfolding right in front of them, and they don't even have the eyes to see that.
SPEAKER_01: They're marveling at everything he was doing.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says to his disciples, Let these words sink into your ears.
SPEAKER_01: Don't miss this.
SPEAKER_01: The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men, but they did not understand this saying, and it was concealed from them, so they might not perceive it.
SPEAKER_01: As if that wasn't enough.
SPEAKER_01: In the same chapter, he says this.
SPEAKER_01: It says, When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: And he sent messengers ahead of him who went and entered the village of the Samaritans to make preparations for him.
SPEAKER_01: But the people did not receive him because his face was set toward Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: And when his disciples, James and John, saw it, in other words, the people didn't receive him because he was dead set on going to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't like he got up this day and said, willy-nilly, hey, let's go to Jerusalem and see if Starbucks is open yet.
SPEAKER_01: No, you're you're you're not gonna stay here and do what we want you to do.
SPEAKER_01: We're not gonna listen to you.
SPEAKER_01: And when his disciples, James and John, saw it, they said, Lord, you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?
SPEAKER_01: Aren't you glad that's in the Bible?
SPEAKER_01: Haven't you had that thought when somebody cuts you off in traffic?
SPEAKER_01: Where's that button I can just push on my dashboard?
SPEAKER_01: Fire consumes them.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the way my crazy mind works.
SPEAKER_01: If they couldn't do that, why would they ask Jesus if they could do it?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, you want me to slap them so hard, their driver's license picture swells up?
SPEAKER_01: Because I will call down fire on them.
SPEAKER_01: But he turned and rebuked them, and they went on to another village.
SPEAKER_01: Luke chapter 13.
SPEAKER_01: We're getting closer.
SPEAKER_01: You still with me?
SPEAKER_01: At the very hour, some Pharisees came and said to him, Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus was like, Oh, really?
SPEAKER_01: And he said to them, Go and tell that fox, behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow.
SPEAKER_01: And the third day, I finish my course.
SPEAKER_01: Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow, and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: Today and tomorrow, but then I finish my course.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, when Jesus says this in Luke chapter 13, it's the seventh day of the month of Nisan.
SPEAKER_01: Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it.
SPEAKER_01: How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it.
SPEAKER_01: Behold, your house is forsaken, and I tell you, you will not see me until you say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: See, he's been a long time coming.
SPEAKER_01: He gets to Luke 19, and before you get to that, he sets it up with these two stories.
SPEAKER_01: One is about a man named Zacchaeus, who was a weed little man, and a weed little man was he.
SPEAKER_01: But he climbed up in a sycamore tree for the Lord he wanted to see.
SPEAKER_01: If I was a songwriter, I'd write a song about that.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus just comes because Jesus is so subtle, he doesn't go around, he just comes to the trunk of the tree, looks up, and all he says to him is Zacchaeus, come down, for I must go to your house and have supper.
SPEAKER_01: And Zacchaeus, who is a tax cheat and a thief who'd rip people off, climbs down out of the tree and says, Lord, if I've defrauded anyone, I'll pay back fourfold and I'll give half my possessions to feed the poor.
SPEAKER_01: And all Jesus said was, I want to go to your house and have dinner.
SPEAKER_01: How'd you like to go to work tomorrow and say to somebody, hey, let's have lunch on Tuesday?
SPEAKER_01: Man, I'm in an affair.
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_01: I just got to tell somebody.
SPEAKER_01: I just wanted to go get a salad.
SPEAKER_01: And then Luke chapter 19, verse 11, as they heard these things, by the way, because people were mad because Jesus said, Today salvation's come to the to this man.
SPEAKER_01: He's also a son of Abraham.
SPEAKER_01: For the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says, I didn't come to hang out with a bunch of pearly white antiseptic people, okay?
SPEAKER_01: I came to seek and save the lost.
SPEAKER_01: And as they heard these things, verse 11 of Luke 19, he proceeded to tell a parable.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because he was near Jerusalem and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately.
SPEAKER_01: He was near Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: He was close to the capital of all religious activity, and these cats didn't get it.
SPEAKER_01: And so what does he tell?
SPEAKER_01: He says, a nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and then return.
SPEAKER_01: Sound like anybody you know?
SPEAKER_01: He's gonna go receive for himself a kingdom, and then he's this noble man, Jesus, is gonna go receive for himself a kingdom, and then he's gonna return.
SPEAKER_01: And so he calls his disciples, his followers to him, his three people, and he gives them uh uh different portions of money.
SPEAKER_01: It's called a mine.
SPEAKER_01: He gives one of them ten and one of them five and one of them one.
SPEAKER_01: And then he leaves.
SPEAKER_01: And they send these people send a delegation after him and said, You go tell that man, we do not want you to reign over us.
SPEAKER_01: That's you and me, by the way, folks.
SPEAKER_01: We don't want you, you're not the boss of me.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's just a book written by a bunch of men 3,000 years ago, or sometime ago, I don't know when it was, but I mean it's just a book.
SPEAKER_01: What you're really saying is, I you we don't want you to, we took it a vote.
SPEAKER_01: We don't want you to rule over us.
SPEAKER_01: So he comes back and he says there's gonna be a reckoning.
SPEAKER_01: He says to the guy that gave 10, what'd you do with it?
SPEAKER_01: And the guy's like, hey man, I got in on the real estate market, I bought some properties and they're kind of low, I killed it, I made a profit, by the way.
SPEAKER_01: If you're a Christian, there's nothing wrong about being good in business.
SPEAKER_01: Stop going to work and thinking, well, I love Jesus, so I just gotta let people take advantage of me.
SPEAKER_01: No, you don't.
SPEAKER_01: It's okay to have profit margin.
SPEAKER_01: It's okay.
SPEAKER_01: They gotta say, okay, I had 10, bam, I doubled the money.
SPEAKER_01: Get you some of that, Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus is like, Yes, you did.
SPEAKER_01: I'll tell you what, because you can be trusted with that, I'm gonna give you more.
SPEAKER_01: Next guy, you got five?
SPEAKER_01: I tell you what, what happened?
SPEAKER_01: I gave you five, you got five more.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the deal you're gonna be over ten cities.
SPEAKER_01: Third guy, well, I was afraid.
SPEAKER_01: And so I took a little doily that my grandma had, and I put that money in there, and I wrapped it up and put a twist tie on it, and I put it under the mattress.
SPEAKER_01: Because I heard you were a severe man and I didn't want to disappoint you.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus said, if you knew I was a severe man, why wouldn't you at least put it in the bank so I can get some interest?
SPEAKER_01: Well, uh, you know that's a good point, Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't think about that.
SPEAKER_01: It's not gonna be good if you're ruled by your fear when Jesus comes.
SPEAKER_01: And then look at the last part of that section.
SPEAKER_01: He says in verse 26, I tell you that to everyone who has has more will be given, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 27, but as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, you're all big and mighty, you're not the boss of me.
SPEAKER_01: There's a reason the Bible says that every knee is gonna bow and every tongue is gonna confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of the Father.
SPEAKER_01: You're bringing a knife to a gunfight, my man.
SPEAKER_01: Not gonna go well.
SPEAKER_01: And so now we get to the triumphal entry, which is not just this isolated story, it's just another expression of the same story God's been telling since Genesis 1:1.
SPEAKER_01: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
SPEAKER_01: The world was void and formless, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters, and God could have made anything, and he made this, and he set this story into motion.
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, it is the tenth day of Nisan.
SPEAKER_01: Right here in Luke chapter 19, verse 28.
SPEAKER_01: The day Jesus rides into Jerusalem, all the families are selecting their lambs who are gonna be sacrificed for Passover.
SPEAKER_01: And they have to keep them with them for five days.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus rides in on the 10th, and over the course of the 10th and the 11th and the 12th and the 13th and the 14th, he's gonna teach some.
SPEAKER_01: He's gonna be passed, and he's gonna be betrayed, and gonna get passed from this person to this person, to this person, to this person, until finally a man named Pilate is gonna literally wash his hands to say, I have nothing to do with this innocent man.
SPEAKER_01: And what he's saying is, and he doesn't even know it, is I find, because he said, I find no fault in him.
SPEAKER_01: What he's doing is telling everybody, you now got a lamb without blemish that can be sacrificed.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible tells us this, and when he had said these things, he went on ahead and going up to Jerusalem when he drew near to Bethpage in Bethany at the mount that is called Olivet, he sent two of his disciples saying, Go into the village in front of you, where on entering you'll find a colt tied, and on which no one has ever sat.
SPEAKER_01: Untie it and bring it here.
SPEAKER_01: If anyone asks you, Why are you untying it?
SPEAKER_01: you shall say this, the Lord has need of it.
SPEAKER_01: So those who were sent away and found it just as he had told them, and as they were untying the colt, its owner said to them, Why are you untying the colt?
SPEAKER_01: And they said, The Lord had need has need of it.
SPEAKER_01: And they brought it to Jesus, and throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it.
SPEAKER_01: And as he rode along, they spread their cloaks on the road.
SPEAKER_01: As he was drawing near already on the way down the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen, saying, Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Peace in heaven and glory in the highest.
SPEAKER_01: And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, Teacher, rebuke your disciples.
SPEAKER_01: And he answered, I tell you what, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.
SPEAKER_01: And when he drew near and he saw the city, he wept over it, saying, Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace.
SPEAKER_01: But now they are hidden from your eyes.
SPEAKER_01: For the days will come upon you when your enemies will set up a barricade around you, and surround you, and hem you in on every side, and tear you down to the ground, and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.
SPEAKER_01: And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, saying to them, It is written, My house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers.
SPEAKER_01: And he was teaching daily in the temple, and the chief priests and the scribes and the principal men of the people were seeking to destroy him, but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were hanging on his words.
SPEAKER_01: When John the Baptist first saw Jesus, he just blurted out, Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world.
SPEAKER_01: It's not happenstance or luck that Jesus rides into Jerusalem on what we call Palm Sunday, on the 10th of Nisan, when people were selecting their Passover lamps.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus was coming to make all these religious rituals obsolete.
SPEAKER_01: Because he's going to be the Lamb that is sacrificed for the sins of the world.
SPEAKER_01: Let me just give you five takeaways from what we've just read right here in Luke 19, not all this other stuff.
SPEAKER_01: Because all this other stuff is just the story.
SPEAKER_01: That's why if you're visiting here, you'll hear me say this a lot.
SPEAKER_01: And if you've been here for a while, you've heard me say the gospel is the only story big enough for you to live in.
SPEAKER_01: It's the only story big enough for you to live in.
SPEAKER_01: What do you want us to walk away from today, preacher?
SPEAKER_01: Five things, and we'll be done.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, Jesus is the fulfillment of the story.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is the fulfillment of the story's not fulfilled when I became a Christian.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is the fulfillment of the story.
SPEAKER_01: When he comes riding in, all of a sudden God is doing something so cosmic and big and beyond just the immediate that you've got to hear all this other stuff to understand it.
SPEAKER_01: Second thing I would say to you today is that God has always had a plan for our sin.
SPEAKER_01: He's always had a plan for our sin.
SPEAKER_01: So when earlier when Clyde was saying something about, you know, let's confess, some of you kind of like kind of ducked down emotionally inside, like I don't ever want to tell anybody about that.
SPEAKER_01: I understand that.
SPEAKER_01: But I just want to say to you, none of you in this room are beyond the pale.
SPEAKER_01: None of you in this room have done anything that God looks down and says, Well, that's a deal breaker there.
SPEAKER_01: You're on your own, Jack.
SPEAKER_01: Third thing we take away from this is that God is moved by people's unbelief.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 41 of Luke 19, and he went and drew near and saw the city, and he wept over it.
SPEAKER_01: Last night the planets aligned for my wife and I.
SPEAKER_01: And we had this rare moment where one of our children was on a play date with her friends, and our other child was on a play date with her friends, and my wife looked at me and said, You want to go have dinner, just the two of us?
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, What kind of world is this?
SPEAKER_01: We don't have children.
SPEAKER_01: And we ran for the minivan.
SPEAKER_01: That's right, I said minivan.
SPEAKER_01: Without opening up the two sliding doors, and just the two of us got in and weren't interrupted.
SPEAKER_01: No one said, Mom, what are we doing for lunch after church?
SPEAKER_01: We just sat there and had an adult conversation.
SPEAKER_01: And one of the things we talked about on the ride home was my wife said, you know, hey, I think we need to get a curfew for Madison.
SPEAKER_01: Madison is our 16-year-old daughter.
SPEAKER_01: We need to get a curfew for Madison.
SPEAKER_01: And she said, You know, I had a curfew, and my curfew was like, she goes, Something tells me you didn't have a curfew.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, No, I didn't have a curfew.
SPEAKER_01: I was raised by a single mom, had two brothers.
SPEAKER_01: My mom made$88 a week.
SPEAKER_01: We were raised on that.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm driving down Highway 6, coming out of Faties, where I had a nice delicious kale salad.
SPEAKER_01: My wife, and a plate of roasted potatoes, and some spicy hummus, and a whole wheat pita, and about half of a roasted chicken.
SPEAKER_01: Just put the herd on it.
SPEAKER_01: My wife said.
SPEAKER_01: That's women talk for you're eating too much.
SPEAKER_01: Get off me, woman.
SPEAKER_01: I ain't got no kids.
SPEAKER_01: I'm celebrating.
SPEAKER_01: Just I hadn't thought about this in years.
SPEAKER_01: I'm driving pulling out a five, and my wife said, Something tells me you didn't have a curfew.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, No, I didn't have a curfew.
SPEAKER_01: I remember coming in hammer drunk at four in the morning.
SPEAKER_01: And my boss, because I didn't have a car, my boss would come pick up with 17.
SPEAKER_01: My boss would come pick me up and take me to the little cafe in our town and buy you breakfast.
SPEAKER_01: And so I get in at four, and about 6.15 or 6.30, he'd be in the driveway.
SPEAKER_01: I remember just the days I was just like, I just couldn't even walk.
SPEAKER_01: I put my hands on the walls and just kind of feel my way to my bedroom.
SPEAKER_01: Second door on the left, fall on the bed, and all of a sudden I hear the doorbell ring.
SPEAKER_01: I'd be like, oh, tell him I'm sick, mom.
SPEAKER_01: And I'd hear my boss at the door talking to my mom, going, Let me go back there and talk to him.
SPEAKER_01: I was like, no! I'd pull the covers over my head and come flip the light on.
SPEAKER_01: Get up.
SPEAKER_01: I don't feel good.
SPEAKER_01: No, you don't feel good.
SPEAKER_01: That's because you acted bad last night.
SPEAKER_01: You got five minutes to get out in that truck, get dressed.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to work.
SPEAKER_01: What you did last night's your business.
SPEAKER_01: What you're going to do today is my business.
SPEAKER_01: And I know you meant bitch, so I'd get up and put pants on, and I'd just pull my work boots on, and I'd just walk out with a t-shirt in my hand, just kind of like, oh.
SPEAKER_01: I'd get and slam the door.
SPEAKER_01: And on most days he would sing the Marty Robbins song El Paso really loud.
SPEAKER_01: Nighttime would find me at Rose's Cantina.
SPEAKER_01: Music would play, Anfelina would whirl.
SPEAKER_01: I hate you, Anfelina, shut up.
SPEAKER_01: And the hair would just be pounding.
SPEAKER_01: This didn't happen much, but it happened about three or four times.
SPEAKER_01: There were some days I would get out and just wad my shirt up and just put it on the window like a little cushion and just kind of ride about a 10-minute ride.
SPEAKER_01: And it's like I'll sleep, I'll take all the sleep I can get.
SPEAKER_01: And there were about three or four times.
SPEAKER_01: And he didn't say anything, he didn't sing anything.
SPEAKER_01: I just heard.
SPEAKER_01: And there's tears just pouring down his face.
SPEAKER_01: And last night, driving a highway sick, I my wife just said, Do you think he has any idea?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he knows.
SPEAKER_01: I lost it in the first service.
SPEAKER_01: I'm doing better right now, actually.
SPEAKER_01: I've been yelled at.
SPEAKER_01: I've been put on probation when I was in the eighth grade.
SPEAKER_01: I've been told you're gonna go to Gatesville to the boys' reformatory, you're gonna be dead or in in the penitentiary by the time you're 21.
SPEAKER_01: That's my high school principal.
SPEAKER_01: But I hadn't been wept over.
SPEAKER_01: And we got to the cafe and he just put it in park and turned it off and said, put your shirt on, son.
SPEAKER_01: We gotta eat breakfast.
SPEAKER_01: And I would try, I would tell God, God, I don't want to do this anymore.
SPEAKER_01: I want to do better.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to make this man sad.
SPEAKER_01: God, why is this man crying?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, just leave me alone.
SPEAKER_01: Don't leave me alone.
SPEAKER_01: I put my shirt on.
SPEAKER_01: I couldn't I couldn't make myself stop.
SPEAKER_01: See, God's moved by people's unbelief.
SPEAKER_01: We pay my salary and pay my way to go to camp.
SPEAKER_01: And I'd come back, he'd go, How was it?
SPEAKER_01: That was horrible.
SPEAKER_01: That was just some fat guy up there screaming at us.
SPEAKER_01: That was put that you guys do that every Sunday.
SPEAKER_01: And he would just smile and go, Alright, go back to work.
SPEAKER_01: And the last time he sent me, I heard the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't a fat guy screaming, it was a man smiling.
SPEAKER_01: Just saying, God has made payment for your sin.
SPEAKER_01: You're never gonna be able to fix yourself.
SPEAKER_01: And I was converted.
SPEAKER_01: And two weeks ago, when I went up to Henderson, Texas to do Russell Russell's gradeside services about an hour and a half from my hometown.
SPEAKER_01: And after the service, I drove up and I had lunch with James and Carolyn Sewell.
SPEAKER_01: He's 78 now.
SPEAKER_01: I got a diet coke.
SPEAKER_01: You don't need that Diet Coke.
SPEAKER_01: You need to be drinking more water, boy.
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna get fat.
SPEAKER_01: It ain't fair to your wife.
SPEAKER_01: You don't need to get fat.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, does this ever stop?
SPEAKER_01: I'm a grown man, dude.
SPEAKER_01: But I didn't say that.
SPEAKER_01: I just thought I need to give some water.
SPEAKER_01: Because this is the man that wept over me when everybody else had given up on me.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not, here's what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_01: If you're in this room and you're not there yet, you don't believe this, you're like, ah, God's not up there with a big compound bow, kind of going, you just wait.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just gonna let this thing go on you.
SPEAKER_01: He's the God that just weeps over you.
SPEAKER_01: Fourth thing I want you to take away is that prayer is a priority to God.
SPEAKER_01: He shows up at the temple, and people are just like a bunch of money changers are trying to make, imagine this people making money in the name of religion.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus just drives them out like Indiana Jones.
SPEAKER_01: Says, My house be called a house of prayer.
SPEAKER_01: You people have made it a den of thieves.
SPEAKER_01: And then I love that last part in verse 48.
SPEAKER_01: It says they wanted to, all these priests and scribes and the chamber of commerce and the mayor, all these principal men were seeking to destroy him.
SPEAKER_01: That means kill him.
SPEAKER_01: They didn't find anything they could do.
SPEAKER_01: For all the people were hanging on his words.
SPEAKER_01: Translation, no one heard Jesus and said, it's just some just some skinny Jew.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, come on, man.
SPEAKER_01: When he talked, people were just like, Oh my gosh, yes! I knew there was more to the story.
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus rides in on Luke 19 on a donkey.
SPEAKER_01: It's not just another story for you to believe or not believe.
SPEAKER_01: It is God bringing the story closer to its ultimate conclusion.
SPEAKER_01: Which is why on Thursday night at 7 o'clock, right in this room, we'll have a Maundy Thursday service.
SPEAKER_01: And we'll receive communion together as a faith community.
SPEAKER_01: And so here's what I want you to do for Holy Week.
SPEAKER_01: And I'll try to get through this.
SPEAKER_01: Sat at my kitchen table last night, all my all the girls in my life, my wife and two daughters, were sound asleep and could not pull it together.
SPEAKER_01: This is gonna sound crazy.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to think during Holy Week about what a great sinner you are.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to think about all the things that you knew were wrong and you did them anyway.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to think back, you 50-year-olds to high school.
SPEAKER_01: I want some of you moms to remember.
SPEAKER_01: And when you looked your daughters in the eye and said, don't do that, and looked at you like, why?
SPEAKER_01: And you just didn't have the words to tell them because I did that and I paid the price for it.
SPEAKER_01: But you couldn't bring yourself to do that.
SPEAKER_01: You just just don't, because I said why.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to remember what a great sinner you've been.
SPEAKER_01: And then here's what I want you to never forget.
SPEAKER_01: That way back in Genesis 1.26, when God, the triune God, the three and one God said, Come, let us make man and woman, man, creation, people in our image.
SPEAKER_01: He knew every sin you were going to commit, and he came anyway.
SPEAKER_01: And he came.
SPEAKER_01: Not just riding the donkey.
SPEAKER_01: He left heaven and came.
SPEAKER_01: Was born in a manger.
SPEAKER_01: Gather around you saints that listen to the old old story.
SPEAKER_01: See, he came so you wouldn't just be overwhelmed by your sin.
SPEAKER_01: So I wouldn't just be overwhelmed by the fact that by the grace of God, I went to work from I was 16.
SPEAKER_01: Who used to just weep over me?
SPEAKER_01: And he would talk to me, he would tell me you're wasting your life.
SPEAKER_01: You just don't know what life's all about, son.
SPEAKER_01: That's your problem.
SPEAKER_01: You've not lived long enough to be this angry, but you choose to be angry anyway.
SPEAKER_01: I can handle all of that.
SPEAKER_01: I could not handle a grown man just weeping as he just drives down the road in his two-toned GMC pickup.
SPEAKER_01: Because it reminded me that God's moved by people's unbelief and he weeps over Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: But he also does something about it.
SPEAKER_01: Stand to your feet.
SPEAKER_01: Let me speak a blessing over you.
SPEAKER_01: Hold your hands out.
SPEAKER_01: There are so many things to tell you about your God.
SPEAKER_01: But perhaps today the one thing you need to hear and remember is that he knew.
SPEAKER_01: And he came anyway.
SPEAKER_01: And he came so you could forget.
SPEAKER_01: And so don't ever, ever, ever, ever stop remembering that you can forget.
SPEAKER_01: And move on.
SPEAKER_01: In the name of the Father, and the Son, the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Bless you, you're dismissed.