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Amen. Praise the Lord. Hey, you know what? We're going to dive into Palm Palm Sunday again. And we're going to look at the Passion Week and all the stuff that Jesus went through during Passion Week. And it was absolutely incredible. So we're going to turn to Luke chapter 19. And we're going to read, I believe, from verse 28. Luke chapter 19, we'll read from verse 28. And it says, And when he had said these things, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. When he drew near to Beth Page and Bethany at the mount that is called Olivet, he sent two of his disciples, saying, Go into the village in front of you, whereon entering you will find a colt tied on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, Why are you untying it? You shall say this, the Lord has need of it. So those who went sent were sent away found it just as he had told them. And as they were untying the colt, the owners, like Jesus said, came out and said to them, Why are you untying the colt? And they said, The Lord has need of it. We should try that out. No, we shouldn't. Okay. The Lord has need of it. And they brought it to Jesus, and throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. And as he rode along, they spread their cloaks on the road, and 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 that they had seen, saying, Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest. And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, Teacher, rebuke your disciples, and he answered, I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out. And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace, but now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will set up a barricade around you, surround you, and hem you in on every side, and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation. 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. And he was teaching daily in the synagogue, in the temple. 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. So, Lord, we thank you for your word, and we thank you, Lord, for your passion and everything that you went through for us. And we give you praise and adoration. We pray, Lord, that we'd just get a sense of a greater revelation of who you are that touches the deep crevices of our heart, gets all the crustiness out, gets all the hard-heartedness out, gets all the doubt. And we'd we'd come to terms with who you really are and claim you tonight in a greater way, Lord and Savior of our heart. And we give you praise in Jesus' name. Amen and amen. We're gonna look at theme verse here. It's 1941 and 42. When he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it. When we think of Jesus, we we tend to think that he's uh he was a carefree dude, walking around the earth and laughing with the disciples, where nothing ever bothered him, right? Where uh he lived without a care in the world, but that wasn't that wasn't Jesus. The Bible says in Isaiah 53, 2 to 3, he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not. And when we when we have a sense that we don't belong, it really affects us, doesn't it? When we have a sense that we're not accepted, that we're not appreciated for who we are, but we're looked down, we're despised, we're rejected, that uh that hurts the core of our humanity, isn't it true? The basic element of love is that we have a sense of belonging, that we're accepted, that we're loved by others, but that in that love by others we have this sense that we could truly, truly love others. John 1, 10 and 11, he was in the world, the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. Wow. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. Hebrews 4, 15, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Now, isn't that an amazing thing, amen? That Jesus experienced the emotional element of humanity just as we do. Hebrews 2.17, therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of the people. He had to be made like his brothers in every respect, emotionally, psychologically. Do you think Jesus had worries and anxieties? Yeah. As he approached and saw the city, he wept for it. Now we have a story of celebration, of exaltation, of exuberance, of victory. And I wonder what the people thought when they saw Jesus riding into Jerusalem. They were celebrating, they were throwing the palms, and as uh as Kim said, they didn't have palms, they were raised in their palms, and they were in victory. But yet we see Jesus weeping over the city. Did anyone say in their heart, I wonder who this man is that he weeps during this time of celebration? Three occasions uh we're told that Jesus wept. The first was when our Lord raised Lazarus from the dead. The Bible says that he wept. John 11, 35, that was my first verse that I uh learned in Bible quiz, because it had two words. Jesus wept. That was an easy one to remember, right? Start out there if you want to memorize scripture. Amen. That was the first time when Jesus wept. Why did he weep? He wept because of the sorrow that his friends experienced, but he also wept because of the fact that sin brings death. Amen? Now this this verb here, wept, means shed a tear. In the passage that we have read about Jesus weeping is a lament and a wailing and a deep, deep, deep cry from the deep crevices of his heart as he approached Jerusalem. The third occasion was in Gethsemane, remember? The agony that he experienced in Gethsemane when a shower of bitter tears were mingled with great drops of blood that came from his very pores. Do you think that Jesus experienced life the way we experience life? Have you ever sweated great drops of blood? Jesus was filled with these anxious, emotional thoughts of the fact that he would suffer physically, but also the fact that he who knew no sin would feel and experience and take on himself the very sin of the world. How Jesus must have felt. Amen. We know the hurt and the pain that sin that sin brings. It brings horror, it brings tragedy. And look at the tragedy of the cross, friends. The sinless Lamb of God, the sinless man, the sinless God, died a cruel and humiliating death on the cross for us so that we could be saved. Do we really know Jesus? That's the question. In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence, because of his diligence, because of his perseverance. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. Being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him. Do you think Jesus led an easy life? Do you think he just got up on the cross and died? His whole life was filled with disappointment. His whole life was filled with not being understood. His whole life was filled with this sense of not being accepted, not not belonging, knowing the truth, preaching the truth, but people not responding to him who is the Prince of Peace. Why was Jesus weeping? We see here this is the second time that Jesus wept when he went into Jerusalem. In weeping over Jerusalem, he showed a sympathy with the national troubles and his distress of the evils that would come upon his countrymen, upon the Jews. 70 AD is when the enemies came in, wiped out Jerusalem. They say during that captivity, the temple was destroyed and a million Jews were sacrificed. He knew this was coming, but more than that, he knew that he was the Prince of Peace, the one that could give life, the one that could transform. But they did not understand his visitation. And I want to say to myself today, so many times when Christ comes into my life, do I see his visitation for what it truly is? Amen? Do I really know him? And my experience in him, as Rich said, in the fellowship of his sufferings. Right? Man, we run from suffering. We do anything that we can to get away from suffering, to get away from hardship. We numb it, we dumb it, we club it, we flub it, whatever we want to do to get away from trial and tribulation. But Jesus knew that trials bring us this steadfast love, this steadfastness, this endurance, this perseverance, as Jesus said, His face as a flint to the cross of Jesus Christ. We have that same attitude because it's not our will, but God's will be done. Amen. When you're crying and you're you're emotionally upset and you feel like great drops of blood are gonna come out because of uh hardship or sorrow, we know that God can sustain us. And that is a good, good thing. The man of sorrow, he's known as. The weeping savior. Spurgeon said, the city that had been the metropolis of the house of David never saw so truly a royal man before, for he is most fit to rule, who was most ready to sympathize. Amen. This is why Jesus suffered. This is why he was made to be weak just as we, so that he could say, I understand what you're going through. I've been there, and I am the one that can uphold you, that can lift you, that can see you through. Jesus knew the hollowness of all the praises ringing because a week later, those same folks that were singing Hosanna with celebration and praise and exuberance and vigilance and everything else, they would be the same folk that would be crying out, crucify him, crucify him, crucify him. Can you uh imagine the heartache that Jesus felt, the hollowness of the praises ringing in his ears, for they did not understand his visitation, they did not understand who he truly was. He knew the joyous entrance into Jerusalem would be followed by a mournful procession. Out of it when they would take him to the cross to die. Yet in all those floods of tears and all that anguish, there was not one thought for his own life. Amen? And his own death. And that's the Savior that we serve. The tears were all for Jerusalem, that they did not respond to him for who he truly, truly was. He cried out, Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and weep for your children. My question for my life is when was the last time I drove into Lackawanna and felt the urge and the heartache and the hollowness that is all around us and wept for this city that souls would come to know Christ? When was the last time I fell on my knees and felt the grief, felt the mourning, felt the hurt? Amen? And get my eyes out of my own life, out of my own problems, out of my own hardship, and not consider myself, but consider Christ who died for a lost world out there that needs to know Christ. When was the last time I fell on my knees and mourned for this city? Amen. Just like Jesus mourned for Jerusalem. This word wept refers to a loud expression of grief, which can even include wailing out loud. It describes not only the shedding of tears, but the manner of external expression of grief. This describes Peter's experience after denying his Lord three times and going out where he wept bitterly. This all happened during this one week, this Passion week. He was betrayed by Judas. He knew that was coming. He was denied by Peter, he knew that was coming. He he rode into Jerusalem and understood the hollowness of their praises before God. And then he went into the temple and saw the sacrilege that was happening in the temple where they made it um they made it a place of money laundering, selling offerings, birds, and things, four times more than what they were were worth, so people can sacrifice. It was a money-making scheme right in the temple where there should have been prayer. And Jesus had a fit. Amen. You ever want to walk in here and have a fit? Don't do it. Okay? I'm just saying. But in your heart, we have this righteous indignation against the things that should be holy, against the things that should be sacred, amen. The things that should we should have a reverence and an awe for, and we don't see it. We have this righteous indignation that says, This should not be so. Amen? This should not be so. Peter's experience after denying his Lord three times. The Lord knew all these betrayals and all these denials and all the disciples that would run away. But yet, he said to Peter, still, Satan wants to sift you. But after you return, I'm gonna use you. Amen. Isn't that amazing? After our failures, after our weaknesses, after our insufficiencies, after our inadequacies, when on paper we think that we should walk away from God because God is never gonna use us, he says, Come on to me, all right? And I'm gonna send you. I said, put the coal of fire, the Holy Spirit, on your heart and on your life, you will be used. St. Peter that denied Christ, cursed out a little girl, day of Pentecost, preached an awesome message that we're gonna look at on Resurrection Sunday. Preached the message 3,000 souls came to know Christ. If you ever wanted to start a church, that's the way to do it. Amen. 3,000 members right off the bat. Yeah. The tragedy of missed opportunity. I wonder how many times over my life that I've missed an opportunity of God's visitation in my heart because I was distracted and I was diverted from what God wanted to do because I had my eyes and my perception on something else other than what God desires for my life. It's like a traveler rushes to catch a train but stops to scroll on their phone because they they see a TikTok thing that's pretty cool. And then all of a sudden they see the train go by and they missed it. Amen. They missed it. It was missed. Amen. So we as a Steel City Church, every time when we come into the presence of God, are we focused on seeing Jesus for who he really is? Amen. Greater revelation of Christ. A greater revelation of who he is. In all facets of our of our life, he desires to come in. In our joys and in our sorrows, in our pain and in our victories. I tell my son all the time, son, delayed obedience is disobedience. Do what I tell you and do it now. Amen. Delayed obedience can become not just disobedience, but a sense that we miss our destiny from before God created us. When he was thinking about us, as much as the sands of the sea were his thoughts toward us. How many thoughts of God toward us have we missed because we've been distracted? A tragedy of missed opportunity. Then there's the blindness of the human heart, right? People saw Jesus, but the people didn't recognize him for who he really is. Tonight, do you recognize him for who he truly is? Because friends, it's about perception. Sometimes we create God to be something of our own making, what we need, our whims, our wants, and we create this God thing and we call it Jesus because we want it, we want it to meet our needs. But that's not what Jesus says as we come to him, amen? He says, hey, if you want to follow me, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. Amen? Man, where is Christ gonna lead us as we follow him and deny ourselves? As we say, like Paul, I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not Christ, Christ in us, but the life I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. I am crucified with Christ. How does that how does that speak to us tonight? My wishes, my whims, my desires are dead. If you claim Jesus as Lord, He's your master, everything that He says for you to do, we do it without question. Amen? But yet, in the crucifixion, the burial, and the resurrection that Christ brings, He brings out our true self, doesn't he? Transformation is that word metamorphosis, where we come out of the cocoon of what of our shame, guilt, and condemnation, and we rise to this transformation that Christ has for us that is uniquely given to us in this world. There is no other Bill Sullivan that has ever been on this planet Earth or that will ever be. Bill Sullivan is Bill Sullivan. We know that for a fact, amen? Right? Amen. There will never be another you, how God has touched your life uniquely with your experiences, with everything that people told you, with all your hurts and pains and all the things that you've been through. God has redeemed you and transformed you to be uniquely you on this planet to see Jesus for who he is and live your life for the glory of God. Amen. Man, I do not want to have this blindness of my human heart. Paul told the Ephesians, his prayer for the Ephesians is this that God would open the eyes of your heart. Man, that's a beautiful thing, isn't it? Because sometimes our heart is so blind, our heart is so blurry to the things of God. The people saw Jesus but didn't recognize him for who he was. My my desire as we see the end times approaching, and they are approaching and have been approaching, but it seems like things are picking up a little bit as we see Christ, uh as we see the world events. I want to see a greater revelation of who he is. And I want people to see me, my family, to see you as a revelation of Christ. We are living epistles, aren't we? We're read by men. Whether we are living to ourselves or we're living for Christ, is based on our attitude, the character and nature of our lives, our conversation in this world is our character, how we walk, the words that come out of our mouth, amen. The things that we shun and the things that we take into our lives. Speak of our Savior and of our Lord. 2 Corinthians 4 4. Let's turn over there, real quick, like 2 Corinthians 4 4. It reads like this. Let's go back to verse 1, people. Verse 1, chapter. Chapter 4. Therefore, having this ministry, by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. What was the ministry? But of beholding the glory of the Lord and being transformed into the same image of Christ from one degree of glory to another. That's the ministry, amen. The ministry of the Word of God, the ministry of living for Christ. Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart, but we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word. But by the open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God. Man, man, if we lived our lives based on that verse right there, many would see the glory of the Lord and the word of truth lived out in our lives. Amen. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves. All right, get that through our heads, amen. It's not about you. It's not about me. It's not about ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. Man, that is fantastic. We are servants for Jesus' sake to the body of Christ and to our brothers and sisters. For God who said, Let light shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts, our blinded, calloused, hard-hearted hearts that God has made alive and pumping for the glory of God, shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Amen. We're so glad that we have our eyes open to the to the things of God. And it is wonderful. You ever uh search for something? And uh like your glasses, and you had you had them on your head, and you're looking all over the place for uh, right? Where are my glasses? I've lost them for us who sometimes do that spiritually, we're looking for everything. But it wasn't absence, it was perception, right? How we perceive things and how we look at things. And like Rich was saying, which is very apropos to this message, that every every trial that comes our way, God is engineering his good and his glory in our life. Amen. And in his grace, we've gotta we've gotta understand that verse that sometimes we don't like hearing in hard times, uh, when it says, All things work together for good to those that are called according to his purpose, that love him and are called according to his purpose. All things, amen. The same crowd shouting, Hosanna would soon cry, crucify him, because they had a wrong understanding of who Jesus is. And here's the beauty of it the compassion of a weeping savior. God didn't respond with anger or frustration, because usually if somebody wounds us, right? Somebody takes out my eye, I don't want their eye, I want their head. You know what I mean? But we see Jesus' compassion. He didn't respond with anger, he didn't respond with judgment, he responded with tears, and this is the God of the universe in human form. And how much does he understand us? Amen? He's not here to condemn us, but he's here to change us and minister to us. And sometimes he disciplines us, amen. A parent watches a child make destructive choices, knowing the consequences ahead. The tears aren't weakness, they are love in its deepest form, amen. That we want the best for our kids, man. We want the best, that they make the right choices, and the tears are tears of compassion and of love and a deep, deep sense of desiring transformation. And that's what we need for the world, amen. That's what we need for our family members that don't know Christ, that we we fall on our knees and we mourn like Jesus, like Jesus did for Jerusalem. Jesus sees beyond the moment to eternal consequences. His heart breaks over rejection, not because he loses, but because we do, amen. We lose out when we do not see Jesus for who he is and let him in. So Palm Sunday is wasn't about celebration, it was about recognition, recognizing Jesus for who he truly is. And that's my uh my quest for my life, my family, Steel City Church, is that we really see Jesus for who he really is in all aspects of our lives. Amen. This uh trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding, acknowledge him in all your ways, and he shall make your path straight, he shall direct your paths, trusting in the Lord. Trusting in the Lord, amen. How many uh have leaned on your own understanding, and it has brought pain and suffering? Amen. How many can say hallelujah? Well, not hallelujah. How many can say amen to that? Amen. Trust in the Lord in all your ways, every single way of your life, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically, psychologically. Acknowledge him in all your ways, and he shall direct your path. My motto for this year is every day in all of my ways. I'll recognize Jesus. Amen? Recognize him for what he's doing. To hear his perception of what he desires for my life and hold on to it, man. That he wants peace, that he wants joy, that he wants to use me for his glory. So the question tonight is do you truly know him? And this is not condemnation, this is just evaluation, amen. Every day I I wake up and I ask the Lord, Lord, do I trust you today? Do I trust you? Because sometimes my heart cannot speak back to me where I truly am. I need the Holy Spirit to commune with my life and tell me exactly what I am, what I need. Amen. Lord, open the eyes that we may see. Break our hearts with what breaks yours. That's the cry of our heart tonight. Help us not to miss the moment you are passing by and you are visiting us. Amen. Amen. As he approached this and saw the city, he wept for it. We're gonna pray and we're gonna pray for our community. We're gonna pray for those four UB students that we met today. We're gonna pray for salvation because this is the heart's desire. Amen. Angels rejoice when one soul comes to know Christ. And then they haven't even experienced the joy of being redeemed, of being forgiven, of being a son and daughter of God, but they see the results, amen. Transformation, a metamorphosis in our heart that changes us forever. Ever and ever and ever. So, Lord, we want to see you. Open the eyes of our heart and pray. Amen.