SPEAKER_00: For this moment, let me just say that is the message of Easter.
SPEAKER_00: You can live again.
SPEAKER_00: I've been singing that forever.
SPEAKER_00: Because he lives, I can face tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: Because he lives, you can live.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just say lean my voice into the Good Friday services.
SPEAKER_00: They are different.
SPEAKER_00: But they have become one of the unique things I look forward to to calibrate my heart so fast to rush to the resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: And we've created this rhythm where you can come in on Good Friday and really sit in the sobriety, like the heaviness of the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Because I don't think you can really experience the full joy of the resurrection until you've sat and felt the weight of God's wrath on sin and the cost of that penalty being paid.
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to have communion and a whole lot of other things.
SPEAKER_00: So don't miss those Good Friday opportunities.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, obviously incredible experiences on Easter.
SPEAKER_00: I want to do uh a really quick three rapid fire stories today that show you how three different families that showed up here on Easter, different Easters, are still in the process of having their life changed.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so just three rapid fire stories.
SPEAKER_00: First two are Ernest and Sonny, and they're gonna be a picture of them.
SPEAKER_00: Ernest is uh Ernest Sanche says he has that cowboy hat on, and Sonny will have the ball cap on.
SPEAKER_00: But let me tell their two stories first.
SPEAKER_00: Ernest says, and this is a quote, I remember my first visit to North Place on Easter 2021.
SPEAKER_00: It was during worship.
SPEAKER_00: Being raised Catholic, I'd never experienced worship like that.
SPEAKER_00: I just remember the Holy Spirit overcoming me and feeling goosebumps and the words just speaking to my heart.
SPEAKER_00: I was overcome with so much emotion that I began to tear up during worship for the first time in my life.
SPEAKER_00: This is when I knew I'd found the church for me.
SPEAKER_00: Ernest went on to attend growth track and foundations and got connected to regen.
SPEAKER_00: He's now celebrating four years of freedom from smoking, two years of total freedom from alcohol, and this year is the second year anniversary of his baptism here at North Place, and it all started with one invitation to an Easter service.
SPEAKER_00: Sonny Rajan says, Sonny says, quote, on Easter Sunday, April 17th, 2022, a year after, um, Ernest came.
SPEAKER_00: This is the next Easter.
SPEAKER_00: He said, My family walked through the doors of North Place Church for the first time.
SPEAKER_00: What began as just a holiday service quickly transformed into a divine appointment.
SPEAKER_00: We didn't just find a seat, we found an immediate connection to the culture, a vibrant atmosphere of worship and a community that felt like home from the very first welcome.
SPEAKER_00: Hungry to plant roots, we dove straight into the heartbeat of the church.
SPEAKER_00: We went to Growth Track and Foundations, joined small groups, which laid a scriptural groundwork for the season of head.
SPEAKER_00: God was just getting started.
SPEAKER_00: When regeneration was introduced the following year, I felt a clear internal nudge.
SPEAKER_00: This is exactly what I'm supposed to do.
SPEAKER_00: Joining the pilot program was the turning point.
SPEAKER_00: Since its inception, my commitment has been unwavering.
SPEAKER_00: I've only missed maybe five Tuesdays in two years, is that I've watched God use this ministry to bring healing and clarity to my life and so many others.
SPEAKER_00: The grace of God has since overflowed into every corner of our household.
SPEAKER_00: Belonging, moving from visitors to co-laborers in the gospel, where we are welcomed with open arms, a legacy of faith.
SPEAKER_00: We stood as proud parents as two of our daughters went public with their faith into water baptism, hands-on ministry.
SPEAKER_00: My wife serves on the medical team.
SPEAKER_00: I stand humbled on the worship team and sing with the crew at every opportunity.
SPEAKER_00: I stepped into regen leadership as well as coordinating serve days and missions trips along with Pastor JC.
SPEAKER_00: The Ivory Coast missions trip recently was such an amazing experience.
SPEAKER_00: From those first steps on Easter 2022 to the consistent Tuesday nights at Regen, every milestone has been a testament to his guidance.
SPEAKER_00: We aren't just attending a church.
SPEAKER_00: We're living out a calling, serving the body and watching our family flourish in God's remarkable grace.
SPEAKER_00: And then there's Pablo Mendez.
SPEAKER_00: Pablo didn't come to North Place looking for a life change.
SPEAKER_00: He just accepted an invitation to last year's Easter egg hunt at the Garland campus.
SPEAKER_00: It was an invitation that came through one of the schools that we serve in with our school and community engagement program.
SPEAKER_00: Sent home with his daughters, and they came as a family, just an event and an Easter egg hunt that became something much bigger.
SPEAKER_00: The following week, they came back to an Easter service and have never left.
SPEAKER_00: This is just last year.
SPEAKER_00: What began with Pablo's immediate family is now spread to his extended family.
SPEAKER_00: His brother and grandfather now attend with him, and they've all, all the whole family, has gone through Discover 101, Grow 201, and Foundations 301.
SPEAKER_00: Most powerful part of Pablo's story, though, isn't their attendance.
SPEAKER_00: It's the transformation happening in their home.
SPEAKER_00: He said that all the church talking about the spiritual family conversation shifted something in him, and he knew that he needed to be leading that conversation in his own home.
SPEAKER_00: And that decision chained everything.
SPEAKER_00: Pablo is not only growing spiritually, but he's leading spiritually.
SPEAKER_00: In a powerful moment of faith, he recently baptized his own daughters, marking a new beginning for their family.
SPEAKER_00: Today, Pablo serves faithfully on our guest connect team, welcoming others the same way he was once welcome.
SPEAKER_00: His children are involved in North Place, kids growing in their faith.
SPEAKER_00: And just yesterday, this was just yesterday, a beautiful full circle moment because Pablo yesterday was serving at the check-in station for the same Easter event that he was a guest in just last year.
SPEAKER_00: It's pretty incredible.
SPEAKER_00: When you ask him why he serves, he says, I just want people to experience the same love I experienced when God brought me here for the very first time.
SPEAKER_00: Three simple stories about lives and entire families in the process of being transformed, all because of a simple invitation to an Easter service.
SPEAKER_00: And it just has me wondering, whose story are we going to be able to tell next year because of the invitations that you're extending this week?
SPEAKER_00: So pray, pray, pray.
SPEAKER_00: Invite, invite, invite, because somebody's life is going to be changed.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what it's all about.
SPEAKER_00: Just one more changed lives.
SPEAKER_00: It's why we give, it's why we serve, it's why we do what we do.
SPEAKER_00: Just somebody's story that is completely different for eternity.
SPEAKER_00: The ways to give are gonna be on your screens.
SPEAKER_00: And if you brought a physical gift with you today, you can place it in an envelope.
SPEAKER_00: There are giving centers at the exits of all of our sanctuary.
SPEAKER_00: And let me just challenge you, keep serving, keep loving, keep praying, and leaks, let's keep telling stories of the life change that we have here in these three families.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I thank you for these three men, Ernest and Sonny and Pablo and what they represent, and the generations that are going to be impacted because they showed up at a church one Easter, had no idea that this time later we'd be telling their story.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't know, we didn't know, but you did.
SPEAKER_00: And it just makes me wonder what do you know now that we don't know?
SPEAKER_00: That we get to be a part of just a simple invitation could literally change the entire destiny of somebody's life.
SPEAKER_00: We pray for those divine encounters today, and over the next week, let it be, Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Open our heart today to your word, and may we never be the same again because of it.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: A couple weeks ago I preached a sermon on the dangers of a contentious spirit, and there was so much more I wanted to say that day, and I just ran out of time.
SPEAKER_00: And right after that sermon, I had to transition to start working on this sermon today, which is for Palm Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: Palm Sunday is the first day of what we call Passion Week or Holy Week, the last seven days of Jesus' life on earth.
SPEAKER_00: And when I or anybody else preach a Palm Sunday sermon, we're usually focusing on the triumphal entry where Jesus is paraded into Jerusalem on the back of a borrowed colt while people are waving palm branches in front of him, shouting messianic claims.
SPEAKER_00: But while I was reading over this passage, preparing for today, I noticed something I have never noticed before.
SPEAKER_00: It's so subtle, we miss it.
SPEAKER_00: But it may be one of the most important verses in the whole Palm Sunday story.
SPEAKER_00: Late in the day, on that Palm Sunday, after the parade, after all the palm branches and the praise, the triumphal entry, same day, but a little later, it says in Mark 11, verse 11 Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple courts.
SPEAKER_00: He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.
SPEAKER_00: He looked around at everything.
SPEAKER_00: He was surveying, he was searching, he was inspecting his father's house.
SPEAKER_00: Mark 11, 11 is such an understated verse, we overlook it.
SPEAKER_00: There's no miracle, no sermon, no confrontation, no celebration, no public spectacle.
SPEAKER_00: He just looks around.
SPEAKER_00: But his inspection of the temple on Palm Sunday explains his reaction in the temple the next day on that Monday.
SPEAKER_00: On Monday, he comes back into the temple, overturns the tables of the money changers, he runs them out.
SPEAKER_00: It's what is known as the cleansing of the temple, where Jesus says, My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have turned it into a den of thieves.
SPEAKER_00: Here's where the events of Palm Sunday and then the cleansing of the temple on Monday connect to the sermon I preached a couple weeks ago on the contentious spirit.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of Christian people wrongly use the actions of Jesus in this temple cleansing moment as a motive or a moment to justify their own anger.
SPEAKER_00: They say, well, Jesus got angry, Jesus flipped tables, Jesus had righteous anger, so can I.
SPEAKER_00: He did get angry.
SPEAKER_00: But before we use his anger and that moment to excuse our anger and our rage and resentment, we need to look at this a lot more carefully.
SPEAKER_00: At no time in my life has the American culture felt so fragile as it does right now.
SPEAKER_00: It feels like the anger and the rage and the animosity is building to a point of no return.
SPEAKER_00: Like we're living in a powder keg and all it's going to take is one spark to set the whole thing off.
SPEAKER_00: And sadly, a lot of us who claim to be Jesus followers are fueling the divide because we're not responding to the social tensions with the Christ-honoring attitude.
SPEAKER_00: I plead with you today.
SPEAKER_00: At least consider what I'm about to say.
SPEAKER_00: Let me pasture you for a moment.
SPEAKER_00: Because all I want to do is point you to Jesus, and I want to point you to his word, and I want to let them speak, and I want to ask the Holy Spirit to mature all of us.
SPEAKER_00: I have a unique perspective on this offense, anger, hate thing.
SPEAKER_00: Because for several years of my early childhood, I was repetitively raped and sexually exploited.
SPEAKER_00: And the trauma from that experience filled my life with rage.
SPEAKER_00: My bottled-up resentment and anger and hate turned me into a teenage addict because I was looking for anything that could help me cope.
SPEAKER_00: I was almost 17 when I genuinely encountered Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And out of all the words of Jesus I came across as a new believer, some of the most radical and difficult words I heard him say were this if you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you.
SPEAKER_00: But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what that means.
SPEAKER_00: Because I am forgiven, I must forgive.
SPEAKER_00: And when I finally came to the place I forgot could forgive him, it didn't set him free.
SPEAKER_00: It set me free.
SPEAKER_00: My forgiveness didn't let him off the hook.
SPEAKER_00: I simply placed him in God's hands.
SPEAKER_00: Forgiving my perpetrator was more than anything an expression of trust in the justice of God.
SPEAKER_00: God asked me to trust him with vengeance and justice.
SPEAKER_00: I did, and I got my life back.
SPEAKER_00: When we respond to our perpetrators or our political enemies or our estranged family members, or anyone else in our lives for that matter, with offense and anger and animosity and unkind words, it's a symptom of a deeper problem in our life.
SPEAKER_00: It reveals our distrust in the sovereignty, the justice, and the righteousness of God.
SPEAKER_00: Over 30 years ago, much of my early discipleship journey was shaped by the Bible studies of Henry Blackaby.
SPEAKER_00: And in one of those studies, he wrote, The occasions for taking offense are practically endless.
SPEAKER_00: Indeed, we are daily given the opportunity to either be offended by something or to possess an unoffendable heart.
SPEAKER_00: As a new Jesus follower, those words, an unoffendable heart, stood out to me because I knew that's what Jesus wanted from me, and I knew that's what he would want from anybody else that claims to be one of his followers.
SPEAKER_00: And thankfully, I knew at 17 as a baby Christian, what a lot of longtime Christ followers still haven't figured out.
SPEAKER_00: You get to choose whether or not you want to follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But once you make that decision, you don't get to choose how you're going to live your life.
SPEAKER_00: It's fairly straightforward in Scripture what the Jesus way looks like.
SPEAKER_00: And letting go of your anger, hostility, bitterness, harsh words, and unkindness is the basic start.
SPEAKER_00: That's like the elementary level of following Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not like we get to follow the Jesus way most of the time, and then when there's political tension or social upheaval or there's a family dispute, we can push pause on his commands and start acting like everybody else.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's in those moments when the Spirit of Christ in us is supposed to differentiate us from everybody else.
SPEAKER_00: When I tell you that Jesus wants you to make the choice to live with an unoffendable heart, you're probably saying, yeah, Pastor, that's just too radical.
SPEAKER_00: But so is love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
SPEAKER_00: Those are the words of Jesus, too.
SPEAKER_00: The way of Jesus is radical too, and the reverse of the ways of this world.
SPEAKER_00: But that's the life he calls us to, because that's the life he lived.
SPEAKER_00: He chose humility, sacrifice, suffering, even death.
SPEAKER_00: And by the world's metrics, he lost.
SPEAKER_00: But here we are, over 2,000 years later, and this weekend, somewhere around 2.5 billion people will gather in churches to worship his name because there is something eternally and supernaturally powerful about the Jesus way.
SPEAKER_00: If you look up the definition of the word offense, about all the dictionaries are gonna, in one way or another, point you back to the root of anger, which means choosing an unoffendable heart is forfeiting your right to hold on to anger.
SPEAKER_00: And I know that some of you are probably getting angry and offended right now at me because I'm telling you that you don't have a right as a Jesus follower to be angry or offended.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us think it's our responsibility as Christians to always be mad and offended about something.
SPEAKER_00: And honestly, if I weren't a Christian, if I was an outsider looking in, I would assume, based on the lives of Christians that I see, I would assume that to be a Christian is just be mad.
SPEAKER_00: But publicly speaking, we should be the most refreshingly different, unoffendable people in a culture fueled by anger and offense.
SPEAKER_00: When we live with an unoffendable heart and let go of our right to be angry, it attacks our arrogance and our pride.
SPEAKER_00: It forces us not to just lip service humility.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta actually be humble.
SPEAKER_00: It makes us deny ourselves and become others focused.
SPEAKER_00: And if you can start living this way, it will liberate you because living offended is exhausting.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to the Apostle Paul as he tells us what the Jesus way looks like, practically.
SPEAKER_00: He says in Ephesians 4, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes, put on your new nature, created to be like God, truly righteous and holy.
SPEAKER_00: And in the very next verse, this is what that looks like.
SPEAKER_00: Stop lying, stop telling lies.
SPEAKER_00: Let us tell our neighbors the truth, for we are all parts of the same body, and don't sin by letting anger control you.
SPEAKER_00: Don't let the sun go down while you were still angry, for anger gives a foothold to the devil.
SPEAKER_00: And then for emphasis, so there's no question about it, he emphatically repeats himself just a few verses later, verse 31 get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ Jesus has forgiven you.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's saying, Yeah, you're gonna get angry.
SPEAKER_00: That happens.
SPEAKER_00: We're human, but you gotta deal with it and get rid of it.
SPEAKER_00: Don't give the devil a foothold.
SPEAKER_00: As a follower of Jesus, we don't have the right to let anger linger in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul is so emphatic about this because he's understood it on a personal level.
SPEAKER_00: He understood the evil power of a religion that is motivated by anger.
SPEAKER_00: Because before he came to Christ, he was a Judaizer who actually sought out, persecuted, and even killed people who said they followed Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He literally lived the horrible reality of all the things he's condemning in this passage, all in the name of his former faith.
SPEAKER_00: But when he met Jesus, he experienced something radically different, a different way, motivated by love, not anger.
SPEAKER_00: Sadly, the attitude of anger, harshness, and hostility among far too many in the church looks more like the religious bigot Saul of Tarsus than the converted and transformed Paul the Apostle.
SPEAKER_00: And I know somebody's arguing with me in their head right now saying, but there's got to be a place for righteous anger, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like the anger that Jesus modeled when he turned over the tables.
SPEAKER_00: Over the last few years, I've heard a lot of influential pastors and leaders calling on the church to get angry.
SPEAKER_00: They say it's time for some righteous, sanctified anger.
SPEAKER_00: And I would agree that what's going on in our world demands something from us.
SPEAKER_00: But that something would be more akin to weeping over our world and our nation from the place of a broken heart and interceding in prayer from the place of a deep burden rather than seeking motivation from anger.
SPEAKER_00: There's a book in your Bible called Lamentations, because Jeremiah lamented or wept over the spiritual backsliddenness of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: He was motivated by a burden and brokenness, not by anger.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna have a hard time building a solid biblical basis for your righteous anger.
SPEAKER_00: And let me just remove Jesus' temple cleansing moment from your arsenal of excuses.
SPEAKER_00: Anger and wrath is one of those things God is allowed that we are not.
SPEAKER_00: It's like vengeance or judgment.
SPEAKER_00: We are told to leave those things to the Lord and not take them upon ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the reason.
SPEAKER_00: According to Jesus' teaching in Matthew 7, we are as guilty as whoever we target with our anger and our vengeance and our judgment.
SPEAKER_00: But when God demonstrates wrath or seeks vengeance or hands out judgment, there's no guilt in him.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because his anger and judgment can always be trusted to be perfect and just and righteous.
SPEAKER_00: His character allows this.
SPEAKER_00: Ours does not.
SPEAKER_00: Our emotions and our character cannot be trusted in this way.
SPEAKER_00: Because we're always going to justify our anger as righteous or sanctified.
SPEAKER_00: And it offers us this sense of moral superiority.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, my anger is righteous.
SPEAKER_00: My righteousness is, I mean, it's there.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, clearly, because I'm right and they're wrong.
SPEAKER_00: I will always think that Brian Jarrett's anger is more righteous than somebody else's anger.
SPEAKER_00: My arguments are always amazingly convincing to me.
SPEAKER_00: But can but can inconveniently for all of us, there is a proverb that calls us out.
SPEAKER_00: It says in Proverbs 16, people may be pure in their own eyes, but the Lord examines their motives.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's not even an allowance for, in Jesus' teaching, for when somebody's being an obvious jerk.
SPEAKER_00: We're flat out told to forgive, especially when what's being done is maddening and legitimately offensive.
SPEAKER_00: That's the whole thing.
SPEAKER_00: Point.
SPEAKER_00: Grace isn't for the deserving.
SPEAKER_00: Anger is easy.
SPEAKER_00: It's our default setting.
SPEAKER_00: Love, on the other hand, is hard.
SPEAKER_00: Loving the undeserving is the miracle because that's what's unnatural to us.
SPEAKER_00: It is the radically different way of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to James.
SPEAKER_00: James 1.
SPEAKER_00: Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires.
SPEAKER_00: So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to Paul in Colossians 3.
SPEAKER_00: You used to do these things when your life was still a part of this world.
SPEAKER_00: But now is the time to get rid of anger, rage, malicious behavior, slander, and dirty language.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is clear.
SPEAKER_00: But for some reason, Christian people keep reading these verses, excusing their anger by saying, but sometimes my anger is justifiable and constructive.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's use that logic with everything else Paul puts in this list.
SPEAKER_00: Your dirty language, your slander, your malicious behavior.
SPEAKER_00: I know Paul says to get rid of that, except when it makes sense because they really deserve it.
SPEAKER_00: That logic is delusional.
SPEAKER_00: And so is justifying your anger because of politics or social upheavals or family disputes.
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you a better, more biblical response.
SPEAKER_00: You can recognize wrong and injustice.
SPEAKER_00: We can grieve it.
SPEAKER_00: We can act against it.
SPEAKER_00: But without rage, without malice, without anger, we have a higher, purer, more godly motivation.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, for Christ's love compels us.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna defend the defenseless and protect the vulnerable without needing to be angry.
SPEAKER_00: The prophet Micah says, seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be angry to do that.
SPEAKER_00: I know that what I'm saying to you is opposite of the current cultural climate, even in the church.
SPEAKER_00: And I know it seems radically out of step, but do you not see it in your Bible?
SPEAKER_00: And isn't the life of a Christ follower supposed to be radically out of step with the world around it?
SPEAKER_00: And isn't it refreshingly different than all the hate that's coming from everywhere else?
SPEAKER_00: Here's the problem: we operate by the wrong thinking.
SPEAKER_00: And our wrong thinking goes like this we recognize a wrong or injustice, we get angry about it, and that anger is what motivates our action.
SPEAKER_00: That's wrong thinking when people think that you gotta be angry to address wrong or fight injustice or create change.
SPEAKER_00: Because biblically speaking, anger and action are two very different things, and confusing the two will actually hurt your efforts to set things right.
SPEAKER_00: When it comes to injustice, anger, and action, the way these two connect together, anger and action, a recent study found that people who join causes online are not more apt to actually do something.
SPEAKER_00: Matter of fact, they're less likely to do something.
SPEAKER_00: According to the research from the University of British Columbia, if you click like on help the poor children from wherever, you're actually less likely to give any money or actually do anything to help the poor children from wherever.
SPEAKER_00: There's actually a word for it, it's called slactivism.
SPEAKER_00: It's really doing nothing but making noise.
SPEAKER_00: That's a better way to describe it.
SPEAKER_00: And as a pastor, for 30 years, I've seen the same thing in the church.
SPEAKER_00: Usually the people who are complaining the loudest are the ones giving the least, serving the least, and doing the least.
SPEAKER_00: Let's face it, we are positively in love with taking stands that cost us absolutely nothing.
SPEAKER_00: We get to think we're involved doing something if we're mad about it, and we can say our anger is righteous.
SPEAKER_00: And since it's righteous anger, it stands to reason that we're actually more righteous than the people who are not as angry as we are.
SPEAKER_00: The myth of righteous anger actually gets in the way of truly taking action because it lets you congratulate yourself for having a feeling rather than actually doing something.
SPEAKER_00: All the while, somebody else out there, somebody that didn't tweet about it, and somebody that didn't get the bumper sticker, and somebody that didn't click like on the online cause, is probably out there actually sacrificing more of their time, talent, and treasure to genuinely make a difference in impact change.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible never endorses human anger as a solution for injustice.
SPEAKER_00: But people say, if we don't get angry enough, we'll never do anything about it.
SPEAKER_00: Really?
SPEAKER_00: Why can't we do the right thing because it's the right thing without having to be mad about it?
SPEAKER_00: Love should be the motivation enough to do the right thing because the Bible's idea of love is not some warm, fuzzy abstraction.
SPEAKER_00: It is a gutsy, willful decision to seek the best for other people.
SPEAKER_00: What the world needs is not another group of people patting themselves on the back because they're all in the same room and they're all mad about the same stuff.
SPEAKER_00: We need people who actually love God and love people enough to set things right in the world.
SPEAKER_00: And you might ask, but what if I'm motivated by anger and my anger is what's fueling me to do something good?
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that okay?
SPEAKER_00: Not for the Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Because for the Christ follower, your motives matter.
SPEAKER_00: Why you do what you do matters.
SPEAKER_00: The motivation of your heart matters.
SPEAKER_00: Paul made that very clear in the passage on love in 1 Corinthians 13 when he said, And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, give everything I have away to the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, I become a martyr for the cause of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But if I don't have love, it profits me nothing.
SPEAKER_00: And he would go on to say, it's just noise in the ears of God, sounding gongs and clanging cymbals.
SPEAKER_00: So even if we do something good and we do it without pure love as our motivation, our good works, our good deeds, our motive, it's just noise in God's ears.
SPEAKER_00: In his classic text, The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer made a powerful statement on the issue.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Jesus will not accept the common distinction between righteous indignation or anger and unjustifiable anger.
SPEAKER_00: The disciple must be entirely innocent of anger because anger is an offense against both God and his neighbor.
SPEAKER_00: Here's why.
SPEAKER_00: Anger seeks to punish, love seeks to redeem.
SPEAKER_00: Anger seeks retribution, love seeks redemption.
SPEAKER_00: You can recognize injustice, you can stand against it, you can even sacrifice your life fighting for it and do it all without anger.
SPEAKER_00: Matter of fact, you'll do it better.
SPEAKER_00: The greatest soldier is not the one who serves for the hate of his enemy, but for the love of his country.
SPEAKER_00: Anger never enhances your judgment, but love will always make you better.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus honored the act of laying one's life down for one's friend.
SPEAKER_00: He never honored hating your enemy.
SPEAKER_00: Look, I know it's hard to live this way.
SPEAKER_00: I get it.
SPEAKER_00: You see people trying to undermine you at work, or conflict in your family, or you see people vying for leadership in our country that you're certain are going to destroy it.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, there's Jesus on the cross saying to the very people that put him there, Father, forgive them because they don't know what they're doing.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the question: Is that same Jesus living in you saying the same thing through you?
SPEAKER_00: In the wisdom literature, that's Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes.
SPEAKER_00: In the wisdom literature, anger is always, not sometimes, always associated with the fool.
SPEAKER_00: Here's an example.
SPEAKER_00: Ecclesiastes 7.
SPEAKER_00: Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools.
SPEAKER_00: The fool feels entitled to be angry at the political figure, the rude store clerk, the news network, their annoying neighbor, their lying spouse, their deceased father, whoever, because it's perfectly natural.
SPEAKER_00: And according to the Bible, it's completely foolish.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm a very passionate person.
SPEAKER_00: Injustice matters to me.
SPEAKER_00: The spiritual and moral direction of this country matters to me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just not going to live mad about it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to refuse to let rage and anger be my motivation.
SPEAKER_00: I'm burdened over it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm broken over it.
SPEAKER_00: I weep over it in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just not going to let angry become the disposition of my life.
SPEAKER_00: So here we are, Palm Sunday, 2026, looking back 2,000 years, Jesus on that Palm Sunday comes into Jerusalem as king.
SPEAKER_00: The crowds praise him, the branches wave, but then later that day, he goes into the temple and just looks around.
SPEAKER_00: That's the verse we skip.
SPEAKER_00: But it's the one we need today.
SPEAKER_00: Because before Jesus ever turned over a table, he first examined the house.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe that's what he's doing today with us.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe before we spend one more week angry at culture or angry at the news or politicians or people or family members or other believers or angry at the world, maybe Jesus wants to walk into the temple of our own hearts and have a look around.
SPEAKER_00: Look around at the bitterness, resentment, hostility, the harsh words.
SPEAKER_00: Look around at the outrage that we've justified.
SPEAKER_00: Look around at the anger we dressed up as conviction.
SPEAKER_00: Look around at the pride we've mistaken for courage.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe on this Palm Sunday, the king is not just here to receive our praise.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe he's here to inspect our house.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe the temple he wants to cleanse this week is not the one in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's the one in us.
SPEAKER_00: So the question is not, can I find one more online story to justify my anger?
SPEAKER_00: The question is, am I becoming like Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Am I quick to rage or slow to anger?
SPEAKER_00: Am I ruled by offense or marked by forgiveness?
SPEAKER_00: Am I fueled by outrage or compelled by love?
SPEAKER_00: Do I attack people or do I confront what harms them?
SPEAKER_00: Do I leave wounds behind me or do I make room for healing?
SPEAKER_00: Palm Sunday reminds us that Jesus comes not only to be admired as King, but to be obeyed as Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And if he is your Lord, bitterness has got to go.
SPEAKER_00: Rage has got to go, harsh words have got to go, slander's got to go, self-righteousness has got to go.
SPEAKER_00: And in its place, Jesus will form in us a heart that is humble, clean, tender, forgiving, and free.
SPEAKER_00: Because living angry is exhausting.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to dare you to do something today.
SPEAKER_00: I wrote a prayer a few days ago.
SPEAKER_00: I've been praying in my heart getting ready for Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: I mean it, but it's a dare prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Like this is a Palm Sunday dare prayer.
SPEAKER_00: If you're serious about being a follower of Jesus and you're willing to let him disrupt your life and make it out of step with the world around you, I dare you to pray this prayer and mean it.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's going to disrupt your life and make you out of step with the world around you and with a lot of Christians around you.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to be on your screen.
SPEAKER_00: Own it if you're serious about following Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus, we welcome you not only as the king who enters the city, but as the king who inspects the temple.
SPEAKER_00: Look around in us, search us.
SPEAKER_00: Show us where anger has taken root.
SPEAKER_00: Show us where bitterness has lingered far too long.
SPEAKER_00: Show us where harshness, resentment, offense, and pride have found a home in us.
SPEAKER_00: Forgive, forgive us for excusing what your word condemns.
SPEAKER_00: Forgive us for baptizing our flesh and calling it righteous.
SPEAKER_00: Forgive us for speaking in ways that do not sound like you.
SPEAKER_00: Forgive us for living offended when you have called us to walk in forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: Cleanse your temple in us.
SPEAKER_00: Drive out what does not belong.
SPEAKER_00: Purify our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Renew our minds.
SPEAKER_00: Teach us to love what you love.
SPEAKER_00: Teach us to grieve what grieves you.
SPEAKER_00: Teach us to confront wrong without becoming wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Teach us to stand for truth without leaving love behind.
SPEAKER_00: Make us a people who are slow to anger, quick to forgive, tenderhearted, full of mercy, and full of the Spirit of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And may the same Savior who was praised on Sunday, who cleansed the temple on Monday, and who forgave from the cross on Friday live his life through us.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name, if you own that prayer as your own, would you say amen?
unknown: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Would you stand with me all over this place today at our campus family?
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to ask our prayer teams at every location to make themselves available today.
SPEAKER_00: And we're here to serve you.
SPEAKER_00: Regardless of your need, bad news, whatever you got this week, you just need somebody to help carry that.
SPEAKER_00: That's what this moment is about.
SPEAKER_00: If you've never surrendered your life to Jesus, that's what this moment is about.
SPEAKER_00: You can do that now.
SPEAKER_00: We'd love to have what story it'd be great to tell the Sunday before Easter on Palm Sunday 2026.
SPEAKER_00: Today's a great day.
SPEAKER_00: If you're struggling with this rage and bitterness for legitimate reasons in your life, and you just need somebody to pray with you, that you can bring that, release that, and really live again.
SPEAKER_00: That's what this moment is for.
SPEAKER_00: So, Lord, I pray over your people today that we wouldn't just check a box on Sunday and go to church and Pastor had a good sermon today, or I didn't like the sermon today.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that you would confront us with your word.
SPEAKER_00: You would confront us with your way.
SPEAKER_00: It'd be like an X-ray machine on our heart, a CAT scan, an MRI.
SPEAKER_00: It would pull to the surface where we look more like the world than we look like you.
SPEAKER_00: And God, would you change us?
SPEAKER_00: Don't let us off the hook easy.
SPEAKER_00: Change us.
SPEAKER_00: I pray, Lord, you'll bless them and keep them.
SPEAKER_00: You'll make your face shine down upon them.
SPEAKER_00: You'll be gracious to them.
SPEAKER_00: You'll turn your countenance their direction.
SPEAKER_00: And as you wrestle with them with the conviction of the Holy Spirit and they bring resolve, may they sense your peace in these places in their life.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: The altars are open today.
SPEAKER_00: God bless you.