Palm Sunday: The Real Story

Notes: Palm Sunday: The Real Story
Pastor Greg Laurie
Harvest OC
4/13/2014
Luke 19:37-48

What makes you mad? Everybody really gets ticked off by something…Greg is cranky when he is hungry. His list includes: Cell phones, texting, why does it when a person has a phone with the loudest ring they always let it ring 8 times. Or people that always leave the blue tooth piece in their ear. When people text while they are talking to you. Other things are when people don’t drive when the light turns green. People who don’t pick up after their dogs. ATM women do not have their card ready to go when they are standing in line. Those things anger Greg.

What angers you?

I write letters and don't send them.

Bad tempered people are 3 times more likely to have heart attacks.

Ephesians 4:26-27 “Be angry, and do not sin”:[a] do not let the sun go down on your wrath, 27 nor give place to the devil.

Hebrews 4:15 For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Luke 19:11 Now as they heard these things, He spoke another parable, because He was near Jerusalem and because they thought the kingdom of God would appear immediately.

2 Chronicles 7:14 if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

If God’s people live the way they should, it will affect every area of culture.

If a nation wants revival and spiritual awakening, it starts with the church.

Jesus did not come as a military, economic, political, or social Savior. He came as a spiritual Savior from sin and death.

The incarnation was for the purpose of the atonement. The birth of Jesus was so there would be the death of Jesus.

Read: Luke 19:37-44 Then, as He was now drawing near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen, 38 saying: “ ‘Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!’ Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” 39 And some of the Pharisees called to Him from the crowd, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.” 40 But He answered and said to them, “I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.” 41 Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, 42 saying, “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. 43 For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, 44 and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”

Zechariah 9:9 “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, Lowly and riding on a donkey, A colt, the foal of a donkey.

Roman heroes rode donkeys after they came home from winning a battle, but the Jews saw Jesus on a lowly donkey. The two different groups looked at him on a donkey in two different ways.

Malachi 3:1 “Behold, I send My messenger, And he will prepare the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, Will suddenly come to His temple, Even the Messenger of the covenant, In whom you delight. Behold, He is coming,” Says the Lord of hosts.

Luke 19:38 saying: “ ‘Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!’ Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

Romans 9:20 But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?”

Many question God, say they need to forgive God. That is not acceptable, God is God and you are not. You need to hang on to God, not turn your back on God.

A faith that can’t be tested is a faith that can’t be trusted.

A faith that can be lost, is no faith at all!

God is able to do what He please with whomever He chooses, whenever He wishes.

Unbelief and rejection breaks Gods heart. Even of the wicked.

“He saw the city and wept over it.”
(Luke 19:41Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it,)

Read: Luke 19:45-48 Then He went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in it,[a] 46 saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house is[b] a house of prayer,’[c] but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’” 47 And He was teaching daily in the temple. But the chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people sought to destroy Him, 48 and were unable to do anything; for all the people were very attentive to hear Him.

This situation angered him. He cleaned out the Temple twice. Jesus did a violent thing when he over turned the table, not violent to others, but in action with the table. It was for illustration;

Mark 11:15 So they came to Jerusalem. Then Jesus went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves.

Just as the temple needed to be cleansed a second time, sometimes so do we.

Jesus is also meek. Meekness is not weakness, it is power under restraint.

Isaiah 56:6-7 NKJV "Also the sons of the foreigner Who join themselves to the LORD, to serve Him, And to love the name of the LORD, to be His servants- Everyone who keeps from defiling the Sabbath, And holds fast My covenant- [7] Even them I will bring to My holy mountain, And make them joyful in My house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices Will be accepted on My altar; For My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations."

The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints!

When a church or Christian keeps a person away, that makes Jesus angry.

Are you a stepping stone to Christ or a stumbling stone. Are you a bridge or are you a barrier to Christ?

1 John 1:8-9 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

You don't need to clean up your life to go to Christ, you need to go to Christ to clean up your life.