Hey, welcome back to another episode of the podcast.
It has been a minute, so we're. Back.
We're back. Why?
What's?
What's been going on? Well, you and I were both out of
the country, Yeah. And we've been gearing up for
Easter. So this is this is a relaunch as
we're working our way during Holy Week toward Easter.
And so we thought this would be fitting.
We've been waiting for Easter to relaunch the podcast after you
and I both were away for a little while and.
I've been sick multiple times. There's, there's been, yeah,
there's, there's, there's been a lot happening, a lot of good
stuff. And, and also we love doing this
and want to continue. And yeah.
So Holy Week leading up to Easter, we thought it would be a
good opportunity to relaunch and we hope you're having a great
week. So a couple of things.
We want this podcast to be a really practical conversation
that follows up on the Sunday service.
And you don't have to have listened to or been at church on
Sunday to see or hear the sermon, but that would be
helpful. This really is a deeper dive
into a few topics that either we've left open, like loops that
we want to close on certain points that were made on Sunday,
or deeper dive into some of the things that we weren't able to
actually get through in a sermon on Sunday.
So, you know, two weeks ago, I preached for 52 minutes.
I think I probably still had like that was 1/3 of the
content. And so like any given Sunday
could be 3 times longer. So really, we want to give you,
hey, listen, you're welcome. 52 minutes was short.
We want to give you an opportunity to kind of jump into
some of these other things that we think are meaningful and
important for walking out our faith and for understanding how
we integrate our faith into everyday life.
That just also don't, you know, necessarily make it into the
final draft of the sermon. So this is not like the second,
you know, best things. It's just the not everything can
preach all the time. So that's kind of #1 #2 we hope
that this encourages you to have conversation.
And so we know that many of you are listening to it.
Like maybe you're at the gym and you're on a treadmill, you're on
a bike or out for a walk, or you're walking a dog driving.
Many of you listen during your commutes on your way to and from
work. All of that.
Great. What we hope this is not is just
more of us talking at you. We want in some way some of the
questions that we're wrestling out to also encourage you to ask
and discuss your own questions as you wrestle your faith.
So, um, you know, this could be like the drive home after church
on Sunday. What are the things that you're
talking about in the car? What are the questions that come
up? This could be 1 evening
throughout the week. This could be as your feet hit
the floor and you're thinking about the week ahead on Monday
morning. We really want these things to
be practical and and helpful to you.
So that's enough welcome. We're in Matthew 21, which is
great. It's good to have a break out of
Luke. It's not Luke, but on Sunday,
and we're going to stick with Matthew for Holy Week, right?
So we will be, we were in Matthew 21 and then in Matthew
is like the structure is a bit funny.
So it kind of there's a whole bunch of chapters in between of
of Jesus talking about various things.
And then it's the passion narrative.
So we'll be jumping to what is like Matthew 2627 for Easter,
for Good Friday and then Easter Sunday, so.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
So Matthew, you're right. Matthew is very interesting in
that there is like the what Matthew includes between Jesus
entrance into Jerusalem and then like, you know, one week later
his crucifixion. Yeah, he's a lot more than any
of the other gospel writers. And you know, we don't have time
to talk about why like so much of that is is really important.
I think the one thing that is helpful to say and that I didn't
say on Sunday and wouldn't have made it into the sermon is that
Matthew is writing predominantly to Jewish audience.
So you have a little bit different of an angle of attack
or approach on the story of Jesus.
What Matthew is really trying to do here is set Jesus up as the
long-awaited and anticipated Messiah.
So he's doing it really, like I said, primarily for a Jewish
audience who would have lived with this cultural and religious
and historic expectation and longing of, of the Messiah's
arrival. And so everything that Matthew
is doing is really designed to construct Jesus's story in, in a
way that walks you toward the cross so that you'd say, of
course, like, of course, this is what would happen.
Jesus shows up and is the Messiah.
Now that happens still in an unexpected way.
That the Messiah would die is not what, you know, the the
anticipation and expectation was.
But really, what Matthew is trying from the beginning of his
book all the way to the end, is constructed in a way that
reveals Jesus to be the Messiah that the people of Israel, like
the biblical Israel, has been waiting.
For, and you really see that, you know, in these two passages,
cause you really dealt with two different narratives
interconnected and, and, and interconnected in a way that I,
you know, I've heard this story countless times since I was a
kid. And what I really appreciated
was that I've, I've never heard them connected in, in the way
that, that, that you spelled out for us this past Sunday.
And, and so, but it really is, you know, Jesus riding on this,
on this donkey into Jerusalem. And there's a lot of like,
there's a lot of messianic kingly imagery there.
There's, which is, you know, why we end up singing a lot of songs
about Jesus being crowned as king and things like that.
And, and, and then you go into the temple and then you got
Jesus as this sort of prophetic voice as a, you know, all, but
also as a priest. And, and so that's one thing
that we know we didn't get to touch on in the sermon quite as
much. I'm just noticing this, that
these two passages really personify this idea of Jesus as
he's our, he's our prophet, he's our priest, he's also our king.
Yeah, right. And, and that we call that the
threefold office. And and so if there's anything
that you wanted to touch on for that, that maybe feels relevant
for for the listener. Yeah, yeah, I, I mean, I think
it's helpful. Like This is why this is like
theology matters and like the history of the church matters.
And Christians for a lot longer than any of us who are listening
have been alive, have have spoken about Jesus in his roles,
like what does Jesus accomplish as or through the lens of, I
should say this threefold office.
So Jesus is prophet, Jesus is priest and Jesus is king.
And it's, it is very rare that you see Jesus functioning in
each of these or all of these offices together in one passage.
And that's why I love holding those really 22 stories that we
typically read together because at the beginning, Jesus is
welcomed as king. You know, obviously we talked
about how that's a, a king that was showing up in unexpected
ways, but king nonetheless. So he's king and then he's
declared to be prophet. And then if you end there, so if
you know many of I think the readings and many, many years,
you just simply end at 11. So the crowd's answer, this is
Jesus the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.
And you go, OK, done great, done and dusted.
But a, you don't really see what it means for Jesus to be
prophet. So he's declared to be prophet
and they're like, well, did the crowds just get it wrong then?
Are they, are they completely, 100% wrong in declaring Jesus to
be a prophet? And no, they're not like they're
not wrong in saying that he's profit.
They just, it's a, it's a smaller portion of the larger
identity of, of Jesus. So it's to miss the full
picture. But he also doesn't act as
profit if you, if you cut it off there.
So you've got to continue reading at least into the temple
courts to see Jesus begin to act as profit.
Well, what does a prophet do? A prophet was chosen by God to
speak judgment to the people on behalf of God and often, so
often against the religious systems.
So here is Jesus, the people declared to be profit.
I think I said as like an aside in the sermon.
Jerusalem has a long history of killing its profits.
So to be named a prophet in Jerusalem is like, no, no, no,
like don't call me that. Call me the king and call me a
priest and that's fine. Thank you very much.
Don't call me a profit because of profit is gonna be like you.
Jerusalem kills its profits. But again, you know, benefit of
hindsight. But we're going to read into 26
and then 27 and through to 28. We know that Jesus is going to
be put to death just outside of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem will
once again kind of live into that identity of killing its
profit. But he really acts as prophet by
entering the temple. And it's there that we see him
really kind of deliver this judgment on the religious
institution as it was functioning.
And then finally, when the blind, the lame come to him and
heals them, now he's acting as priest.
So we see him acting in each of these three offices as well.
So he he arrives as king. And that's where we get like
Isaiah and Zechariah, these, these prophecies about how the
Messiah would arrive. He would be the King.
Timothy Colour has this great line for Jesus.
He says that Jesus is the final king of the world.
I love that. Right.
So it's like this is like, you know, Lord of the Rings, the
last sequence in the Return of the King where Aragorn is like
he's sitting on the throne. Yes.
Well, yeah. If you haven't seen it by now,
I'm sorry. I mean, I guess, listen, like,
my kids are starting to watch their stuff, so I gotta be more
careful. Yeah.
Not Lord of the Rings yet, but you know, it, it really is like
we, we have these, we have these books and, and movies and, and
we've created these stories that talk about this, you know, final
return of, of, of a righteous king who will rule the people
and there will be celebration and glad like Jesus arrives as
the final king of the world. And that's really found in the
title Son of David. So when the children are saying
hosanna to the son of David and he's like, Yep, that's me.
What he's he's declaring himself to be the final king of the
world. Like this is the king to come
back and deliver the world. So he rides into into Jerusalem,
he's acting as king and then he enters the temple, he's acting
as prophet and then he fills the temple acting as priest.
So we see him moving all through the, you know, these, these
three things. And there's something worth just
worth noting as the prophet that he does, I would say like the
most sort of like profit like thing he does is is when he
overturns the tables. Because it feels like when you
read through some of the some of the ways the profits acted in,
you know, like they were feisty. They did some, there was
physicality to the way that they often went about their, their,
their itinerant ministry quite often, right.
You think of Elijah and and Jeremiah, you know, Jeremiah
particularly who would like, you know, lie down on that, you
know, on that bench or whatever for however, however many long
until, you know, they repented and that kind of thing.
And so there's, I mean, there's something very obviously very
physical about about what Jesus is doing here.
And I think it's just worth noting that Jesus is doing this
and we're not Jesus. And sometimes, you know,
sometimes like maybe just asking the question, you know, like,
are there times, is there, is there something for us to take
away from the way that Jesus goes about kind of cleansing
this, this temple here? Like it's, it's a dangerous
line. It's a dangerous line to kind of
like, on one hand it's like, yes, this is what Jesus does.
We're not Jesus. But also, are there times when
when we might be called to do something similar?
There's so much there. So like baked into that baked
into that question is the assumption that that the office
of profit is still something that exists and is is used by
the Holy Spirit. And I would.
Say Christians are divided over, but I think we would generally
say yes, yeah. Absolutely right.
So, you know, nobody, nobody acts as king in the way Jesus
does, nobody acts as prophet in the way Jesus does and and
nobody acts as priest in the way Jesus does.
And, and yet, you know, we talk about.
So to remove the profit for a second, we talk about the
priesthood of all believers and in well, in, in, in Peter,
there's, there's passages that talk about our identity.
And so listener, like if, if you're a follower of Jesus, like
the priesthood of all believers means that you are called and
even equipped and, uh, challenged toward acting as
priest. So in, in.
Yeah. So in first Peter, your holy
priesthood, right, royal people, holy priesthood chosen by God to
declare his praises. So, and you know, that's a,
that's a very, that's a grant version paraphrase, so don't
quote it, you know, so, so, yeah, to, to go back to your
profit question, I think we need to be careful in noticing a, a
few things in the way Jesus does this.
Number one, I think we tend to and, and this is where like the
the picture or like your image of what Jesus is doing is it can
be really powerful. There's nothing here that that
says in Matthew's Gospel that Jesus is angry.
I think sometimes we picture Jesus being angry and doing this
like he's doing it, almost like he's flipping tables and there's
an anger about him. And we often point to passages
like this and say, well, Jesus was righteously angry and
therefore. Yes, yeah, yeah.
And, and so I think it's important to notice, like in
Matthews version of this, Jesus entered the temple courts and he
drove out all who were buying and selling there.
He overturned the tables of the money changers, the benches of
those who were selling doves. And he says it is written, my
house will be called a, a House of prayer.
But you are making into a den of robbers.
Now, is it, is it a stretch to think that, that there's a
motion involved here? No, but it's very careful to not
say that Jesus is angry and I think it's important to not
ascribe to him emotions that are not there.
Like, well, I would feel angry if I was in Jesus issues.
Yeah, sure. I I do a lot of things poorly if
I was in Jesus's shoes, right. So, so I think like just a a
word of caution, but then BA word of no, I do actually
believe that the Holy Spirit uses people to speak into
moments and groups of people into moments in prophetic ways.
Now, does it accomplish the same thing as the Old Testament
prophets? No.
Does it accomplish same thing as Jesus in his prophetic role?
Absolutely not. No.
But is there still a reason for within this world, people to
speak a word of God into what is broken in a way that would lead
to it being restored and made, you know, righteous?
And and I don't wanna be like, that's not like to say make
everything overly righteous and legalistic.
But I'm saying, you know, is there is there a need in the
broken world in which we live for Christians to speak what is
true and right and good so that there would be more life and
goodness and grace and hope and peace?
Yes, absolutely. And that at the end of the day
is always what a prophet does. So prophets role is to speak a
word of judgment over a situation.
So they they're their job is to speak on behalf of God.
They were called by God to speak.
So you better be pretty sure, yes, like do a lot of prayer and
thought and work and then, you know, check with other people
and check with more other people and you know, maybe even a third
group of other people. Like, you know, there's a good
way to discern, but called to speak something into the world,
usually a word of judgment. But the net result is always
peace with God. It might take a while, right?
So we see this with the exile and with the prophetic word
that's spoken over Israel. Like you'll be driven out of of
your land. Ultimately, though, it's so that
you can be brought back into peace with God.
So I think that's the other thing is, yeah, it is that still
necessary? Yes, the outcome.
So you better be crystal clear and sure and certain that that's
the outcome that we're working toward because I think again,
just naturally, right, we can kind of read our own things into
it and go, well, Jesus did this. I don't like what's going on
over here, so I'm gonna go flip some tables like we say, right
And like, Hey, back up a not Jesus be like what he's doing
here is to draw the temple back into its like Kingdom purpose,
right. So it had been taken out of
alignment and was used in ways that profited on the backs of
those who are the most poor. And so it really was operating
in an unjust manner. What Jesus does here is speak
prophetically in a way that draws it back into its Kingdom
purpose. So what I'm, what I'm
envisioning is, is that there are going to be followers of
Jesus who rightfully are, are looking at a, a situation in, in
our, in our world, perhaps even in their, in their church or
their city, their country, and are saying like, Hey, this isn't
right. Yeah, this isn't right.
And, and there is like they're moved to action in some way.
And I think there actually is something beautiful about that,
that, that when we see something that is unjust, that God stirs
in our hearts to say or do something about it.
Not in a rogue, you know, because I think that's what you
talking about with, you know, community and what not.
I'm not just going in some rogue fashion like you're not going to
like like there are what I what I'm, what I'm picturing is being
like a potentially bad way to go about it would be like, hey,
something's happening in the church service that someone
doesn't like and they're just gonna interrupt it.
Right. Yeah, that's probably not gonna
go so well. Probably not gonna go so well,
Yeah. I mean, there could be a
circumstance where there is something so completely unjust
happening that that maybe, maybe that ought to happen.
But like, you better be like real darn sure.
Yeah. You know, anyway.
Yeah. So, OK, just to kind of name the
thing which I think you're talking around in in some sense.
So Jesus entrance, there's, there's, I know I wanna be
careful with my words here, but generally I always want to be
careful with my words, hopefully, but you know, more so
with what I'm about to say. So Jesus enters Jerusalem and
he's declared to be king. So people are saying, you know,
shouting hosanna to the son of David.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Like they are ascribing kingship to Jesus.
That's a political statement. Yeah, right.
So, so much so that people in the city are stirred up.
We talked a little bit about how that word actually means
shocked. Like it, it's not like, it's not
like they're stirred emotionally.
It's not like they're kind of feeling like, oh, cool.
Like this is like how nice and. And like, they're not like, it's
not like a happy, sappy, emotional, like that was so
moving, right? Like they're shocked and, and
even a little bit afraid. Like that's the, the degree to
which this word I think can be missed sometimes.
So they're stirred, they're stirred up in some some
translations. And so, so much so they go out
and they ask, who is this? Like, who's this guy who's
coming in who people are declaring to be king?
What's going on? And that is a political move.
Hmm. And Jesus embraces it.
Now, what happens then is, I think, a religious move.
He moves into the temple and I think it's important to name
that for Jesus. These are not different things
happening like so we, you know, in the West modern, whatever
sort of current contemporary society has worked very hard to
separate church and state, right?
Right. So it's baked into the American
Constitution. It's it's.
Not it's. Not in Canada, but but we we
generally try to have fairly strong lines.
Functionally. Functionally, that's a
completely different topic for another day.
Yes. How like we don't have
technically separation of church and state, but functionally
vastly more. And in the states there's
technical like constitutional separation of church and state,
way less separation like, right. It's, it's interesting how those
things got different, different, different conversation for
another day. But you know, so in general we
say, you know, separation of these two things.
We in everyday language use language like the sacred and the
secular or the holy and the mundane.
And what we're saying is that there are certain things in
life, they're wholly certain things that are religious,
certain things that are of God and spiritual and other things
that are not, that are mundane, that are secular, that are not
wholly or not religious, that that have, you know, we, we
speak about these two realms or two realities that are
completely separated. And, you know, I think that's
the general consensus about how life should be.
There's internal life that you can have your own belief and
your own belief system, but publicly you can't allow that
belief system to impact anything you do.
You have to act differently in public than you do in private.
Like these are ways that I think they're just baked into modern
society for Jesus, A those distinctions never existed.
So to say that something was secular isn't a thing.
To say that something is sacred isn't a thing.
And we don't see it baked into his theology either.
So immediately what we see is this, this, this marriage of a
political statement about Jesus and a religious statement about
Jesus. Jesus is the king.
He's the intimacy, Kelly's language.
He's the final king of the world.
Sounds kind of like the final boss in Mariota.
But like, anyways, it's like he's the final king of the
world. And what that means is that he
is the king over everything, over all that we as humans would
name political, and over all that we as humans would name
secular, and overall that we as humans the name religious or
sacred or holy. And he brings all of it
together. So he's making a political
claim. He's making a political
statement, which in many ways is why he was crucified, because
this is a political claim. His kingship is an affront to
King Herod, but more so to Caesar, right?
Caesar is in Rome like Caesar is is God.
And so for Jesus to come in and make this political claim is
also he's also making a religious claim, right.
And to make a religious claim like to to say, hey, I'm going
to go straight to the temple to the heart of religion.
What he's saying is that all of this matters and all of it is
broken and all of it needs to be redeemed.
And that's what this that's what Holy Week is about.
So for us, the challenge is we can take this sideways in so
many different. Ways I'm in, I'm imagining all
of. It.
So let me name two of them. Yeah, one, we can buy into the
separation and go wholesale in that direction.
Yeah. And say, you know, my religion
is my religion, your religion is your religion.
And fine, if we can talk nice, great.
But like, we're gonna stay so far out of the public.
Sphere little boxes, yeah. And like, you know, don't let
like I'm not gonna let my religion impact my politics.
And I think to do that is to air like I think that's an error to
go to the degree that you say, you know, everybody just hold
your own internal beliefs will all just try to get along in
public, you know, anyways, I think you can see where that
goes. Now.
There's another error, though, on the other side of the
pendulum, which is to say we are going to take back church and
state for God, and we are going to create finally a good
Christian nation where everybody is saved.
And so you go like the, the, the, the Christian, like the,
the, the caricaturized, like Christian nationalist, right,
who, who does the like? We're taking back our country
like for God. And we don't care what that
looks like or how many people we hurt along the way.
If you're not with us, you're against us in a way we like.
And the question is always, well, don't you want your
country to uphold Christian values?
Yes, yes, and also we live in a society and also like, so I
mean, the, the one thing though, is that what kind of Christian
values are we talking? You know, because when I see
what Jesus does here as he, as he goes through this movement
of, of, yes, he's been both religious and political the
whole way along here. He's not trying to reenact or
he's not trying to reinstate Israel's status as, as a
sovereign nation. He's not trying to do that.
He's not trying to clamour for for power.
Yeah, Jesus comes and he comes to surf and he serves all the
way to his death. Hmm.
And and and to me that is like, and maybe I'm jumping the gun
here, but like it feel it feels like that is what is so often
missing from these conversations is like, hey, like, yeah,
Christian values fantastic. Like let's continue to to serve
the poor. Well, let's, let's continue to,
let's continue to build systems that honor God in the way that
we, in the way that we spend our resources and whatnot.
Anyway, I know that there's a million different ways we could
go in that direction. But I just think like just
noticing that Jesus goes about political power and and
religious power in such a different way than our human
minds tends to want it to go. Yeah, absolutely.
So, you know, I, I think I want to read from Philippians in a
minute because I think that that's, I think that's just a
helpful, a healthful framing. Yeah.
Right on how Jesus acted. Yeah.
And so like just to to bolster what you're saying about
embracing like Christ's attitude and strategy of becoming a
servant in Philippians. So I'm reading from Philippians
2 says it's starting in verse 5. Inner relationships with one
another have the same mindset as Christ Jesus, who, being in very
nature God, did not consider equality with God something to
be used to his own advantage. That's where we go wrong all the
time, right? Yeah.
So did not consider equality with God something to be used to
his own advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing,
taking on the very nature of a servant being made in human
likeness and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled
himself and becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.
And so we like we wrestle with that not considering equality
with God something to be used to his own advantage.
I think that perpetually the what human brokenness and sin
points us and leads us toward is that piece using things to our
own advantage. Yes, and so I, I do think that
the the best route for the Christian is to embrace this
same mindset as Jesus in becoming a servant.
Now, does that mean that you should not care about things
politically from a Christian perspective?
No, absolutely not. I think I got that right.
You should absolutely care. We need more Christians who know
what they believe and why they believe it, engaging in the
things of politics, the public sphere of life because of their
belief in Jesus. But what we also need is more,
more people not using positions of power to their own advantage,
which we also see, you know, wrestling out.
So I think that's like that's, that's a hard thing to do.
You can only do that, you know, You certainly can only do that
with community and accountability and people around
you like you. You can't do that on your own.
But I do think that it's there's a way forward for Christians to
care deeply about the things that are going on in our world
because otherwise, like man, otherwise I just, I see and I
hear and we talk to people about this all the time.
I see people go, I care so deeply about what is happening
and I can do so little. I'm exhausted all the time.
So I'm just going to ignore all of it.
Yeah. And I go, that is, I get it and
I understand. And it is such a sad response.
And like I said, like if that's you right now, if you're
listening like 0 condemnation because we've sat in that spot
and perpetually almost in that spot, right of like.
Just overwhelmed and like, absolutely, yeah.
And it's like I've just this, it's too much.
I can't handle anymore. I just need to like delete all
the apps and not watch any news for a while and.
That was the summer for me. I'm like, I'm done with all
things digital. I'm like, yeah, absolutely.
But what we, what you can do, what you can do is in your
circle of influence, you can choose to serve others.
Yeah. And so that like, you know,
there are so many more meaningful like deeper
theological takeaways from Jesus entrance into Jerusalem.
But, but if we're talking about like the most practical thing
that you can do, yeah, tomorrow, like so we're recording this on
Monday. So I'm like, by Tuesday, if this
thing's out and you're listening Wednesday, like the most
practical thing you can do is choose to serve people in your
circle and like, push against some of the darkness in the
world. Just you can't do everything
about everything. And we all need to wrestle with
that. Yeah, but you can choose to
serve somebody. You can go out of your way to do
something this week. I'm convinced everybody can do
that. No matter where you are, no
matter where your circle is, I'm convinced everybody can do
something this week. And it's like, OK, it's not the
most like provocative thing to say.
It's not the most like, it's not what it's it's it's not like.
It's not like that's not like the sexy.
Option. No, it's not.
It's not. Like the go out and like, you
know, lead the charge. No, it's like go out and serve
somebody, but all the dude who carries Jesus cross.
Yeah, or, or like, I mean even just like looking at Jesus.
And you touched on this in the sermon of like Jesus coming out
on a donkey, you know? Like.
Baby donkey, right baby donkey, like just a little wussy little
wussy animal, not a War Horse, not anything like that.
Like Jesus comes out on this woozy little creature and he's
like, I'm king, you know, like, and I mean did doesn't even come
with that sort of pump. Like it's there's just something
so different when we, when we just think about, when we think
about worldly powers. Yeah, there's something so
profoundly different about the the way that Jesus goes about it
that is so important for us to notice.
Right, OK, but here's the subversiveness of the gospel and
like of the Kingdom of God is that Jesus does arrive riding on
a donkey and it's not a War Horse.
And he doesn't come in with, you know, the generals and the
military behind him and might and power.
And yet what he accomplishes throughout Holy Week with his
death and resurrection is the single most powerful thing to
happen inside of the course of human history.
Hmm, right. So it's not like it, it is like
I agree with you. It's it's almost comical.
Like it is this, it's a donkey and with a cult like there's a
baby donkey beside and he's not doing the pomp and circumstance
thing. And yet it's the most powerful
thing that has happened and will happen like inside of human
history. Like this is this is this is the
rescue of the entire world happening through Jesus death.
And that's why like it is it is such a backwards upside down
Kingdom. But really, and this is like, I
love anti rights language. He's like, you all call this an
upside down Kingdom. But really what he's doing is
setting everything right. Yeah, he's he's taking
everything that was upside down and writing it.
So he's he's writing the ship, He's writing the like, it's not
an upside down Kingdom. He's a you all y'all are upside
down and what Jesus does here is write everything.
So you know, I think that I would caution the listener and
even myself because I get this like well, what good is this
small like sure, I can go and serve somebody today and I'm
like you have no idea what God is going to do with that little
act of service in his right side up Kingdom.
Like you have no clue and I just want to So one thing and I'm not
sure where we're at on time but we close to be wrapping up.
So 2 weeks ago when I did preach for 52 minutes.
Not that this had anything to do with it, but I've been feeling
this like nudge of the Holy Spirit to do like a halfway
altar call. A Presbyterian.
So that doesn't that doesn't hardly exists.
Yeah. So didn't invite people up to
the front, which would be like the typical traditional sort of
fit whatever. All right, we invite everybody
to the front, but did at the end of praying after the sermon,
invite people who wanted to to receive Jesus, follow Jesus,
accept Jesus to be Lord and Savior for the first time.
Raise your hands. And so I think we have three
people raise their hands very first time with three people
raise their hands were preaching on the prodigal son.
So like identifying with that older brother being, hey, like
my life, I realized something massive needs to change to three
more. So six people make decisions for
Jesus. Yeah.
And in my head, in my head. So my coach, my ministry coach,
he said in in a meeting, he's like, you know, I'm challenging
you to do it. And he's like, if nobody raises
their hand, just know I'm cheering you on.
Like I'm cheering. Like just hear my voice in the
back of your head, I'm cheering you on.
And all week I'm like, wow, it gets it's we've not done this in
my time here. Not in my time.
It, it's not, it's not typically I'm using air quotes here done
in Presbyterian churches, though.
Like we're like the least Presbyterian of the Presbyterian
churches, but still like it's, it's, it felt to me like such a
small thing. I'm like, oh, surely if somebody
wanted to make this commitment, wouldn't they come up and talk
to me after? Like it felt like such a small
thing. And so like, I'm, I'm wrestling
it out as I'm preaching. The plan was to do it and you
knew, like the band knew. But yeah, like the plan was, I'm
still wrestling this thing out as I'm like, it's just small.
Like it felt small. Like what good is it going to
be? Really?
Like what? And and so I got to that to that
prayer and I'm like, no, you know what?
I'm this is something that I like.
I'm sure. I'm certain God has convicted me
to do so We're in it. We're doing it and it's gonna be
clumsy and I'm gonna fumble my way through it.
And I go six. Yeah, people who boldly say I'm
in. Yeah, I go like I so you not.
I don't think anybody would have.
Maybe one person saw this. Like I got down and I went to
straight to the back of the sanctuary and like I wept.
Like I was just, I was crying and I was like, it's like that
never happens after preaching, but like I because just like I
was so stirred up, like in some sense, like I was so.
So God was at work. God showed.
Up. It was fantastic.
And like, I'm so I love what God is doing.
And it just was such a reminder. So to me, it was a reminder to
me that these things that feel like we've convinced ourselves
feel small are not small in the big picture of the Kingdom.
And so Jesus, he shows up on the donkey, he's in Jerusalem.
He's going to do a whole lot of, you know, different things as
authority is going to be questioned.
He's gonna curse some fig trees in Matthew.
Like if you're reading through, I think maybe that would be like
the lingering challenge I would offer any listener is, you know,
we started Matthew 21. And something that you could do
and that I'm going to do between now and Easter is just read from
Matthew 21 through to 27. And that gets us through to the
Friday and to Jesus's death. He's gonna tell some more
parables. Some of them will, you know, I'm
sure sound familiar? But in 26, Jesus will be
arrested and then in in 27, he's gonna be put on trial.
So read all the way through and just remember that like a lot of
these things, like the way Jesus tells parables, he's like, man,
the Kingdom looks small, but you have no idea how it's going to
explode. And what you think you know,
should be the, the, the, the correct operating system of the
world is not. And so he's going to, he's going
to walk us toward his death and then his resurrection by telling
these parables like the Kingdom of God is like, it's like he's
going to feel small and it's going to look tiny.
And you have no idea what it, what God is going to do with it.
So do something, pick something that you can do this week to
serve others and you have no idea what God is going to do
with it. Yeah, I think that's enough of
me talking once you take us home.
You know this has been great and hopefully I was worried we're
gonna little rusty because it's been a while, but hey here we
are made it to the end. I hopefully there's some great
stuff for you to chew on as we head into Holy Week.
And yeah, take some take some moments this week to just be
still and to read some of these passages.
Just take it in. Don't let this week go by
without just spending time with God, serving others, just being
present and seeing what God does.
So that's our prayer for you all and for ourselves as well as we
as we go into this week. And so we hope to see you next
time. And we hope to see you if you're
watching this in real time, we hope to see you this weekend,
Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Have a great week.