What Kind of King is this?
- SOVEREIGN King: Trust Him to keep his WORD. (Mk 11:1-6)
- MISUNDERSTOOD King: Don't expect what He's not OFFERING. (Mk 11:7-11)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
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Okay, open up your Bibles to the Gospel according to Mark.
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If you do not have a Bible, we have Bibles on our information table.
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Those are free, alright?
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And you take as many as you need, but we're going to be picking up where we left off.
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We're in the Gospel of Mark in chapter 11.
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The title of this message is "Triumphal Entry - Arrival of the King." You know, our ministry year does kick off in October, and beginning of last October, we started in Mark chapter 1 and verse 1, and we spent most of the year in Mark chapters 1 through 10, but that span actually covers three years of Jesus' ministry.
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And the good news is we only have one week left to go, but that's going to take us most of this year.
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week of Jesus' ministry that is left. Actually, the last week of Jesus' life comprises about 40% of the material that's in the Gospels. Did you know that? So we have three years of ministry, and then we have that last week. Forty percent just covers that one week.
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Picking up in this passage, we're going to be in about 30 AD. This is Passover, and Jesus is going to Jerusalem with crowds of people getting ready to celebrate the Passover.
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It was estimated that two million people would have been in Jerusalem for this event.
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And here comes Jesus.
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If you've ever been part of a Palm Sunday service, some of us might be familiar with what we're going to be talking about today.
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But you know, this event - I've got to be honest with you, itself is surrounded by a lot of confusion.
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I know there was a time you get to the triumphal entry and I felt like, "Hooray for Jesus!" Right? Like it's high -fives and lollipops all the way to Jerusalem.
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The people finally get it. And like this is such a happy note in the Gospels.
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Right? It's a happy note. People are cheering for Jesus. And here comes Jesus the donkey into town, and everybody's celebrating and singing and dancing, and they finally get it.
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Well, this passage is not what most people think it is.
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Because the same people who are cheering for Jesus in this event, in just a few days are going to be screaming to kill Him.
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These same people that are cheering for Jesus to be their king on this day, in just a few days are going to be screaming, "We will not have this man rule over us!
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Crucify Him!" These same people in just a few days, they're cheering Him now, and in just a few days, they're going to be presented with a terrorist - Barabbas - and Jesus.
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Which one would you like me to release to you?
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Release Barabbas. Kill Jesus.
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These same people.
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So what in the world is going on?
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The king comes into town and the question we're going to answer this morning is what kind of king is this?
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Jot this down first of all in your notes.
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What kind of king is this?
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This is the sovereign king.
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This is the sovereign king.
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Trust him to keep his word.
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Picking up at the text, it says, "Now when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage Bethany at the Mount of Olives.
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Jesus sent two of his disciples - pause right there - it says they were near Bethany.
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Bethany is actually two miles away from Jerusalem.
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It was the home of Mary and Martha and Lazarus.
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We're going to see in the end of our passage today that Jesus went back to Bethany.
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So during Passion Week, It seems that Jesus preferred to stay in the suburbs.
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Okay?
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It would be like during the week, you know, like contextualizing it.
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Jesus goes to Pittsburgh during the day, but at night he goes to Allison Park and that's where he's staying with friends.
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And then back up the next morning into Pittsburgh, back to Allison Park to stay with some friends.
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You get that?
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That's what he's sort of doing here with Jerusalem and with Bethany.
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Staying at Jay Nauer's house.
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You'd have them, wouldn't you, Jay?
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Absolutely, you would.
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It says he sent two of his disciples.
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He said to them, "Go into the village in front of you and immediately as you enter it, you will find a colt tied on which no one has ever sat.
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Untie it and bring it.
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If anyone says to you, 'Why are you doing this?' Say, 'The Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately.'" and found a colt tied at the door outside in the street, and they untied it.
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Some of those standing there said to them, what are you doing untying the colt?
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They told them what Jesus had said, and they let them go." I don't know.
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Maybe I'm just weird, but I find humor in things like this, don't you?
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I see some people nodding.
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Greg, you're smiling.
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Isn't this kind of funny when you think about it?
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This is sort of a weird request, isn't it?
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I mean, you've been walking through us with the gospel of Mark, right?
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And Jesus is like healing blind people and healing lame people and driving out demons and feeding multitudes.
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And Jesus is doing, walking on water.
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He's doing the most mind-blowing things anybody has ever seen in their lives.
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And we get to this point and Jesus grabs two of his disciples.
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We don't know which two, but he's like, "Hey, I want you to go into this next town, probably Bethphage, it's mentioned here.
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Go fetch me that donkey.
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You're going to go and you're going to find this particular donkey.
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I want you to go get it.
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And I just kind of laugh because you see what the text says?
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I don't know.
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I think I'm much too shy for this.
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I'd be like tracking down the owner first and explaining.
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But did you notice it says, they found the cold verse 4 tied at the door and they untied it.
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So apparently, even before they talked to anybody, They just went, it'd be like if I gave you some car keys and said, "Hey, there's a car a couple neighborhoods over.
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"Use these keys, go get in the car and bring it here.
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"And if anybody tries to stop you, "just tell them the pastor needs it." Like how many people would do that, really?
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How many of you would do that?
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Nobody, thank you very much.
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All right, I knew I could count on you.
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But seriously, isn't that what's happening in this passage?
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"Just go get this donkey for me." I'd be like, "I think Peter should do that." "He's the bold one, let him do it." And maybe Peter was one, we don't know.
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But I just think that's kind of funny.
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"Go fetch me this donkey." And they did.
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And they were asked about it, and they said, "Well, the Lord needs it." And that was good enough for whoever owned it.
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So were the owners, you know, I don't know, were they believers in Jesus Christ?
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Were they fans of Jesus?
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Were they just curious as to what he was going to do?
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I don't know, but Jesus knew what was going on and sent his disciples to fetch it.
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What is this event all about?
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You know, Jesus is going to get this donkey, we're going to see in a minute, he's going to ride it into Jerusalem.
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What is that all about?
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Because we've seen in the gospels already, Jesus traveled by foot, right?
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We've seen that.
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And we've seen Jesus travel by boat.
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And we know that Jesus had been to Jerusalem before, so why all of a sudden did Jesus say, "Okay, I'm going back into Jerusalem, "but this time I'm not going to walk.
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"I'm going to ride a donkey and I need you to fetch it." What's going on there?
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Well, I want you to recall all of the times that we've seen in Mark that Jesus said to keep things quiet.
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Remember Mark 1.34, Mark 5.43, Mark 7.36, Mark 8.26.
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Over and over and over, Jesus told people, "Don't tell people who I am." Remember that? "Don't tell people who I am." He would do a healing, or He'd perform some miracle, and...
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"Don't tell people who I am." He was on a schedule.
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And what He was doing so far was staying under the radar, Because it wasn't his time to die.
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We know that there were different times during his ministry that people wanted to kill him.
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People wanted to throw him off of a cliff, literally.
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But it wasn't his time.
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So Jesus was staying under the radar, but now, Jesus was actually fulfilling Zechariah 9.
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It says, "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
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Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!
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Behold, your King is coming to you, righteous and having salvation humble and mounted on a donkey, on a cold, the foal of a donkey." So don't miss this.
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For Jesus to deliberately say, "Get me this donkey, because this time when I go into Jerusalem, I am going to be riding on a donkey." These people knew their Scriptures.
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And everybody knew when they saw Jesus riding into Jerusalem on this donkey, They knew exactly what He was saying about Himself.
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Okay?
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They knew that this was Jesus going from a private ministry, so to speak - don't tell anybody about this - to "we're going public now." Okay?
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And that's what this event is about.
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This was Jesus announcing "we're going public." Okay?
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No more of this "keep it quiet." I'm going to reveal to the world exactly who I am claiming to be because I'm going to bring the fulfillment of Zechariah 9.9 They knew what He was doing.
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They're like, well, how do you know that they knew?
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Because we're going to see a celebration here.
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They knew what He was claiming.
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Here Jesus was making it official.
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In case you have any doubts about my claim about being the Messiah, Jesus was saying, "Here it is." The religious leaders wanted Him dead.
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And this would have thrown gasoline on the fire of their rage for Him.
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Before I move on in the text, I just want you to, for a second, put yourself in the place of these two disciples.
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Like I said, everything they saw at this point, now Jesus was saying to them, "I want you to fetch Me someone else's donkey." I'd just like to pause here, church, I remind you that sometimes Jesus does things that don't make sense in the moment.
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Does that ever happen to anybody else here?
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God is doing something in your life that just doesn't make any sense.
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If I were to get into the stories of the times in my own life, on my face, "God, why is this happening?
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God, why are you allowing this?
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God, why are you telling me to do this?" Sometimes He does things or He allows things that don't make sense at the time.
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You're going to stay in the hospital for two weeks with your baby.
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I want you to give to this ministry.
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I've allowed you to be single in this chapter of your life.
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I want you to go on a mission trip.
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I want you to pack up your family and move to Chicago, not knowing where you're going after that.
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So many times in our lives, God is doing something.
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We're like, God, I know this is You.
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I know this is You, God.
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But it just doesn't make sense.
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I think the disciples had to have been thinking that.
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You're wanting us to go play repo man with somebody's donkey?
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Like we're going to ninja borrow somebody's donkey?
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What's this all about?
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But you know, something I don't see in the text is them asking Jesus why.
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And I really think at this point in Jesus' ministry with everything they saw, I think, you know, we've ripped on the disciples enough, right?
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Because they did some knucklehead things, right?
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I mean, let's be honest.
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They said some, and did some pretty knuckleheaded things at this point.
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But I've got to give them credit.
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They didn't ask why Jesus wanted this donkey, they just went and got it.
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And they followed His commands even though they were strange.
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In church, this is just a sign of maturity.
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Because this is the essence of faith.
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Faith says, "I trust God." Faith says, "I'm going to do what He says, and I'm going to trust Him for the results." And when Jesus told these disciples to go fetch a donkey for them, did these disciples know that this errand was about the Messiah fulfilling God's Word, then kicking off the road to eternal redemption for all who would believe. I bet you they had no idea that what they were about to do was going to be a direct fulfillment of Scripture.
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But there might be something right now God's asking you to do. There might be something right now that God is allowing in your life that's ultimately going to serve an eternal purpose. My encouragement to you is just simply this, church, just obey. Just obey. For those of us that have children, you know the "why" stage, right? Why? Why? How many of you have kids that are in a "why" stage right now?
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How many of you have kids that got out of the "why" stage? I'm more interested in you people. Anybody, okay, Jay, when does that end? Oh, last week. Okay, because I get an eight-year-old, to be honest with you, that it's just why everything? Why?
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Why? Why? And there's some things I'm just like, I don't know why. He saw a guy on TV smoking a cigarette. He's like, what is that? I'm like, that's a cigarette?" He goes, "Well, why is he smoking a cigarette?" Can anybody tell me how to answer that? I'm like, "I don't know why he's smoking a cigarette. I don't know. Why do people do that? Why?" And sometimes as Christians we do the same thing, that we know God's calling us to something, or we know God's allowing something, and we're just like, "Why? Why?" I'm still guilty of that sometimes, church. And part of your growth is learning to trust, to say, "You know what? It doesn't make sense right Wow.
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It just doesn't make sense.
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And I might not have an answer.
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I might not ever have an answer.
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But I'm going to trust God.
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I'm just going to do what He tells me to do.
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Sovereign King, trust Him to keep His Word.
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Trust Him to keep His Word.
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Even a menial task like fetching a donkey was part of fulfilling God's Word.
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He served a purpose with that.
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I asked Him to keep His Word.
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And secondly today, what kind of king is this that's riding into Jerusalem?
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Jot this down.
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He is a misunderstood king.
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I want to encourage you, church, don't expect what He's not offering.
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Don't expect what He's not offering.
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Picking up in the text, it says, "And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it, and He sat on it." I realized that's another miracle.
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Because back in verse 2, it says that no one has ever sat on this animal before.
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Now, I don't have personal experience on sitting on an animal that nobody has ever sat on, so I had to do some reading this week, and the general consensus is that doesn't usually work out too well.
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To take an untamed animal, to take an animal that's never been ridden and to just jump on its back, not a great plan.
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Okay?
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I was bucked off of a horse that was well trained when I was a kid.
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I couldn't imagine jumping on an animal that's never been ridden.
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What a sign of Jesus' gentleness.
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It says, "And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields.
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Those who went before and those who followed were shouting, "Hosanna!
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Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
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Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father, David.
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Hosanna in the highest." Note that Jesus did not organize this parade, okay?
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Jesus wasn't like, "Get me a donkey and a big bag of candy to throw to the kids and ticker tape and a brass band." He didn't organize this parade.
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The only thing Jesus did was say, to get me a donkey to ride on.
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Jesus wasn't saying, "We're going to have this big party as I ride in." In fact, Jesus made it clear that He was going to Jerusalem to die.
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So what's this celebration about?
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Well, I'd like to remind you that at this point in Israel's history, Israel was under Roman occupation.
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What does that mean?
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It meant that Rome was the power in charge.
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But they allowed the Israelites to live in their own land.
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Again to contextualize and imagine, imagine if Canada took over the United States.
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Imagine you know, some like war breaks out with Canada.
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Can you imagine that?
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You're like no we can't, come on use your imagination, you know with all their mooses and their money with the beavers on it and stuff.
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But this war breaks out, and Canada takes over the United States, and they say, well, you can still live in your country, but instead what we see are maple leaf flags flying everywhere, and Royal Canadian Mounted Police everywhere.
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And they're like, hey, we're in charge, ok?
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You might be living on the chunk of dirt that you lived on before, but this isn't the United States, ok?
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This belongs to Canada.
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And you know, after a while, have that longing of, "You know what? We want our country back.
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I don't like this other government telling us what to do.
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And I don't like the beavers on my money.
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And I'm really stuck on that.
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I don't like that." Well, that's sort of what was happening with Israel here.
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Rome was in charge.
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And they weren't shy about reminding people that they were in charge.
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Because if anybody would rebel against the Romans, they would squash it immediately.
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So you can imagine, here's Jesus.
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Okay?
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Very popular.
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Very powerful.
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And they thought, this is the guy that's going to overthrow the Romans.
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This is the Messiah He's going to usher in a new political age for the nation of Israel.
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Did you see that?
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It says in verse 9, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord." Hosanna!
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That's actually a quote from Psalm 118.
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The next line says, "Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David." What are they saying?
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They're saying He's going to restore the kingdom to Israel.
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He's going to throw the Romans out.
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He is the one.
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So when you see the cloaks being laid down, and when you see the branches being laid down, and the branches wave, just imagine it's like waving the American flag.
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This was a political rally in their minds.
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He's going to defeat Rome.
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This is the guy.
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And Hosanna literally means deliver us now.
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Save us now.
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Overthrow Rome!
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Spontaneous political protest.
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Okay, so do you have this scene that says there were people before Jesus and people after and there's this huge crowd and he's riding in and there's this huge celebration and what comes next?
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Look at verse 11.
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And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple.
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And when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.
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You're like, "What kind of an ending is that to this story?" You know, where's the getting up at the podium with the political speech?
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Right?
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Where's the fanfare?
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Where's the party?
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the reception. The King rides into town with this thunderous applause and your Bible says, "Okay, so then he went to the temple and looked around. Like, now what, Jesus?
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It's getting late. Let's go back to Bethany." End scene.
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Like, what is that all about? Well, I'm going When we get to verse 15, we're going to see that Jesus didn't attack Rome.
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Jesus went into the temple and He attacked their greedy, hypocritical, legalistic religion.
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Like, what?
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That's what Jesus was doing here.
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He was looking, observing, planning.
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He was casing out the temple.
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He was looking to see what was going on, because He knew when He was coming back, He was going to have to do some house cleaning.
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Wait a minute, you're the guy that we thought was going to amass this army and drive out the Romans and this is what you do?
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You come and attack the hypocritical religion in the temple?
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What is it that turns people from Hosanna to crucify Him?
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Here it is.
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If Jesus doesn't give someone what they want, oftentimes they'll turn on Him.
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If Jesus doesn't give someone what they want, oftentimes they will turn on Him.
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You see, this crowd was chanting, "Save us! Deliver us!" That's what "Hosanna" means.
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Let me ask you, what do people want saved from today?
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What do people want saved from today?
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You would just walk through the streets and just randomly pull people and say, "If I can deliver you from something, what would you like to be delivered from?" What kind of answers do you think they would give you?
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"I just want my marriage saved." "I did some horrible things and I just want that stuff to go away." Or, "I had a bad visit at the doctor and just don't let it be cancer.
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Just don't let it be cancer.
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That's what I want.
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You know, I have these financial problems, and that's what I want saved from.
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Listen, Jesus certainly can and does do all of those things, but here's the problem.
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Listen closely.
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Don't misunderstand what I'm saying.
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Do not misunderstand what I'm saying.
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Sometimes being saved in external matters is all people want.
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You understand what I mean?
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Sometimes all people want is to be saved from the externals.
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Just like Israel, why did Jesus come into Jerusalem again?
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He said, "I'm going to go to Jerusalem to what?
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I'm going to die." Why did Jesus come to die?
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He came to die for our sins.
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He said he's going to raise from the dead.
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Why did Jesus raise from the dead?
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So that we could have eternal life.
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And these people that were expecting Jesus to stage some political thing, were very disappointed when He didn't give them what they thought they needed.
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My brother Mark and I, how many times have we seen that in prison ministry Mark?
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People come to Bible study and get super serious about Jesus in prison.
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What did they want?
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They want out of jail, right?
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They just want out of jail.
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"Oh, Mark, we could tell you stories.
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How many times have we seen people, you know, grown adult men in tears?
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Just want to get right with God so He gets me out of jail." And we followed up with these people when they do get out of jail.
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Guess how much interest they have in Jesus then?
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Take a guess.
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Right peg?
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Zero.
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Zero.
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Because people would rather Jesus take care of the fruit of their problem, but not take care of the root of their problem.
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The truth is, our greatest need isn't often what we think it is.
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And that's where the gospel rubs people the wrong way.
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"Hey church, give me a handout.
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Hey church, can you do this for me?
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Church, can you do that for me?" And we try to minister to people and say, "Oh, by the way, you have a real need.
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Your sin has separated you from God." Like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
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I am so not interested in that.
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I just need the external stuff, the surface stuff, the fruit stuff taken care of.
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I'm not interested in Jesus getting to the root of the problem." Jot these down.
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Here are four ways today that people misunderstand Jesus.
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We're talking about a misunderstood king.
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There are probably some people in this room You misunderstand Jesus.
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Here's four ways that that happens.
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One is this, Jesus is my good luck charm.
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Jesus is my good luck charm.
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Some people are superstitious about Jesus.
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You know, I wear this cross or this medallion or this jewelry, and I don't feel safe leaving the house without it.
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That's misunderstanding who Jesus is and what He did.
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Jesus is not your good luck charm.
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Four ways people misunderstand Jesus.
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The second one is this.
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Jesus is my buddy.
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Jesus is my buddy.
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I know people that have nothing to do with cracking open a Bible, going to church, praying.
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But they sort of have this "Jesus is my buddy" mentality.
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Like, if I post a picture on Facebook of Jesus standing outside of a house knocking on the door, If I just share that picture, like my grandma, I put that picture on Facebook, because that's all my grandma does, is she puts like Jesus pictures.
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So if I share that, Jesus is kind of my buddy.
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And that's all the deeper some people get.
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Thirdly, for some people, Jesus is the rich uncle.
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Just bail me out of trouble.
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Just bail me out of trouble.
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Nothing to do with Jesus until I'm in trouble.
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And then it's, "I am praying, praying, praying.
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Rich Uncle Jesus, just bail me out of trouble.
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I've gotten myself in a jam.
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And if you get me out of this, I promise you, I will do whatever you tell me to do." And that's misunderstanding Jesus.
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Fourthly, and I think this is the biggest one, Jesus is my religion.
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Jesus is my religion.
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which we have learned to compartmentalize wrongly.
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We have learned to compartmentalize our lives, meaning this.
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Sunday morning is when I'm serious about Jesus.
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Maybe for a little bit Sunday afternoon, but you know what?
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Monday and Saturday nights and my Friday nights, no Jesus there.
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Save the Jesus stuff for Sunday morning.
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Because Jesus is my religion.
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That's a misunderstanding of Jesus.
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And like the crowd, you want Jesus on your terms.
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But I would remind you as I do so often, that He is God, and you are not.
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So we need to clear up the misunderstanding lest you try to cash a check that Jesus didn't write.
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So many misunderstand Jesus, Well, what is the truth according to God's Word?
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Well, here it is.
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Jesus.
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We're going to see this in the Gospel of Mark this year as we walk through it.
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Mark is going to show us three very clear things about Jesus Christ.
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And the first one is this.
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He is the Lord.
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You have an authority in your life.
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Someone or something is your authority.
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And for most people, it's themselves.
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Nobody tells me what to do.
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I'm the authority.
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Jesus.
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Jesus is Lord.
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And we're going to see that in Mark 11-13.
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Jesus' authority.
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Jesus' authority.
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Jesus' authority.
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The question is, is He the authority in your life?
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Mark says He is the Lord, but can you say He is my Lord?
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Can you say that?
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That's what the Bible says about Jesus.
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We're going to see in Mark 14-15.
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Jesus is the Lamb.
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This is the purpose Jesus said which He came was to lay down His life.
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The perfect Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world.
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Is that the Jesus that you know?
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The Jesus that came to eradicate your sin?
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To save you from sin and to save you from sinning?
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To grow you in Himself?
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To live through you?
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Christians aren't sinless, but listen, they should sin less.
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And that's part of your growth.
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Some people don't want Jesus deal with their sin.
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Like, come on, can't we just like feel nice about Jesus and sing a couple songs?
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No, Jesus is going after your sin.
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He is the Lamb of God.
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And Mark also very clearly tells us, we're going to see it in chapter 16, that Jesus is the life.
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He didn't leave you without resources.
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He didn't just die on the cross and say, "Okay, sins are forgiven, I'll see you when you get The Bible says that He rose from the dead to give us eternal life.
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The Bible says that He actually lives His life through us.
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And His resurrection is what promises and purchases your eternal life.
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This is what Mark is going to teach us in chapters 11 through 16.
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And it is my hope, it is my sincere hope and prayer for this church that we all grow in understanding and embracing Jesus for who He really is.
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So Jesus coming into Jerusalem to kick off Passion Week also kicks off an entrance into this sermon series.
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The question is, are you ready to worship Him for who He is?
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Are you going to walk away disappointed because He is not what you wanted Him to be?
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Pray with me please.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Mark 11:1-11
Describe, in your own words, what the "Triumphal Entry" was all about. Why did Jesus ride in on a donkey? What did that signify?
What was the crowd expecting from Jesus? How do you think it affected their attitude towards Him when He didn't overthrow Rome?
What are some things people want "saved from" today? How do people react when Jesus doesn't give them what they want? How should that shape how believers pray?
Breakout Questions:
Pray for one another:
Passionately
Persistently
Specifically