Prepare The Way – Palm Sunday

Have you ever gotten your hopes up for something, only to experience the disappointment of it going differently than you had hoped?

John 12:3

Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

John 12:4-6

But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.” He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.

John 12:7-8

“Leave her alone,” Jesus replied. “It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.”

John 12:10-11

So the chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus as well, for on account of him many of the Jews were going over to Jesus and believing in him.

The Responses to Jesus:

  • Sacrificial Worship. 
  • Selfish Hypocrisy.
  • Religious Hatred.
  • Abundant Life.

John 10:10

I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

  • There are no neutral responses to Jesus’ arrival in our lives. 

Matthew 21:7-9

They brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

Matthew 21:12

Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 

Matthew 21:15-16

But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple courts, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they were indignant. “Do you hear what these children are saying?

Palm Sunday Responses to Jesus:

  • People worshiping with palm branches. 
  • Selfish hypocrites selling sacrifices.
  • Religious leaders hated authentic worship. 
  • Abundant life was being given to the unlikely and ignored.

Matthew 21:14 

The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them.

Jesus came to be my refuge in my pain, not the reliever of my pain.

  • Jesus’ arrival always brings victory and peace with him.

Luke 19:41 

As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it.

It’s hard to impact a person’s life that you won’t get close enough to touch

  • Jesus’ arrival is about bringing dead things back to life for His Glory. 

Our heart toward Jesus will not affect His heart toward us

Action Step:

Choose to respond to Jesus in a way that brings abundant life

“Today is mine. Tomorrow is none of my business. If I peer anxiously into the fog of the future, I will strain my spiritual eyes so that I will not see clearly what is required of me now.” – Elizabeth Eliott

Consider This:

Think of how different everything would be if one person from each area of your life got saved.

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