When the King Comes

Living in an age of pandemic has brought a lot of questions for a lot of people. For instance, some people are asking questions around policy, some people are asking questions around strategy, and those are legitimate, justifiable questions that we all have, because we've never seen anything quite like this. But, I'm thinking about questions that are little bit more existential if I could use that term.

I've heard people that are asking not only me, but pastors and themselves whether they are people of faith or not people of faith, they're asking questions like this, "Is the world going to end? Or, "Is this a sign that the word is going to end?" These are real questions, and I guess before maybe answering that, maybe I would caution you, just a simple caution to say that hysteria and panic, probably not good for you. Particularly when you're dealing against something that may be trying to ravage your health. Lowering your immune system by panic and hysteria and stress won't be helpful at all.

In fact, I know that it's not helped much by some of the click-bait headlines that when if those of us read our news which many of us are at these points, sometimes we get those click-bait headlines. You know? 150 million Americans could be infected. Okay, thank you, that wasn't really meant to educate me, that was meant to scare me to click on that so that I would show up on that page. That's a real headline by the way. Or this one, the coronavirus burial pits are so vast you can view them from space. Okay. That's not even telling us the true story of what that article is about. It's a click-bait headline.

You know why those exist right? Just for everybody's knowledge, you know why those exist, because their concern is not so much that you stay on the page, it's just that you show up to it. Really they need you to show up to it, because there's advertisers that are paying for that space, and they want to make sure that their advertisers know that you're showing up there. So they don't really have any incentive to keep you on the page, they just want to know that you showed up there. In fact, if there were really incentive, then that would mean that we would have really well researched articles that aren't just kind of slam panic pieces. Some of those do exist, and I'm grateful for those journalist who do that. In many other ways it does nothing but kind of stir up panic in all of us. I would caution you about hysteria and panic, and sometimes it helps us actually maybe not to buy into, or to be baited by the click-bait that we see.

I would also remind you of this, that while panic and hysteria are no good for us, pandemics are serious. There's no question about that, we don't want to marginalize the seriousness of the world that we're living in. Those of us who saw the recent updates realize that we're in for this week, and next maybe, some real serious time, and that this may not end really soon. That can be troubling to many of us, right? It's disquieting in our souls a little bit. It makes us reflect, and hopefully it causes us to ask some questions that are little bit below the surface, maybe it gives us a little bit of perspective.

I've seen people online who've been kind of talking about what they want to do after all of this is over. Kind of after we get back to normal, so to speak. Some of them have just been hilarious and superficial. I want to go to a Mexican restaurant, and that's my dream. That's what some people are saying. Or, hey I don't want anything to change, I actually want to live in my pajamas. Right? You've got people that are talking about all of those things. My hope is that we would think a little bit more deeply. I'm seeing some people do that, in fact, when James Cordon was doing his live show, which is normally a little bit later, but it was in PrimeTime, his monologue at the very beginning was very reflective. I thought that was good, that he was reflecting on things that he was grateful for, people that he loved, and that he missed seeing face-to-face. I think we all share some of that, don't we? We all some of that feeling inside of us.

I would ask you maybe to go even one step farther, that maybe we could push this out just a little bit more, because I think I want to recognize something, and it's this. The world is going to end. I don't suppose that it's going to happen tomorrow, or maybe even the next week. But at some point, what we know is that it will end. I would wonder maybe if we realized that, what would we do? For instance, if you knew the world was going to come to a conclusion Tuesday, well then what? How would you live, what would you do? What would you think, what would you say? I think sometimes it's helpful for us to reflect on things like that. I'll talk about that just to a small degree, but sometimes if you take it out of the world of talk, and you put into another world, it helps us to pause and actually reflect, and actually think.

That's why art is so important for us in the world that we live in. Sometimes what art does is it takes us out of the normal mode of communication and puts us into a different mode of communication that helps us to process and think a little bit more differently. I asked Nick and our team if they could maybe borrow from an artist whose thought about something like this and maybe sing it so that we could reflect on that for just a moment even if it's a little fun to reflect on that for a moment, and light to reflect on it for a moment, but also maybe somewhat serious to reflect on it for a moment, so Nick, why don't you guys take that away.

I'm imaging that many of us probably identify with some of what we just heard, right? I know that I did even as I was reflecting on it, some of you don't get too caught up in the ice cream part, all right? Eating ice cream every morning, but I think that's a lot for us to think about. What if, in fact, the world was coming to a close and we knew that? What would we do, what would we say, how would we live? Those are worthwhile things for us to think about. Even though some of the things in that song I think were really perfect for us to be able to think about, is there more? Is there more that we should actually be considering? You can imagine that I'm probably going to say yes to that. The reason I'm going to say yes to it is because Palm Sunday is a perfect time to talk about that very thing.

Palm Sunday is about a celebration. It's about a celebration of the story of Israel's king, Jesus. Who is making his way into his people's world in Jerusalem. That's what Palm Sunday is the story about. Now, I don't use that phrase king lightly. When I say king, I mean king, that's how Jesus is portrayed. He's portrayed as the king who has promised to come to his people in Jerusalem. In fact, this story, Palm Sunday, is so important, this entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem is so important that all four of the gospels actually record this story. They realize that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John don't all record all of the same stories, so we can read them all together to be able to understand kind of the whole sweep of Jesus' life and ministry. All of them record this.

They have different angles on it, but they all record it, and for our purposes today I actually want to look in Luke's gospel. It's in chapter 19 if you've got a bible handy, or you're using a device there in your home, but I encourage you to take and look at it. Whether that's a physical copy, or whether that's a digital copy, to be able to open up to Luke chapter 19 and find your place there, because I want us to see what the text actually says about the story of the king.

Right away we see something. If you're taking notes, and you can maybe jot this down. Right away we see this, that Jesus talked like a king. It's one of the first things that we see when we start to look in the story of Palm Sunday. Look with me in Luke 19 beginning in verse 28. It says, "After Jesus had said this." In other words, Jesus had just told a parable, he had just told a story. "After Jesus said this, he went on ahead going up to Jerusalem. As he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples saying to them, "Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you'll find a colt there which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you why are you untying it, say, the lord needs it." Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them. As they were untying the colt the owners asked them, "Why are you untying the colt?" They replied, "The lord needs it."

Now this passage reminds us of something. When I tell you that Jesus was talking like a king, here's what I mean. Jesus actually gave his disciples instruction to go and get a colt of a donkey, a young donkey that had never been ridden. Now that's important, and the reason it's important is because in the old testament like in numbers chapter 19 or Deuteronomy chapter 21, we're reminded that animals who had never been ridden were set aside for a sacred purpose. So Jesus was actually telling them, "I'm going to ride this animal, it's never been ridden, this animal is for a sacred purpose." He's actually using the language of a king.

You see when Jesus said, "I want you to go get this colt who'd never been ridden and that's where I'm going to come in and process into Jerusalem on." He was calling to mind the prophecy of Zachariah chapter nine. In fact, in chapter nine it was Zachariah verse number nine, it says this, "Rejoice greatly daughter Zion, shout daughter Jerusalem, see your king comes to you righteous and victorious, lowly, and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey." So Jesus was actually calling all of this to mind when he gave the instruction to his disciples to go and get this donkey that had never been ridden. It's going to be for a sacred purpose, and what would that purpose be? It would be to transport the king into Jerusalem.

I find it interesting that likely, the very first animal that Jesus every rode, his very first ride was on a donkey in the belly of his mother when they were going where they were going, and then his last ride on an animal was on a donkey making his way into Jerusalem. The king had come, and the king was coming. That was the picture of what we were seeing here, and Jesus was talking like a king, but he wasn't just talking like a king, he was also treated like a king. In fact, that's kind of the second piece here, that he was treated like a king.

I want you to see it in verses 35 through 40 in our text, it says this, "So they brought the donkey to Jesus, and they threw their cloaks on the colt, and they put Jesus on it. As we went along, people spread their cloaks on the road. When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen. Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord, peace in heaven and glory in the highest." Some of the pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, "Teacher, rebuke your disciples." I tell you he replied, "If they keep quiet, the stones will cry out." You see Jesus was being treated like a king here, he was celebrated, he was being honored, he was being proclaimed as king, and truthfully by some that were in the know, he was being proclaimed as messiah.

What's interesting about this is, the way that they were treating Jesus gave everybody an indication that he was being treated like a king. Because what it calls to mind is what happened in the life of David's son. You see Jesus was this picture, this seed of David, this branch of David that was going to come as the messiah, as the king. But David's actual biological son, Solomon, was treated in a very similar way. In fact, when he processed where he did it was in the Kidron Valley, which is right at the base of the Mount of Olives, exactly where Jesus was headed was down the Mount the Olives, I've walked this walk many times in Jerusalem. Down the Mount of Olives into the Kidron Valley is right where the procession of Solomon occurred as well. Notice what is says in First Kings Chapter one about Solomon. It says Zadok the priest, Nathan the profit, Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, the Cherethites and the Pelethites, and electrolytes, and the mosquito bites, and the all the rest of them, went down and had Solomon mount King David's mule. They escorted him to Gihon.

Zadok the priest took the horn of oil from the sacred tent, and anointed Solomon. Then they sounded the trumpet, and all the people shouted, "Long live King Solomon." All the people went up after him playing pipes and rejoicing greatly so that the ground shook with the sound. Now that's an extraordinary reminder that they were celebrating King Solomon in a similar way that they were celebrating King Jesus. If I were adding to this, Jesus talked like a king, and Jesus was treated like a king, and even though you don't have to write this down, if I were adding to this I would tell you this, Jesus also smelled like a king. You see the night before this all happened, Jesus was on the other side of the Mount of Olives in a town called Bethany. It's quite literally just over the east side, right over the Mount of Olives. Bethany is a place where, you might remember Mary and Martha and Lazarus who was raised from the dead, that's where they were from.

Do you know that during that time that Jesus was there he was anointed by a woman with expensive perfume, and now as he entered into the actual city of Jerusalem he had a kingly smell to him, which, by the way, when you read Song of Songs and you see First King's chapter one where it talks about Solomon's being anointed and Song of Song's talks about how the entire aroma around him smelled like a king, because he was anointed with all of these perfumes, Jesus smelled that way as well. So he's a king, and he's making his way into Jerusalem. He talked like a king, he was treated like a king, he smelled like a king. But what I want to point our attention to is what happened next.

As Jesus is making his way in on this donkey and people are celebrating with palm branches and their putting those things in front of him as he comes, and they're celebrating him as a king, notice what happens in versus 41 and 42 of Luke 19. As Jesus approached Jerusalem and he saw the city, he wept over it, and he said, "If you, even you had only known on this day what would bring you peace, but now it's hidden from your eyes." This is a startling statement that Jesus makes, and the fact that Jesus enters into the city weeping is a reminder of what transpired. Maybe if I were putting it in terms of a point I would say something like this, that Isreal rejected the king's peace terms.

This is sobering for us to realize that Isreal rejected the king's peace terms. You see when the text itself says that if you had only known on this day what would bring you peace, the idea there is that peace terms have been set out to you by the king, and you've rejected them. Now you might look at this text and say, "Well it doesn't sound like they're rejecting him, because it says if you would have only known on this day what would bring you peace. It sounds like they didn't know at all." Well it's a different kind of know. You see Jesus entered into Jerusalem knowing that he was coming into a city of people who had rebelled against the crown. That they had rejected their true king, God, and his messiah Jesus. Generally speaking, not everyone, but generally speaking.

Some had actively rejected him, some were actually actively trying to see him killed, and there were others who were just passively rejecting him, they just want to go about their lives, do what they're doing, right? They didn't want this interruption. So Jesus knew he was coming to a group that had rebelled against the crown, had rebelled against the kingdom, and Jesus weeps. He's crying over the city, and he says, "If you would of only known on this day what would bring you peace." What the terms of peace are. Now that word know, doesn't mean that they'd never heard it before, it meant an intimacy of knowledge. Whether they'd actually come to a place of belief, where they'd known and accepted and actually believed these things. Because it wasn't a matter of them not having heard of the terms of peace.

In fact, if you back up a bit into Luke 13, notice what it says in verse 34 and 35. Jesus says, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the profits and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Look your houses left you desolate, I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord." Jesus, even then, earlier on, probably a year prior to this event actually said to Jerusalem, "You didn't realize that I wanted to draw you all in, but you were unwilling. So you're not going to hear from me again until they're saying blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord."

Palm Sunday is when they were doing that very thing. Jesus also gave Jerusalem a clue in talking to the religious leaders in Luke chapter 17. It says this, "Once when being asked by the pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, "The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say here it is, or there it is, because the kingdom of God is in your midst." You see what the people were failing to realize is that Jesus was saying something incredible to them in different ways. It was this, that he is God's terms of peace. The king of the kingdom is among you. That's what he was saying to them. The kingdom of God is in your midst, the king of the kingdom is in your midst, Jesus himself is in your midst, and he was saying to them, "I've longed to gather you in, I'm offering myself for you, but you were unwilling."

See ladies, and gentlemen, Jesus is God's term of peace. This is about Jesus, but Isreal, they rejected the king's peace terms. That's what it means when Jesus said, "Had you only known on this day what would bring you peace." That actually translates into if you would have only understood the terms of peace you were being offered in Jesus. So Isreal rejected the king's peace terms, but secondly Isreal received the consequences of that rejection. This is a sobering reminder here for us, because we see that they actually received the consequences of rejecting the king. He offered them terms of peace, but they rejected it and there were consequences.

Look in verse number 43 and 44. Jesus said, "The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you, and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls." Notice that Jesus actually phosphide over the people that rejected him. Their consequences, that judgment, it didn't come immediately. But it came surely. It was about 40 years later. In 70AD where the Roman general Titus led in the Roman army to come in and to destroy Jerusalem. The temple is ransacked, not a stone left on the other, it was just destroyed. People were starved and killed. When I read some of the history around this written by historians of that time, it's harrowing to read. It was an awful thing, and Jesus of course is weeping over the city when he comes in, because he realized, I'm offering you terms of peace, it's me, myself, right? I don't want to see you reject what God is offering to you in me. I want to see you reconcile to God.

But they reject that and Jesus said, "My heart breaks, because you'll face consequences related to that rejection." Although that didn't happen that day, it happened surely. What Jesus prophesied was exactly what happened. He had offered them terms of peace, but they were unwilling to receive it, and there was consequences associated with that.

There's a third thing here I don't want you to miss. Isreal didn't recognize the time of the king's coming. This is something that we see when we continue to read the text. In verse 44 it says this, Jesus said, "They won't leave one stone on another." When he was prophesying about their destruction. "Because you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you." Boy that's a sobering thing to think about, isn't it? That they didn't recognize the time of the king's coming. The king had showed up just like had been promised, just like the old testament predicted. The king was going to show up to his people, and when he did, they did not recognize his coming.

In fact, Luke tries to make that really clear for us, because just prior to the story of Palm Sunday, he records Jesus telling a parable. I won't read the whole parable because it's really long, but the parable is set up this way, there's a king who went to a country, or one born of noble birth who went to a country to be anointed king and then to return, but his subjects rejected him. That was the core of where that parable started. There's a lot of other meanings to that parable, certainly. But it's basically about a king whose subjects rejected him. So Luke gives us Jesus telling that story and then tells us the story of Palm Sunday. They did not recognize the time of the king's coming, they missed it.

Man, they missed God's promised visitation to them. Can you imagine that? Missing God's visit? They also faced the consequences of that rebellion. No, the world didn't end when that happened, but here's what I would tell you, some of their worlds were going to come to an end not long there after. The world itself didn't end, but their world was going to. See Palm Sunday is sobering, the whole story is sobering, but it's also full of rejoicing. You've got this picture of both joy and sorrow, celebration of waving palm branches and Jesus receiving people that are celebrating him as king but in the next moment he's weeping over the city. It's a story of joy and sorrow. It's a story of worship and warning. Palm Sunday is really both kind of excruciatingly joyful and excruciatingly painful all at the same time. It's a story about Isreal and Israel's king, but it's also a story about us.

That's what I don't want us to miss today. You see, every single one of us, friends, every single one of us has been a rebel to the crown. That's why the bible says that we've all sinned and come short of the glory of God. The payment or the wages of that sin is death. By death that doesn't mean that we'll just physically die even though it certainly includes that, it actually refers to a spiritual separation from God. If we choose sin and rebellion against God, instead of what God has offered us in his terms of peace in Jesus, then we'll be separated from God. That's not a place that we want to be living. You see, the message of Palm Sunday is pretty straight forward for us. Maybe if you're jotting it down and you want to be able to reflect on this a little bit more you could just write this down.

Palm Sunday's message is this, the king has come to offer peace. Will you accept his terms before it's too late? That's the message of Palm Sunday. The king has come to offer peace. Will you accept his terms before it's too late? We don't get to make the terms of peace. That's not up to us, we have all rebelled in our hearts either actively or passively. We might be like some of the people of Jerusalem. For some of them life was good, life was normal, right? Everything was just moving along. They had jobs, and they had friends, and they had school, and they had family. Everything was just moving along and they were just moving with it. Even when Jesus showed up and what happened with Jesus, it didn't create a huge interruption for them. They may have heard some of the things that he said, some of the things he claimed, and they may have been just too busy living their lives, enjoying their friends, going to school, working, enjoying their family, eating big meals, whatever they wanted to do, right?

I can tell you this, by the time 70AD rolled around, life changed in a hurry, drastically. All of a sudden, now the Romans are invading, people are being hymned in, they're being starved to death, if they try to flee some of them are being killed, it is an awful scenario and immediately everything changed for these people. What about us? For them, I bet you they started asking bigger questions. When life stops you cold, you start asking bigger questions, this isn't just about, "Oh man, when this is over, when this attack is over, I'm hoping to go to my favorite restaurant." That's not what they were thinking about. They were thinking about questions of deep, deep importance.

I wonder if we need to be doing the same. What if the world stopped in its tracks? Well, it has. Our world has functionally stopped in its tracks. I don't think, by the way, that the world is ending tomorrow. Not at all. But here's what I do want to remind us of. When the world stops in its tracks and we feel sometimes the pain of that, whether that's financial pain, or whether it's physical pain, or whether it's the pain of separation, the pain of relational separation, we feel all of that. Maybe if causes us to ask some bigger questions too. Maybe the question isn't a question of panic saying, "Is the world going to end?" I don't anticipate that this is going to be the end of the world. But all of our worlds are going to end at some point, all of them. Maybe it takes the world coming to a standstill to get our attention about that very thing.

What would happen if the world ends? What would happen if my world is coming to an end? What would I think, what would I do, how would I talk? What about our souls, would we think about that? What about the terms that God established for peace? Not just the terms that we've been acting on as if we can somehow do that ourselves, but the terms that God actually established for peace, which was Jesus. What about that? You see when Jesus came in on this colt, this young donkey, and by the way, in doing that, you do realize Jesus didn't come in on a horse. When kings were on horses in the ancient world that usually indicated that they were prepared for war. But when they came in on a small animal like a donkey, or a young donkey, it meant they were coming in peace. Jesus entered Jerusalem to bring peace, to bring a message of how peace can be acquired.

Do you know that when he entered on that colt that he was the only one in the entire city that knew that he only had a week to live? He was the only one that knew that. Do you know what Jesus chose to do knowing that his life was going to be taken in one week? He loved. He died willingly for the sins of people that had rebelled against him. How incredible is that truth? Because you know why? He came in bringing peace, and that's what we wanted. From his very birth the angles were crying out, Peace, goodwill to men." This is why he came. He came to offer us peace with God, but God's terms of peace is Jesus. That is his terms. Jesus is the way the truth and the life and no one comes to the father except through him, why? Because Jesus is God's terms of peace. That it is only through faith in him and belief in him. Why is that? Here's why.

We could never save ourselves. It is impossible for us to do that. It can only be through faith in what Jesus has done, dying on a cross, taking upon himself our sin, taking upon himself the justice of God that deals with sin, and that through his resurrection from the dead we can put our faith in him and we now, because of what Jesus has done, not because of what we have done, can be reconciled to the father. This is the beauty of what Jesus has done on our behalf. He comes offering peace.

in fact, the way that Paul said it in the book of Romans I think is very apt for us, because he helped us to understand that this peace comes by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Notice how he articulated it in Romans chapter five. Paul said, "Therefore since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Through whom we have gained access by faith into the grace in which we now stand. You see at just the right time when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we've now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's rath through him?

For if, while we were God's enemies we were reconciled to him through the death of his son, how much more having been reconciled shall we be saved through his life? Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. In other words, we have been now put at peace with God by our faith in Jesus Christ. This is really remarkable. Jesus is God's terms of peace.

My encouragement to you, my exhortation to you is, won't you accept his terms? Jesus, before it's too late? You see, ultimately we can say and just move on with our lives and just reject passively or even reject actively God's offer of peace. But what I want to encourage you to do is to lay down your weapons of rebellion. What are those? Pride, it puffs us up and makes us think that we're something that we're not. Self-reliance, that somehow thinks that maybe we can be our own saviors. Self-righteousness that somehow thinks that we are good enough, and that if I do enough good things that God won't have a choice but to let me into his presence because I've walked a number of people across the street, and I've paid my taxes and I've raised my family. It doesn't work that way. We don't establish the terms, God does. God's terms of peace are Jesus and here's why.

All of us, every single person ever born has rebelled against the crown either actively or passively. Because of our sin we are separated from God. God is the only one who can bridge that gap and he has done that in Jesus. I want to encourage you to do something. Accept your defeat. Accept it. That ultimately, listen to this, ultimately sin that has grabbed a hold of every single human being, it wins unless we submit ourselves to the good king who loves us so much that he died for us even when we didn't care. Even when we didn't think about him, he was thinking about us. Even when we were in the midst of being embroiled in our sin, he still cared enough to die in our place so that if we would turn and put our faith in him, God now would receive us as he receives his own son. We would have forgiveness and new life in this life and promise of a life to come.

You see, ladies and gentlemen, the king has come. That's what Palm Sunday teaches us. I don't want you to miss the time of his visitation. Would you do me a favor? Wherever you may find yourself, not if you're driving, keep your eyes open, but maybe if you're at home, maybe you're in an office, wherever you might be watching this, would you just join me by just closing your eyes and getting in a posture for prayer for just a moment?

What I'm hoping for is this, I'm hoping that maybe wherever you are, if you've never come to a place where you have turned from your sin and put your faith in Jesus Christ as your savior and Lord, that today would be your day. I can't think of a better day than today, because Jesus walked in, or didn't walk in, but rode into Jerusalem basically saying this, "I've come to bring peace." Did you know that same invitation is available to you? That Jesus has said, "I want to bring peace." Yeah, maybe the world has come to a standstill and yeah maybe the world isn't going to end tomorrow, but our worlds are going to end at some point. Maybe now is a good place, a good time for us to reflect and to think about that reality.

If you've never before received Jesus, maybe you'd want to do that by simply receiving him by faith. You can do that by prayer, just by talking to him right where you are. Maybe it's in your living room, maybe it's in your kitchen, wherever you may find yourself right now. You can do that right now. He hears you, he sees you, he knows you, he loves you. Maybe you want to pray something like this in your heart, if you mean this with all the faith that you have, pray something like this.

Lord Jesus, I know that I've sinned and I can't save myself. So I submit to you as the true king of the universe who has loved me so much that you died in my place. A perfect sacrifice for an imperfect person. Thank you that you did that because you loved us, and thank you that you didn't stay dead, but you rose from the grave. So now with all the faith that I have, I put my trust in you and I receive you as the Lord and savior of the whole universe and as my Lord and savior. I pray this now in Jesus name, amen.

Now listen, if you just prayed that with me, and you meant it with your whole heart, I want to encourage you to do something. There are two ways that I would ask for you to connect with us, because we want to know about this. Not because we can embarrass you, but because we want to actually help you. We want to resource you. Okay? So two different ways that you can do this. Here's the first. You can go to thechapel.com/knowingjesus. When you go on there you're going to be able to find that you're going to be able to communicate with us maybe through a computer keyboard. Thechapel.com/knowingjesus or maybe you want to talk to somebody personally. I would just encourage you to call this number. 716-631-2636 I'm hopeful that we'll be able to put that up on a slide for you to be able to see. 631-2636. So either thechapel.com/knowingjesus or call the church number and it will be directed to somebody who could talk to you about what it means to follow Jesus.

Maybe we could talk to you about some next steps, some resources that'll be able to help you in your journey of faith. Because ladies and gentlemen, what we don't want to miss about Palm Sunday is that the king has come, and we don't want you to miss the time of his visitation.

Father, I pray that you would write that truth on all of our hearts today. That in times like we're in where the world has seemingly come to a standstill, while the world may not be ending, we know that it will at some point, and even if it's not today or even if it's not next year, even if it's not in 100 years, we do know this, that our world, our personal world will end at some point. So we want to make sure that we reflect on, and that we deal with and that we answer these most important questions of the world. That is this, will be accept the kings terms of peace? That it's only in Jesus that we can be saved and transformed. Father, would you help us if we already believe, if we've already been transformed, would you help us to have a heart for people who have yet to know you? We would show them and demonstrate to them the love and the life and the truth of Jesus Christ?

Father, I trust you to do that in our hearts even through this passion week and this Easter season where we celebrate the risen Lord and savior who came to bring us peace. Would you help us to be people who bring the peace of Christ into other people's chaotic world so that they too can understand that king Jesus wants to give them peace as well? We trust you to do this, in Jesus's precious name, amen.