Palm Sunday--Choose Your Attitude by Rick Gillespie- Mobley
Luke 19:28-19:40
Choose Your Attitude
April 17, 2010 Palm Sunday Zech 9:9-12 Matt 21:1-11
We are in part two of our series, “Hope Is on The Way, Jesus is Coming.” Last week, we saw how Jesus was wrapping up his ministry as he made up his mind to go to Jerusalem. Palm Sunday is the Sunday before Jesus is going to be killed. He is going to come into the city, riding on a donkey, and the streets will be lined with people as much as you would see in a parade today. They will be waving palms, and shouting “Hosanna, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” Many people who have not had a chance to see Jesus do a miracle, are hoping to either see one or experience one today .
In Jerusalem there was plenty of excitement because people had a feeling that Jesus was coming and that something big was about to happen. The quality of the hope they possessed depended a lot on the attitude they had toward Jesus. Those who loved Jesus the most, were the most thrilled about him entering the city. They had the greatest amount of hope of what a difference Jesus was going to make in their lives. Those who loved Jesus the least, were nowhere near as excited. “If he comes, he comes, if he doesn’t, he doesn’t.”
Your hope for what God can do in your life, is going to be affected by your attitude toward Jesus. There are some things you are hoping for today, that you will not obtain if your attitude toward God is not what it should be when Jesus approaches you. You may say, how does Jesus approach me today when he left 2000 years ago. Jesus is coming to you today, through this message, through the word of God, and through people he is sending into your life. He’s coming, because he wants to bring you hope.
This past week, we saw the tragedy of a mother who took her children and drove them into a river to kill her and the kids. Fortunately one of the children survived. The reason she did this, is because she had no hope in her situation. When we have no hope, life becomes difficult. If she had had the hope, that Jesus is coming to her situation, she would probably still be alive today.
Palm Sunday was like a great big parade as people looked anxiously to see if Jesus was coming yet. Life itself is like a parade. You never quite know what is coming next. Although you cannot determine, what’s coming, you can determine what your attitude toward whatever it is, is going to be.
Our attitude is a choice. It is something that’s very valuable, because it lets us be in control of how we feel inside.
If attitude was not a choice, we could not follow Christ, because Jesus requires of us some unexpected attitudes in certain situations. Have you ever had anyone tell you, you need to change that attitude or get rid of that attitude as soon as possible? To have hope in Christ goes along with us deciding to have the right attitude.
Jesus knows that Palm Sunday is the last time he will be marching to the adoration of the crowds. Now Jesus has less than a week to live, and He knows it fully well. He has finally decided to make it known publicly that He is the long awaited Messiah, the King that God’s people has been waiting for, for hundreds of years. We read in the Old Testament a prophecy about a King who would come into the city riding on a colt. Zechariah predicted it would happen over 500 years before Jesus was born. The time had finally come and Jesus was ready to take the next step. Can he count on everybody’s cooperation?
He’s starting to get ready for his whole reason for being ,which was to obey God the Father. He calls his disciples and chooses two of them. Let’s look at Luke 19:30-31 "Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 31If anyone asks you, ’Why are you untying it?’ tell him, ’The Lord needs it.’ Now the word Lord here, is the name for God which is found in the Old Testament.
So Jesus is saying, tell them “God is about to do something great with it." Now here’s the first opportunity for an attitude problem that could affect our hope for Palm Sunday. Suppose you had been there as one of the disciples. Would you have gotten upset and became envious that Jesus chose those two and not you? Some kind of miracle is going to take place with this colt. Why do they get to be the ones to go?
Few things are as damaging to the body of Christ, than people having the attitude, “I should have gotten that part, or my child should have had that part.” The attitude of envy causes us to say things about others that should never be said. We question their motives, their hearts, and their intentions. We forget that we are called the body of Christ, not the interchangeable parts of Christ. Jesus does not treat us the same, because He has different roles and ministries for each of us to fulfill.
Some of us would have said, “if he was going to do it for the two, then he should have done it for the 12. That’s the only way to be fair.” Our hope is not to be a fair church, but to be a loving and obedient church. Your hope for your life should not be to make sure you are always fairly treated, but to make sure you surrender to God wherever God asks you to surrender.
Sometimes we get upset with others over God’s call on their lives, when we do not understand what price they have paid to get to where they are. Sometimes God cannot use us in the spot light, because we’re unwilling to pay the price to get there.
Now here are these two disciples are going on the word of Jesus, hoping to be a part of whatever God is up to doing with the colt. As they are walking along, one of them probably said, “So how much money did Jesus give you for the colt.” The other said what, “I thought he gave you the money to pay for it.” What’s our attitude when God calls us to do something, but God does not give us anything to accomplish it with except His Word. All we know is that God told us to do it, but we feel like we’re left hanging out there. Is our hope still, Jesus is coming, and together we’re going to get through this.
Now suppose Jesus had told you, “go to Parma Town Mall. Near the main entrance there will be a brand new blue car with the keys inside of it. Bring it back to me. If the security or police ask you what you’re doing in the car, just tell them the Lord needs it.” How many of you would feel comfortable with Jesus’ instructions? Many times doubt will linger around us when God tells us to do something. You see God can’t choose some of us, because God knows, we will not go through with the task. We start asking, “Is this going to work? How can I get this done? Where am I going to get the money?” In times like these we have to choose the attitude of faith. God told me to do this for a reason. Because God sent me, God will keep His word.
Sure enough, the two disciples found the colt exactly as Jesus had said, in the place where he told them it would be. Everything is going fine. They go over to start untying the colt. All of a sudden there is this booming voice saying, “Hey that’s our animal. What are you doing untying the colt?” All of a sudden you’re being surrounded by some guys looking pretty angry.
Now if it had been some of us, we would have gotten a self righteous attitude. “Don’t be accusing me of being a thief. I just made a mistake. I didn’t know this was your animal.” You see we can become so interested in how we look in a situation, that we forget what it was Jesus told us to do.
Jesus did not say defend yourself. He said, tell them the “Lord needs it.” When they said, “The Lord needs it”, the owner’s attitudes immediately changed from anger and suspicion to cooperation.
Now God had previously spoken to their hearts to bring out their prized possession, a beautiful colt upon which no-one had ever ridden. But God did not tell them how He was coming to get it. They may have been waiting for an angel from heaven to come and pick it up. They certainly were not expecting two ordinary looking men, who they mistook as thieves. We need the right attitude even with strangers, because we never know when Jesus is right in our midst.
When the owners heard, the words, “The Lord needs it”, they were eager to let it go. According to Matthew’s gospel not only did the owners send the colt, they sent along the donkey’s mother as well, so the disciples took both animals back to Jesus. God must have spoken to their hearts some time ago, “don’t ever ride on that colt, I have need of it.”
Some times God tells us to hold on to something that we might want to use for ourselves, because He has a higher purpose for it. This particular colt symbolized sacredness or holiness in that it had never been ridden before. Animals and things used for sacred purposes in the Old Testament had to be animals and things that had never been used before.
Now this colt was simply a young donkey. We do not highly prize the riding of a donkey, as a matter of fact, we would much rather see someone riding on a horse. But just like Jesus has a reason for why he chooses us, he had a reason for why he chose this new donkey. The donkey was used by Kings when they entered the city in peace. The horse or stallion was used by a King when he entered the city as a conqueror.
The donkey was also an animal of service used to carry the burdens and loads of people. So Jesus is preparing to come into the city fulfilling the prophecy in Scripture and presenting himself as the King of peace, ready to carry the burdens of others.
At the heart of Palm Sunday is Jesus’ desire to bring peace into our lives and to be willing to carry whatever burdens in life that are weighing us down. But the only way Jesus can complete his desire, is for us to allow him to march in and take over without having to fight us all along the way. Have you ever told God, ”you can march over there, but don’t come this way because I’m not yet ready to surrender.” Where ever Jesus is not fully welcome in our lives, is where the real battle is taking place for our attitudes. It’s what’s keeping our hope from becoming alive.
We’re doing all kinds of things hoping to find some peace, but God is saying, Jesus is coming and he is your hope for peace. You get peace, when you give him control of your life.
When the two disciples returned with the colt and the donkey, they placed their coats and garments upon the young colt to serve as a saddle for Jesus. The parade is about to start. As the parade began, different attitudes started to manifest themselves. The first group of people whose hearts are filled with hope show up and they want to immediately offer Jesus the best that they had. They took off their coats and clothing and begin to lay it down the pathway as to form a royal carpet for the animals to walk on.
They were not concerned that their clothes might not be reusable or that they would not be able to get them back. Their focus was on going all out to honor Jesus Christ. Is this your attitude when it comes to serving God? Lord you can count on me to give whatever I have without thinking about it. This was the group that gave Above and Beyond what was expected. There material possessions were being used to glorify God. They really shouted Hallelujah when it was time for the offering.
The next group coming with hope, wanted to offer Jesus something, but they were not fully committed to the cause. It’s the attitude of giving something good, even if its not the best they could give. They kept their coats and clothing, but they were willing to go and cut down the palm branches and lay them down as a means of honoring and respecting Jesus. They are in the parade and they look pretty good.
This is where most people are in the church today. They’re doing a pretty good job, and investing themselves in the work of the Jesus, but they haven’t decided that all that I am truly belongs to God. They believe it as a head knowledge, but its not a reality in their hearts. They are still not convinced that doing things God’s way is the best way to handle their lives. They have a hope, but it just doesn’t seem to get fulfilled.
Then there were those who were there who had a hope of getting something free, but they never actually became a part of the parade, they just sort of stood alongside the road and cheered a little bit. They were willing to take notice of Jesus and to even give him a handclap, but they were too concerned with other things to actually get involved. As soon as Jesus passed them by, they went on about their business as people do once the parade is gone.
Where does your hope have you today? Is it an all out hope saying yes Lord, use me, here is my time, my money, my love, my obedience , my everything. Is it a partial hope, wanting God to use you, but not too much and only on your terms, without asking too big of a sacrifice. Is it simply, God do something for me, but leave me alone to live my life as I please.
There is so much more God wants to do for us all than what we have experienced. But God will not force it upon us.
There were thousands and thousands of people there on Palm Sunday as Jesus marched into the city. You see Jerusalem has hills all around it, and if you were on the right hills, you could easily see Jesus riding in on the donkey. You got to decide how close you wanted to get to Jesus then, just like them you get to decide today how close you want to get to Jesus. Palm Sunday was the only time in Jesus’ life that he allowed the people to declare him as King and to openly receive their praise and worship as a crowd.
The people shouted out, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.” They were saying, “you’re the one whom God has sent.” Matthew tells us, the people were also shouting out Hosanna to the Son of David. Hosanna literally means to “save us now.” The people are shouting in our terms, “You’re the one God has sent save us now. You’re the one God has sent save us now.”
In Jesus’ day, the nation of Israel was under the power of the Roman empire who had sent soldiers to occupy the nation of Israel. The people hated the Roman government. The people were hoping that Jesus was coming to overthrow the power of Rome. They are all excited about what’s going to happen next. They are going wild in their praises and expectations of what Jesus is going to do. But remember Jesus did not come into the city riding a stallion, he came riding a donkey. He was not coming to destroy the Romans, but rather to deal with the issue of sin in our lives.
The moment we think of Jesus coming, what do we hope is going to happen. Are we hoping for something Jesus can do for us, or are we hoping for something that Jesus is going to do in us. The former says Lord help me to get this new house, the latter says, Lord help me to be more loving to those in the home I am already in. The former says, “Lord do this healing for me right now, the latter says, lord may I demonstrate your grace through this trial I am passing through.” One of the things the Palm Sunday crowd is going to have to deal with, is that Jesus always comes on His terms. His agenda is to lead us into a deeper relationship with God, so that He might change our lives, and we will receive that which is truly important in life.
My biggest problem in life is not the amount of money I make. It is not the size of my church. It is not the people I have to deal with. It is not even who is in control of Congress. My biggest problem is the sinful nature inside of me that keeps trying to tell me, I can find joy in life outside of the will of God for my life. I have a tendancy to forget that the bible says, sin is pleasure able but only for a season. The consequences dramatically outweigh the fun you had. Payday is often far removed from the moment of pleasure.
My hope is that Jesus is coming, again in my life today, so that I can receive his presence and His peace. That’s the only way I will know contentment in who I am, with what I have, in my circumstances right now. Jesus is coming my friend. You can walk away and keep ignoring him, you can stand to the sideline, and let him pass you by, hoping you get to see him again some day., Or you can step out front, began to take off you coat and lay it down and declare, “you are the son of God, the hope of my life. I am here to say yes to your will for me. Change me oh Lord. Change me.
Sermon Outline Pastor Rick 3/24/2011
Hope Is On The Way-Jesus Is Coming
Zecharian 9:9-12 Matthew 21:1-11
Luke 19:28-40
A. Hope Is On the Way
1. Palm Sunday—The Meaning
2. Something Exciting About To
Happen
3. Hope Is Tied To Attitude
4. Tragedy Of No Hope
B. The Great Parade
1. What’s Next
2. Jesus With Just A Week To Go
3. Old Testament Prophecies
C. Jesus Prepares For The Entry
1. When Jesus Says To Go
2. Attitude Of The Disciples
3. Our Attitudes Today
4. God’s Plan For The Body
5. Not Fairness But Obedience
D. Going Out On A Limb
1. I Thought You Had It
2. Check Out Parma Town Mall
3. The Attitude Of Faith
4. It’s Not Mine, It’s God
E. Taking Some Risks
1. The Lord Needs It
2. Holding It For A Higher Purpose
3. Riding The Donkey
4. Riding A Stallion
5. Donkey Burden Bearer
F. Jesus Is Coming With Peace
1. March In Anywhere
2. Where The Battle Is Taking Place
3. Where Is Our Peace
G. The Parade Begins
1. The All Out Group
2. The Above & Beyond
3. The Almost Group
4. Something Is Due
5. The Church Today
6. The Something For Free Group
H. Our Choice To Be In A Group
1. We Decide How Close
2. We Decide The Honor
I. The Expectation Of Deliverance
1. Deliverance From Rome
2. Jesus Not On A Stallion
3. What Is My hope
J. My Biggest Problem
1. My Money
2. My People
3. My Government
4. My Sin
K. The Hope Of Jesus Coming
1. Knowing Contentment
2. Making A Choice
3. Crying Out For A Change
Come Hand Out Flyers In The Community This Week Or Take Some Flyers To Invite Those In Your Neighborhood To Know The Hope Of Jesus’ Coming. See Pastor Rick If You Want To Help Out.
Do Join Us Today At Calvary Presbyterian Church At 3pm To Celebrate The Hope That Jesus Is Bringing To Our Two Churches As We Venture Into Ministry Together For The Next Two Years. Food Will Be Served Prior To The Service, So The Earlier You Arrive Before 3, The More You Will Have To Eat.
After Service Today, Head Out To East 105th To Wave Palms To The Passing Cars On The Street.
