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[0:00] Good morning, guys. It's a cold Palm Sunday. It's the beginning of Holy Week, as you guys know. It's the week that commemorates the most important historical events in all of history, because Christianity is a religion built off of historical events. Amen?

[0:20] More than World War II, more than the signing of the American Constitution, more than 9-11, his death and resurrection are the most important historical events to occur.

[0:33] So it makes sense that we take time to focus on this, in this time of the Christian calendar. So we're going to be taking a break, as Janet mentioned, from our current sermon series in Revelation.

[0:45] Today, we're going to take a look at Luke's account in Jesus' triumphal entry in Luke 19, 28-44. That's Luke 19, 28-44.

[0:59] And as always, if you are in need of a Bible, and if you would like one, feel free to just raise your hand, and one of our members would be happy to gift you one. Let's bow our heads, and if you would, pray with me as we pray for the reading and preaching of God's Word.

[1:15] God, we are in need of strength. We are in need of mercy. We are in need of the things that only you can give to us. We are in need of grace.

[1:27] We are in need of every single one of your blessings. We are in need of Christ, the perfect Lamb, the one who was slain on our behalf, the coming King who came to bring us peace.

[1:41] We are an anxious, toiling people without you. We have no hope for peace without you. Show us the peace that we find in your Son. Give us eyes to see and ears to hear today.

[1:56] In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Please rise for the reading of God's infallible Word. And when he had said these things, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.

[2:15] When he drew near to Bethphage and Bethany at the mount that is called Olivet, he sent two of the disciples, saying, Go into the village in front of you, where on entering you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever yet sat.

[2:34] Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, why are you untying it? You shall say this, the Lord has need of it. So those who were sent went away and found it just as he had told them.

[2:49] And as they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, Why are you untying the colt? And they said, the Lord has need of it. And they brought it to Jesus.

[3:00] And throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. And as they rode along, they spread their cloaks on the ground. As he was drawing near, already on the way down the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.

[3:28] Peace in heaven and glory in the highest. And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, Teacher, rebuke your disciples.

[3:43] He answered, I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out. And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace.

[4:03] But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you.

[4:20] They will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation. This is God's holy and authoritative word.

[4:31] You may be seated. In Greek mythology, there is this story about a woman named Cassandra.

[4:45] Cassandra was the beautiful daughter and princess of the city of Troy. She was so beautiful that the Greek god Apollo courted her, tried to woo her, and did so by giving her the gift, the supernatural gift of divination, of being able to see the future accurately.

[5:07] But while she was all too eager to accept that gift, she actually rejected him as a romantic partner, essentially friendzoning him, right? And he's so upset that he ends up cursing her.

[5:21] He can't take away that power, but he curses her so that while she can accurately see the future, no one would believe her. So the story goes that while she was in Troy, she frantically warned her parents, the city, the people of Troy, of the dangers of the Trojan War, even of the Trojan horse, the deceptive ploy that the Greeks used to be able to hide soldiers inside the horse, invade the city, and bring destruction.

[5:52] But because of their stubbornness and because of the curse, no one would listen to her, even though she knew exactly what would bring peace to the city.

[6:06] Can you imagine laboring over a people that you want to be saved, but continue to reject the message that you know to be true and you know would be good for them?

[6:21] Well, we'll see that Jesus knows what that feels like in our passage today. Jesus knows what it feels like to bring the things that would make for peace, namely himself, only to be misunderstood and outright rejected.

[6:40] His disciples misunderstand what kind of kingdom, what kind of peace he's come to bring. And even worse, he's outright rejected by the Pharisees and all in the city of Jerusalem that refused to look to him for all their righteousness, for all their peace, refused to look to him as their Passover sacrifice.

[7:03] Because of that, while his entrance is triumphant with exuberant praise, it's also quite sad. So much so that even after receiving exuberant praise from his disciples, Jesus, he weeps.

[7:23] He is weeping over all who reject the peace that he has come to offer. Humbly, he came humbly to save them from their impending doom. But they reject it.

[7:35] And that same warning of rejecting Jesus is true of us today. Everything hinges upon what you make of Jesus. Who is Jesus to you?

[7:48] Is he your king? Will you serve him as king? Will you accept his peace? This passage this morning warns and exhorts us to worship Jesus as your coming king, who alone brings everlasting peace.

[8:09] Broke down the sermon by the three characters and actors that we see, namely, of course, Jesus, his disciples, and then the Pharisees. We'll see how Jesus is declaring himself as king.

[8:22] Next, we'll see how the disciples accept him as king. Those, he's not the king that they expected. And how the Pharisees reject him as king.

[8:35] Our passage opens with Jesus going on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. And throughout the book of Luke, Jesus has been foretelling his death, his resurrection, prophesying that Jerusalem will be the specific place where he will die.

[8:53] In the immediate chapter before our passage today, in Luke 18, Jesus warns them, see, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished.

[9:08] For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles, and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging him, they will kill him. And on the third day, he will rise.

[9:20] You see, this is it. This is the mission that Jesus has set out to do. This is the mission that the Father gave him. Jesus has been to Jerusalem before.

[9:32] But, you know, after a prediction like this, this visit is going to be very different. Despite all the suffering and pain Jesus knows awaits him in the city, he steps forth into his destiny with courage, without hesitancy or fear, because he loves us.

[9:52] In his highly praised book, Gentle and Lonely, Pastor Dane Ortlund writes, the cumulative testimony of the Gospels is that when Jesus Christ sees the fallenness of the world all about him, his deepest impulse, his most natural instinct, is to move toward that sin and suffering, not away from it.

[10:13] We see that deepest impulse here in the opening verse, to move toward sin, to bring peace no matter what the cost to him. And knowing this is his last week to live, Jesus is now ready to publicly reveal everything about who he is and what his ministry is all about.

[10:36] Throughout the Gospels, we witness Jesus perform miracle after miracle, saving, transforming lives, only to then tell these people, shh, don't tell anybody.

[10:51] And he does this because he wants them to keep what theologians have called the messianic secret. Jesus knew there was a right time for his death.

[11:03] And he knew that if he grew too popular among the Jews, the Pharisees, his enemies, could let their ugly envy and anger lead them to prematurely eliminate him before the right hour that Jesus knew, namely the Passover, so that he could be the Passover lamb.

[11:22] And his popularity has been growing and growing throughout his ministry, but now that the time is just right, literally five days, five days before his death, Jesus is ready to reveal who he is as the rightful king of Israel.

[11:39] And he also knows the consequences of that too, that he knows that the consequence of this would ultimately lead to his death. And just like there is no way for us to take back words that we say out of our mouths, there's no going back after Jesus' statement here.

[11:59] This event changes everything about him and how the public perceives him. I don't know what this says about me, that this is one of the first examples that came to my mind, but in the cinematic classic, The Princess Diaries, there's a scene where shy, introverted Mia is revealed to the public that she is the rightful heir to the throne of Genovia.

[12:33] And everything changes about how people treat her, about who she is. There's no going back to being normal Mia. In a similar way, Jesus proclaims that he, the lowly, poor son of a carpenter, a Galilean commoner, he was the rightful heir to the Davidic throne.

[12:57] And he does this by the vehicle of his choice. When he draws near to the Mount of Olives, Jesus sends two of his disciples to go fetch a cult on which no one has ever yet ridden.

[13:11] Now, we have to ask, why a cult? A lot of this goes over our 21st century Western sensibilities, but to a first century Jew, they understood what Jesus was doing.

[13:24] They understood the message that he was trying to proclaim. They would have known this because of the historical precedent set by kings in the past. We know that after King David, after his moral debacle of adultery with Bathsheba and killing off her husband, his family sort of turns into this dysfunctional mess.

[13:47] And he turns into this negligent king and father. And at the end of his reign, where the public is supposed to know who is supposed to be next, and while he's already previously promised his son Solomon the throne, his other son, Adonijah, tries to steal power, steal the throne, and publicly proclaims, I will be king.

[14:12] So the public is confused. Who's going to be king? Is it, was it Adonijah? Was it, was it Solomon? After being negligent, David finally steps in and corrects his course and establishes Solomon as king.

[14:30] How does he do this? He does it by having him ride into the city on a donkey. By riding a donkey into this city, the answer is unambiguous that Solomon is king.

[14:41] And on top of that, we'd be remiss if we don't, you know, click this bright blue hyperlink to Zechariah 9, 9, which reads, Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion.

[14:55] Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your king is coming to you. Righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

[15:10] When Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey, there is no doubt to everyone there what statement he is making by fulfilling this OT prophecy in Zechariah 9, 9, and literally hundreds more.

[15:25] Jesus is the indisputable, long-awaited, righteous, messianic king of Israel, bringing salvation to all who would believe in his name.

[15:36] Jesus knows it, the disciples know it, the Pharisees know it. As theologian N.T. Wright puts it, within his own time and culture, Jesus riding on a donkey over the Mount of Olives spoke more powerfully than words could have done of a royal claim.

[15:56] To enter in this regal way, Jesus sends his disciples on a quest, on a side quest to find a colt and he gives them very specific instructions.

[16:13] He gives them three. Go to this village, number one. At the entrance of this village, find a colt which he seems to supernaturally know that no one has ever ridden.

[16:24] And then number three, without asking the owners, start untying. If they object, Jesus teaches them to simply state, the Lord has need of it.

[16:37] So they go. Of course, it's Jesus. They find it exactly as he tells them. And they obey. In my imagination, they start nervously untying the colt.

[16:51] And lo and behold, the owners seem to catch them. And object. And say, why are you untying the colt? And I imagine the disciples, you know, they looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders and they said, the Lord has need of it.

[17:07] And it works. It works because it's likely that Jesus really is stepping in to the full role of a king here. Because back in those days, there was a principle that figures of state, rulers and kings, they could impress private property for their own personal use.

[17:31] So he possesses the donkey on that principle. And I think this is fascinating. The owners, which in the original Greek literally translates as lords, the lords of the donkeys submit and hand over the animal to the true lord of the universe.

[17:47] Isn't that true of us, brothers and sisters? If Jesus is our king, we should serve him as such. Everything we own is in the domain of his sovereignty.

[18:05] Whenever he points to this possession and he says, I have need of this, we must hand it over. It's the king. Whenever he points to our car or our time or money or this skill, we've got to turn it over.

[18:21] It's the king. We must. Actually, no, sorry, that's not a must. It's a we get to, right? We get to because we serve only out of the things that he has freely given to us.

[18:37] For what do we have that we haven't freely received? Everything we own, everything we are comes freely from the sovereign king. Every good gift comes from him.

[18:50] After all, in the hands of the savior is the most secure place to have our possessions. As Martin Luther comments, I've held many things in my hands and I have lost them all.

[19:05] But whatever I've placed in God's hands, that I still possess. One particular area that I believe Jesus is saying, I have need of this, is our homes in radically ordinary hospitality.

[19:26] Doesn't mean you have to be the best cook, thank God, or have the nicest furniture or even have a lot of space to host because Lord knows we struggle with that in Boston, Cambridge.

[19:41] Our hospitality must be radical, but it is ordinary. It's well documented that since the 1990s, we have become increasingly a lonely people.

[19:56] The U.S. Surgeon General has called, quote, our epidemic of loneliness and isolation and underappreciated public health crisis. We don't need figures of state to tell us that.

[20:10] We know that. We feel that, don't we? Our phones, our social media, they promise connectivity, community, to be known, but in the end, it feels like we are more distant than ever.

[20:25] And amid an epidemic of loneliness of our Christian homes, whether you live in a multi-storied house or live in a dormitory, the Lord is saying, I have need of this.

[20:40] Indeed, opening our doors to friends, family, church members, and even strangers, our homes transform into hospitable hospitals to heal the world of this public health crisis of their loneliness.

[20:58] This is how we show the world what authentic Christianity is all about. Author Rosaria Butterfield writes of hospitality in this way.

[21:09] Do Christian people practice Christian hospitality in regular, ordinary, consistent ways? Or do we think our homes are too precious for criminals and outcasts?

[21:22] Our homes are not our castles. Indeed, they are not even ours. I felt and witnessed the transformation that hospitality brings.

[21:35] Acquaintances come through the door and they leave as friends. Church members come through the door, but they leave as family. Haters of God come through the door, but they leave as lovers of God.

[21:50] Christine and I, along with many of you, have been blessed by this church's hospitality. And in part, in large part, we are part of this church because of hospitality.

[22:03] And God will continue to use our hospitality to build his kingdom, to build this church. May we submit everything we own, even our castles, to the Lord's purposes.

[22:15] going back to the scene, we see how Jesus' disciples do just that by submitting everything in their possession, even the very clothes on their backs.

[22:27] They bring back the donkey to Jesus. They set him on, the animal, not before throwing their cloaks on it as a regal seat. On top of that, they throw their cloaks on the ground lest the regal king or his donkey touch the dirty ground.

[22:43] They're pulling out all the stops, right? The royal red carpet treatment because they accept him as king. Just like they did for King Jehu in 2 Kings 9.

[22:57] But before we move on, I think it's important that we set the stage historically because it's well documented that the Jews at the time believed that their coming Messiah, the foretold Davidic king, he was coming to bring peace.

[23:15] I heard he touched him, healed the leper. Well, I heard that he raised a girl back to life. Believing he is the king, the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for the mighty works that they had seen.

[23:34] At a fever pitch, the crowd welcomes Jesus into Jerusalem with zealous, passionate worship and they proclaim, blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.

[23:48] Peace in heaven and glory to the highest. This is in fact the very first time in the book of Luke that Jesus is called a king. And this is the first time that Jesus accepts public worship like this.

[24:02] I would do this. Compare that to the disciples in Acts or even the angels in Revelation who all rightly reject the worship of man.

[24:13] But right now the most appropriate thing to do is to worship Jesus. The first part of that worship comes from Psalm 118, part of the Hallel, which was a group of Psalms from 113 to 118.

[24:29] And theologian William Barclay comments just how deeply ingrained these Psalms were into their Jewish culture. He writes, they were part of the first memory work that every Jewish boy had to do.

[24:44] They were sung often at great acts of praise and thanksgiving. They were an integral part of the Passover ritual. So it seems like with their heart songs that they learned at such a young age, they're singing it to the ultimate fulfillment of Jesus.

[25:05] Psalm 118 was also traditionally sung in pre-exilic Israel as a welcome to the king. Compare what the angels say at the birth of Jesus in Luke 2.

[25:18] I think this is such a fascinating scene because we see the near opposite. The multitude of angels they're proclaiming glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased.

[25:36] Do you see the contrast there? The heavenly angels there are looking down and saying peace on earth while the disciples on earth are looking up to heaven and saying peace in heaven all for the glory of Jesus all for the glory of God.

[25:54] throughout his life Jesus has united the praise of the earthly of the heavenly and it's appropriate for every corner of the universe to worship his name.

[26:07] And I have no doubt in this scene that they were they were crying they were laughing they were jumping they were hooping and hollering because their Messiah had come to come establish his earthly kingdom.

[26:23] That's what they believed. But on this side of the cross we know that their cries of joy will soon turn to cries of grief and disappointment in five short days.

[26:37] The disciples may have understood rightly how Zechariah 9.9 predicted of the coming Messiah bringing salvation but they probably scratched their heads when they read in that part and if you could throw that verse up there they called the Messiah the humble in Hebrew the word humble can also mean poor afflicted gentle lowly the disciples were only seeing Christ the conqueror not Christ the gentle and lowly suffering servant because we know that Jesus came to the city of Jerusalem not to submit Jewish enemies under his feet but to wash the feet of his father's enemies.

[27:26] As a church we're going through the book of Revelation and at Jesus' second and final coming there will be a time where he will come to judge and make war where he will subdue all his enemies under his feet and so in this passage Jesus has every prerogative to do the same to enter into Jerusalem and to submit his enemies under his feet in Revelation he comes riding in on a white war horse but in Luke in this passage he comes riding in on a peaceful doggy the animal associated with peacetime becomes offering peace his eyes are on the mission assigned to him by the father not to storm the capital with violence establish a worldly kingdom but to lay down his life for eternal peace for us and to establish his heavenly kingdom for Christ knows that the greatest problem in our lives is not a peace not a lack of peace politically but a lack of peace spiritually scripture teaches us that the invisible spiritual reality that's realer than the physical things that we see with our own two eyes just imagine standing on that last day before your maker as he rattles off all the ways that you have defamed you've betrayed you've forsaken his name can you imagine who could stand who could say a single word in defense those who feel overworked crushed oppressed complacent powerless and hopeless today they only feel so because they're feeling the effects of spiritual sin and separation from God not just because of broken political systems that's what

[29:29] Jesus came to fix Jesus Christ the righteous king came offering peace and this peace of God is peace with God for that purpose Christ came to this earth defeated all temptation to sin was betrayed forsaken beat mocked and crucified on our behalf so that not by our works not by our acts of hospitality not by the quality of our worship or our evangelism not by our works but by faith are we saved he who knew no sin became sin so that we might become the righteousness of God and notice how Zechariah 9 does not say that we need to go to him it says that Jesus comes to us he came not to be served but to serve this is amazing grace oh where would we be without Jesus where would we be without him don't you see how much he loved you so today we are beyond blessed to live between the advents the saints of old would have loved to know the things that we know now in this book we know that Jesus came ultimately not to save us politically but spiritually to free us not from the bondage of political rulers but the bondage of sin and death but church that is the greater miracle isn't it not the lesser sin compared to Rome is our greater enemy not the lesser isn't it so then we have to ask sometimes why isn't our worship like the crowds like these disciples when was the last time you worshipped like this do you worship like he has literally saved your life knowing what we know shouldn't our praise our excitement our joy exceed that of the crowds

[31:43] Tim Keller speaks of the importance of worship in this way the secret to freedom from enslaving patterns of sin is worship you need worship you need great worship you need weeping worship you need glorious worship you need to sense God's greatness and to be moved by it moved by who God is and what he has done for you I love that quote makes me want to worship I wonder if we worship little because we need little our text says that these crowds they worship because they believe in all the works that he had done so many of those miracles Jesus helped those who are in desperate need lepers who lost everything paralytics the blind from birth parents of a deceased child

[32:46] Jesus stepped in where there was no peace no chance for peace and he spoke and everything changed he they worshipped this way because they were desperate for him in other gospel accounts the crowds are yelling Hosanna Hosanna to the son of David Hosanna literally translates to please save please save us I beg you to save are you desperate for his help in the same way every morning when I rise to make Christ my treasure when things are going well Satan makes war against me to make me forget my need of Jesus when things are going bad and I'm having I'm having a tough time Satan makes war against me by making me forget that Jesus alone meets my needs retired pastor

[33:50] John Piper in such a call for way as he as he always does states the need to fight for faith every morning he writes I feel like I have to get saved every morning I wake up and the devil is sitting on my face that's why we have to put our phones down to lay our distractions aside and examine if our hearts are appropriately needing Jesus and when we are rightly needy we know that there is no problem too great for us to bring before the king of peace whether it's a struggling relationship depression anxiety a lack of job loneliness anger habitual sins Jesus can perform miracles in your life and while we pray for miracles we don't make the same mistakes that these crowds did that these disciples do no we have faith to trust that his spiritual blessings far outweigh his temporal physical ones so we turn to him because in him we find every spiritual blessing he is able to do far more abundantly than we ask or think

[35:06] Charles Spurgeon succinctly proclaimed I have a great need for Christ I have a great Christ for my need that's how we can worship Jesus with great worship with weeping worship with glorious worship but when we worship like this the king's enemies hates hates it they hate when we worship like this we see that even here with the Jewish leaders the Pharisees the final actors in this scene they reject Jesus' message of the kingship while the crowds are calling him king they refuse to do the same they call him a simple rabbi just like them and say teacher rebuke your disciples now some believe that this request of the Pharisees comes out of a genuine concern that this mob might turn into a political riot one that the Romans might only be too happy to squash with their military might but could be motivating their request but throughout the book of Luke

[36:17] Jesus has been constantly sparring with the Pharisees and at this point they are rebuked for their love of the praise of man their blindness to the times their obedience to man-made trivialities over the law of God so they are hurt they are offended they are angry and they're envious of Jesus so yes they could be afraid of Roman conquest but so much of their motivation I believe is out of envy in John's account he records them saying to each other you see that you are gaining nothing look the world has gone after him who here would have the audacity that during Sunday worship they're upset they're bitter have an upset face because all these people they're worshiping Jesus not not him not her who would have the audacity the hubris to do that yet exactly that's what the pharisees are doing so Jesus defends his disciples by saying

[37:27] I tell you if these were silent the stones would cry out now have you guys ever heard of the insult you're as dumb as a rock I hope you haven't heard that recently or told that to anybody recently but essentially Jesus is encapsulating that message to the pharisees right he's saying to these well-esteemed highly educated pharisees these uneducated these unpolished disciples know better than you they are in the right in fact these stones these inanimate objects with no brains they know better than you the pharisees fail to see with eyes of faith who Jesus is he is the king of the jews yes but he is the king of the cosmos all of the universe knows to worship him and because of their unbelief

[38:28] Jesus draws near to the city of Jerusalem and he weeps over it such a such a powerful scene this is one of the last things that you would expect Jesus to do after receiving such exuberant praise and it's a rare occurrence because Jesus only weeps three times in all of scripture but here Jesus isn't weeping over his really close friends Mount Martha or Lazarus he's weeping over the people that will drive nails through his hands and feet so while his rebukes of the pharisees may have been strong no one can say that he did not love them like a loving parent seeing their child go down a path to destruction he weeps over them he already knows and laments that they have rejected him just like they've rejected many of the prophets of old he knows that they're extremely hardened hearts out of that

[39:35]  God has judged them and blinded them to be able to see the things that would make for peace and just like the ot prophets like jeremiah or elijah jesus he weeps and this word is an emotional word it's a heavy word it's not a pretty cry it's a sobbing it's a heaving he wanted them to know the peace he wanted them to know how much he loved them and it's ironic that jerusalem the name meaning the city of peace has rejected what would have made peace for them in the same way it could be said that jesus weeps over all who reject him today because he wants all to come to full life in him are we as followers of jesus do the same to weep over the lost in this world are we pray with the weeping burden over our lost co-workers our family our friends this city this nation this world according to joshua project there are over three billion people i can't even wrap my mind around this i'm intimidated in preaching to just 70 people three billion people who do not know christ who are unreached with the gospel may we continue to grow in our love for the lost that we can express our love through tears because the jews did not know the time of their visitation jesus predicts a very dark day in jerusalem's future in this he even corrects his disciples who think that he's come to build an earthly kingdom that's not what he's come to doing that's clear from his prophecy he predicts a terrible siege of jerusalem the location of the temple just as every word of jesus's command to fetch the donkey came true every word we know came true of this prophecy we already talked about the political tensions between judea and rome and that did not stop after jesus died in 33 a.d we know that 33 years later in 66 a.d that there were tensions over taxes over money as seems like everything is about fighting over money roman leaders then they would plunder the temple treasury which the zealots did not like so they started a war for seven bloody years in the middle of the war during 70 a.d rome besieged jerusalem meaning their armies surrounded the city walls and prevented anyone in or out they starved the city to death and according to josephus the jewish historian starvation was so bad that one million jews had perished they couldn't even bury the body so they had to just toss them over the city walls worst of all to the jews the romans eventually broke in and destroyed laid waste to their temple their consecrated temple jerusalem was supposed to be the abode of god untouchable territory but as israel was exiled by assyria by by babylon in the past in the ot god definitively displayed his covenant wrath against israel but the christians in 70 80 church history records that they believed jesus's warnings in luke 21 to flee to the mountains and they escaped they fled the misery of this starvation across the jordan river in time and established the church in pelle it's been said that the most important thing about a person more than your income more than your nationality your personality your accomplishments is what you make of jesus this passage paints this truth into reality jesus is proclaiming the unambiguous message that he is the king of peace the king of the cosmos but what happens to those who reject him he'll weep over you this historical event is a warning of the greater judgment day to come and that final day he will judge the living and the dead there's salvation in no one else for there's no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved it's the name of jesus so what will you do will you heed his warning will you know the time of your visitation will you pledge your allegiance to the king and renounce all other pursuits of peace outside of him if you have not accepted jesus as your king our deepest prayer is that today would be the day of your salvation this is undoubtedly the most important week of all of church history all of history in general use this week i urge you to explore who jesus is that he is neither a legend a lunatic or a liar but he is lord lord of the universe and lord over our lives who's laid down his life for you everything hinges upon his name let the king of glory come in let's let's pray oh jesus we know that everything hinges upon you and your name that when we have you we are the richest people in all the universe and apart from you that we lose everything oh god please give us eyes to see ears to hear that you are the lord who's come to give us the peace that we can never find with anyone else give us god desperate hearts after you needy hearts humble hearts and say lord jesus you alone are what we need you are more than enough for us you are our greatest treasure oh father bless us we need you and your help your name we pray amen