Speaker 1 0:17

[inaudible]

Speaker 2 0:33

Hey friends, happy Palm Sunday. I think you say it like that when he was Larry and one of the pastors here, I want to welcome you. If you're with us online today, I'm so thankful that you are welcoming us into the space where you're at and you're doing the hard work of just continually connecting. And when you're ready, we are ready there. We have space here and both of our buildings in San Francisco, they're an orange now and they can sing inside. That's a big deal. We, we actually, haven't been able to sing inside in San Francisco, do their regulations for a year now. So today it's a big day for them because they're singing inside and there's something about corporate worship together. Yeah . So I am really excited for their day there. And if you're with us from the San Francisco campus, there's space for you when you're ready again, we're doing our best to keep you guys feeling comfortable. And with our kids service opening up at the Benicia campus, like Vanessa said, for Easter, really looking forward to just seeing what's next and gathering again, and being intentional about what we're doing and what we are experiencing. So we have been doing this series. We call it or conversation called journey of stones, where we have been on a journey, just grabbing different stories throughout the scriptures and the new Testament. And then even in the life of Jesus or in reflection of the life of Jesus, from some of the disciples that wrote letters that involve stones or rocks, and I've really enjoyed the different kinds of conversations we've had. And today we're kind of leading up to the end, ultimately, we're next week, we're going to talk about a stone that was rolled away, which is the resurrection. But today we get to talk about how even the stones will cry out. And this is a Palm Sunday message. Some of you guys may be familiar that this is Palm Sunday. You might even not know why it's called Palm Sunday. And so we're going to walk through what Palm Sunday is from Luke 19, and we're going to unpack it as we go. So hopefully you all leave here with a better understanding of what we're walking into this week. As we lead to Easter, this is called Holy week now. And we're ramping up towards good Friday and this Easter service. And there's different experiences as those who practice lint , you know, see kind of the end of that and this deep connection where we get to have with God and commune him. So I'm going to dive right in. I'm going to read you a ton of stuff right now, and then we're going to unpack it. So this is Luke 19 after Jesus had said this really quickly. What it's saying right here is after Jesus had said, this is he had just finished telling a parable. It was interesting. We're not going to talk about today, but he finished this parable. He's kind of done having this conversation and now we're moving on. So he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. As they approached Bethpage 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, you will find a Colt tied there, which no one has ever written on . Tie it , bring it here. And if anyone asks you, why are you on tying it? Say the Lord needs it. Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as Jesus had told them. And as they were untying, the Colt, its owners asked them, why are you on time ? The Colt may said the Lord needs it. So they brought it to Jesus. They threw their cloaks on the Colt and they put Jesus on it. And as he went along, people spread their cloaks out on,

Speaker 3 4:17

Okay .

Speaker 2 4:17

They came near the place where the road goes down to the Mount of olives. The whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God and the loud voices for all the miracles that 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, they saw this and they said to Jesus teacher rebuke your disciples. And he said, I tell you, he replied. If they keep quiet, the stones will cry out. As he approached Jerusalem and he saw the city, he wept over it and said, if you even, you had only known on this day, what would bring you peace? But now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you. When your enemies will build an embankment against you and in circle, you and him, you in on every side, they will dash you to the ground. You and the children within your walls.

Speaker 3 5:27

They will not leave

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One stone on another because you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you in a minute. We'll go a little bit further, but we'll kind of start there. I think it's fascinating. Isn't it?

Speaker 3 5:40

Did you catch that? That Jesus is weeping.

Speaker 2 5:45

He's talking about this time of God's visitation to his people. The time of Jesus is a visitation. There's a lot for us to unpack in this Texas . We dive in , but dive in. But you know , like if Jesus is weeping and he's showing us who God is that this visitation of God, to his people, God's time of coming. That the first thing that he does is burst into tears. I think that this really gives us a glimpse into who God is the heart of God. In times of crisis. This was a future crisis that was going to take place. It says in John 1245, the one who looks at me, this is Jesus talking is seeing the one who sent me that if you want to know what God looks like, acts like, thinks about says, look at me. That's what I was saying. If you want looking at me that you're seeing God is very clear about this. And I think that this is a beautifully clear glimpse of God, riding into Jerusalem at the time of this crisis and their case, that coming crisis, catastrophe, that's going to take place for Israel. There's going to be a significant crisis in the history of Israel. That's just around the corner that we're going to talk about in just a few moments. But what we see that in light of this situation, that Jesus bursts into tears, that this is God's heart for us, actually right now in this moment where God's not sitting back looking at us and pointing at our sin. But it's to mourn with those who mourn, you know, that sometimes people say like, Hey, you know, at North gate or Larry, or when Ken's here or Kayla, they're just kind of like painting this picture of God. That's just way too loving. It's just all like woo , happy all the time. And I want to tell you that that is impossible. It's impossible to paint a picture that God's too loving because God is love. God is love. You can say, well, you can't just make them kind and nice all of the time. That's ridiculous. Well, kindness, kindness is literally one of the fruits of the spirit that this is actually something that is who God is in , what he is trying to do in us to implant in us, through his spirit. That's given to us. It's not just this foreign idea to God. He's trying to get into us, giving us his own character when it comes to kindness. That's what kindness is. You can say, Oh, well, I think you're just making God too gentle. Like he's just too soft. You know, he's crying. Well, actually gentleness is literally one of the fruits of the spirit. This is who God is. This is the response that he has right now in a time of crisis. We're getting to see God's own character, the character in which he's trying to implant in us. There's this great quote from John Stott. He says, I could never myself believe in God. If it were not for the cross in the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? This is from his book, the cross of Christ. This, this idea of suffering the suffering of Jesus. This is doesn't answer all of our [inaudible] about why the origin of evil or why these so come from, or why do things happen that we actually have even cry about it. Rather, you look in John nine and Jesus says, we're asking the wrong questions. Like why do you even have to be gentle and kind, and loving and mournful sorrowful and this when , when you could just fix it, right? And Jesus says in John nine, rather look at this in turn suffering into an opportunity to actually have a field trickle discussion about this. So let's ask this question, how is God wanting to partner with us right now

Speaker 3 9:43

To make a difference? Can we weep

Speaker 2 9:49

Along with God and then move forward to help others in the midst of their own crisis? So through that, the cross of Christ as we head into Holy week, this week, and we head into the week, we're ramping up to good Friday and Easter Sunday. We need to think about God entering into our suffering itself. That's the center point. That's actually the centerpiece of the Christian faith is the cross that God shows us his solidarity with us and actually suffers with us. That's his heart, that's his heart. So let's dive in a little bit further. I think this idea of Jesus crying is so important. I think it's funny because some people just don't like the idea of a God who cries. Right? You get that too . Like for some reason, that's like a dude, like dudes don't cry, right? Like we're not criers. And we get this idea of, you know, God shouldn't be moved emotionally. He's God, he's big and powerful. And I think that, that couldn't be further from the truth. He's so holistically involved in our lives that I don't know why it would want to be the goal of any of us that God is somehow distant and doesn't have any emotion. I know that even our songs in the humidity of like Christmas carols, right. You guys have maybe saying, or heard the song away in a manger, verse two, it says the cat Lowy and baby wigs, but little Lord Jesus, no crying . He makes right. So right off the bat, we're like, Oh yeah, it's like a tough baby too. He doesn't fuss his Dooney thing. You know , it gets woken up. And he was like, nah, I'm cool. I'm God, I'm Jesus. Uh , right from the beginning, we just know that Jesus doesn't cry and somehow have emotion, but that's our own mythology. It's not Bible. Kayla talked about last week that when Jesus cries, when Lazarus dies, even though Jesus, that he's actually going to raise him back from the dead he's entering into the sorrow of others being present, where here we see Jesus for a future catastrophe, he knows Israel is going to experience is crying after Jesus. It says in verse 28, after Jesus said this, he went on up ahead, going to Jerusalem. As he approached Bethpage in Bethany at the Hill that he, of the Mount of olives. So if you were to look at a map, this is kind of what this looks like. It always talks about going up to Jerusalem. Well , Jesus and most of his followers were in an area called Galilee. It's actually up above and Jerusalem is down, right? But there's this whole idea of you always go up to Jerusalem. And at the time John's actually telling us that Jesus is actually right now around Efrin , which is in this also up above Jerusalem, off to the side and Providence of Judea. So there's this whole idea of, they always talked about going up to Jerusalem. Jerusalem was on a Hill. So what had happened is that they're actually coming down, then there's the Mount of olives and you would go up the Mount of olives. And once you Crested the Mount of olives, you could then see across the Valley of Kidron that goes down up to where you see this Holy city through some as a bit of a mountain of a bit of a Hill where just above the Kidron Valley up on the other side of the Mount of olives. So that's kind of the scene that we see. So as pilgrims are the people that work their way down from Galilee and through Judea in that area, they would head up the mountain of olives, the Mount of olives. And as you head over the top, you have these two little towns there, Beth page Bethany, and you would get your first glimpse across this Valley and where you're catching the action right now, that's where this is taking place. So then it says he sent two of his disciples. I think I have this new two of his disciples saying to them, go to the village ahead of you. And as you enter it, you're going to find a Colt tied there, which no one has ever written on. Tie it and bring it here. And if anyone asks you, why are you on tying it? Say the Lord needs it. Now, what we see here is apparently Jesus had done some preparing for this cult that someone had left it out for his people. The followers of Jesus. And what's interesting here is Jesus is known as the Lord within circles of his followers. Now Jesus would also know people in Bethany. That's where Lazarus and Mary and Martha lived, who were his friends. And so he spent time there. He has friends in Bethany. And so he's made arrangements ahead of time. So he's not actually stealing this cult , but just in case anyone wonders or anyone asks, if they're a part of the Jesus following group, just say the Lord is in need of it. And then you'll see, even later in the gospel of Luke, as we go further into this Holy week, that we're in, it's the last supper and Jesus is making arrangements for this. And he tells him to go in and say, the teacher is in need of this room, this upper room, where they used for the last supper. These are the two titles that we see that the followers of Jesus use. And he's most known for the Lord and teacher, the teacher, and both of them actually come together in John's gospel, where Jesus, you remember the scene or you've heard of the scene where Jesus has actually washing the feet of his disciples. And he says, if I, your Lord and teacher washed your feet, you should gosh, one another's feet. The most disgusting thing he ever said , Jesus is Lord and Jesus is teacher. Now what's interesting is Lord was a term that was used of like regular folks as a term of respect, similar to the middle ages where you had Lords and ladies, right? You could also call someone of Lords or a Lord, you know , or my Lord, it was this term of respect, but Jesus takes this term though, when he refers to himself, not as a Lord, but the Lord, in other words, the master of all masters and when Jewish people use this term in this way, they're usually referring to God as the Lord of all Lords. And that's how Jesus actually uses it for himself throughout the scriptures. So in verse 32, those who were sent ahead and they found it just as he had told them, this is the cold as they're untying, the Colt, its owners asked them, why are you on tying the Colt ? We want to make sure that you're the right people, like say the special password, right? And there's this . We wanted to make sure that this whole thing happening. And by the way, right here in the scene, when it's talking about the owners of the Colts , it's actually the same word that's used there in the Greek for Lord's again, just translated differently for English. So the Lord of the Lords of the donkey said, as they're on-time and cold , its owners asked them, why are you on time in the cold? And they replied, the Lord needs it . And so it all worked out. It's interesting. Jesus is actually intentionally fulfilling a prophecy from Zachariah nine nine. This is an old Testament prophecy about the coming Messiah. Zachary nine nine says this rejoice greatly O daughter of Zion shout daughter Jerusalem. See your key comes to you, righteous and victorious lowly and riding on a donkey on a Colt, the foal of a donkey. So Jesus is intentionally doing this. Jesus is intentional and saying, now I'm going to make a statement right now and fulfill this prophecy on purpose. And this is one of those situations where he knows, you know , about rumored prophecies, that when the Messiah comes in, he's going to come riding in on a donkey, not on a war horse. And what's interesting about a donkey is a donkey is actually a symbolism of peace where normally the King would ride on an animal of conquests. This massive, the tallest horse that you could find and come riding in on this massive animal and declare his authority. And instead, Jesus, we find is a King on a donkey. He's intentionally making a statement here with everything that he does. So in verse 35, they brought it to Jesus. Then they threw their cloaks on the Colt and they put Jesus on it. And as he went along, people spread their cloaks on the ground. Other gospels tell us that branches were put on the ground. It's actually John who tells us that Palm branches hints Palm Sunday. This is high honor that they would lay these things in front of him. As he's making his way down into the kitchen Valley, over on his way, up to the Holy land , uh, the high place of God in Jerusalem. It says when they came near to the place where the road goes down, the Mount of olives, the whole crowd of his disciples began joyfully, praising God and loud voices for all because of the miracles that they had seen blessed is the name of the King who comes in the name of the Lord, peace in heaven and glory in the highest. Now he's about to head down from the Mount of olives right here in the Valley of Kidron, towards Jerusalem. And there's already this large crowd that has gathered around him. Now the crowd is that it's originally with them . You know, he has, and now there's other pilgrims that have heard, Hey, the Messiah is coming to Jerusalem. He's going there. And that's what the Messiah supposed to do. He says, Jesus says, I'm on my way into Jerusalem. And they said, well, we're, we're showing up. We're going to make a pilgrimage down there with you because that's what the Messiah is supposed to do right now. They all knew this, that the Messiah was actually supposed to travel into Jerusalem. And you think of Warhorse instead of a donkey, but there's a prophecy, so, okay, that's fine. And then he gets into Jerusalem and he's probably expected to do two things. One would be to show up to the temple and bless it. And the other would be to go to the seat of the Roman authority and curse it and say, I'm here in town to lead a revolt against the Romans, bless the temple, curse the enemy. And we're going to see how that works out. So when he came near this place where the road goes down to the mountain, all of this whole crowd of began joyfully. We see they're joyfully, praising God with loud voices about the miracles that you've seen. So you really have to keep these groups of people in mind. You have the disciples, these pilgrims that have watched him following these miracles that are taking place. They're following him. They're following his, his journey. As he travels this way, then you have this next group of people that we're going to see. You have the religious leaders. So you have this pro Christ movement. And really then you have this anti Jesus movement, the religious leaders in Jerusalem, who, who were like, Whoa , who is this guy? He's gaining all kinds of notoriety. And people are now praising him and high honor. And then you have the crowds of people in Jerusalem who are already there. They're watching this stuff kind of make its way. You know, this is getting a lot of chatter and they haven't seen all the miracles yet. They've heard about this stuff. They haven't been exposed personally to the teachings of Jesus. The people like the people from up in Galilee and those regions had been exposed to for years now. And they see this crowd coming down and working its way, believing that this is the Messiah. And they know that their own religious leaders that are a part of Jerusalem. They don't really like him . And so they understand that there's already like a force going against him and over the next week while Jesus teaches in Jerusalem, cause that's what he's going to do. The people that use them are going to have to make up their mind. They're gonna have to make up their mind. I wonder right now, where do you see yourself? Which people group would you be? Do you see yourself right now as the skeptic? Maybe one like the religious leaders or maybe you're not religious and you're just being set skeptic saying doubt, this whole thing. I got doubt it, Jesus. Like he really did this. And then we get further on into the resurrection. I'm not sure. Or are you the convinced where , you know, and you're like, this is the Messiah right here. This is the one we've been made for. And we love him. And we're filled with joy over it. Or are you like the crowds in Jerusalem? I think any people that we know, or maybe even some people here are in that position right now where you're hearing competing things, voices, pros and cons versus you're in this position of, I feel like I need to make a decision and I'm exploring this and I want to understand, I want to make up my mind and I'm investigating more. And so they're heading down the mountain of all of them , the Valley of Kidron and into Jerusalem. And they start to shout out. Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord, peace in heaven and glory in the highest. And you remember, you remember when Jesus first came was just Christmas. And the angels showed up to the shepherds. I said, glory to God in the highest on earth and peace, good world towards all people. I think this is a way that Luke is kind of book ending. This, the story that we're seeing and that we've been a part of where you have the angels declaring to the shepherds. And now you have the people themselves declaring these things, their book ending this whole journey with praise. They're also quoting from Psalm one 18, where this was their worship towards God. Psalm one 18 is called a Psalm of sense, which means a Psalm that you seeing on your way into worship. It's the way you start your worship. And it begins with this worship to your way. And you hear the crowd declaring this to Jesus. It has got to create some problems right now because they're declaring huge things in these religious leaders are watching and this is causing chaos. And so some Pharisees now have kind of gotten to the crowd and they said to Jesus teacher rebuke your disciples. Now Jesus responds. I tell you, he replied. If they keep quiet, the stones will cry out. What does that mean? In other words, what he's saying right now is I'm not just the Messiah because they think I am. I'm the Messiah cosmically.

Speaker 3 25:06

It will be

Speaker 2 25:07

Acknowledged whether they acknowledge it or you acknowledge it. It will be acknowledged because I'm the Messiah on a cosmic creation level. This is God in human flesh. If , if you try to keep them quiet, even those things that were created that is part of creation will cry out this beautiful imagery of this poem right here. And as he approached Jerusalem, he saw the city in his next thing he did is he wept, he wet over it. Now this isn't just like Jesus pausing and having a quiet moment alone in reflection, right? He's in the middle of this. What's been called that triumphal entry. I don't know how many of you guys have heard it called that this triumphal entry here in comms . There's Palm branches down. It's often been called that. I think it probably should have been called the tearful

Speaker 3 25:59

Entry.

Speaker 2 26:01

This is his emotions. He doesn't come in and being like, Whoa , let's go. We're going. We're going to take the Hill. Right?

Speaker 3 26:09

He's sitting

Speaker 2 26:10

On a donkey. And I don't know if the donkey just stops for a moment in front of the people or just keeps going. And he's

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Just weeping and crying

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Breaks his heart because he knows there's this thing that's going to happen. And now he begins to talk about it here. He kind of as a pronouncement over Jerusalem. So he wept over it. And he said,

Speaker 3 26:34

If you even, you ,

Speaker 2 26:37

You had only known on this day, what would bring you peace? But now it's hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you. When your enemies will build an embankment against you in every circle, you and him, you in on every side, they'll dash into the ground, your children with the walls, they will not leave one stone on another because you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you. It's literally the time of your visitation. The visitation was a Jewish short-term for the coming of God. They've been waiting for the coming of God. And he is sitting there. We being saying, you're missing it. You missed it. You didn't recognize that this was the visitation, your visitation of God. So here's the thing. I mean, Jesus has been spending three years trying to teach Israel the way of peace, the way of absolute renunciation of violence and love of enemy. It's not just this idea about being non-violent , but an opening up of a space and removing the violence to fill it with love, active love for your enemy in the hopes that some of you may become friends. They may become family that were all adopted into this , this , this group together. And these were real flesh and blood enemies, Rome and Israel, Rome had occupied Israel and Jesus is teaching Israel how not to fight, but how to love, how not to fight, how to love. And at the time there was a zealot movement, even taking place where they were trying to whip up interest and launched this war against the Romans and Jesus for three years has been teaching an alternate path. Jesus, Israel needs to choose because if they fight against the Romans going to lose and he's prophesying it right here ahead of time that if you do this and you continue to walk down this path, you are going to lose. And ultimately we see in 73 or 70, there is actually all of these things took place. The destruction happened and a few chapters later in Luke and in all of this and optic gospels, which has Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, they all tell where Jesus explains in detail and walks through a prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem. If you fight against the Romans, you will lose. They won't, they will not only destroy Jerusalem, but they're going to destroy the temple, this temple, this place where God lives, where you get to go and meet him and it will be shut down for good. And this is what Jesus is actually saying here in this moment. That's why, that's what he has in mind. In these three years that he's spending with his people. He's been offering them a way of peace and they're not accepting it. They're literally waiting for him to rip open his cloak, look for the big S or this would be the big M this Messiah that would go up and he would bless the temple and curse the Romans. They wanted a revolt. They wanted a war King Yeshua with a sword coming hard and mighty. And Jesus has been saying, no, it's different. I am the Messiah, but it's a different kind of kingdom. And so Jesus says, you haven't listened to me. And now I find myself saying is it's too late. And Jesus cries over this, this coming catastrophe upon Israel, verse 45. When Jesus entered him , he didn't get into Jerusalem. He entered the temple courts and he began to drive up. Those who are selling it is written. He said to them, my house will be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers. So he goes into the temple not to bless it, but he chastises the people who are in it now understand that these people who are selling things in here, we're actually doing a service people. The pilgrims would come in and they would actually do annum . This was during the sacrificial system and they needed to sell them the animals that they were going to sacrifice. And they may have been price, gouging and charging too much and being dishonest. But their service was actually a necessary service to make the temple function as it did it. But Jesus, just a whole temple process down and drives out the sellers . The animal says in John's gospel for at least a day or a few hours, Jesus seems to actually shut down the temple sacrificial system. It's a prophetic act. It's a time of animal sacrifices, his passing, and there's a new covenant that's actually coming. He said it is written. My house will be a house of prayer in Matthew. It actually says a house of all nations. It's an original quote from scripture host of a place for all nations to gather and to come together and be in communion with God. He says, but you have made it a den of robbers. So is it in of robbers ? It's a place, you know where robbers go to hang out? It's the robbers , hang out. It's the cave, right? It's where they go to hang out to be safe after they've done the robbing. So he's not saying, Hey, you guys are doing robbing here. He's saying this is like, you're hanging out your safe place after you've done the robbing. In other words, after you go out and live the way you want to live after you go out and live in sin, you're then showing up here to hang out and to make yourself feel better about it. All right? So you can grab some of that. Some of us have done or do the same thing. We're like, Oh man, I gotta get my church in . It's like vitamin on the weekend, right? For the things that we've done. And he's saying , don't treat this like a den of robbers. Where are you just going to come in this place? And you're going to put on a face, right? Or an eye, a wink. He's saying, don't, don't do this. This kind of religion is rebuked. This whole system is going to get shut down. Verse 47 every day that he was teaching in the temple. But the chief priests, the teachers of the law, the leaders among them, the people were trying to kill him. There's something that Jesus was doing here. As he taught every day. Now, as we've gotten into this week, that they're actually trying to kill him. That's so offensive that the religious leaders actually want him dead. They recognize this threat of him claiming to be God followers are worshiping him. He's teaching people to love their enemies. Who does that? The men , he is pronouncing judgment against the temple. He saying the temple is coming down. Whose side is this guy on? Especially if the movement is growing in popularity and he is now becoming public enemy, number one, and they're saying he needs to be gone yet. They couldn't find a way to do it because all of the people hung on his words. That's the third group. You have the disciples, you have the religious, you have the pro, you have the auntie . Yeah . The people who are engaged with Jesus, we're leaning in , they hung on his words. They still haven't made a decision yet, but they are in. Or are they out there listening? They're grasping this thing. I might not even fully understand what's going on, but they know something it's happening. And they're pressing in. I want to again, welcome all of you who are here. And specifically those of you who are at home right now, pressing in, in the season, those who are joining us online experience. I'm so glad that you're taking this time in your life to just lean into the most important things in life. The spiritual things that can have a practical application in our lives . But for all of us, when I ask you this, are we hanging on the words? Are we hanging on Jesus's words? May we become awake this week? And hang on to the words of Jesus, the gravity do we, when we hear him speak, when we open up the word, which is him speaking to us in the scriptures, are we just sitting there hanging onto the words, just waiting and wanting for more. And some of them it'd be like, Oh my gosh, I yearned for that. How do I even, what do I even do? And also I'm just, I'm so confused or frustrated. Why did this even have to happen? Like if we see you just talked about how God is good and he's loving and he's gentle and why did he not just stop the destruction of the temple? Why does he stop our suffering here today? If he's weeping, why doesn't he act and stop our pain? Why doesn't he heal that person? Who's literally dying right now that a watching and how does he let bad stuff happen? If God is so loving? Why does he intervene? In every situation of suffering? Every situation of sin, every lie that's told that causes hurt every physical pain that we might have her or disability. Why doesn't God just make everything perfect. Really? I think the fullness of this question is actually two things. Number one, God says that there's a time for that. It will come when there's new heavens and new earth in his perfected. But in the meantime, God has chosen to run this world in a way that allows for actual human agency. He made us in his image and his likeness and he doesn't override or puppet us along to make things good all of the time. Instead he wounds us. He woos us and gives us an example through his scripture and our conscious in his spirit, filling us to lead us in the right direction to help one another. That's how he's chosen to do things for now. And I know sometimes we want to say, well, no, God is in control of everything. That's my mother's infamous line. Well, God's in control of everything. And I often find myself telling my mom, I think it's more appropriate to say that God is in charge of everything. Then that God is in control. Think about that . The God was in control. Everything. We'd be pretty upset and confused and be like, you, you don't, you don't see me. You don't weep with me. You don't mourn with those who are more. If you're in control, you would control things. This way. God is in charge. God is in charge is in the one who is in charge. He's actually chosen to let his image bearers you and I be a light to this world to make free choices. And over time, we've messed things up with our free choices and that affects other people's lives and even affects creation. The Bible even talks about it , that our sin can spiritually pollute creation in the things. And they all get kind of thrown out of whack. You see in it. So God has chosen at this time, not to intervene with, but to call us. So the real question is if God has chosen to work through his people, to bring more love into the world, what can we do about it? What can we do about it? I have to wrap things up right now. We have more to talk about with Easter, but I want to leave you. If you want to take out your phone or you want to write this down and we have some discussion questions, so you can follow up with it this week and have a conversation yourself or families and friends. So he's , how can we, how can we live in such a way that God, how can we , we live in such a way that spreads the light and the love of God today? How can we, how can you, how can I live in such a way that spreads light and love today? What are you weeping over? What are you seeing that you're weeping over? Who is in your sphere ? That's right there, that is in their own suffering, or you can see a catastrophe about to take place, or that is not yet. They're just in the crowd. Are you weeping over those who are just in the crowd or the skeptic that's far away. And finally, who can you invite into community for Easter? Who can you say, Hey, make it a little Pilgrim just with me right now. And let's have a conversation about this and then just learn who Jesus is, what he's doing. And this resurrection that changes everything. I talked to a couple years ago about this, and I think it's still really relevant, but you know what a donkey's called, right? There's kids in the room. I'm not going to say it because I don't get in trouble with parents, but you know what a donkey is called, right? And that donkey carried Jesus into a community that didn't know Jesus yet. So we can teach them and they can experience the transformative power of him. He friends. Why don't you be that donkey that can carry someone to Jesus. So this week, who can you invite into a conversation who can invite into an experience for Easter as we enter into this Holy week? I think that , uh, I want to pray right now. And um, if you join me in praying with me, God, heavenly father, I want to thank you for giving Jesus as an example of this beautiful ear , religious counter institutional form of faith . Thank you for us into his way of love his way of life. The way of universal global connectedness. We're connected everywhere. Thank you.

Speaker 1 41:46

[inaudible]

Speaker 2 41:46

I'd only sent us this person of Jesus, but Jesus, you have sent us your spirit

Speaker 1 41:53

So

Speaker 2 41:53

That we can experience your consciousness, your love, your grace, your character growing within us. I think you that we are connected this way today. God, and I pray that this week we will become increasingly more alive, awake, aware of your presence with us and that you will shape us into the loving people you want us to be. I pray

Speaker 1 42:15

In Jesus's name.

Speaker 2 42:18

Oh , she's going to come out here and I want you to just to stay seated as we come into the season where we're going to good Friday. Um, may we just sit and experience who he is? Let this song the song over you so you can close your eyes and reflection right now. You can just relax and rest

Speaker 1 42:37

And just be present.