"Don’t Overlook the Value of Palm Sunday" By Jesse Rairdon and Brother
Parrish Lee March 29th,
2015
Jesse:
I want Brother
Parrish to come up, too, because he’s sharing the pulpit today. Amen.
Andy:
God Almighty, I thank
You. I thank You
for this day; I thank
You for this time of worship. I
thank
you for Your Spirit that’s in this place.
God, as these men come to preach Your word, to
teach, to share, bless
them this morning. Bless
Jesse and
Parrish as they seek to be Your vessels, as they seek to be Your
mouthpieces,
Lord, to preach the things that are sound doctrine.
Bless their understanding; bless their wisdom
this morning. Grant
them the words to
say to minister to those that are here.
Bless each one of us as we listen, and let us
listen intently to get the
things that You have for us this morning.
Thank You, in Jesus’ name.
Amen. Jesse:
Amen. You
may be seated. God’s
Value System. What
an awesome month. What
an awesome time of reflection on what’s
important to God. As
we’re getting ready for Easter
next week, a lot of people plan and prepare; they think about Easter a
lot, but
God wants us to remember the events that took place leading up to His
resurrection. Why
was Jesus coming to
Jerusalem? What
were the things that
were happening, were taking place around the world, at this time, at
this
particular place? And,
before it was
called Palm Sunday, it was called the triumphant entry.
Parrish is going to share a little bit about
that. Give the Lord
a praise as he
comes. Parrish:
Well, saints,
normally what we do—and I want to thank Brother Jesse who said—well, we
were
talking, and, we long to have a spirit in ministry where, as peter and
John
were going into the Temple at the hour of prayer, and they saw the man
who
needed to be healed, he turned and said, not, “I got what can help
you,” but,
“Look on us.” That’s
the spirit, that’s
the attitude of beatitude, we desire to have in the ministry. The only big “I” around
here is the, “I, Lord
Jesus.” He’s the
only One. Amen. At
this time, normally what we
would do is we would hand out the palm leaves as we would be exiting,
but that
is not the way it is going to be here today, because it has a purpose. So, we’re going to ask the
ushers, if they
would, to grab the palm leaves, and, yes, go row by row, and hand them
out to
everybody in attendance here, so that everybody will have a palm leaf
while
this message is going on. This
is
something that’s a little bit of a departure, but, as Brother Jesse and
I, we
had talked about it, it has so much purpose, so much purpose. It’s amazing the Spirit
God pours out for His
people. All you
have to do is come, and
say, “Lord, I come,” and He is there, and he will answer according to
His
riches and His glory. Amen,
amen. This is
awesome; this is awesome. Handing
out the palm leaves before you exit,
because, so often we would say, “Go and prepare the way of the Lord.” Amen.
Make sure that everybody who wants one, has one. Everyone who is a follower
of the Lord. 1. The
Triumphant Entry- So,
as Brother Jesse said, before that
Sunday was known as Palm Sunday it was referred to as The Triumphant
Entry. This was a
really busy time among the people
of Israel. You see,
a week from that
time, that day, would have been what we refer to as Easter, but they
were
looking forward to the Passover. Passover
was a tremendous time of celebration
and feasting and sacrifice and doing good.
There’s a lot of preparation going on.
Everybody that was around Israel knew about the
Passover. That was
a time they set aside to remember
God’s deliverance. He
told them to
remember the Passover, the day that He set them free, made them free,
delivered
them from the land of Egypt. As
the song
says, “With a mighty hand. With
a mighty
hand. He is our
deliverer, He is our
King. All creation
sings, Give thanks to
the Lord.” So, as
they were doing all
this preparation for the Passover, God also wanted to show them
something: That
it’s not just a time of preparation, this
is also a time of purpose; this is also a time of promise. And, of the many things that
were going on at
this time, as Brother Jesse alluded to, we just want to mention four. We just want to mention
four. Because Jesse
has me on a strict time limit
here, we just want to mention four.
Matthew 20:20-22
Then
came to
Him the mother of Zebedee's children with her sons, worshipping Him,
and
desiring a certain thing of Him. And
He
said unto her, What wilt thou? She saith unto Him, Grant that these my
two sons
may sit, the one on Thy right hand, and the other on the left, in Thy
kingdom. But Jesus
answered and said, Ye
know not what ye ask. Are
ye able to
drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the
baptism
that I am baptized with? They
say unto Him,
We are able. Parrish:
Amen. Palm
Sunday.
So, Palm Sunday—leading up to Palm Sunday, this
was a time when the
mother of James and John, those were the children of Zebedee, the
mother of
James and John wanted a blessing for her children.
And, so, she went to the Lord and said, “I
want You to bless my kids!” The
happened
to be disciples, but, to her, they were her children.
“Bless my children!”
So, Palm Sunday, in this aspect, is a time
when we can ask a blessing for our family.
We can bring our families—yes, we can take our
children, and, children,
you can take your parents, our brothers and sisters, our cousins by the
dozens,
nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, grandpa, grandma, whoever they are,
it’s time
to bring your family to the Lord, and ask for a blessing on them. And you notice how the
Lord turned, and He
turned, not to answer the mother, Salome, He turned to answer the
children. He turned
to answer who He
knew as His disciples. He
turned to ask
them a question, and He said—He asked them a question, and asked, “You
know not
what you ask. Are
you able to be
baptized with My baptism, and to drink of My cup?”
So, Palm Sunday is a time when those who
follow Jesus can come and listen to His answers, instruction for their
lives. Our
next
case that we would like to go to: Mark 10:46-50 And they came to
Jericho: and as he went out of Jericho with his disciples and a great
number of
people, blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, sat by the highway side
begging. And when
he heard that it was
Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out, and say, Jesus, thou Son of
David, have
mercy on me. And
many charged him that
he should hold his peace: but he cried the more a great deal, Thou Son
of
David, have mercy on me. And
Jesus stood
still, and commanded him to be called. And they call the blind man,
saying unto
him, Be of good comfort, rise; he calleth thee.
And he, casting away his garment, rose, and came
to Jesus. So,
Bartimaeus shows us in this example—this is the time, this was in the
week
before Palm Sunday, believe it or not, there was so much going on, but
Bartimaeus shows us here that this is a time for the blind, and the
weak, and
the begging, and the destitute, and those that don’t have—if you’re
poor, if
you’re hungry—it’s a time to make your cry unto the Lord and not to be
deterred, not to be deplored, not to be distracted by those around you
telling
you to hold your peace, that this is not that time.
Not to be changed from your path, but to make
your cry out unto the Lord, for, as it says in verse number forty-nine,
for
then, Jesus made everything stand still, and commanded him to be
brought into
His presence. So,
if we make that cry
unto the Lord, the Lord makes everything else stop, and says, “I’m
calling you
to My presence.” Our
next
example that we would like to go to, yes, this was a busy time, and,
it’s
amazing how you go through the different Gospels, and you see they’re
all
highlighting so many things about this time, because there was so much
going
on. John 12:1
Then
Jesus six days before the Passover came
to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom he raised from
the
dead. Lazarus,
which had been dead, whom
Jesus raised from the dead… You
see, a
week before Passover, Jesus rose Lazarus from being dead. So Lazarus shows us that
this is a time when
those things that are in your life that don’t have any help, that are
beyond
help, the things that you think have no more life in them, and, yes, it
could
be anything from a job to a relationship; it could be anything from an
anointing that you used to have; it could be anything from just your
understanding to your level of involvement with somebody. It is that time that the
Lord says, “Though
it looked like it had no life, I am the One who raises things from the
dead. I bring it to
life.” Our
last example: Matthew 21:2-7
Saying
unto them, Go into the village over against you, and straightway ye
shall find
an ass tied, and a colt with her: loose them, and bring them unto me. And if any man say ought
unto you, ye shall
say, The Lord hath need of them; and straightway he will send them. All this was done, that it
might be fulfilled
which was spoken by the prophet, saying, Tell ye the daughter of Sion,
Behold,
thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt
the foal
of an ass. And the
disciples went, and
did as Jesus commanded them, and brought the ass, and the colt, and put
on them
their clothes, and they set Him thereon. So
Jesus called—He didn’t even see
the event, He just called and had the colt and the ass—that’s the
mother of the
colt—had them both brought to Him.
It
shows us, this example shows us, brothers and sisters, this example
shows us
that if you ever felt like you were an outcast, if you ever felt that
you
weren’t included, if you ever felt that—Pastor Thomas said this once,
if you
ever felt that maybe you just don’t fit in, people don’t call for you,
and
something is restricting you, something’s got you tied up, that you
feel like
you’re not going to be in the presence of all the great and mighty
ones, and the
Lord surely isn’t going to use you; this shows that God knows where you
are. He knows who
you are. He knows
your exact situation. When
everybody else is amazed at where you
are, and can’t reach you, the Lord has a calling for you. And the Lord ain’t
listening to nobody else;
He says, “Go and get my child. Go
and
get them, and bring them to Me, because I have need of you.” Then the Lord sets you
with Him. In other
words, the Lord wants you to take
Him wherever you go. It
isn’t about
speaking, because these two, the ass and the colt, they didn’t speak;
they were
animals. Even if
they could, who knows
what kind of a message that would have been?
But that wasn’t their purpose.
Their purpose was to take the Lord wherever they
went, wherever they
went. One
last point over this, this
Palm Sunday thing: this
going in as the
singers sang, “I will enter His gates with thanksgiving in my heart; I
will
enter His courts with praise,” and, yes, it was a time of Him entering
into
Jerusalem, but it wasn’t all about Him entering the gates, it was more
about
Him opening the gates. You
see, the
Temple only had the special priest inside.
And, outside of that, it was the special men. And, outside of that, it
was the special
women and children. And,
outside of that,
it was the Gentiles’ court. But
this is
the Lord, saying, “This is Me, opening the gates to My house, to My
presence.” Brother
Jesse. 2. Peace- Jesse: Amen.
Everybody got their Palm leaves? You see, God
values the Triumphant
Entry. God values
these things that we
were talking about. When
Jesus rode in
on that colt, on that young donkey, He rode in signifying peace. Peace.
He didn’t ride in on the full horse, the war
horse, because He wasn’t
coming in to conquer at that time.
That’s what everybody expected; they wanted a King
to come and conquer
these Romans. They
wanted to be out from
under the Romans’ rule, but God had a different thing in mind. He wanted peace for His
people. Luke 19:41-42 And when He was
come near, He beheld the city, and wept over it, Saying, If thou hadst
known,
even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy
peace!
but now they are hid from thine eyes. “If
you only knew the peace that I
have for you. If
you only knew the whole
purpose of Me coming to Earth, when the angels said, ‘Peace on Earth.’ If you only knew,
Jerusalem, all I have for
you. If you only
knew—but now it’s hid
from your eyes.” There’s
a different peace that
Jesus brings than the world brings.
See,
the United States goes around to be “peacekeepers;” God wants us to be
peacemakers. There’s
a difference. When
you walk into a situation, you don’t keep
the peace, you make the peace when
you bring God’s peace with you. It’s
a little different than the world saying
that there’s peace; trying to bring all these people together and
saying,
“Peace,” because they all have their own agenda, and it’s underhanded. John 14:27
Peace
I leave with you, my peace I give unto
you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be
troubled,
neither let it be afraid. See,
it’s a little bit of a
difference. You
ever have people come to
you and say, “I don’t know what it is, I can’t put my finger on it, but
there’s
some kind of peace about you. There’s
something about you, when I’m around you, I feel like I can relax; I
feel like
I can breathe a little easier. I
feel
like the weight just kind of lifts off of me.
That’s the peace that passes all understanding. That’s the peace that
Jesus was bringing that
they could even see, they didn’t even know about.
That’s the kind of peace that rests in you
when Jesus goes with you. There’s
another Scripture where Jesus says, “When you go into a house, then
your peace
rests upon that house.” (Luke 10:5-6)
“If
they receive you, then keep that peace in that house, but, if they
reject you,
then kick the very dust off your feet and take your peace back with
you, and
woe unto that house. It
will be more
tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah on judgment day, if they don’t receive
the
peace of God (Matthew 10:13-15). Amen? Let’s
get back to Israel. See,
God had a plan for Israel from the
beginning. When He
first called Abraham,
when He first called Isaac, God had a plan for Israel.
Don’t find yourself on the wrong side of
Israel; God is going to be for those who are for Israel. Amen?
Even
after the time of the Gentiles is full, God has a space for grace for
Israel. Psalms 122:6-8 Pray for the peace of
Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee.
Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within
thy palaces. For my
brethren and companions' sakes, I will
now say, Peace be within thee. Because
of the house of the LORD our God I will seek thy good. Amen? Brother Parrish. 3.
Servants/Service- Parrish:
Amen, Brother
Jesse. The
servants, and the service of
the Lord. John 12:26
If any man serve me [and,
just in case anybody is saying, “Ah-ah, I’m off the hook!” that is
gender-inspecific, and that is age-inspecific, okay?
So it’s talking about everybody.],
let him follow me;
and where I am, there shall also My servant be: if any man serve Me,
him will My
Father honour. If
any man serve Me, him will My
Father honor. So,
after He raised
Lazarus from the dead, and after He healed blind Bartimaeus, and after
He had
done so many things leading up to this point, He said “If any man serve
Me let
Him follow me;” Now,
we’ve had a month
of services, and we've talked about God’s value system, and we named
the things
that God values. We
talked about some of
the things, anyway, because God values many things.
We’ve talked about love and humility; we’ve
talked about enduring, mercy, faith, humility, wisdom.
We’ve talked about family, and listening to
Him, and God values His name. We’ve
talked about this, but this verse says, again, “If any man serve Me,
let him
follow me, and, where I am, there shall also My servant be: If any man serve Me, him
will My Father
honor.” If we were
to look up this word,
‘honor,’ if we were to just look it up, this word, ‘honor,’ here means,
“to
prize, i.e. fix a valuation upon…”
This
word, here, means, “To value.” So,
as
you serve God, God values you. Now,
don’t misunderstand his; we
do want to make something clear: Our
God
who made the heavens and earth, and all that is within them; that same
God
loves us with the type of love that passes understanding. It’s the kind of love
that’s so deep that He
gave, according to the Bible, He only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in
Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life (John 3:16). So God loves us with a
love that is hard to
fathom. That’s how
much God loves us,
but He values us when we serve
Him. He values us
as we serve Him and as
we follow Him. Brother
Jesse. Jesse:
God values
service. 4. Compassion-
God values compassion Matthew 20:29-34
And
as they
departed from Jericho, a great multitude followed Him.
And, behold, two blind men sitting by the way
side, when they heard that Jesus passed by, cried out, saying, Have
mercy on
us, O Lord, Thou Son of David. And
the
multitude rebuked them, because they should hold their peace: but they
cried
the more, saying, Have mercy on us, O Lord, Thou Son of David. And Jesus stood still, and
called them, and
said, What will ye that I shall
do unto you? They
say unto Him, Lord, that our eyes
may be opened. So
Jesus had compassion
on them, and touched their eyes: and immediately their eyes received
sight, and
they followed Him. “Compassion”
in this sense means,
“to have the bowels yearn, that is, (figuratively) feel sympathy, to
pity: - to
be moved with compassion. “ There
was a
lot going on here; Jesus was getting ready to prepare for His death;
the
Passover was going on. There
was a lot
going on, but Jesus stopped to show compassion.
God values compassion.
That’s a
right now thing. You
might be busy in
your life, but someone lost a loved one, you stop, and you go and you
show
compassion. When
someone else is
hurting, and you know that they’re hurting, you stop, and you pray with
them. You might be
busy. You might be
a ministry leader; you might
have things to do, people waiting on your phone calls and your text
returns,
but you stop and show compassion.
God
values compassion. It’s
a right now thing. Don’t
tell somebody, “I’ll give you
compassion next week or a time to come when it’s more convenient for
me.” Proverbs 3:27-28
Withhold
not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine
hand to
do it. [Right
now] Say
not unto thy neighbour, Go, and come again, and to morrow I will give;
when
thou hast it by thee. When
you have the ability to show
compassion, to show love, right now is the time.
You don’t delay; right now is the time to
show that compassion. Jesus
is our
example; he stopped what He was doing to say, “I’m going to show some
compassion.” He was
moved with compassion. When
he fed the thousands, and they were
following Him, He was teaching them, he was moved with compassion; He
had them
sit down and He fed them. Compassion
will cause you to get out of your comfort zone, your agenda, and cause
you to
do God’s agenda. Amen? So,
God values
compassion. Jude 1:22-24
And
of some have compassion, making a
difference: And
others save with fear,
pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the
flesh. Now unto him
that is able to keep
you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of
his glory
with exceeding joy, See,
I was saved with fear; I
didn’t want to go to Hell. There
was a
space of time that I knew that I could die before I got baptized. God revealed that to me,
before I took on His
name, there’s, “I’ve got to get this right.”
There was fear that saved me, but compassion has
kept me. Compassion
has kept me, brother and sisters.
Compassion God values. Brother
Parrish. It
was on purpose, on purpose,
that we had the palms handed out and didn’t dwell so much on how they
laid them
in the road, and the coats and everything that they put there, saying,
“Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna.” Sure,
that
was on this day that they would do that. Revelation 7:9-17
After
this
I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all
nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the
throne, and
before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands;
And cried
with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the
throne,
and unto the Lamb. And
all the angels
stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four beasts,
and
fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God, Saying,
Amen: Blessing, and
glory, and wisdom, and
thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for
ever and
ever. Amen. And one of the elders
answered, saying unto
me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came
they? [Jesse:
You ever have a teacher ask a question when
they already knew the answer, but they just kind of asked it anyway to
kind of
get your attention?]
And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And
he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and
have
washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before
the throne of God,
and serve [There’s that service; God values service] day and night in his temple: and He that sitteth
on the throne shall
dwell among them. They
shall hunger no
more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor
any
heat. For the Lamb
which is in the midst
of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living
fountains of
waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. Wave
your palms. They
had palms in their hands. They
that were serving God were with
Him. We talked
about that. In
Heaven, they had palms in their
hands. Don’t
underestimate the power and
the value of the thing that God wants to teach you, rushing into
Easter;
remember the thing that He’s doing for you now, and will be doing for
you
forever. Brother
Parrish. Parrish:
After we have a—we’re
going to have a prayer here, what we’d like is, the singers, you’re
going to
come and you’re going to sing, “I Will Enter his Gates with
thanksgiving in my
Heart.” All those
that were clothed in
white waved their palms. Let
us wave our
palms as we close in prayer. Lord,
we come to You, Almighty
God, in the bristling, in the bristling, God, as we come and just stand
in Your
presence. And,
Lord, as the men said, “Hosanna,
hosanna, hosanna,” back then, we say it now.
God, You’re glorious and wonderful and awesome and
true. Unto You we
bring all that we have, God. Yes,
Lord, we bring our families, we bring
our minds, we bring our hearts, we bring our souls, and we ask You to
have Your
way across our lives. Yes,
Lord, we
desire to drink from your cup; be baptized with Your baptism, Lord. God, we’re just as the
colt, and the foal of
an ass, we’re like that, Lord. We
just
say, “We don’t even have to open our moths, God; use us. We will take You wherever
we go, God, You use
us.” God, pour Your
Spirit out, pour
Your Spirit out and give it, so that we can return it to You as a
praise. For You
alone are worthy, as they said, of
honor and glory, and thanksgiving, and power.
In You do we trust.
We are led by
Your great name, Lord Jesus. We
honor
You, and we glorify You. We
come into
Your presence and say, “Thank You for all that You’ve done for us,
great God in
Heaven.” And
everyone said, amen.
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