The Sure Foundation

[Below you'll find live stream video of today's worship services with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. You'll also see the text of the message shared. The traditional service was a wild, but satisfying ride, including a baptism!]

Matthew 21:33-46

Over the past few Sundays, we’ve listened in on Jesus’ confrontation with “the chief priests and the elders.” Today, identified as “the chief priests and the Pharisees,” that confrontation continues in our Gospel lesson. These leaders of God’s people are offended by Jesus, claiming Jesus has no authority to forgive sin, perform miracles, or claim to be the King of the world.

This morning, Jesus tells another parable, a story, the beginning of which would have been familiar to everyone around Him. You can see similar stories told by the prophet in Isaiah 5 and by Asaph, a musician in the court of King David, in Psalm 80.

In all three stories, we’re told how God graciously planted His people in Israel the land He promised to them. And in all three cases, something goes terribly wrong.

According to Isaiah, when God turned to the vineyard Israel, He “looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit.” (Isaiah 5:2) In other words, God saw an Israel that had turned its back on God to worship false idols, the gods of other peoples. For its idolatry and all the sins that flowed from it, God allowed His people to be conquered and turned out of their land.

Asaph sees a nation that has turned away from God, relying instead on false idols, self-sufficiency, and military and economic power. For, this Psalm 80 says God will break “down [Jerusalem’s] walls so that all who pass by pick its grapes” and, referring to enemy peoples around ancient Israel, says that “boars from the forest ravage it, and insects from the fields feed on it.” (Psalm 80:13)

In these two passages from the Old Testament, God was reminding His people that salvation and oneness with God were not the product of their behavior, goodness, or strength. They were saved solely by God Who gives forgiveness and new life as a gift to be received by faith alone.

This is why the Old Testament says of Abraham, not yet renamed by God, “Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.” (Genesis 15:6)

When God saved Israel and planted it in the world, just as when God saved you and me in Holy Baptism and gave us faith in Christ through the Word and sustained that faith in the sacrament of Holy Communion, it wasn’t because the ones saved were, in themselves or by their actions, holy and righteous, it’s because the God Who saves us from sin, death, and futility is holy and righteous. It’s because God gives His holiness and righteousness to sinners by grace through the faith in Him that His Holy Spirit creates in us.

In speaking to the religious leaders of first-century Judea, Jesus creates a different twist to the ancient story of God’s people.

In Jesus’ telling, the “landowner,” clearly God, rents out to farmers, clearly Israel, a vineyard, which He prepared and protected, then went elsewhere. When harvest time came, the landowner expected to receive fruits from his land and investment, just as God expects to see the fruit of His righteousness and His forgiveness manifested in our lives.

But, as you know, the landowner sent many different people to collect what the farmers owed and each of his servants were beaten, killed, or stoned, just like the prophets God sent to His people Israel to call them back to saving faith.

Finally, the landowner decides to send his son to collect the harvest. “They will respect my son,” he reasons. (Matthew 21:37)

You know what happens.

The farmers think that if they kill off the son of the landowner, clearly representing Jesus, they will be free of the owner; they will, to speak clearly what Jesus means here, be their own gods, free of the authority of almighty God.

And that friends, is the goal of all human-centered religion: to be the makers of our own righteousness, to be gods ourselves, without accountability to God.

Humanly-centered religion, whether secular or clothed in the pretense of piety, says with the poet, “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.”

And it always leads to death and damnation for one simple reason: One day, we will all stand before the God we meet in Christ for judgment.

Those who try to claim a place in eternity because they think they’ve been good people or because their grandfather was involved in mission work or they gave money to the church, will stand naked in their sin and be sent to hell.

Those who can say with the saints, the forgiven sinners who trust in the God revealed in Jesus, “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness,” will be welcomed to live eternally with God.

Matthew says the religious elites realize Jesus had told this parable about them, secure in their self-generated goodness and unrepentant rule-keeping as well as their descendance from Abraham.

When Jesus asks them what the landowner will do to those who killed the landowner’s son, just as they will soon join the Gentiles in killing God the Son, they say, “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end…and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.” (Matthew 21:41)

Antisemitic people over the ages have used these words to say that Gentile Christians have superseded Jews as God’s people. But this is not what Jesus says. It’s what the Jewish chief priests and elders say.

Trust, faith, in the Messiah and Lord pointed to by the entire Old Testament and revealed in Jesus of Nazareth, brings salvation to Jews and Gentiles like. The apostle Paul, himself a Jew, says “it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise [that is, the promise of justification by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone] who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring.” (Romans 9:8)

Jesus says that the landowner–God Himself–responds to those, both Jew and Gentile whose sin put His Son on the cross to die, very differently. He shows them this through Psalm 118: “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes…” (Matthew 21:42)

There are those who try to commend themselves to God for their own effort, supposed goodness, and ingenuity. Like us, such people have an inborn penchant to turning from God and doing things their own way. They turn a deaf ear to Jesus’ call to repent and believe in Him for forgiveness and life with God that never ends. Whether in this life or, absent repentance and faith, in eternity, the self-reliant will be smashed by Jesus Christ, true God and true man, who bears the full weight of a holy and mighty God.

But there are those who, like you here this morning, have heard the Gospel Word about Jesus and believe that Jesus is the cornerstone for everlasting life with God.

You know that you can build your life on Him.

You know Jesus’ promise about Himself: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life…” and so, He has become the foundation for all your hopes. Jesus has become the One Who tells you that because He died on the cross for you, all Your sins are forgiven. (John 3:36)

Jesus has become the One Who assures you that He is always with you. (Matthew 28:20)

Jesus has become the One Who tells you as He told the grieving Martha: “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die…” (John 11:25-26)

In Jesus, you and I see THE foundation of our eternal help “and it is marvelous in our eyes.”

Keep your eyes on Jesus, friends.

He brings forgiveness to sinners, hope to the repentant, life to the dead and the dying and He will never let you down.

Amen

Resurrection Power!

[This was shared during today's worship services with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Acts 4:1-12

Yesterday, the nation said goodbye to a woman beloved by many, the wife of one president, mother of another, Barbara Bush. 

One theme that ran throughout the funeral was her belief in Jesus Christ and in the resurrection from death that will come to all who believe in Him. Her son, former Florida governor Jeb Bush, reported visiting his mother shortly before she died. He wondered if she was ready to die, if she was frightened. “Jeb,” Mrs. Bush told him, “I believe in Jesus and He is my Savior. I don’t want to leave your dad, but I know that I will be in a beautiful place.”

Barbara Bush expressed the faith we have as disciples of Jesus Christ, God the Son, Who took on human flesh to receive the condemnation for sin that you and I deserve, the condemnation of death and separation from God, then rose from the dead to assure that all who turn from sin and daily entrust their lives to Him, will also be raised to live with God “in a beautiful place,” the eternal kingdom of God.

In the past two centuries or so, the Western world has seen the rise of what some see as rational thought. It features a rejection of belief in God, the deity of Christ, or His resurrection. 

In fact, one of this nation’s founders, Thomas Jefferson, was just such a “rational” thinker: He produced his own version of the Bible, with Jesus’ miracles and His resurrection, deleted. For Jefferson, his “bible” produced a more palatable “Christianity.” 

Today, there are large numbers of ill-informed people who have never taken the time to consider the evidence who agree with Jefferson. Earlier this month, Scientific American cited polling showing that the number of Americans who profess no religious belief whatever rose from dramatically between just 2005 and 2013. 

This is why our friend Bill Mowry and others say that the United States is one of the largest mission fields in the world. 

Some who reject the witness of the early Church that Jesus rose from the dead and the belief that those who trust in Him will also be raised are members of Christian churches who attend worship only out of habit, for social connection, or something to make them feel good once a week.

But rationalism, in my judgment, isn't the biggest reason some people reject Christ and His resurrection. The biggest reason revolves around the old question of power. It's a question that goes back to the garden of Eden where the serpent lured humanity into sin and death by lying to them, telling them that if they ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they wouldn't die as God had warned they would. Instead, the serpent insisted, God only warned Adam and Eve against the fruit because at the moment, they did, they would be like God (Genesis 3:1-5). We human beings have been hot on the trail of god-likeness, of power ever since. We look for it in all the dying stuff of this world because the last thing we want to do is play second fiddle to anyone, even to the God Who made us!

But think about it: When you know that one day, if you will remain faithful to Jesus, you will be reunited with Him “in a beautiful place,” how powerful are the things of this world? 

How powerful is money? 

How powerful are comfort or ease? 

How powerful are governments or the in-crowd? 

The power and utility of each will end for us at the moment we draw our last breaths.

If you belong to the risen Jesus, can anything intimidate you? 

Can you be intimidated by sickness or setbacks, adversity or rejection? 

Can you be intimidated by death? 

Years ago, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu raised his voice in Christ’s name against the system of racial slavery known as apartheid that existed in his land. He received multiple death threats daily. Why, a reporter asked him, did he keep pressing Christ’s case against government-authorized hatred, he was asked? He couldn’t help it, Tutu said, God hates injustice and loves it when we treat others justly. “Besides,” he said, “death is not the worst thing that can happen to a Christian.” 

Do we live in that assurance? 

Do we dare to fight for the good of our neighbor, not worrying about what’s best for us in this world because we know that by God’s grace through our faith in Christ, we have a share in God’s best for all eternity?

Do we brave the taunts of an ego-imprisoned world to share the good news of new life from the risen Jesus with people who need Him as much as you and I do?

The early Church, having gone through the darkness of Good Friday, the glory of Easter, and now filled with God’s Holy Spirit, did live in the assurance that because Jesus rose from the dead and they belonged to Jesus, nothing could separate them from God (Romans 8:31-39).

They knew that no power in this world could rob them of eternal life with God! 

That’s why after the Holy Spirit came to them at Pentecost--as He comes to us in our Baptism, they shared the good news of new life for all who repent and believe in Jesus. 

They were and they made disciples, just as Christ calls and commands you and me to do.

But their message about the risen Jesus threatened those who clung to the power and comforts of this world, just as He does today. 

In Acts 3, we’re told that, in the name of the risen Jesus, Peter and John, two of the apostles, healed a lame beggar at the temple in Jerusalem. Not surprisingly, eople were amazed! Peter explained that this had happened not because he and John were great, but because the risen and living Jesus is infinitely the greatest of all.

The temple crowds weren’t the only ones who witnessed these things though. So did the powerful, in this case, the Sadducees, the priestly class who wielded both religious and earthly power. They didn’t believe in Jesus’ resurrection. And they feared that if the people started believing in the resurrection, they might become fearless. They might realize that they no longer needed the system of temple sacrifices by which the Sadducees kept the people under their thumbs. 

That’s where our second lesson for today, Acts 4:1-12, begins. When the Sadducees saw that after the healing of the lame man and Peter’s sermon, 5000 men (and who knows how many women and children) came to believe in the resurrected Jesus, they took the apostles into custody. 

With Jesus’ crucifixion fresh in Peter’s and John’s memories, the Sadducees undoubtedly thought that some time in a jail cell and time in their intimidating presence would make the two of them (and the rest of the Church) stop claiming that Jesus rose from the dead.

But they soon learned that intimidation cannot work on those who follow Jesus. As they stood before the powerful custodians of the temple, Peter and John are asked, “By what power or what name did you do this?” (Acts 4:7) (Back to the perennial human issue of power again.) 

Notice: The Sadducees didn’t deny that the lame man had been healed. That’s not the issue. They know that the man really had been lame and now really was healed. No, their interest is in the power question. “In whose name are you defiantly flouting our power here in the seat of our power, the temple?” they demanded to know.

The reaction of Peter and John is instructive for we who bear the name of Jesus and confess Him to be our Lord and God. They didn’t counterattack. Like the Lord Jesus, when He was tried, they didn’t become defensive. They didn’t issue a torrent of condemnations. 

But here’s what they also didn’t do: They didn’t buckle under the power arrayed before them. After all, death isn’t the worst thing that can happen to a Christian. 

Verse 8: “Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: ‘Rulers and elders of the people! If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a man who was lame and are being asked how he was healed, then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth,whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed…” 

Peter declared that the lame man had been healed by the Savior they’d had a hand in (and we all have a hand in) nailing to a cross, but was very much alive, sitting at the right hand, the power hand, of God the Father! 

The world had not been able to get rid of Jesus. Even when the world killed Him off, He rose again, and there is nothing that the powerful, the cynics, the hopeless, or the joyless of this world can do about it! Jesus is risen; He is risen indeed!

Peter goes on to cite a verse from Psalm 118. It's interesting that he does because Psalm 118 celebrated the restoration of the temple in Jerusalem after the Babylonian captivity of God’s people. The temple had been an important place long before Jesus came into this world. It was where God’s presence dwelt on the earth. It was where pious Jews offered sacrifices for their sins and prayed. 

But those days were done. 

When Jesus died on the cross, the curtain shielding worshipers from the holy of holies where God lived was torn from top to bottom. 

Jesus was and is the final, definitive sacrifice for sin; no more sacrifices were needed. 

“Behold,” Jesus’ earthly cousin John the Baptist had told his own disciples when he caught sight of Jesus at the Jordan, “the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world.” 

Jesus was and is the only foundation stone on whom eternal life is built, which is why Peter described Jesus to the Sadducees, quoting the psalm, as “the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone…”

No matter how the power-hungry, rational, self-worshiping world may rail against belief in Jesus’ resurrection or the resurrection of those who follow Him as nonsense, the truth cannot be altered. 

The 500-plus disciples of Jesus Who had saw Him risen from the dead and staked their lives on that truth cannot be ignored (1 Corinthians 15:3-8). 

Nor can the millions of lives that have been changed, transformed by the risen Jesus. 

Nor could they possibly deny the truth of Jesus’ resurrection if they dared, with the help of Christian friends like you and me, to put their trust in Jesus. When I came to faith in Christ after being exposed to the faith of the people of our home church in Columbus and the Biblical witness on which they built their lives, I reached a point at which I told God, "Lord, I find it hard to believe. But I am willing to believe. I'm willing to trust what these people believe and what your Bible tells me. Help me to believe." If people would dare to come to God in this way, the Holy Spirit would begin to build their faith in Jesus Christ. He and His resurrection would become undeniably and palpably real in their lives!

It’s to underscore the truth of Jesus' resurrection victory over sin and death that Peter says in the final verse of today’s lesson: “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”

Today is the third installment of our series, Church Lessons, taken from the New Testament book of Acts. Here is our third lesson: 

The only power to overcome the sin, death, and futility of this world is the risen Jesus Christ. The true, eternal Church is made up of those who trustingly live as though they believe that’s true...because it is! 

Jesus Christ calls us to live in this truth. Are you in?

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Palm Sunday: Welcome Jesus, Welcome Others to Know Jesus

Luke 19:28-40
“Zacchaeus was a wee little man,
And a wee little man was he.
He climbed up in a sycamore tree
For the Lord he wanted to see;
And as the Savior passed that way,
He looked up in the tree,
(Spoken) And he said, ‘Zacchaeus you come down
For I'm going to your house today.
For I'm going to your house today.’”

That's a simple little Bible song about an incident in Jesus’ earthly ministry. Jesus was passing through the city of Jericho, which sets at the lowest point on earth, heading for Jerusalem. A short man named Zacchaeus, climbs into a tree to catch a glimpse of Jesus as Jesus walks by. Zacchaeus had gained his riches by extorting more taxes from people than they owed. He wasn’t popular in Jericho. But Jesus invites Himself to Zacchaeus’ house.

I bring this up because we it helps us to understand Luke's account of Palm Sunday if we first understand what happened between Jesus and Zacchaeus just before Jesus entered Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday.

Let’s take a look at Luke 19, starting at verse 5. It says that Jesus saw Zacchaeus and said, “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house.” There's a lot of irony here. A sinner looks down on God in the flesh, Who has come into the world as a servant to all humankind. Yet the scene doesn't play out like that at all. You might think that Zacchaeus’ first impulse would be to tell Jesus to find somewhere else to stay. After all, he had only climbed the tree to see what all the fuss was about. He could see by Jesus’ attire that Jesus was just more Galileean riff-raff. Yet Zacchaeus doesn't react as you'd expect!

All of us have the same choice in this life that Zacchaeus had to make at that moment. We can choose to receive the gift of faith in Jesus or not.

“Listen!” the risen and ascended Jesus is recorded as saying in Revelation 3, “I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear My voice and open the door, I will come into you and eat with you, and you with me.”

Jesus Christ wants to come into your life, be your Savior, be your best friend.

Jesus, Who died and rose to set you free from sin, death, and a pointless life, is knocking at the door of your will, life, and heart each day? Will you let him in?

Zacchaeus' answer was, “Yes!”

Luke 19:6 says that Zacchaeus hurried down and received Jesus “joyfully.”

When, after a decade of atheism, I received Jesus into my life, I knew a joy I had never experienced. I still had no clear idea of what God wanted to do with my life. Jesus didn’t offer me a life free of adversity or difficulty or death. But I didn’t care because Jesus was in my life and I knew that He was all I needed! I knew that Jesus Christ had saved me, a sinner who had once despised Him!

Sometimes, amid the routines and challenges of life, I forget that. But I have learned the truth of the Christmas hymn by Phillips Brooks: "Where meek souls will receive Him still, the dear Christ enters in." That's true no matter how many times we fall, no matter how far we've fallen!

In Luke 19:9, Jesus, considering how Zacchaeus had received Jesus by faith, declares: “Today [now, this moment] salvation has come to this house, because [Zacchaeus] also is a son of Abraham; for the Son of Man [Jesus refers to Himself in this way] has come to seek and to save that which is lost.”

Whenever you and I get lost, wandering far from God by engaging in unrepentant sin--be it thievery, gossip, fornication, adultery, worshiping other gods, dishonoring our parents, or some other way--God can find us again!

Not everyone was happy about the change that had come to Zacchaeus’ life. Listen: The moment you feel that you’ve been made clean by the forgiveness and grace God gives through Jesus, that's when the devil, the world, and your sinful self will begin grumbling. Bet on it!

"Who are you to receive God’s forgiveness?" the grumblers inside and outside of you will demand. "Who are you to be called one of God’s righteous saints?"

The grumbling that day in Jericho came from some of the crowd who had been shouting for Jesus. Look at Luke 19:7. “But when they saw [Jesus going to Zacchaeus’ house], they all complained [or grumbled], saying, ‘He [Jesus] has gone to be a guest with a man who is sinner.’”

I wonder how we would react if today, we saw Jesus enter the home of a drug dealer? Or an adulterer? Or an extortionist? Or any other sinner, like you or me?

But Jesus will enter any home and any heart that welcomes Him.

The grumblers that tell you that someone doesn’t deserve the forgiveness of God Jesus brings, the grumblers that tell you that you don't deserve the forgiveness that comes from Jesus Christ, completely miss the point.

Here's why: None of us deserves God’s forgiveness. We are all sinners who deserve condemnation and hell. But Jesus died and rose so that we can be with and enjoy God for all eternity! These gifts come to those who gladly receive Jesus.

It’s interesting that Jesus was walking from Jericho to the Mount of Olives as our Gospel lesson begins.

About 1200 years before the birth of Jesus, God’s people entered the Promised Land from the east, crossing the Jordan to face the walled city of Jericho. Jericho had to be conquered so that God’s people could take the land.

The leader of the Hebrews was Moses’ successor, Joshua. His name in the Hebrew language was Yeshua, meaning God saves. It is the same name as that of Jesus. In the Hebrew language, Jesus’ name was also Yeshua. But because the New Testament is written in Greek, where Yeshua becomes Yesus, we call him Jesus.

When the Joshua of the Old Testament prepared to enter the promised land, you’ll remember that he sent two spies into Jericho. Twelve-hundred years later, Jesus needed no spies. He knew everything that was going to happen. He knew where His enemies were.

But Jesus did send two disciples ahead of him. Jesus instructs the two disciples to find a colt in a nearby village, presumably Bethany, where Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. It would, Jesus tells them, be tied, and would be an animal on which nobody had previously ridden.

That last bit of information is far more important than it may seem: God in the flesh would be the colt's first rider.

This is part of a pattern in Jesus’ life and ministry.

• When Jesus was born, He came from a womb that had never known sexual intimacy. Jesus was the first born of a virgin’s womb. [See Luke 1:26-35; Matthew 1:18-25.]
• When Jesus died, His body was “laid...in a rock-hewn tomb where no one had ever been laid.”  [See Luke 23:53.]

The things of God must always be first, holy, and set apart. Jesus is, as the New Testament book of Hebrews calls Him, our pioneer. He always writes new histories for those who repent and believe in Him on clean sheet of paper. He starts creation over again!

The two disciples find everything as Jesus has told them. They bring the animal back, throw their clothes on it, and set Jesus on it. Jesus begins to ride into Jerusalem. From the depths of Jericho, Jesus and the disciples ascend to the Mount of Olives. One New Testament scholar has written that even today, when you go by car, the culmination of the ascent from earth's lowest depth, Jericho, to the Mount of Olives, brings a sense of relief, the drive up is so steep. And the view, when one arrives, he says, is breathtaking: From the Mount of Olives, you look down into the Kidron Valley, and look across to see Jerusalem.

Jesus no doubt took in this sight, thinking of all that lay ahead of Him. Who can imagine what pangs Jesus felt as He kept His face set toward Jerusalem and the suffering and dying He would undergo for you and me? How alone He must have felt at that moment!

“Then,” verse 37 says, “as He was drawing near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen, saying, ‘Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!’”

It’s important to point out a couple of things that are unique about Luke’s account of Palm Sunday.

• First, there’s no mention of palms. Those are in John’s gospel. Branches are mentioned in Matthew's and Mark's accounts of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem on this day. But no palms in Luke.
• Second, he doesn’t mention the crowds shouting, “Hosanna,” an Aramaic prayer meaning, “Save us, pray.” 
• And third, in Luke’s telling, only the disciples welcome Jesus, not the crowds. 

Now, does that mean that there weren’t palms, hosannas, or welcoming crowds? Of course not! It simply means that Luke has some things he wants you and I to notice about the first Palm Sunday, things that he foreshadowed in the events in Jericho surrounding Zacchaeus.

Using the words of Psalm 118, which some New Testament scholars say, was a hymn sung by worshippers as they headed for Jerusalem for festivals like the Passover, the disciples welcomed Jesus to the holy city.

Did the disciples fully understand what was going on? No.

Did some of them think that Jesus was going to start a revolution and set up an earthly kingdom to replace their Roman overlords? Probably.

Did any of them believe that Good Friday and Easter were going to happen? At that moment, I’m sure they didn’t know.

But they knew enough to welcome Jesus. We don’t know what lies in our immediate futures either. We don't know what God has in mind for us. We don't know what valleys or Good Fridays this fallen, sinful world may mete out to us.

Yet if we will welcome Jesus as our God and King, we do know that we have an eternity of Easter Sundays to look forward to!

And we do know that Jesus, Who was tempted, tested, suffered, died, and then rose, will be with us every step of the way!

But don’t expect the devil, the world, or even our inner sinful rebels to take our welcoming of Jesus lying down! Look at Luke 19:39, please. “...some of the Phairsees called to [Jesus] from the crowd, ‘Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.’” “Tell those people to be quiet! They need to can their faith in You!” they were telling Jesus.

There will always be people who grumble about the joy Christians know in Christ.

“Tell my daughter to quit reading the Bible so much, pastor” a mom once said to me. “Why?” I asked. “Religion has its place,” the mom asserted, “but we have to be practical.” Like Mary, the sister of Martha, that woman’s daughter had chosen the better part that could never be taken away from her. That's the part we must choose, too, if we are to have life with God!

The things of this world will die, damned to hell for eternity. As a design engineer who built great buildings and bridges once told his colleagues over dinner, “One day, all of this will burn.” But those who trust in Jesus Christ have life with God, now and forever! They welcome Jesus into their lives. The grumblers, even those who go to church on Sundays but forget about Jesus on Mondays, block Jesus from their lives by refusing to welcome him into every portion of their lives.

Fact is, we all can be grumblers, at least some of the time. The reason for that is simple: If you dare as a Christian to live in daily repentance and renewal, you can count on God to confront you for your sins, even as He embraces you in His grace and love. God loves sinners, but God still hates sin and always will. By His grace, through Jesus Christ, God is committed to removing sin from our lives. But it's a painful truth that none of us likes being separated from our sins. We get comfortable with them. They start to define us. We feel a natural resistance to God's intention to make us new by removing our dependence on our sins from us!

We’ll never be completely free of sin this side of heaven. But the Christian tells Jesus, “Let the old self be crucified, so that the new self can rise today and every day.”

Jesus, of course, refused the Pharisees request. He wouldn’t let His disciples stop welcoming and praising Him. In verse 40, Jesus tells them, “I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.”

I've shared with some of you before that when our son was about eight years old, he said, "Hey, dad, you know how Jesus said that if people stopped worshiping Him, the stones would start worshiping Him instead?" "Yeah," I said. "Well, I know it would be bad if nobody was worshiping Jesus. But it would be kind of cool to hear how stones worshiped."

Listen: Don’t let inanimate stones take your job!

It’s the job and the joy of every Christians to shout and sing and live the praises of the God Who died and rose to set us and all of creation free from sin and death and futility.

It’s our job and our joy to welcome Jesus into our lives and, like Zacchaeus to tell others of our thankfulness that Jesus--God in human flesh--went to Jerusalem, to suffering, to a cross, to hell itself, and than rose from death to set us eternally free.

Welcome Jesus into your life!

Then welcome others to know Jesus!

That’s what Palm Sunday is all about.

Amen!