The King You Never Knew You Wanted

It’s. Do you hear that? Sounds like multitudes. This is the moment. The son of David, the Messiah.

Hosanna. It means save us. Hosanna to the Savior, son of David. Hosanna to the son of David. Stop.

Stop. Careful. Stay away from us. We mean no harm. You tried to kill us.

No one wants a riot. John Z. I want to hear the mouth. If you turn back now, it could save your life. Wait.

We’re not going to do that. You hear that chanting? The people sound like they’re ready to crown him king. And for declaring yourself a sovereign, Rome will descend on us all. I have said nothing about an earthly crown, ever.

You’re riding a donkey. For those of us who know prophecy, your meaning could not be any more clear. What does he mean? Zechariah’s prophecy of the Messiah. Behold, your king is coming to you, righteous and with salvation.

Riding on a donkey? The people haven’t even seen the donkey yet. And once they do, everything they hope for will be confirmed. It already is. Can’t you see?

We should be rejoicing. This is the moment that we will all be saved. Hosanna to the son of David. Hosanna. I don’t stand with these men.

But they are right. Raising Lazarus changed everything. Jesus will not be safe inside the city gates. You are calling for his killing. Don’t you see, Teacher?

If you value your own life, tell your students to stop. I could tell them to stop. But I tell you, if they were to be silent, even these very stones around us would cry out in their place. Hundreds and hundreds of years before the events that took place on this video, there was a prophet named Samuel. Samuel was the leader of Israel.

But Samuel was growing old, and his sons were to take his place. They were ruling Israel at the time. But his sons were not good people. They weren’t following God. And Israel demanded that they have what they would call a real king.

We want a real king. So if you turn to 1st Samuel 1 8, we’re going to look at. At this particular time in history, and we’ll connect it to Palm Sunday and Jesus here in a minute. So bear with me here. So, 1st Samuel 1:8, let’s read that together.

I’m going to just walk through it as we read it. Okay? I’ll give you just a second to get there. Beginning with verse 8. And by the way, if you have your notes, you can pull that out.

Pull your note page out, and we’ve printed it all out for you. So you don’t have to do a lot of homework, you can just write notes down. Our Wednesday small group always goes over our notes. We talk it through and get a little deeper than on Sunday morning. It’s always a great thing.

Conversations just happen automatically when we open up the word of God and look at the passages. So verse 8. When Samuel grew old, he appointed his son as Israel’s leaders. His sons as Israel’s leaders. The name of his firstborn was Joel, and the name of his second was Abijah.

And they served at Beersheba. But his sons did not follow his way. They turned aside after dishonest gain and accepted bribes and perverted justice. And all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel and Ramah. And they said to him, you are old and your sons are not following your ways.

They’re not following the Lord. They’re not doing what they’re supposed to do. They’re far from God. They’re accepting brides. They’re doing all this corrupt stuff and that now appoint us a king.

We need a king such as all the other nations. We’re looking at the other nations. We see what they have. They see these, they saw these conquering kings. They saw these big established strongman kings.

And they were like, we want a king like that. We need a king like that. But what God had told them is that he would provide them a king in his time and in his way. But the people were tired of waiting and they demanded a king from Samuel. In verse 7, it says, and the Lord told him, as Samuel was, let me go back here.

I jumped ahead a little bit. So the elders gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. And they said to him, you’re old and your sons are not good. So we need a new king. Verse 6.

Here’s where we are. But when they said, give us a king to lead us, it displeased Samuel. Why did it displease Samuel? For what? I just said that God had not prescribed this time for them to have a king yet.

So he prayed to the Lord. So he goes to the Lord. And he asked him, what do I do? And I love how the Lord says this. He says, and the Lord told him, listen to all the people that are saying to you.

It is not you they have rejected, because they were rejecting Samuel. I’m sure Samuel felt a little bit defeated, like everybody was against him. All of Israel is against me. I put in all these years I’ve led these people and. And I’ve told them that God is going to bring them a king one day.

But they just don’t listen to me. And I’m sure he was going to the Lord, like, lord, what do I do with these people? And he says, don’t worry about it. They’re not rejecting you, they’re rejecting me. They’re rejecting me.

God says, when they hate you, they hate me. When they despise you, they despise me. When they reject you, they reject me. That should be some hope for somebody here today. Just as a little side note, you know, if you feel isolated or you feel alone because of your f.

Or because of who you are because you’re living a moral life, guess what? They’re rejecting God. They’re not rejecting you. You’re living for God, and he’s got your back. And he tells Samuel he’s got his back.

He says in verse eight, as they have done from the day I brought them out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. They’re forsaking me. They’re forsaking you because they’re forsaking me. It’s really me they’re forsaking. Now listen to them.

But warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will claim as his rights. So Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. And just to paraphrase the next next part of Scripture, up until verse 19, and we’ll jump to that in a second. And in the following verses, he spells out what would happen to him. He said, if you want a king now, and I appoint this king, it’s not going to be the king that God has for you.

He may be good for a while, but he’s not always going to be good, because he’s going to be building his kingdom for himself. He’s not going to be building his kingdom for God and for you. In fact, he’s going to use you to build and glorify himself. He’s going to appoint some of you slaves. He’s going to appoint others of you commanders, and others of you soldiers, and others of you servants.

And you’re going to glorify him. He’s going to be on the throne in order to make him look good and not God look good. And he will take your resources and he will take your land, and he will use it for his glory and his advantage. And he would not be the king that God had in mind for you. It will not be good for you, Israel.

But what was their response in verse 19. After hearing all of that, but the people refused to listen to Samuel and said, no, I want a king. We want a king. And we want a king that looks like these other nations. We want a king that we don’t want the king that you want, Samuel.

We don’t want the king that God wants. Because God had what they didn’t know, that God had another king in mind. But for them, all they could see is right now, all they could see is who was out there and who was out there and who was doing that and what they looked like and what they acted like and how these other kingdoms were taking over areas and ruling with an iron fist. And they wanted that. They were like, we need a strong man king.

And when Samuel heard all this, all that the people said, he repeated it before the Lord, and the Lord answered, listen to me, listen to them and give them a king. Just give them a king. Samuel. The people will have to learn. Because they wanted a king that looked like all the other nations.

They wanted a kingdom that looked like warring success, that looked like intimidation. They wanted a king that would manhandle nations. Samuel warned them that they would be disappointed, but they wanted this king. And from the point in which Saul was appointed and anointed king all the way to the split of the kingdoms of Israel, the two kingdoms of Israel, we have seen that there’s been a longing for more, that no king brought any lasting prosperity. Saul, while initially a good military leader, perceived disobedience to God.

It was perceived that he had disobedience to God, such as as performing unsanctioned sacrifices, which led him to his downfall and Israel’s downfall and his rejection of God. Solomon. After building the temple, Solomon made several mistakes. He included marrying foreign wives. He worshiped other gods, adopted other gods, accumulated wealth and power, and ultimately leading to the division of the kingdom.

After his death, Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, refused to heed advice of the elders and instead raised taxes, causing the northern kingdom of Israel to split from Judah, forming the two kingdoms. Jeroboam, the first king of the northern kingdom, established a system of false worship to prevent his people from going to Jerusalem to worship, leading to idolatry in their nation. Ahaz, as described as being unfaithful to God, sacrificing to other gods, demonstrating wickedness over and over again. Manasseh, who is known for sacrificing his own son, a king of Israel who sacrificed his own son, a practice abominable by God. And Hezekiah, while he was a good King initially made mistakes by showing off his wealth to foreign nations, ultimately leading to future destruction of his kingdom.

And even King David, one who was after God’s own heart, one who the son of man, would come from his root, even he could not fulfill it, even he could not do it with faith and military prowess, he still made mistakes, such as committing adultery and ordering a census that was not ordained by God and brought a plague upon his people. And over and over again, with few exceptions to the rule, there were wicked people leading the people into false worship, and ultimately the divide and the fall of all the kingdoms of Israel, all the tribes of Israel, every place we see a king rise up, that the people looked at, they could not fulfill what God had in mind. And to be fair, there were stretches of peace and there were stretches of prosperity for Israel through military aggression and suppression and protection. Those things had to happen. But that peace was shortly lived.

That peace didn’t last long. It was a temporary peace, a temporary freedom. And Israel would learn as the story unfold that the different kings that would come their way, even the best of kings, would fail them. And they would still be left with a longing, a longing for a king, a messiah. Military aggression and intimidation only inspired more war and only led even fellow Israelites fighting each other.

Because every king that came along for Israel left her disappointed. Every king left her disappointed, even in times of peace, even in times of prosperity, because they were ever and always going to leave her with this idea, Israel with this idea of death, that there were other countries on the side looking and waiting, and when is it all going to fall apart again? And worse yet, they were always going to leave her spiritually dead. That Israel would be hungry for something even deeper, an enemy of death. That death would always be lurking, that death would always be there, whether it’s a physical death or a spiritual death.

There was something deep inside their hearts that they needed a king to fulfill. All of the deepest longings of. Of their soul. Every king left them disappointed. Every king left them longing.

Which leads me to my first point. Every king that comes along has always left us longing. Every king that has come along, every authority, every president, every ruler, every one of them have left us longing. And throughout history, we’ve seen kings and queens in history, we’ve seen governments come and go, and none of them have brought world peace. None of them have brought prosperity.

Eternal prosperity. None of them have done that. And today we put far too much hope in public figures and public authorities and hope that they may bring us peace and they may Bring us prosperity, and they may bring us something. Salvation is what we’re longing for, someone to save us. And we always look as fickle of a people as we are.

We turn to a spiritual kingdom, but we always look back to a physical kingdom, hoping that that physical kingdom comes, and that may be the next president, maybe the next administration, maybe that person will come and save us and bring us prosperity and peace. But even in the best of situations, even in the best of governments, there’s always a longing for more and never lasts. Because every king that’s come along has left us longing. It’s left us longing. Just as we learned in week one, we’re always left with this hunger for more bread.

The bread of life is what we’re longing for. We’re longing for king that’s not of this world. Because every king has left us longing. Except one. Except one.

If we go back to the clip that we watched at the beginning of the sermon, let’s go to the passage in John 12, 12 and 19, if you want to turn there. And this is going to be where we look at exactly what was going on and what was being talked about that this film has given us such a vivid look at. It says in verse 12 of chapter 12. The next day, the crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. So they took palm branches, Palm Sunday.

That’s why we celebrate Palm Sunday, palm branches. And they went out to meet him, shouting, hosanna, the one who’s going to save us. Hosanna. The king that’s going to come. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Blessed is the King of Israel. As they were quoting an Old Testament, an Old Testament worship. And Jesus found a young donkey and he sat on it, as it is written. And John so carefully points us to the Old Testament passage in Zechariah that says, do not be afraid, daughter Zion. See, your king is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt.

Verse 16. At first, the disciples did not understand all of this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that these things had been done to him. So they didn’t get it. Even at that moment, you know, as you saw the disciples, they were like, yeah, the king, the king.

It’s happening. It’s going to happen. Look at all the people. They’re waving palm branches. It’s getting ready to happen.

It’s getting ready to happen. Even the one who betrayed him was the first one to say, let’s do it. Let’s go. Yeah, Judas. I love how they put that on that scene.

That’s probably what was going on. He was expecting a king that would rule and take over. They didn’t get it. And John carefully puts that in scripture, saying, you know, I didn’t get it. I didn’t understand it till Jesus was glorified.

I didn’t understand any of it. Now, the crowd that was with him in verse 17, when he called Lazarus from the tomb, raised him from the dead, continued to spread the word. And many people, because they had heard that he had performed this sign, went out and met him. So people heard about the miracle, saw the miracle, witnessed a miracle. So there were just tons of people there praising and knowing that, man, if this guy can raise somebody from the dead, he’s got to be the next king to take over.

So the Pharisees said to one another, and as you see, they came out, see, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him. This is getting us nowhere. Pharisees were stirred up. The people were stirred up.

Things were happening. And I don’t know if on that Sunday long ago, when he goes riding into Jerusalem on a donkey colt as he was riding into Jerusalem, if the crowd actually spoke the words of the Old Testament, of Zechariah, that he would be riding on a donkey. I don’t know if they spoke that loudly and they said that clearly. But if someone did, they really didn’t have to, because the people knew the crowds had already known that this was a king in their midst. They would have understood the Old testament, where Deuteronomy 17:16 says, the king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses of himself, that he would come humbly and he would not require military force.

They knew that they would have remembered 1st Kings 1 where Solomon was mounted on David’s mule and anointed a king off site a humble way, referring to the prophecy of this Messiah who would come himself riding on a colt, riding on a donkey colt, that which would be worthy of king and messiahship, One who would bring salvation to us. They cried, hosanna. Hosanna. The one who would save us, the one who is worthy. They called him a king.

He was the king to come. They would have remembered the passages from Zachariah in the first eight chapters where the devastation of Israel came by their enemies. And they would have been familiar with the promises that God had gave to him when they experienced such pain and such devastation. Salvation and restoration was coming to Israel one day that A king would come. A king will come to rule the nations.

They would have been familiar with the prophetic words. Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion. Shout, daughter of Jerusalem. See your king comes to you lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the fowl of a donkey. The people knew this was a king.

They knew wasn’t a surprise to them. The long promised messianic king would come and save Jerusalem. But they expected something else. Because they would go back to first Samuel and they would see. As the people waved palm and cried out, in their mind, they saw peace and prosperity that was to come.

But they would have. They would be looking for somebody like a real king in the world, something like Caesar, someone like a great country that would rule. And the palm branches were symbolic of military victories and to honor kings who conquered and brought peace. And as they waved those palm branches, they were thinking military force. They were thinking a king that will take over with strength, but strength that they perceived with war.

They surely knew that Jesus had came taking up the mantle of a warrior to crush all of Israel’s oppressors, that starting from Rome and in moving outward, he would do a mass takeover of kingship. They would have thought this. They would have been reminded of the Maccabean revolts that happened 160 years before, where we see a rise of Jewish zealots and military soldiers in Jerusalem come up and fight off Rome. And the people who were trying to oppress them religiously. And they won, and they took back their freedom and they set back up their religious order.

And they thought, praise God. They sang that in Passover over and over again. They sang that in festivals. And they reminded themselves of what God had done to restore Israel back to what it was. And they were thinking that this king is going to do something even greater.

Caesar’s gone, and all the rulers of the world are gone now because we have a king that’s coming in and he’s going to take over. And all of these things and all these thoughts are understandable. For. For the Jewish people, they had been through a lot. Jews go through a lot.

You see it today. They’ve been through a lot. They’ve been oppressed. They live in a broken and cruel world. People have warred against other people and against them.

And her history was filled with stories of God warring against nations. So they assumed that his king would come. It made sense to them that a king that warred against nations would come because they watched Joshua and other judges and other leaders and David and all of them Come in and take hold of what was rightfully God’s through strength. So it would have made sense to them. And the book of Zechariah and other passages seem to speak of this military might on part of Israel’s messianic king.

And so it’s perfectly understandable why the people were terribly disappointed when Friday came that following week. They were terribly disappointed in Holy Week when the Savior did things that they didn’t expect do. They would have been crushed by the admonishment of the ways of the temple. They would have been crushed by the submission to pay Roman taxes. They would have been crushed by the teachings that seemed to put Israel on the defense and that they would be judged along with every nation.

They would be crushed. The willingness to ban, the unwillingness to band together with the religious authorities of that time, that Jesus wasn’t about being with the religious authorities. He brought something that was completely different. They would have been crushed by his meek and mild presence before Roman authorities as he was judged and as he was sentenced. They would have been crushed by the humiliating crucifixion that took place, that only the lowest of lows would have had to be sacrificed at that level.

They were crushed by the death, the burial of Jesus. And on that Saturday after Palm Sunday, on the Saturday after the dark and devastating event of Friday, the people would have been crushed. In fact, the disciples were in hiding. They’d scattered. They would have been crushed and afraid, afraid that this king that we thought was the king will never come.

Will he ever come? And with his never coming, that victory over her enemies would never come. They felt that maybe you’re there. Will it ever come? Will God ever come through?

He promised me. As we talked about last week, we have so many promises in Scripture, and some of you haven’t yet to live out those promises. Devastation crushed because they expected another type of king. We expect another type of king. But on that Saturday, they should have not been afraid.

They should have not been afraid. They should have been rejoicing as much as they had been that Sunday before. That Palm Sunday before. They should have been rejoicing because Jesus was going to accomplish something much greater than than just a temporary peace and a temporary prosperity. That he was going to accomplish something even greater and even deeper and even stronger and even more powerful and even with more authority.

But it didn’t look like the authority of this world. It was something greater. Jesus is the king against whom all other kings pale in comparison. There’s no other king that adds up to Jesus. They didn’t Have a clue that Jesus is the only king who thinks beyond fleeting forms of peace and fleeting forms of prosperity.

We can look at any other leader in this world and they will not see it the way Jesus sees it because he sees past that and the self defeating means to accomplish both and address the deepest needs of the world. Ushering a deep flourishing that all other kings have failed to bring about. It was a king that would conquer more than just these earthly enemies. It was a king that would do something unspeakable. It was a king that would give his life for his people.

It was a king that would meet the deepest desires of our hearts that we’ve been longing for. Laying down his life and shattering all those military aggression, suppression, protection ways, showing us that there’s a way to peace past that something much deeper but more so. He is the way to peace because it is under one Lord, it is under one God, it’s under one baptism, it’s under one Father, it’s under one faith. As we proclaim Jesus is Lord. It’s under him and him alone.

Where battles can be still and Jesus secures an unfolding victory through. Through deep love. Love. Just after the passage of Zechariah 9, 9 where we see him riding on the donkey, we see the prophetic scriptures of Jesus riding on the donkey. 10, 14.

Just it goes through what this king would do. He’d offer forgiveness, he’d offer healing, he’d offer new life, ever increasing unity. And he’d offer peace to this world that we would sing and rejoice about. In fact, kingly victory over enemies through kingly love is already happening on Palm Sunday himself itself in this story. Did you know that some Greeks, it says in scripture, even some Greeks approached the disciples?

The possibility of spending time with Jesus. It was a nod to what Jesus was getting ready to do. That it wasn’t going to be just about Israel. It was going to be about the world. And he loved the world so much that he gave himself for it.

It wasn’t just about Israel’s conquering victory. It was about a whole victory for the whole world for eternity. It was so much more because of Christ’s love for people, God’s love for all of mankind from the day of Adam. Paradise lost in sin and paradise restored in Jesus Christ for the entire world. And at this point we’ve only spoken about the victory over enemies.

But there’s also a major enemy that we need to mention and that’s victory over death. That the ultimate enemy is death. Even if Jesus as king were able to turn every enemy into brothers and sisters, there would still be a reason for Israel to be disappointed. Because they are afraid there is an enemy. It’s called death.

Death needed to be dealt with. Death was always lingering. Death is always lingering in the backgr for every person spiritually, deep down inside themselves. The death. The death.

Not just physical death, though. We’re all going to face physical death. I’m talking about a second death. The Bible talks about a second death. The dangers of a second death.

Scripture says if the physical death in this broken world will come. But Jesus and his reality and the reality of Jesus Christ and who he is, the second death is due to the rejection of God himself. That’s what they really feared. It wasn’t the death in this life. It was the death that was to come.

They needed something more. They needed to fulfill that deep longing. We all need that deep longing. This is the victory we have in Jesus Christ. That death and sin have been defeated.

Your sin has been defeated. We’ve all fallen short of the glory of God. But through the. The resurrection, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the blood has been shed so that we can have life and life to the full. And we have no more fear because of who Jesus is.

Do you see it? Do you see the king? Do you see the Lord? Do you see that there is a king? There is one king and one savior.

Do you see it in scripture? Do we see it as our eyes open? That no other earthly ruler can accomplish what this man has done, that what he’s done. This is the passage and message of Palm Sunday to Israel, of yesterday and to us today. They needed to know that this king was going to do a lot more.

And we need to know that this king has done a lot more. Jesus is the king of kings. He’s the Lord of lords. He wins our deepest battles. He conquers.

The victory is in him. The deepest battles of our hearts, the deepest battles of our life. And how we can be so fickle as people to be in our. To confess our allegiance to Jesus. But as soon as something else comes along, another ruler, just like Israel, we turn to those rulers that we are enamored with.

Figures of an authority. And people who come along, we’re enamored with, you know, who they are and what they’re able to accomplish in this life. Just like the people in the Gospel of John, they saw something in front of them, but they didn’t see something far, far more. They couldn’t see past this rulership that they desired. And if we turn a few pages more.

From the start of the Holy Week to Palm Sunday to the events of Good Friday, we see how fickle the crowd really was. One minute they were praising God. Hosanna in the highest. He’s coming to save us. He’s going to conquer.

To picking a man named Barabbas, who was an insurrectionist, who was a person who we wanted to. They thought, wow, release him. And they quickly turned their backs on the very king who they praised and adored because they were crushed, because they didn’t get it. They didn’t see what was in front of them. They didn’t know what he was going to do that was greater than any earthly leader could do.

So I make this point. If the king has come, our longing for other kings who will always leave us. Longing must end. It must end. Our longing for other kings must end.

Our longing should always be Jesus. Our longing should always be focused on God. That’s the point of Palm Sunday, is that we realign our thoughts on God. How do we do that? How do we do that?

How do we keep. Just as we need to eat of the bread of life, we need to eat and we need to receive from the king. We need to keep our focus on the king and our understanding of the king. How do we do that? We stay close to God.

We need to stay close to God because the enemy of this world is trying to distract us away from who the true king really is by other kings. And it might not even be people. It might be forces, it might be dominions. It might be all kinds of addictions and sins and things that we’re pulled away from. How do we stay close to God?

How do we focus on God? We get into deep prayer. We need to be praying. We need the word of God. We need church.

We need church attendance. We need fellowships. We need relationships to help align us and get us back. We need community. We need service.

We need. Maybe it’s simply crying every day. Hosanna as you wake up. Hosanna. I need you.

Save me, rescue me. Keep me from evil as Jesus prayed. Keep us from evil. Help us stay focused on you. And when all is said and done, perhaps the greatest and most impactful way we can hold on to the allegiance of Jesus as king is to create space.

Create space for deep worship of him as king. Deep worship. It’s hard to long for other kings when you’re busy elevating and praising the one true king, when you’re keeping him in your thoughts and minds and in your worship and in the center of your life. It’s hard to negotiate over to other kings because there is no negotiation when you’ve got him at center. And that’s what Palm Sunday does.

It realigns us that it isn’t the king that we may have hoped for, but it’s the king that we’ve always wanted and we’ve always needed. Let me leave with this last. Leave you with this last thought, and then we’ll take communion. John’s account in Palm Sunday when he quotes Zechariah. 9.

1. If you notice, Zechariah says, rejoice, Rejoice. But John says, do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. John intentionally changed that phrase in his quote.

Why? Because the reason for John’s tweaking is that we often have to make our way through fear in order to really, truly rejoice. And if you’re living in fear, if you’re living in depression, if you’re living outside of what God intended for you, if you’re walking through fear, you’ve got to break the fear to really enter into the throne room in the presence of God. Lay aside fear. We have to go.

We now stand on the other side of Jesus. Offerings of forgiveness, his resurrection, his peace. And there is no fear. There is no fear because he has conquered it all. In him there is no fear.

We have nothing to be afraid. Whom shall I be afraid? Whom shall I fear? My battles belong to the Lord. He conquers all of our battles.

Even the deepest longings of our soul and our heart are in Him. He conquers them all, and we can hold on to Him. So my question for you, are you experiencing fear today? It’s time to walk through it and look at the other side of it. We live on the other side.

We got to experience things about Jesus that people had dreamed of in the Old Testament and prayed about in the Old Testament and prophesied about in the Old Testament, had lived with the hope of that which was to come. And now we’re living in the fulfillment of it. And you can know with complete hope and a surety that Jesus Christ is the King. Father, we thank you, God, for your. For your kingship and your holiness.

Lord, we thank you for your word. It’s power. Father, as we head into this next part of breaking bread and taking of the cup, let us remember that you have to be aligned with us. All right? We have to be aligned with you.

We have to be aligned with you as kings. Because we remember. We remember. We remember the cross. We remember the death.

But more importantly, we remember the resurrection. Proving that you were king and you are Lord. And we wait. We await heaven that is to come. That one day will come that heaven will be a reality.

Not just at first death, but second life. There’s one here today that does not load a Lord. Good news is he has made himself available to you through the cross that there’s no amount of sin that you’ve done. That’s too bad that he can’t redeem by his blood. So would you give your life to him today?

Just confess your sin to him. Lord, I am a sinner. I’ve been cut off from you, Lord, by my sin. But today I receive you as Jesus, my Lord and Savior. Would you come into my life?

Would you come into my heart? I believe in the gospel. Save my life, Lord. Hosanna. Come and save us.

Hosanna. My salvation. Come make me a new creation. In Jesus name, Amen.