Today is the first of three messages that I guess I call the Easter series this year. The first one is today on Palm Sunday. The next one will be Friday for our Good Friday service, and the next Sunday, of course, at 10.30 here for Easter. Today we are considering the promised Messiah. We'll be in Matthew chapter 21. Let's read verses one through 11 as we consider our text this morning. Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethpage at the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied and a colt with her. Loose them and bring them to me. And if anyone says anything to you, you shall say, the Lord has need of them, and immediately he will send them. All this was done that it might be fulfilled, which is spoken by the prophet, saying, tell the daughter of Zion, behold, your king is coming to you. lowly and sitting on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey. So the disciples went and did as Jesus commanded them. They brought the donkey and the colt, laid their clothes on them and set him on them. And a very great multitude spread their clothes on the road. Others cut down branches from the trees and spread them on the road. Then the multitudes who went before and those who followed cried out, saying, Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. And when he had come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, Who is this? So the multitude said, This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth of Galilee. Father, we thank you for the opportunity we have to look in your word over the next few minutes here and consider these things. think about today being Palm Sunday, may it not just be another thing we say, well, that's great, you know, it's separate, but Lord, may we really grasp what's going on here today in Jesus coming as the promised Messiah, the anointed one, the one who would redeem men from their sins. Or would you impress on our hearts today that most glorious and wonderful message of Jesus Christ? I ask today that you would open our hearts, that you would help us today to see ways we need to change, things we need to do in order to draw closer to you. Lord, if there's one who hears this message, who does not know you as their Savior, would you draw them to yourself, show them who you are? And Lord, we ask now that everything will be done to your honor, your glory, your name we pray, amen. Fulfilled promises are something that we all look forward to, at least I do. As a kid, maybe you remember being a kid, or your parents promised you that you would do something, and you spend the next several weeks looking forward to that, or months, or however long it is, right? And you think about that. And I remember looking forward to the day of an event that my parents promised would happen. A little over 11 years ago, I promised my wife that I would marry her. We got engaged and we look forward to that day when we were married and we could fulfill that promise of engagement and then make promises of marriage for life. As a dad, I love making and fulfilling promises to my kids to see the delight on their face from those things. But there is a problem with human promises. Sometimes, in our own sinfulness, we break our promises. You ever had that experience? Or someone goes back on something they promised? Or someone breaks their word? Perhaps, sometimes, circumstances out of our control impede on our lives, and we must amend or break altogether that promise we have made. Did you know that the Bible is filled with promises from God? But perhaps, as I thought about this this week, perhaps there is none bigger than the promise that God made in the Garden of Eden in Genesis chapter three and verse 15. In Genesis 3.15, after Ab and Eve have sinned, God says, I and I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. If you want the big fancy word for this passage, it's called the protevangelium. That's the $5 word you can use at lunch today. And that word just simply means the first mention of the gospel in the scriptures. After the fall of man, when Adam and Eve chose to disobey God, God talking to the serpent, who is Satan here, he promises that yes, the serpent, Satan, will bruise the heel of the coming Messiah, Jesus Christ, but that the Messiah will crush the head of the serpent, he will bruise his head. This is the first promise of the gospel. This is the first promise of a deliverer, one who would come to deliver man from the power of sin. And unlike man, God's promises never fail. And they never are thwarted by sin or things outside of his control, but he is God. As we look today at Matthew chapter 21, we'll be talking about the promised Messiah and we see here that Jesus is the promised Messiah prophesied throughout the Old Testament and is worthy of our praise and our trust. As Jesus enters the city of Jerusalem on what we now call Palm Sunday, which may have been on a Sunday or could have been on a Monday of the Passion Week, we remember, we look forward to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and that's what Jesus, as God, was initiating as he came into Jerusalem that day. It's a very important passage that brings together all of these promises of who Jesus is, and points us to the cross, and points us then to the empty tomb. And we see here in verses one through seven today, we see first of all the prophecies of the Messiah that are fulfilled. Jesus here arrives in Jerusalem in chapter 21 in verse one, it says, now when they drew near Jerusalem, Jesus is coming into the city. For almost three years now, Jesus has been ministering, had a public ministry with his disciples going around Israel, preaching the kingdom. talking about who he is, he's teaching about who he is, who God is, why he came, he's doing these miracles and these things. And we see that Jesus's earthly ministry now is reaching its pinnacle. Previous to this, he's just healed two blind men in Jericho, and then he met with a guy named Zacchaeus, and he led Zacchaeus to faith in himself, and then he goes and he spends time in the area of Bethany with Mary and Martha and Lazarus. We read about that in John chapter 12. And if you know the story of Lazarus, Lazarus is one that Jesus had raised from the dead, confirming the power and deity of Jesus, that he is God. It's interesting, if you read that passage, after Lazarus is raised, people begin to believe on Jesus, right? He has power over death, and so the religious leaders get together, not just to kill Jesus, but to kill Lazarus, to make sure that he stays dead, right? To try to thwart the power and the plans of Jesus. In Bethany, Mary anoints Jesus' feet, which Judas, Jesus' betrayer, hypocritically objects to. But from here, Jesus begins his final journey to the city of Jerusalem. And this week that we call the Passion Week will commence with the events of the passage that we read here today in Matthew chapter 21. He will complete the work of his Father as the Lamb of God taking away the sins of the world. And so as he nears Jerusalem, Jesus and his disciples stop, it says here, in a small town of Bethpage, and came to Bethpage at the Mount of Olives. If you look at Bethpage, there's some speculation on exactly how far from Jerusalem it was, but it seems to be less than a mile from Jerusalem to the east, up to about two miles away from Jerusalem on the other side of the Mount of Olives. And Jesus, as God, knows the events that must occur, and he begins to set all of these things in motion. You know, up to this point, you read throughout the scriptures where Jesus, his disciples declare him as the Messiah, and Jesus says, now don't tell anyone. You ever read that before? The messianic secret, right? No, don't tell anyone, don't tell anyone. He said, why wouldn't you want anybody to know? Because his time had not yet come to die for the sins of mankind. The time for God's plan to be fulfilled, but now is the time. And we see that when God, begins the coronation of his son, no one can outdo it. No one can bring it to that completion. And as Jesus arrives here in Bethpage, his disciples, we see the beast that is fit for a king in these verses. Then Jesus sent two disciples saying to them, go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied and a colt with her. Loose them and bring them to me. As they passed by this village of Bethpage, Jesus sends these two disciples on a mission. He says, you need to go into the city, and in the city, you're going to find there a donkey, a young donkey, a colt, is tied with its mother, and I want you to bring those with me. And once again, this is Jesus' knowledge of all things as God. He knew where those donkeys would be. He knew what the interaction would be that these two disciples would have. and he sent them on this mission. He knew what must happen to fulfill the prophecies about the Messiah, because he is the Messiah, the very Son of God. Mark and Luke, we read the Luke passage this morning, record that the disciples went and did as Jesus told them. We read that here, and if anyone says anything of you, you shall say, the Lord has need of them, and immediately he will send them. And that's what Jesus sent them on this mission, but we read that they go into the city, and they go and they find the disciples, in verse six, so the disciples went and did as Jesus commanded them. And they were asked by the owners, we learn from Mark and Luke's passage, that those two people, those people that talked to them, to these disciples, were the owners of these donkeys. And they gave the answer here that Jesus told them to give, that the Lord has need of them. And then furthermore, they were given permission to take them and use them in the Lord's service. Jesus, as the Messiah, had the right to request anything he had need of. If he was just a man, if he was just a regular person, you say, well, why would he do that? But because he has God, he has the right to request these things. And these owners, we might say they may have been believers in Jesus. We don't know that for sure. We can't over-speculate that. It would seem reasonable to say they had heard of who Jesus was because his fame was spread throughout the country of Israel. And so they give permission for Jesus to take these donkeys and use them, and these donkeys will be fit for the arrival of the Messiah into Jerusalem. And though Jesus will ride the colt, the mother donkey is brought along as well, and probably that's to keep that colt, who had never had anyone ride on it before, calm as it came into the city. And when we think of the arrival of a king, and I know here in America we don't have a king, right? But we think about these things, we think about Those countries that do have kings were in the past when they would coronate a king. What would a king ride? Well, certainly not a donkey, right? We would think of a horse, a beautiful, magnificent horse that would come into the city and it would be fit for a king. A king riding on a donkey doesn't really fit probably with our vision of that, right? I will say this, that's not unheard of. In fact, when David proclaimed Solomon the king, he says in 1 Kings 1.33, the king also said to them, take with you the servants of your Lord and have Solomon my son ride on my own mule and take him down to Gihon. Think about that, Solomon, the richest king that Israel ever had, you know, is riding on this donkey. So it's not culturally unacceptable. But however, there's more than just culture acceptability or even, if you want to say, going against the social norms here. In doing this, Jesus is very purposeful, right? Because in doing this, he's fulfilling the prophecies of the Messiah. This isn't about, did kings ride on donkeys from time to time? This isn't about, or did they not? And so he's different. This is about the fulfillment of the prophecy in Zechariah chapter nine, which we'll look at in just a minute. It says in Matthew 21, verse four, all this was done. that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, Tell the daughter of Zion, Behold, your king is coming to you lowly and sitting on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey." Jesus' actions as he prepares to enter Jerusalem are direct fulfillment of messianic prophecy. Jesus is the promised Messiah. And we read in Zechariah chapter nine in verse nine, this is the prophecy that's fulfilled. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your king is coming to you. He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey. Written hundreds of years before Jesus even walked the earth was this prophecy of who he would be. And the first part of chapter five, or verse five of chapter 21 is taken from Isaiah chapter 62, verse 11, where it says, indeed, the Lord has proclaimed to the end of the world, say to the daughter of Zion, surely your salvation is coming. Behold, his reward is with him and his work before him. And when the scripture uses these words here in Matthew 21 of referring to the daughter of Zion is talking about the inhabitants or the people there in the city of Jerusalem. Jerusalem is located near some mountains there and Mount Zion is the city's highest and most prominent hill. And therefore, Jerusalem is sometimes referred to as Zion. because of Mount Zion. So the daughters of Zion refer then to the people who live in the city. And Jesus' life and ministry throughout Matthew then is known for two prominent things. Matthew portrays Jesus as the king, but we see over and over and over again, the things that Jesus does in Matthew typically fall into a couple of categories here. One, Jesus was sent to fulfill the will of his father. You see, God had a plan for the redemption of man. That started way back in the Garden of Eden, actually started before that, because God knows all things. He knew His plan to redeem man from sin. And Jesus came to do the will of His Father. He would not do anything contrary to that. And so all of Jesus' work as the Son of God went in and towards this plan. And even as He would face crucifixion a few days from this event, He would commit himself in the Garden of Gethsemane to carrying out God's plan. Jesus came to fulfill the work of the Father. But secondly, Matthew tells us over and over again that Jesus came to fulfill the prophecies about the Messiah as the Messiah. He fulfilled all things written about the Messiah. Jesus said he came not to destroy the law even, but to fulfill the law. He is the Christ, the anointed one. When we talk about Jesus Christ, Christ isn't a last name. It's a title. It means the anointed one. It means the deliverer of God's people. And as he rides into Jerusalem, he is fulfilling yet another prophecy and confirming yet again he is who he says he is. He is the Messiah. The disciples, they obeyed their Lord in verse six, as we read there. So the disciples went and did as Jesus commanded them. They brought the donkey and the colt, laid their clothes on them, and set him on them. They retrieved the animals, and they began to make preparation for the entrance into Jerusalem. They take those outer garments, those cloaks that they would wear, and they throw them over these donkeys. And again, we kind of get the image of if there was a king coming to a coronation, He would have these great claws or these tapestries or whatever they are, you know, over his horse and on these carriages and things that he might come with. And Jesus, the soon-to-be Savior of all men, will enter Jerusalem this day in fulfillment of the prophecy. But he comes not as a conquering king, but as a lamb to be slain. Though most will not understand this on this day. One author wrote, the incarnation was the time of his humiliation, not the time of his glorification. And we read, if you've been with us for some of our Philippians series, we studied this passage of Philippians chapter two, verses five through 11 a few weeks ago, about how Jesus humbled himself and came, but then God will glorify him, and all will bow before him one day. And as Jesus comes into Jerusalem, we see the reception of the crowd in the city for Passover, and it's here we see praise of the Messiah in verses eight and nine. And a very great multitude spread their clothes on the road. Others cut down branches from the trees and spread them on the road. Then the multitudes who went before and those who followed cried out, saying, Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. We see here first the posture of the crowd. So as Jesus comes in, this week is the week of the Passover. The Passover had been instituted when the children of Israel left Egypt, when God delivered them from slavery. They had a very specific meal that God had said, but it has to do also with the lamb that was slain to redeem the firstborn, the 10th plague there in Egypt. God had sent nine plagues on the land of Egypt, seeking to free his people showing who he is, showing he would deliver, and the 10th plague was that all the firstborn throughout the land of Egypt would be slain. And the only way to avoid that was to follow God's specific instructions, to take this land, this spotless land, to kill it, to put its blood on the doorpost, and every year then the Jews would remember this event through the celebration of the Passover. And they had certain things they ate, like bitter herbs, to remind them of their time in Egypt. And they had the unleavened bread. And it was that bread they ate when they left Egypt, because they had to leave in a hurry. They had no time to wait for it to rise. And so every year at Passover, it was a big event. And people would come, and they would bring sacrifices to offer for their son. And so here is this time of the Passover, and many people would come to Jerusalem because that is where the temple was to worship. Some commentators have speculated that there may have been as many as two million people in the area during that time. We can't be sure of that number, but a few years after Jesus, We have a record that there were some 260,000 lambs slain at that Passover some years after Jesus. And each lamb was able to cover the sins of up to 10 people. So that's where the speculation comes from. There may have been as many as 2 million people. We know there were a lot of people there. Sacrificial lambs were offered constantly in the temple during the time of the Passover. The city of Jerusalem and the surrounding area then is teeming with people. And as Jesus enters Jerusalem this day, the crowd begins to exalt him. That posture of exaltation, they begin to spread their clothes on the ground as a sign of a recognition for a king. They lay them out before him. Others begin to cut down branches from trees to lay on the road. And then John, we learn that these are palm branches being spread on the road before him. In the passage we read in Luke today, the disciples are crying out, and the excitement is building, that Jesus is coming in, and the Pharisees, it's interesting, right? There's Pharisees in the crowd, and they say, tell your disciples to stop, and Jesus says, if they would stop, the very rocks would cry out in praise to God. This is the plan of God. The people are welcoming their king. And for nearly three years, Jesus has taught about God, shown he is God, and preached the coming salvation of man. And now, as the Passover lamb would be welcomed into the home of Jewish worshipers, Jesus is welcomed into the city of Jerusalem. And as he enters, we hear the cries of the crowd in verse nine, as we read here just a minute ago. They are rejoicing in Jesus' arrival and crying out praise to him. They say this word, Hosanna to the son of David. Hosanna is a Hebrew word, and that word translates to save now. However, the crowd is not talking about the salvation of mankind from sin. They are focused instead on his saving them from the Roman Empire. See, the people of that day viewed the Messiah as one who would come to set up his kingdom and throw off their human overlords. The nation of Israel had been under the jurisdiction and the rule of the Roman Empire. They were tired of it. And the crowd rightly recognizes Jesus for who he is, the Messiah. They use this title, the Son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. The son of David was a title reserved for the Messiah, and we can only imagine that scene. We can imagine the frenzy of people that are there, laying down their clothes, that are praising God, they're laying down the branches, and they're welcoming him into the city, singing praises to him, and it's all in accordance with God's plan, and it's the coronation of his son as that promised Messiah. The joyous crowd seems to quote here from Psalm 118, verses 25 and 26. Save now, I pray, O Lord. O Lord, I pray, send now prosperity. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. We have blessed you from the house of the Lord. We read in Matthew 21 that they rightly proclaim Jesus in the name of the Lord, and you see that all capital letters there, it's referring to Yahweh, the self-existent God. The chief priests and the Pharisees in John 11, 57 had given orders for the people to report where Jesus was. They wished to arrest him. They wished to take care of him, if we could say it that way, right? To get him off the scene. And we see here the people aren't doing that. They're not going and telling the Pharisees where it is because everyone knows where he is. As he enters the city, they praise him and exalt him. And as Jesus enters to joyous shouts and cheers, we see this incredible reception of the people. What an amazing sight it must have been for his disciples, right, to see this, that they had walked with Jesus for all these years and seen this rejection that he had mostly come upon. or people who had no idea who he was. They were just there for the free food and the free healthcare that he provided with the miracles. And now they look around and they say, wow, this is exactly what was prophesied. But what's interesting is almost as amazingly as the celebration begins, it ends. And we see that here in our last thing today as we talk about the purposes of the Messiah. Verses 10 and 11, and when he had come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, who is this? So the multitude said, this is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth of Galilee. We see first here, we talk about the identity of the Messiah. The whole crowd in Jerusalem, it says, is moved, or you could literally say is stirred up. They want to know who this is who's garnered such a welcome. Jesus, he went throughout the land of Israel for three years, but there are people who have never seen him. They may have heard of him, but they've never seen him, or they've never experienced what he's done. And so doubtless here, there are many like that who have come to Jerusalem to worship, and they say, who is this? Who has come? Who has garnered such a reception? I mean, it's one of those things, like if you were driving down the road and you saw all these people, you say, man, what's going on over there, right? And these people, they say, who is this? Who is receiving all of this praise? Who is receiving this honor and this glory? When they ask, they receive, I think, perhaps the greatest understatement of an answer. This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth of Galilee. That's the statement. The prophet of Nazareth from Galilee. Now, when we read this statement, we may think of the words that Moses spoke to the people of Israel in Deuteronomy 18.15. The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear. This is another one of these messianic prophecies. And guess what? Jesus is that prophet. But when the people say he is the prophet from Nazareth of Galilee, that is not what they mean. They're referring to him not as this promised prophet, but as the prophet who has been teaching in Israel for three years. You know that guy you've heard about? That's who that is. The people in Jerusalem that day were so close to the truth. Yet, they did not completely grasp it. As one author said, the people knew, but they would not believe. And because they would not believe, they ceased to know. This crowd that welcomed Jesus, he realized to this day, would a few short days later be the same crowd that cried out, crucify him. They did not believe. They don't see Jesus for who he really was, the Savior. Did you realize it is possible for people to fulfill God's word and not know it? This happened before Jesus' entrance into Jerusalem. In John 11, verses 49 through 52, we read, and one of them, Caiaphas, being high priest that year, said to them, you know nothing at all, nor do you consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people and not the whole nation should perish. Now, this he did not say on his own authority, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, and not for that nation only, but also that he would gather together in one the children of God who were scattered abroad. When Caiaphas says this, he's not confessing some belief in Jesus. It was purely politically motivated, right? Let's get rid of him so the government will quit bothering us. but it was a fulfillment of who Jesus is. That people that day in Jerusalem fulfilled the prophecy of the Messiah's coming, the events in Jerusalem that day would lead down the inevitable road to Jesus' death. The death then would lead to his resurrection and victory over sin once and for all. And though the people did not fully grasp it then, let us examine then the truth of the Messiah today. This is the truth of the Messiah from this passage. The people that day declared Jesus as their Messiah, their Savior, but they didn't know and they misunderstood, I should say, exactly why he came. They projected their own causes and their own goals upon him. They wished him to come as conquering king. They were right to call him the son of David who came in the name of the Lord, but they were wrong in their thoughts of the sort of deliverer He was. Well, you can say it this way. The people in the crowd that day wanted Jesus on their own terms. They wished him to fit their mold because in their eyes, Rome was their greatest enemy. And from that empire, they sought relief. But the truth is, Rome wasn't their greatest enemy. No external force is ever our greatest enemy. Sin was the greatest enemy. And those in that day didn't wish to be delivered from that sin. As one author wrote, he did not come to make war on Rome, but to make peace with God for men. And just like them, today, sin is man's greatest enemy. Sin is what keeps us from having a relationship with God. Sin is what determines that our eternity will be spent separated from God in a very real place called hell, paying for our sin. But Jesus Christ came as the Messiah to deliver us from sin. He came to give us new life. He came to defeat sin and death once and for all And what was said of Jesus before his birth held true. Matthew 121, and she will bring forth a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. He came to bring salvation for all of eternity. The words and the praises of the crowds that day in Jerusalem were right, even if their motives and ideas were not. The words and the things they did fulfilled who Jesus is as the Messiah, the deliverer, even if they didn't realize it. And today, many people have their own ideas of who Jesus is. Well, he was a good man, perhaps an insightful teacher, maybe even a spirit indwelt being. Others say he is one who will bring me wealth and health if I will follow him. There are a myriad of descriptions that people give for Jesus. But Jesus isn't any of those things. He is the Son of God, the deliverer of man from sin. And he came to earth to live in perfect fulfillment, God's law, so that he could die in perfect fulfillment of God's plan. He is the promised Messiah. So as you read through the scriptures, Can you read the promises of God about the Messiah? That day in Jerusalem, all of those promises were beginning to come to fruition. Because as Jesus will enter Jerusalem, and then he will go on to teach it throughout the week, and then he will hold the Passover with his disciples, it would lead to his crucifixion. His death for all mankind, and as we will celebrate next week, His resurrection and His victory claimed over sin and death for all of eternity. And all who follow Him find new life in Him. We see that Jesus is the promised Messiah, prophesied throughout the Old Testament, and is worthy of our praise and trust. So very simply today, this is the question. How do you view Jesus? Do you have your own ideas about Him? or do you embrace the truth of Scripture? Jesus came as God and man to save us from our sins. He perfectly fulfilled the prophecies of Scripture, and he perfectly fulfilled the Father's plan. Jesus is the Messiah. He is the Savior of all mankind. He is the Savior of the world. And Jesus isn't one way to God, or even the best way to God. He is the only way to God. And the question of what will you do with Jesus is the most important question you or I will ever answer. We are all faced with that question. And as we enter this week, looking towards Easter, let us remember who Jesus is. He is the one promised by God to bring victory over sin and Satan. He is the one who will give to man new life. He is our access to God the Father. One day, Jesus will return to reign. And let us not forget that when Jesus returns, he will not ride meekly on a donkey, but will return in glory. Revelation tells us he will arrive on a white horse, prepared to claim the final victory over all those who work iniquity. And then the presence of sin will be eradicated once and for all. Jesus is the Messiah, but very simply, is he your Savior? Do you have a relationship with him? And if so, let us meditate on who he is. Let us thank him for his wonderful gift. I think so often, it's very easy this time of year, we say, well, we need to think about who Jesus is and what he's done, right? Because it's Easter. But shame on us if we relegate it to one day a year. Okay, Easter and Thanksgiving. Again, shame on us if we relegate it to two days a year. If you wanna add Christmas, shame on us if we relegate it to three days a year. The overwhelming power of the gospel should never leave us. I had a privilege of meeting a young man yesterday. He was here at the church. And he said to me, he was sharing all of these things. He is just passionate about serving the Lord. And I said, what's your story? And he goes, I got saved a year ago. and that passion, right, for the Lord. I fear sometimes we as Christians, we lose that. Especially if perhaps we grew up in a Christian home and we've heard this our whole life, it's like, well, this is normal. Sin is normal. A relationship with God is the greatest abnormality we've ever experienced. It is new life. We no longer have to live in that default position but we have life in Christ. Let us never lose the glory of that. And if you have not accepted Jesus Christ, what is it that keeps you from embracing him? What is it that holds you back from believing in him completely and fully, from your salvation from sin? He is worthy of our trust. He is worthy of our praise. Let us exalt him as the promised Messiah, the Savior of the world. Father, we thank you for the opportunity we have had to come here today to examine your word, to hear its truth. Lord, may you remind us who you are, and may you speak to us through your word, and may you show us that Jesus is the Messiah, the Savior of the world. Lord, help us, convict us of projecting our own ideas on you. Or even as Christians, we may say, well, because we serve Jesus, this is the way things should be. But God, you are in control. And your purposes are always best. And Lord, we ask that you would help us to honor you, to serve you, to love you in all that we do. We ask that this week, as we look towards Easter, you would convict us of how little sometimes we may take these things and value them, but we take them for granted. Lord, I pray that you would work in our hearts, overwhelm us with the gospel, help us this week to share that good news with others and live it out. In your name we pray, amen.