Good morning, Rhema Community Church. Happy Palm Sunday. Again, we are gathered elsewhere and not here in our worship center. This will probably be the last message I'll be able to film with you here in the worship center. Probably in the next few weeks, it'll be at my house on the computer on Easter Sunday. These are different days, different days. I want to say I miss you. I miss seeing you.

You face to face and hopefully you're gathered with your family, your friends, maybe a small group of a fraction of your home group, maybe or something like that. But anyway, it's just good to be able to open the word and to study the word and look at the word. God has given me a word today on Palm Sunday and I was telling Taylor about it earlier this week. It's a strong word and it's it's a different it's a different take from where I normally have gone in years past with Palm Sunday. I'm excited about it.

And so therefore, I'm very sad that we're not all together, but also it's it's it's fairly lengthy. So we're just going to get right into it because I know it's difficult to sit there for so long and listen to it. But today's message is entitled blessing and cursing. Blessing and cursing. I know that sounds odd, but hopefully you'll get an understanding in just a few minutes.

In Matthew chapter 23, we have this event that's taking place on what we call Palm Sunday. And Jesus has come to Jerusalem and he's moving to the climax of the reason why God put him here on this earth for 33 years.

He has fulfilled his obedience to the father up to this point. And now he's staring down a double barreled shotgun. It's a double barrel of death and and the judgment of the father on sin.

And he knows that he's getting ready to be offered up as the Passover lamb. And the Passover is significant.

It's it's a significant feast for every Jew, but it's also especially significant for Jesus because he knows that the Passover lamb is just a shadow.

And he is the fulfillment of the Passover lamb. And Jesus has tried to tell his disciples about all this.

They haven't gotten it. So basically, in essence, in a real sense, he's alone and he goes up to Jerusalem.

And what is happening is this mixture of blessing and cursing.

That's it. That's in Jesus's mind. We're going to see that in the text.

What I want you to see as we read through Matthew, chapter 23, is that this is only part of what's going on in all of human history,

because from the very beginning with our parents, if you will, Adam and Eve, OK, they were made and they were put in charge of this planet.

They had this environment that was ideally suited for them, and they were created to bear God's image and to represent him in this environment

and actually improve on the environment that God created in this six day creation.

So Adam and Eve are placed in the garden and they were to steward with the creative gifts that God entrusted to them.

And now God is stepping back and allowing them to magnify his glory through their tasks.

And they rejected that. They rejected it. And essentially, they had a different agenda.

We want to be our own gods, basically.

And we want to treat this world as if we own it and not just that we're stewards of it.

And that's the beginning of sin, that pride and that unbelief.

And in the very beginning, when God comes to Adam and Eve, when they sinned,

after they disregarded his commands and tried to take ownership of the world,

there's this mixture in that first encounter of both blessing and cursing.

We see it from the very beginning.

He comes and he blesses them.

He promises that God promises that he will send one who will be born in the seat of a woman

who would crush the head of the serpent and who would undo all the evil in the world.

Yet he also pronounces a curse on all of the entire creation.

He doesn't allow Adam and Eve to have the promise of life.

And he makes death a part of their reality for a whole bunch of different reasons.

And not the least of which is to humble them, but to also restrain evil from the world.

So to encounter God after sin is a mixture of blessing and cursing.

You see it in the Exodus when God comes in and he has this huge event.

And people talk about it today as one of the big pictures of deliverance and redemption.

And whether you're a Christian or a non-Christian,

it's a story that transcends all of Jewish and Christian ethnic backgrounds.

People know about the story about how God goes to bat for his people and he delivers them.

Yet as he delivers them...

possess the land because of their sin. God is not really safe for them, if you will. And they can't get too close to them because there is this mixture of blessing and cursing. And were these Israelites, were they delivered from Egypt? Absolutely, yes. Yet they were experiencing cursing. Here's the deal. Most of us in our culture today don't like that idea.

We just don't like that idea. Depending upon your personality and your background, what you would like to have is we would love to have sweet Jesus. Just sweet God who always takes care of you, who overlooks all of your faults, who never really holds you accountable for anything, but you can always go to him. You can always go to him. And he affirms whoever you are and however you live your life and whatever your lifestyle choices are.

And he's good with all of that because he just wants you to be you. And that's in our culture today. We'd like that, that kind of God right now.

Some of you, on the other hand, are really ticked off because you see how jacked up the world can get and gets when you live that way.

And so some of you want God to have his finger on the smite button and ready, just not just not on you personally, though.

And so what you do is you live by keeping rules and you're you're a rule keeper and you're ticked off at the rest of the people who cheat on their taxes, who cut in line in front of you and all this, all this, that and the other.

But what I want you to see this morning is God is way more complicated.

He is way more complicated than either of these two caricatures that we throw out there.

So because let's be real, if you want an ultra tolerant, inclusive God, and we're going to see how inclusive God is here in a moment, what you need to do is you are going to have to acknowledge that there is a price to be paid for that kind of inclusivity.

OK, if we just tolerate all types of foolishness, the world doesn't go well.

I mean, we have to can we at least, you know, agree on that even in an organization, if no one is in charge and no one's held accountable, then things don't grow.

Things don't don't don't go very well, very well.

They don't they don't get better.

So no matter where we are, we all have to acknowledge that we need something a little bit more complicated.

And that's the idea where we're blessing and cursing comes in.

That's and and the idea is that and the understanding is that God is simultaneously, ridiculously, absolutely committed to justice.

But at the same time, God is ridiculously, absolutely, absurdly committed to being gracious.

I mean, that's what's happening here, the complexity of it all.

So so you have God in the Bible who's look, you look at it and he speaks out of both sides of his mouth almost.

And what I want you to see is we're going to see Jesus do the very same thing as well, too.

Before we get to Matthew chapter 23, I told you we had a lot of ground to cover this morning.

I want you to look at Malachi chapter four.

Again, under the theme of blessing and cursing, Malachi chapter four, the last book of the Old Testament here.

Beginning in verse one says, for behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evil doers will will will be stubble.

The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.

But for you who fear my name, the son of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings.

You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall and you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts.

And the idea is that there is a day coming.

And in that day, God will reveal himself in such a way that evil will not be able to stand in his presence.

All the arrogant and all the wickedness that's on this planet, those who are living that way, those who have bought into that system.

He will explain.

blessing. It will be a day that we have longed for our whole lives. And what determines what that day means for you is the disposition of your heart and your relationship with God as he has revealed himself. He is a reality that is inescapable. God is a reality that is inescapable. And when he reveals himself in a complete, total, pure way, it clarifies everything

else. And I want you to see this big theme again of blessing and cursing. And when we look at Matthew chapter 23, here's what's happening in this chapter. Jesus has has been bringing his ministry to a head. He's been and he's been doing that and the tension is escalating and the tensions escalating between him and the powers of this earth. And in Israel, that's the religious establishment. OK, kind of their version of the

church, if you would. He's a threat to Israel because they like the way their system is working. And the only kind of Messiah that they want is one that that comes and destroys everybody else and one that reinforces their own value system and elevates them above everyone else. They have a very narrow view of what what God wanted to do. And when Jesus comes, he doesn't get with that program.

So throughout his ministry, there is this escalating tension between Jesus and the religious establishment. And it comes to a head when Jesus comes to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, because the week leading up to the Passover feast, the place is overrun with people.

Jesus has already raised Lazarus from the dead, and he's freaked out all the religious leadership, all the religious establishment.

Lazarus is going around talking. And so the establishment is trying to determine how are we going to kill Jesus and how are we going to kill Lazarus?

Things are getting out of control. Jesus comes into Jerusalem and people are thinking that he must be the Messiah.

So they treat him like he is Messiah. They lay down palm branches.

They begin to cry out, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

And the religious leaders are fuming mad.

Jesus goes in. He cleanses the temple. He starts teaching.

And his teaching has a decidedly judgmental tone to it, okay, where he is pronouncing judgment on the religious establishment and on those who are trusting in that religious establishment.

And it cultivates in chapter 23 when Jesus takes on the Pharisees head to head and he pronounces seven woes on the Pharisees.

That's the number of completion. It's the number of totality.

So everyone is really clear that there is a conflict going on.

There is judgment that that that's coming.

And yet in that moment, Jesus gets on the backside of all that judgment.

In verse 37 of 23, he says,

Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who send it.

How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings?

And you were not willing.

See, your house is left to you desolate.

For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say,

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

What you see from Jesus here is you see the heart of a Savior who longs to bless,

but who is being put in a in a position to curse by those very ones that he came to save.

Jesus longs to bless, but he is being put in a position where he has to curse those who he has come to save.

And he is broken hearted over this fact.

You also see in the text, he is completely committed.

He is he is resolved in his integrity that he will uphold the standard of God's righteous justice.

And and you'll see the complexity here.

Listen, he's not being tolerant to be tolerant.

When you're tolerant, you're not.

You're not really.

You're not really.

yourself from responsibility for them. When you have that mindset. Jesus doesn't do that. Jesus stays close. He keeps moving, moving towards them. And in the middle of that, you see what happens to him. He's broken hearted over this. Don't mistake the harshness. I mean, when you go back and you read chapter 23, where he is judging the Pharisees and you think, man, Jesus is mean. He's just flat out mean. And you look at look at verse 37.

Jesus is broken hearted about the position that he's in. His heart is really clear because he says, how often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings? But you won't let me. You were not willing. I am more willing, Jesus says, to bless you than you are willing to be blessed by me.

I don't know how to wrap my mind around that. But that's the complexity. And what I would say to you is this. If you're listening this morning and you're a skeptic, you know, generally speaking, you know, isn't the world a little bit more complicated than we think it is?

I mean, we want to have the nice, clear, soft answers, you know, that make us feel good, whether it's it's judgment and exclusion or some kind of weak love and inclusion.

We want to run to one of those two extremes that suits our purposes. But the reality is this. Listen, if they're really if they're if there were a a real righteous judge in this world, a righteous judge in this world.

To also love and be gracious. Wouldn't that be pretty complicated? I mean, it's it's tough for us to wrap our minds around that.

I mean, even with your it isn't you isn't are things really a little bit more complicated in your family than just on the surface because you got these mixtures of all these weird personalities and everything that you have to deal with.

That's exactly what we see. The Bible is so credible in this and it predicts this reality.

We see this passage and Jesus is not hating on one people group. He's broken hearted over it.

Let's walk through this and see what's happening. He begins in verse 37.

Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it.

Here's what independent people do. Independent people, autonomy and independence is the root of sin.

Really, I would call it I would call it a proud unbelief.

A proud unbelief is the root of all sin. And it comes from a place of saying, I will be my own law.

I will make the I will make my own way. I will be in charge.

I will evaluate the standards of right and wrong. I will even evaluate God.

I'll be the one to do that. And a lot of times, a lot of times, many of us say and we catch ourselves a lot of times.

People will say, I don't understand why God didn't do that.

And really what you're saying when you say that is I'm the judge of the whole universe.

And God needs to rule the universe the way that makes sense to me.

That's incredibly arrogant. But we all do it.

We all catch ourselves in that. But that's the root of sin.

And what's happening is you can do it with religion.

You can do it with irreligion.

But Jerusalem, Israel, was doing it with religion.

OK, they took the Old Testament that God gave them and they turned it into a system.

And they take the parts that they liked and they kept them.

They took the parts that they didn't like and they excluded them.

And which is what religious people do.

And that's one of the reasons why we need to be in community and we need to be in around people,

other people that get on our nerves a little bit because they're going to like different parts of the Bible than we like.

We like. And they're going to pull you in tension.

And that's a beautiful thing because it keeps you from being just a caricature of yourself as well.

But that's not part of the sermon. Let's keep moving.

But they had this little box and Jesus didn't come to play in their sandbox.

That's that's the reality.

And he kicks down the walls of their sandbox.

And he actually said he actually said we're doing something bigger.

We have all.

Many times, too, of condemning the Pharisees, because we're all guilty of doing this at some point. We create our own boxes and we want God to play by our rules. And when God doesn't play by our rules, we get frustrated with him. And sometimes we might even have a crisis of faith and think, well, I don't understand why God doesn't do blah, blah, blah, you know, whatever it is. We all do it. And it's one thing to struggle with this, but it's something else. It's another thing.

When we bow up when God is is when God tries to back you down and tell you that you need to live a different way. You need to leave it. And we say, I'm not hearing it. I'm not hearing it. And then what happens is people leave churches over stuff like that. People leave churches. And then all of a sudden you're out of you're out of community for a couple of years.

And then what you try to do is you try to slide back in somewhere else two years later or whatever, where you're where it's a little easier for you to get along and get and do what you want to do. I see it happening all the time. We'll even vilify people and think the worst of them. And and what you're doing, if you do things like that is you have built a box and you don't want Jesus messing with your box.

And the one thing I will tell you, friend, is Jesus is going to destroy your sandbox. He's going to destroy. If you don't want your life messed up, then don't follow Jesus because he will put you in positions.

He will call you to do things that are not comfortable because he is not about your agenda and he is not about your comfort. He is not about your agenda and not about your comfort. He has something bigger in view.

So God, the father and God, the son have been sending messengers to Israel for years. They were rejecting him. And then Jesus comes in and he says, this is what I've been trying to do all of these years.

I've been trying to gather you under my wings as a mother hen protects her chicks. But you won't let me.

You know, a lot of us read that. We think it's a cute little metaphor, but it's not a cute little metaphor.

When do chicks run to their mother? When there's a threat, when there's a predator, when when there's a storm.

And what she does is she takes her wings and she gathers them underneath her and she exposes herself.

She exposes herself, but her chicks are protected.

The predator gets her and is obsessed with her, but the chicks keep their lives.

OK, and that's what this means. Jesus is saying, I have been sending messenger upon messenger upon messenger.

And here I am. And I wish that you would come to me, but you will not come to me.

And here's why that they're not willing to come to him, because they think that they know what they need and they think they got it.

They think they got it. They don't really understand that they are weak.

They don't really understand that they need to be protected.

They don't really understand that their righteousness is inadequate.

And Jesus tries to make them understand.

He even he even tries to teach his disciples, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees.

Right. These scribes and Pharisees, these were people who lived their lives and ordered their lives around keeping legal righteousness.

OK, preoccupied with keeping themselves spiritually clean, ruthlessly committed to obeying the letter of the law.

Very righteous. And listen, this is what you need to understand.

Your sin will not keep you from God.

Your sin will not get God has made provision from that for that.

He has made provision for that.

This is what will keep you from God is your righteousness.

There are a lot of lots of people, lots of righteous people, according to their own standard, are going to come under the judgment of God.

That's Jesus's whole point.

Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will not see the kingdom of heaven.

You know, one of the phrases.

You know, He can select the kingdom.

You will not see the truth.

He is the victory, it is the victory.

And Jesus' whole point is, I'm coming to do for you what you can't do for yourself. You need me. Because they would not embrace their neediness. Guess what? They lose His protection.

And I would say to you, if you want to live your life by My do it, by I got this, God will let you. He will let you. He will say, go ahead. But you see here, He's not going to be cavalier about this because we see the heartbreak in Jesus. And listen, these are people who are plotting to kill Him.

They're plotting to kill Him and getting ready to crucify Him. And He knows. He knows that this is taking place. His heart is broken for them because He is so desperately longs to protect them. And you see it when He's hanging on the cross. Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. While He's hanging on the cross, He's been spat upon. He's been beaten. He's been mocked.

They're standing off at a distance saying, you saved others. Save yourself. Jesus is on the cross saying, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. This is complicated. This is complicated.

This is what I'm telling you about God. You see, God is more committed to blessing you than you are to being blessed.

You want to be blessed by God. I want to be blessed by God. But I want to be blessed by God in the way I want to be blessed. Right?

That's the way it works. Okay? I want to be blessed with healthy children. I want to be blessed with a wife who loves me and respects me.

I want to be blessed with financial security. I want to be blessed with good health care. You know?

That's what we want from God. And that's why we get all animated over all these political issues.

Because that's what we're living for. That's become our God. And that's what we want.

But the reality is, He has another agenda for us.

And He's calling you to come.

But here's the result of not coming.

Verse 38.

See, your house is left to you desolate.

Jesus says, I have been longing to gather you, and I'm willing to expose myself.

I'm willing to be cursed for you.

So that you can be blessed by me.

I'm willing and I'm offering myself, but you won't come.

And as a result of your unwillingness to come, as a result of your commitment to live your life the way you want to live your life,

here's what's happening.

Your house is abandoned.

Your house is desolate.

And here's what I'll tell you.

Whatever you're holding on to in this world,

if you're not running to Jesus to take away your sin,

if it's religion that you're trusting in,

and your own righteousness,

and you think, man, I have my quiet time.

I give money.

I do this, that, and the other.

And I have this idea that if I do this, that, and the other,

everything between me and God is going to be okay.

What you're doing is you're trying to work a system,

and you're really autonomous.

And you will not come to Jesus under that.

And as a result of that, your house, your life is going to be desolate.

Your life will not be fruitful.

It will not be productive.

And your life ultimately will not count for anything,

because you are rejecting the one who made you for himself.

That's what Jesus is saying.

You were not created to live on your own.

You were created to live in community with me.

You were created as my creature to depend on me.

That's how you were created.

And your source of life, and your source of glory is coming,

and you won't experience it,

because you're more committed to try to live your life your own way,

and on your terms.

And it's devastating.

Devastating.

Insincere. Sorry. Dishonest. Right? I mean, this is a great calling. I love this job. The church treats me well. But this would be a miserable thing to fake. Miserable thing. And I'll tell you this. I've watched people walk away from Jesus. I have watched them turn their lives into a tragedy. It's like Shakespeare. Maybe that's why people like to read Shakespeare. It's because of tragedy, and they connect with it.

And this world's filled with tragedy. But I've just watched people make train wrecks of their lives. And you probably have too. But what I can tell you is that when people run to Jesus, and they come underneath His wings, they come.

And I've watched you do it here at our church, many of you families, as things happen, as the storms, as the trials come, and you run underneath the wings of Jesus.

That has solidified my faith more than Josh McDowell's evidence that demands a verdict.

Reading that, okay? The reason why I have such a strong faith, and my faith has grown, is because I've watched people.

I've watched you run under the wings of Jesus.

And I've watched that your life is not abandoned.

Your life is not desolate.

I've watched people also run away from Jesus for all sorts of reasons, whether it's religious reasons, run away for a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a wife, a husband, money, a better job, whatever, sexual pleasure.

And I'm telling you, it never goes well for them.

It never goes well for them.

Your house is left abandoned and desolate.

Let's tie this up in verse 39.

For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Now, what Jesus is saying here is, for the people of Israel, there was a day of visitation.

The entire Old Testament pointed to Jesus.

Then Jesus comes.

And John the Baptist comes before Jesus, and he says, here he is, right?

Here he is, okay?

I'm just a voice crying in the wilderness.

Make straight the way of the Lord, right?

All this.

He's here.

The Lord has come.

Behold, the Lamb of God who has come to take away the sins of the world.

John makes these public declarations.

And then he even says to his own disciples, hey, you guys need to follow him now, okay?

Jesus begins his ministry.

He begins to reveal himself, that he has power over life and death.

He reveals that he has power over sins.

And people's lives begin to be changed.

He has this gathering, this following.

And he begins to reveal himself to Israel.

And Israel rejected him this whole time.

As a matter of fact, the more clearer they got on who he was, the more they hated him.

So when they really went into overdrive and said, we've got to kill this guy, it's when he raises Lazarus from the dead.

I mean, think about it.

Because that made him a huge threat at that point.

Because anyone who is going to raise a man from the dead, you should follow that guy, right?

And so that's how committed they were to doing things the way that they always wanted to do them.

Living their lives the way that they wanted to live them.

And so they killed Jesus.

They rejected him.

And Jesus is saying, this is your last chance.

And you are missing it.

And so here's what's going to happen.

You are not going to see me again until I show up in glory and no one can mistake me.

On Palm Sunday, he rides in on a little colt.

But when he comes again, when he comes again, he is coming at the head of his armies, Malachi 4.

Matthew 21 says, the people are there.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord and all that.

You know, this is great.

Malachi 4, Jesus is coming.

And he's appealing.

He's pleading.

You're missing your shot.

And this is what I want.

It is absolutely exclusive. It is absolutely exclusive. But listen, people, people who give life and breath and create a universe for you to live in, guess what? They have a right. They have a right to claim first place in your life. They deserve it. And if you reject that, if you reject that, then when he comes, his coming will be a curse to you.

And not a blessing. That's what this is all about. So it's not just about the quality of your life right here and now that we're talking about. The ultimate thing that Jesus is saving us from on the cross when Jesus is burying himself on the cross and he says, he is saying, Father, pour out your right, just judgment on me in place of those who are mine.

And so the question. And so the question is, are you his?

That's the question. Because God's wrath is going to be poured out. And it's either going to be poured out in a cursing on you or his wrath is going to be poured out in a cursing on Jesus.

And what determines that is what you run to in this life. What are you running to? What are you trusting in? Where are you putting your hopes? Where are you laying all your cards?

And as we begin Holy Week this week, take advantage to meditate on that and move toward Jesus throughout Passion Week. Meditate on all that the Lord has done for you.

Because that's what Easter is all about. When Jesus dies on the cross, he accepts the curse that we don't have to take because he accepted it through his sacrifice.

And our trusting in him, God imputes to us a righteousness that we never could have earned or deserve.

But it's because he has come that we live and we have eternal life with him.

Why don't you pray with me? Father, we just come before you in the name of Jesus.

And we ask you today, Lord, that the words that have gone out today and the scriptures that have been taught today would be

the salve to a weary heart, would be answers to a questioning soul, and would be life for someone who is still wondering who this creator of all the universe is.

Thank you, Father, for just the gift that Jesus has given us with his sacrifice.

We thank you for your incredible love for us, Lord God.

And we ask you today, Lord, to begin and continue to move hearts toward you during Holy Week,

that our hearts and minds would be set on you even more so than before.

And you would prick within us a desire to chase hard after you and renew our spirits and renew our love for you and renew our relationship with you, Lord God.

We give you thanks and praise in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen.

Amen.