Really excited about Holy Week and what's coming. Palm Sunday cannot wait to have palm branches in the house. Are you guys ready for that? As we celebrate this whole week, this week where it's the theme of blessed is he, right?
If you finish the sentence, it's blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. And it's this statement around Jesus being the Messiah, entering into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. And so as we are moving that direction and Sunday is coming, I wanna just lay a little bit of groundwork around Palm Sunday and what actually happened before we got to Palm Sunday, right? So that when we are celebrating Palm Sunday, we have a right response because we can show up and it's like, oh, the cute kids and they're waving branches.
Give me one of those branches. You know, you steal a couple and you're, and we can do that and have a good time. But I want to actually have a right response. We don't should do that.
Okay, we shouldn't steal branches from the kids. I will steal branches from the kids. I'm just kidding. Let's order more, okay?
But when we're looking at Palm Sunday and as a people, we wanna be a people that doesn't just go through the motions and do the church thing, we actually want to be in the moment and have it mean something so that we can respond to what's taking place and respond to the Lord in a way that's actually a rightful response to the moment. And so what I wanna do is just kind of bring you up to speed. We're just gonna do like a chronology of what happened right before Palm Sunday. And so you can turn in your Bibles to John 9.
We are just gonna breeze through. We're gonna hop around a little bit. And then I wanna finish with really what I believe is a prophetic ministry time for some of you that I believe the Lord is wanting to experience the power of the Holy Spirit coming on you tonight. And we're gonna have a ministry time that I really believe is significant for what God is doing.
And so I'm ready for that. But look at John 9. I want you to notice in this story and we're gonna kind of breeze through. We're not gonna camp out in a lot of these passages, but I want to just kind of take stops.
We're gonna like do some stopping and yielding and just slowing down. There's some yellow lights, there's somebody some red lights. Stop out, we're just gonna keep on going because we're headed towards Palm Sunday, okay? We're headed to the trionflynchery.
So John 9, there's this story where there's a man that's born blind. I want you to know that this is a significant story, not just because a man that's born blind gets healed, but I want you to know that there is this in Jewish culture like the second temple period, which means five to 600 years before Jesus, 600 years before Jesus is alive or born. There's this messianic expectation that the Messiah is actually gonna fulfill some prophecies, okay? And there are four healings.
Everybody say four. Four healings that the Messiah, that the coming Messiah is going to perform to actually confirm that He is the coming anointed king for Israel, okay? And it was just common knowledge in the first century, for all the Jews in Jesus' day, they knew. If there's a guy that shows up and he checks off the box, every single one of these four signs, we know the Messiah is here, all right?
And one of those miracles is actually the healing of a man born blind. And so what happens is Jesus heals, this man is born blind, and I want you to notice, this is kind of like the feel of what's gonna start happening leading up to the trampol entry. We see in verse 21, although the religious leaders are upset, why are the religious leaders upset? They're upset because if the Messiah is coming or the perceived Messiah is coming, they know that that means war.
So their expectation is they've got, remember, the context is that the Roman Empire is occupying Israel and they are oppressing the nation of Israel, but the pastors, I'm just gonna use our language for it. The pastors of their day, the nonprofit leaders of their day have a lot of power and wealth and are driven by money and status and momentum, right? And so when they hear there's some rabbi, second-class rabbi from Nazareth, that is actually doing some signs and miracles that might make people think that he's the coming king, they're concerned about it. Why are they concerned about it?
Well, they're concerned about it because they're in cahoots with the Roman Empire. They like their positions of power. So if this guy starts surfacing, they're realizing if the people start following him, that means the end to our influence, the end to our status, the end to our position as we know it, right? And so there's a power struggle that's happening right now.
I want you to look, and they just didn't think that he was the Messiah. I want you to look at verse 21. And so they're questioning this man-born blind. Now they're going to his parents and they're going, well, what do you think?
Was he really blind when he was born or not, right? And they're challenging this man that was born blind, they're challenging the parents on the miracle. And they're asking them, and then in verse 22, we're just gonna skip to 22. His parents said these things.
So they're deferring all the responsibility they're going, don't talk to us, talk to the guy that got born blind, our son. Talk to him about the miracle. Don't talk to us because his parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone confesses that Jesus is the Messiah, they get kicked out of the community sinners. They get kicked out of the church, right?
So there's already control that's happening from the religious elite. And then let's, I want you to look at John 10. We see that Jesus is talking about himself as the good shepherd. He's declaring himself the father and I are one.
Verse 19, I want you to look at this. There was again, division among the Jews because of these words. He's declaring himself as God. Many of them said, he has a demon.
He's insane. Why would you listen to him? Others said, these are not the words of one who's oppressed by a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?
Then look at verse 39. Now all the religious leaders, they're seeking to arrest him, but he escapes their hands. And what's happening in this scene, things are ramping up. Jesus is talking about himself being him and the father being one.
And those are fighting words for the religious leaders, right? They start picking up their stones. They're getting ready to stone Jesus. They're getting ready to arrest Jesus.
Jesus somehow slips away. Now he's ministering in a different village, different town. He gets the word that Lazarus, one of his friends in Bethany, passes away. Okay?
He gets that word. Then I want you to look at what happens in verse seven. Jesus, he gets this word, Mary, Martha, Lazarus, his good friends. Lazarus has died.
He gets that word or is sick. He gets that word, but he delays for two days. And then he says, hey guys, we're gonna go to Judea. In other words, we're gonna go back to where we just came from, where we almost got stoned and arrested.
And his disciples are going, no, no, no, no, no, no, we shouldn't do that. Let's not. And I want you to look at what Thomas says. Thomas says in verse 16.
He says, so Thomas called the twin, said to his fellow disciples, let us also go that we may die with Lazarus and Jesus, right? So the disciples are going, this is our moment. Here we are, we're gonna die. Because they're going, why are we going into the fire?
Why are we going into these places that are dangerous? Because it's so hostile in this moment. And Jesus is having to navigate all of his disciples being scared to cats, right? And he's also aware there's like a price tag on his head.
And so he's managing all of this as a leader. And then what we see is that the Lazarus moment happens. And he does his second miracle out of the four checklist, right? And at this point, he's set his head like flint towards Jerusalem.
He is on a mission and he knows where he's headed. He's headed to the cross. And it seems like there's an acceleration. There's an acceleration of the coming king is revealing himself.
I am the Messiah that you seek, right? So he does the miracle. Lazarus is in the grave for four days. His body is already decaying.
His body's already got a stink on it, okay? And Jesus walks up, says, Lazarus come out. Lazarus comes out of the grave, he gets healed. And that is unheard of unthinkable that someone could get raised from the dead period, but gets raised from the dead after four days of being in the grave.
Jesus departs, takes a retreat. You would think if you raised somebody from the dead, it's time for momentum. Post it on Instagram, post it on TikTok. Put money behind it, have it be a sponsored post.
Really get things cooking. Jesus instead doesn't ride the momenta. He goes on a retreat, right? He goes on a retreat.
Then now he's hanging out Samaria, Galilee, he's walking. And he sees 10 lepers, 10 lepers. Now that's not in the, let's see what passage is that in. Luke 17, Luke 17, what's next?
Is he, he sees 10 lepers, they start coming to him and they say, have mercy on us, would you heal us? Jesus heals 10 lepers. One of the prophetic miracles was heal leper. Jesus, so it's those four miracles, right?
It's the, raise somebody from the dead after they've been dead for four days. Cleanse the leper, heal a man that would be mute and deaf. And then heal the blind, man more blind. He heals the lepers.
One of them comes back and says, thank you, the other nine, no where to be seen, right? Then he's on the road towards Jericho. What happens? There's a guy, there's actually two guys.
One of them is named Bartimaeus. Bartimaeus is saying, son of David, have mercy on me. Jesus says, what do you want? He's a blind man too.
And he says, have mercy on me. Jesus heals blind Bartimaeus on the street. Jesus keeps on walking on the road to Jericho. Jericho, he sees a man in a tree.
He says, that's a very short man in that tree, right? Is that a Sycamore tree? You guys know the song, right? He sees, he sees Zacchaeus in the tree.
He says, I'm going to your house. Would you invite me over? It's time. He's hanging out with sinners.
He's hanging out with tax collectors, right? And so Zacchaeus is there, and that's in Luke 19. And all along the way, what Jesus is doing is he's talking about this coming death. He's talking about his destiny, and his disciples are totally oblivious.
It says, he's like, yep, I'm going to die. I'm going to be handed over to the Gentiles. They're going to kill me. They're going to flog me.
And his disciples are like, yeah, sure. Not following at all. And then they're looking back at what happened, and they're going, oh, this is what was going on. But what I want to track with here is Jesus is revealing himself.
Going to the cross, leading up to the triumphal entry, and there's all of a sudden expectations that start rising. There's expectations among the disciples. There's expectations among the crowds. There's expectations among the religious leaders.
And I want you to know this. Pretty much for all of them, he doesn't meet any of their expectations. And I don't know about you, but I believe that many of us put expectations on Jesus that he actually doesn't fulfill. We then get offended by him, because he doesn't do what we assumed he was going to do.
And then we have a heart that's offended. And then we wonder why all of the things that we are expecting him to do, that he says he's going to do, don't happen. But it's because there's a fence in our hearts already. We show up and we're offended.
We show up and we've minimized who he is. And as we've minimized who he is and what he said, he kind of just responds to what we've put on him in certain ways. Like we've minimized him and he's like, OK, here, let me show you. Let's look at Matthew 13.
We've been in Matthew 13 a lot. You just see how this works. Matthew 13, before we get to Matthew 13, I do want to note this. Zacchaeus, he's at Zacchaeus' house.
After he goes to Zacchaeus' house, he goes back to Bethany. And it's Saturday, Saturday night. And there's a woman named Mary, who is Lazarus's sister. And there's a woman named Martha.
And Mary breaks this alabaster jar before Jesus. And he anoints him. And as she anoints him, there's a response to that whole extravagant moment. In this moment, Mary, who's the sister of the guy that got raised from the dead, is coming and offering an offering of extravagance that's worth $30,000.
It's her life savings. And she pours it out over Jesus. And there is a response in the room from one of Jesus' disciples. And his name is Judas.
And Judas, in offense, says, this could have been used for some other type of ministry. Why all the waste for this one? And I want you to know, Judas in that moment has an expectation that Jesus is going to do things a certain way, and that Jesus' values are certain different values than what Jesus has. And Judas, in that moment, is going, he's minimizing who Jesus is.
But Mary sees clearly. Mary has a rightful response. I just want to call us into being a people that respond rightly to our King, that have a right reaction to him. That when he's around, when he shows up, when he speaks, there's actually a wadiness and a reverence and an honor, not a familiarity.
I want you to look at Matthew 13 with me. This is just like Judas is what the people of Nazareth, how they respond to the Lord. Verse 46, this is after Jesus has shared all of his parables that we've been studying and been looking at. Matthew 13, verse 53, I apologize.
And when Jesus had finished these parables about the kingdom, he went away from there and coming to his hometown, Nazareth. He taught them in their synagogue so that they were astonished. And they said, where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works? Is not this Joseph's kid?
Is not this, is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers, James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us? Where did this man get all these things?
And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, a prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household. And he did not do any mighty works there because of their unbelief. Jesus shows up to his hometown.
He's got four brothers, at least two sisters. They're all there at the community center in the synagogue. Jesus has a message. He does a couple miracles.
And everyone in his hometown, they remember Jesus as he's grown up. They remember, they know the brothers and sisters of this family and they're going, who does he think he is? And they begin to minimize Yahweh in the flesh. And I want us as a people to not just think, oh yeah, how dare they, those Nazarenes.
I want us to realize we're most often more like Judas than we are Mary as American believers. I want, it usually is the case that we have to get like really worked up by a preacher to preach us into passion. Or have the music really get there for us to have reverence and honor for him. And I want us to be a people that actually rightly respond to hosting him.
Jesus gets hosted in his hometown and gets minimized and dismissed. Who does he think he is? We as the American church, we host him, kind of, hey, you're here, I'm here, whatever. Kind of aware of his presence in everyday life, mostly not thinking about him, mostly dismissive of his voice.
This is what we're going after as a people of God. It's the 40 day fast to listen and obey. It's the 40 day fast that we went on so that we can have responsive soil, that we wouldn't be like Nazareth as a city in responding to the Lord, but that we would be a people that's responsive. We would have not familiarity, but we would have the fear of the Lord.
That there would be this weightiness to, what did you say? Yes, Lord, there'd be an honor, not necessarily a dread. When I say fear of the Lord, I'm not talking about a dread because punishment's coming. What I'm talking about is an honor and a reverence for him, that he is the ancient of days, that he's the one that created all things.
We're the created, we're just like little ants. The nations are but a drop in the bucket. We see Jesus walk into his hometown in Nazareth and he's going, I'm the ancient of days, I'm Yahweh in the flesh. The whole nation of Israel and all of the nations are but little drops in a bucket.
And they're going, who does this kid think he is? Are you seeing the dissonance? And yet us as Americans, we're so advanced. So much AI, robotics are taking, there's so much convenience.
Jesus is an add-on, listen, listen, Jesus is not an add-on. Jesus is not just like a person that gets added to your life to make your life better. He is the Lord. So the right response is not dismissiveness.
The right response is whatever you say goes. I'm here and I'm a servant. And I know that I'm loved, but I'm here to serve. I want us to turn to a different passage here.
I want us to turn to Matthew 11. We're going to go back a couple verses here. I want you to look at this passage. Verse two, we're going to pick up in verse two here.
Well, now when John heard in prison about the deeds, this is talking about John the Baptist. John the Baptist, his role was to prepare the way for Jesus. In other words, he's preparing the hearts of the people of Israel to get ready for the coming king, Jesus. And so right before Jesus starts his ministry, John the Baptist is preaching in the wilderness.
Tons of people are coming to hear John the Baptist preach and he's preparing all of the people to receive Jesus as king. So I want us to look at verse two. Oh, and another context piece that's important is that John the Baptist starts preaching against what the king is doing during that time because the king at that time was committing sexual immorality and John the Baptist confronts this king and his wife, Rodius, really bad blood, not good. John the Baptist is in prison now because he's preaching against the immorality that's happening in the government.
Verse two, now when John heard in prison about the deeds of Jesus, he sent word by his disciples and he said to them, are you the one who is to come or should we look for another? Look at those expectations there. John the Baptist, he's in prison. He's going, are you the Messiah or are you not the Messiah?
Because if you're the Messiah, I'm expecting you to bring freedom to me as I'm in prison because the Messiah is going to overcome the Roman Empire, overcome the oppressor and I'm still in prison and I'm your friend, I'm the one that actually prepared the way for you to be king. So are you gonna come or are you not? Right? So he's kind of like looking at his watch.
They didn't have watches, but he's kind of looking at his watch going, where are you? Are you gonna come or not? Jesus answers him, the disciples of John, he answers him. He says, hey, go tell John what you hear and what you see.
I want you to look at these four miracles right here. Remember, they all knew these are the Messianic miracles. I want you to see with the Messianic miracles in Jesus response. The blind received their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear and the dead are raised up and the poor have good news preached to them.
Blessed is the one who's not offended by me. Oh my goodness. Can you imagine hearing that message if you're John the Baptist in prison on the other side? Your disciples are like, and he said, bless her you if you're not offended.
Right? And then a couple days he gets beheaded, you know? Ha, that kind of is offensive. Jesus is so gracious that he even answered John the Baptist.
He answered, listen, Jesus answers to no one. That's what it means for God to be sovereign. You know why America is a sovereign nation? Sovereign me well.
So up into this point, I'm just kidding. We are a sovereign nation, which means we don't answer to anyone. We don't answer to Great Britain. We are a sovereign nation.
God in his glory, he answers to no one. He's sovereign. Right? And he's so gracious that John the Baptist is like, are you the guy or not?
John knows that he prepared. John's the one that said, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the Lord. John knows that he's a Messiah. How gracious that the Lord would go.
John, I know you're struggling right now. I want to just confirm with you. You know who I am. I want, and he's just so kind and generous.
Our King doesn't answer us. We put our expectations on him and then we get offended when he doesn't answer us in our timing, in the way that we're expecting, in the way that we want. Then we start to minimize him. Well, you didn't heal that person at this time when I thought, and I thought I had faith and you didn't answer, and I don't know what your problem is, and we put it off on him.
And then he starts saying things in the scriptures and we read them and we go, and we begin to minimize him. That's how it works. Our expectations are failed. And then we get offended, and then we minimize him.
And as the people of God, we get to actually take a step back and go, Lord, I want to have an unfinnable heart that says your way goes. Gosh, I know this is hard what I'm saying. And he's so gracious and he's so kind. And he's not the one that's crossing his arms going, are you serious?
You're going to challenge me like that? No, that's not how he is. That's not what he's doing in this passage. Are you seeing that?
He could. The point I'm making is he could respond with, how dare you, John? Give that to the disciples. Yep, Jesus said, how dare you?
Right? He could have done that. He's Yahweh in the flesh. But instead, he's gracious and long suffering and patient with us as we're processing.
And you're going, and we get offended. And he's like, it's OK, come close. We're OK. We're OK.
Come on. Come on. I know it's been hard. That's how patient he is.
That's how kind he is. OK. I want us to keep on reading here. Those disciples go away.
Jesus begins to now speak to the crowds after the disciples of John leave. And he starts talking about John. And he says this. What did you go out to see in the wilderness?
A reed shaken by the wind? What then did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those who wear soft clothing are in King's houses.
What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yeah, I tell you, more than a prophet. This is he of whom it's written, behold, I send my messenger before your face.
He's going to prepare your way before you. Truly, I say to you, among those who were born of women, there is arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence.
And the violent take it by force for all the prophets in the law prophesied until John. And if you are willing to accept it, he's Elijah who is going to come according to Malachi before the day of the Lord. He who has ears let him hear what the spirit is saying. But to what shall I compare this generation before we get here?
I just want to highlight. Jesus, he's on right now. John's in weakness. John's disciples leave.
And then he turns to everyone else. And he honors John behind John's back, even though John is in weakness. And he goes, do you know what you went out to see? You didn't go out to see some guy that's going to tell you what you want to hear.
You went out to see, why are you even here? People in the room. You're here because you want something more than just to have your ears tickled. And everybody that went out to John, they didn't want to just hear what everybody else was saying.
They're going, we want God. We don't want to just hear the good stuff. We want to hear the kingdom. And John the Baptist is prophesying.
And he's not a read just blown and tossed by the wind with every wave of doctrine and every opinion of man. No, he's a man that had grit and fierceness about his convictions. And he was going to make a way before the Lord. That's who you came out to see.
And he honors John behind his back. But there's still this ache. As I read it, I go, yeah, what are we even doing? What are we here for?
It's because we want him. You came out to the wilderness, inconvenienced yourself. Some of you drove an hour and a half, two hours to get here. And you come every single week.
And you drive an hour and a half to get to every day on the weekends. And it's not because every day is anything that special. You're coming for God. You're coming because you want him.
Why did they go out in the wilderness? Why did they go to the edge of the Jordan River to be baptized? They came because they're awaiting a king. We are awaiting a king.
We are expecting a king. And we are coming because we want to follow him and love him. And I don't want to be one that's offended. I don't want to be minimizing him.
I don't want to be smothering him and going, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Look at what Jesus says. And he is in this story. He's him and John are the children that are sitting in the marketplace.
I want you to look at this. We're 16. But to watch how I compare this generation. It's like children sitting in the marketplace is calling to their playmates.
We played the flute for you. You didn't dance. We sang a song of mourning of Ders, and you did not mourn. For John came neither eating or drinking.
They say he has a demon. Son of man came eating and drinking. They say, look at him, a glutton, a drunkard, friend of text collectors and sinners. Yeah, wisdom is justified by your deeds.
Jesus is saying, I'm coming. I'm coming, playing the flute. And you're not going to dance. John comes with a message of repentance and mourning.
And you're not actually going to be responsive and mourn. And I just want to double down on what Jesus is saying, because I think this is being repeated generation after generation. We as the people of God, it's like he needs to do a song and a dance for us to be responsive. Like what does he need to do to actually evoke surrender?
What does he need to do? It's almost like, yeah, Lord, if you could just twist my arm a little bit harder in this way, then I'll respond. If the music could go, and you know, it's like the guy could do the thing on the drums, then I'll respond. If you could just have a divine appointment, basically I'm not going to take any steps of faith, but just like have somebody ask me about Jesus, then I'm going to respond.
If you could just really have things go bad, and then I'm going to start being generous because I'm realizing that I'm controlled by money. If you could just have me get contracted SDD, then I'll come to my senses and realize that I've actually been living in rebellion, and then I'm going to repent. And all we're doing is waiting for something to really hit us, to actually be responsive to the leadership of the Lord. And I just want to call us as a people, to not put Jesus in a position where he has to do something for us to be responsive, but that our yes would always be yes for him.
Yeah, that's what we get to be as a people, right? And I'm not preaching at us, I'm preaching, like I want this for me, you guys. Like we are fumbling our way along. So this isn't a message of heavy handedness.
I also want to call us, like I'm calling us into it, right? I'm calling us higher into it of like, I want to be the people that have joy in my heart and not like, okay, I guess. No, I want to have this light, like I'm going to host him in whatever he's carrying, I'm going to go in. Oh, I'm ready to dance, I'm ready to dance, let's go.
Right? Or it's just this like joy. Like he plays that song and I, woo! Let's go, right?
I'm ready for it. He opens up his heart and he goes, and he opens up his heart of grief and mourning. I want to be the one that rejoices with those who rejoice, mourn with those who mourn. And the first one that I do that with is him.
Man, that thing, that immorality actually cause grief in his soul because it destroys people. I don't want to be indifferent about it. I want to actually have his opinion and go, I'm going to grieve about that because it's actually damaging to the ones you love. And then what, somebody gets saved?
Woo! I want to have this like, are you, let's go! I want to have this reaction. I don't want to have the, are you sure?
Are you sure they're real? Are you sure they really surrendered? Right? I'm not sure.
Well, I kind of know their story. I don't know, they've kind of done this before, haven't they? Right? No, I'm ready to dance.
Right? Turn your Bible's to Luke 15. I'm going to end here. Thank you, Lord.
Luke 15 shares this parable of a young man that decides to rebel against his dad and wants an early inheritance. So he basically spits in the face of his dad, says, you know, he might as well be dead to me. I want your inheritance right now. Give it to me.
He goes, wasted on immorality. But he comes to his senses. And he's in the worst place, a very dark place. But then he wakes up and he's like, man, I've got to go home.
I've got to go to my dad. And it's this classic story of the prodigal son. How many of you guys heard the phrase prodigal son? Right?
And we as a people, so I'm wanting to finish here, because I really believe this is a prophetic moment that I believe the Lord has been putting his hand on for us as a community. And I want to move into a ministry time, OK? But in this storyline, what happens is this young man comes home and his father was waiting for him. And the father who in the story is representative of God comes running out to the lost son, the prodigal son.
And the father has a ring and a rope, which basically he's restoring his son's identity. He's restoring his love. He's restoring his place in the family. And the father then says, hey, go take the fat and calf.
In other words, the filet, the T-bone, every part, put it on the smoker, put it on the grill, go to party city. We're throwing a part, even if it's out of business. We're going to go to party city. Blow the balloons.
It's party time. And we're going to pick up here. I want us to look at this scene. There's music playing.
They're having a good time. He calls the party together. And then what I want us to do is pick up. Well, let's pick up in verse 22.
The father says to his servants, hey, grab the best rope. Put it on him. Put a ring on his hand, which means it's like a signet ring. In other words, I'm giving my authority back to him.
Put shoes on his feet. Bring the fat and calf. Kill it. Let us eat.
And let's celebrate. For this, my son was dead. And his alive again, he was lost. He's now found.
And they began to celebrate. Verse 25. Now his older son was in the field. And as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing.
And he called one of his servants and asked, hey, what's going on? And they said to him. Your brother, he's come back and your father killed the fat and calf because he has received him back saved and sound. But he was angry and refused to go in.
His father came out and entreated him. But he answered his father. And he said, look, these many years I've served you. I never disobeyed your command.
That you never gave me the young goat. That I may celebrate with my friends. But when the son of yours came, who had devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fat and calf for him. And he said to him, son, you're always with me.
And all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad. For this, your brother was dead and is alive. He was lost and is found.
We've been praying for prodigals to come home. And when I'm saying that, I'm talking about those that have walked away from Jesus. We've been praying that they would come home, that they would come back, not to the church, not to every day, but come back to him, right? And we've been praying for that as a community and prayer room and in other settings.
And as we're talking about being a responsive people to the Lord and being those that host him, host his thoughts, his opinions and not minimizing him, not dismissing him. What happens when we do that is we host him and we begin to receive his opinions and his thoughts, right? And then there's an outflow and that actually bleeds into the second commandment. And now we get his heart for everybody else in our lives, right?
But there's a problem when somebody comes home, right? When they wake up and they come to their senses and they start coming back to the Lord. But then when they come back to the Lord, there's like a, oh, hey, welcome. Oh my goodness, I'm glad you're here.
But then there's a dismissiveness or there's not a responsiveness from us as the church. I wanna paint the picture, everybody listen up. This is so important. If somebody has been following Jesus, this is just an example of a story and there's tons of stories and there's all of these different stories that are represented with people that we know.
But I'm just making up a story to help bring this to life. I want you to understand, bring this in 2025. Guys following Jesus, going to church, but he's feeling these emotions and these desires. And he's got SSA and he's wrestling and he's going, man, what do I do?
I'm struggling with my desire. I'm attracted to my same gender and I'm in this turmoil and I don't know how I'm gonna get out of it. And it feels like I've just got to give in because I've just tried over and over and over again. And I just have to just give into it.
And I feel like I've been developing relations with people that are struggling with the same thing. And they've actually decided, you know what? I'm leaving the church and I'm pursuing this lifestyle and it's been so freeing. And then they start making these decisions and then they start coming, they come out.
And they can embrace, they can embrace by a whole community. Five, 10 years down the road, they've been living in this lifestyle. But the cords of loving kindness from God starts reaching back and his kindness starts touching their hearts. And they begin to start looking and they're going, I love you Lord, but there's a mountain in front of me for me to come home.
And the Lord, he's the one that scales the mountain. He's the one, he's the father that he's going after the one. He leaves the 99 and he goes after the one. In other words, he leaves the church people and he goes after the one.
But then there's the moment where he's going, I wanna turn, I wanna come back home Lord. And they turn and they're coming back home. But there's all of this traffic, there's all of this uneasiness, there's all this shame, there's all this guilt. And the problem is that there's a mountain in front of them and it's called the American Judgement skeptical pointing church.
And as a people of God, we actually need to have our arms wide open and not be like the older brother. But we're the brother that goes, wait, what? He's back and there's this excitement and joy. It's like, man, do we got another heifer?
We got another calf, we got another calf? I got to make this even more of a party. Yeah, that's an awesome party. We got to make a greater party.
We got to call more people, right? But oftentimes what happens, they come back, they show up to church. Oh my gosh, there's excitement, there's excitement. What?
We give them a great skill, my hug. That's awesome. I can't believe let's go. It's like, hey, bro, see you Sunday.
Monday through Saturday. They have the same numbers in their phone book, the same numbers in their contact. They have the same friends, same living arrangement, same thing to do on a Friday night, same thing to do on a Saturday night. There's nobody from the church that's going, bro, we got to throw a party.
Bro, we got to throw a party. You're coming back home? We're gathering everybody. We're going to get, oh man, I'm going to smoke some meat.
We're going to do the thing, right? We got to get some ice cream cake. We got to do something. Because this is crazy.
I'm going to fill up the bathroom. Bro, you want to get baptized? Let's go. Are you seeing this?
There's a difference. Gorgeal. Oh, I'm so glad you're here. How do you think they're going to?
How many of you know? The Lord so seeds, the enemy comes, the cares of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, the cares of life, steals them away. But if you got a whole family, if you got brothers and sisters that are like, wait, what? Oh, man, man, man, bro, what are you doing tomorrow night?
What are you doing Friday night? I got commitments on Wednesday. Actually, I'm in the prayer of my Wednesday. You got to meet me there.
We're going to be there. And then all of a sudden, they have a tribe. They have a people. But if you are isolated by yourself, you don't have anybody that you're willing with.
You don't have anybody that you're pursuing Jesus with. And the product will come home. Who are they going to hang out with? Just you?
You got to get in community. So then when they come home, it's all of a sudden, bro. It's an open table. Come on in.
And then you're going, well, it's kind of like we have a closed community. We only have the people that we like. That's not going to work. If they come home and you're actually praying for them to come home, then you've got to expect that they're going to come home.
And if they come home, how do we respond? Just that's cool that you're around. I'll see you next week. Sitting ducks.
Isolated. How would you do? I just want to put it on you. How are you going to white knuckle that moment?
How's it going to work out for you? You're going to go the path of least resistance. I'm telling you, God is in this hour, anointing those with a gift of hospitality. I believe that the Lord is marking many of you, that you love hosting, you love gathering, you love initiating parties.
You're the one that's like calling people up. And most of the time, you're the one that's initiating and nobody pursues you. Yeah? You've tried it before.
You've tested this because you're going, I wonder if anybody's going to initiate anything in my friend group. You kind of like test the waters to see crickets. Nobody's calling. It's because God has given you a role in the body.
You are the party planner. You are the hospitable, open arms in the body. So remember, we are a body, like the body of Christ. We all have a different role.
We all have a different gift. And God is saying, I'm anointing with power and fire. A special grace on those that are the hospitable ones, that have the gift of hospitality. And I want to pray for anybody that has that gift of hospitality.
You know who you are where you're like, yup, I'm the one that likes hosting. I'm the one that likes gathering people. I'm going to cook the good food or at least somebody that's going to cook in is going to cook food, right? And I believe this is what we need as the body right now, that this is actually an urgent moment.
We need you. We need you activated and we need you to plan more parties. I'm telling you, we need more parties, parties, parties. We need more parties as the church.
We need more. There should always be something happening that you can invite somebody to that's fun. Are you hearing it? Not just in this building.
There is always something that should be happening that you can invite somebody to that doesn't know Jesus. Because there's an expectation, well, they're coming home. So we're going to throw parties. We're going to get so good at this.
Guys, you're like, I know you're done with me talking, but I just got it. We've got to get good at it. There's some of you that you're like any excuse to get people together. That's you.
You are the people I'm talking about. Any excuse. Wait, you've got a birthday? And then it's party time.
We are praying for you. OK? We need you. We need you in this hour because we are isolated.
We are the most isolated people in history. We're looking at our phones constantly, thinking we're connected. We're not connected. And we have a remedy.
And it's a part of the body, the part of the body that has the gift to lead us. I'm asking and calling out those that have the gift of hospitality. We need you to lead. We need you to take your place.
We need you to get activated. We need you to activate us. And you need to begin to organize more gatherings, more events, more times of connection, more times to eat together. We must have you take your rightful place.
That's all, Sam. Thank you, Lord. I just feel like this. It's a moment, you guys.
It's a moment. As we're preparing for the triumphal entry next week, and we're preparing to have a right response to him, then he helps us have a rightful response to them, those that he came to seek and save. And then he's going, I'm going to orchestrate it so that some of you can help us have the right response to love them. And I can't wait to pray for you, guys.
I really believe that the Lord wants to not have you, if this is your gift, that it's not just a natural gifting. You're going to have that natural gifting. But I believe the Lord wants to actually douse it with gasoline, holy spirit, fire. That he actually wants to take it and make it a gift of the spirit, not just a natural gifting.
Are you hearing me? You got this natural gifting, natural wiring, amazing. The Lord's going, I'm going to supercharge that thing. I'm going to supercharge that thing for the kingdom of heaven to actually be experienced in America in 2025.
Yeah, in our city. If that's you, I want you to come to the front right now to the altar. We're going to spread out. Just come out.
There's going to be a lot of you. I just want you to come to the altar, fill the aisles. You can make rows up at the altar. And then as the altar gets filled up, I want you to stand in the middle of the aisles.
If there's not enough room. You guys can just make rows, like kind of lines. There we go. So there can be people that minister to you and pray for you.
So you can let's leave some space in between the second row and the third row and the fourth row. And then if there's not enough room, you can just be in each of the aisles. And what we're going to do is it's just going to be full on ministry time where everybody else in the room, you're on the ministry team. And we're going to gather around all of these brothers and sisters.
And we're going to pray that they would just get baptized in the Holy Spirit, that they would get baptized in power, and that this gift would get activated inside of them. Some of you are already, you've already disqualified yourself because you're going, I don't own a home, and I'm not a good cook, and I'm telling you, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you've got like no capacity to host people in a living room, doesn't matter at all. Call them to Chipotle or wherever, you just be you.
You be you without the house, you be you without the income, you be you without the influence that you think you need. You just show up and be you with the power of the Holy Spirit, and the Lord's going to take the rest, yeah? All right. Yeah, there's too many of you.
Let's go. I mean, it's the right number. Would you raise your hand if you're responding? Raise your hand high.
I want everybody in the room to be looking at these that got their hands raised, and you just, this is amazing. Guys, this is what we need. I'm just, I could, because this is what is so needed right now, is we need you. We need these people to initiate, amen?
All right. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord.
What I want us to do is just, what we're going to do is just gather around, and we're just going to work our way through praying for everybody that's responded. And if you don't get it, prayer, I want you to know that it's not, that's nothing having to do with you. God's gonna, He fills in the gaps, okay? So don't wait for somebody that's really anointed to come and pray for you.
Don't you be waiting for some type of anointed pastor to pray for you? You're showing up, and the Lord actually gives the Holy Spirit to His children that ask, and I just want you in this ministry time. We're gonna pray for you, but I want you to ask Him, Lord, baptize me and power and activate this gift in me, okay? So you just, don't wait on man.
You're waiting on the Lord, you're going, Lord, activate me in this, right? All right. Thank you, Jesus, Lord, we come before you. And we ask that you would bring us out of isolation as a people, bring us into, into a place of connection.
Lord, help us to actually host the protocols that are coming home. We wanna be the older brother that actually throws the party. We wanna be the party planners that make a way through the mountain, through every valley, to make a way for the protocols to come home. Lord, help us create and host and facilitate.
And I just speak over everyone that's responded, Lord, which you activate the gift of hospitality in Jesus' name. Lord, I pray for the fire of your spirit, on your children. Would you breathe on them? Just declare the breath of the Holy Spirit, the fire of God on them in Jesus' name.
Fire over them, fire on their heads, their hands and their feet. Oh Lord, God, we ask, come with your glory. Come with your fire on them. Consider the threats of the enemy and give them boldness as a people in Jesus' name.