While we're staying in church, I'm just going to go ahead and read my scripture we're going to launch from. Isaiah 9, I'm going to start in verse 6, it says, For to us a child is born. Did y'all hear when I said church? Yes!
For to us a child is born. To us the son is given. And the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called, if you know it, say it with me, wonderful counselor.
Mighty God. Everlasting Father. In Prince of Peace. It says, of the greatness of his government, and peace.
Church say, and peace. There will be no end. My God, thank you so much. There will be no end.
Give me my praise this morning if you believe that. I'm excited this morning y'all. Thank you, worship team. Thank you, Kim, for that poem.
You guys are great. Hey, we got another member on our worship team. Can we give him a hand? Yeah.
It's good to see God growing. Challenging people to step out, amen? Alright, he said, let there be light. So let's bring it up.
Now I can see your face. Good morning, church. I appreciate you, bro. I am sweating.
I say it all the time, but I know you are. He said earlier, it's hard getting in and out of that box. I believe it. I had something I've been holding on to for a minute.
I don't know why, but I'm going to share it today. I told Fred I had a couple little one liners. I was going to bring out. We are going to talk about some serious stuff today.
I don't know. We're passing on some Don bags and stuff last week. Go hear him. Right?
No. But we were ordering stuff and I got this. This was so funny. I opened this up.
We ordered stuff from Amazon. And I said, thank you. Warning notices. This is a gift, but not the item you ordered.
Thank you for your purchase. The item you ordered has been shipped. Maybe it was delivered to you or will be delivered in a few days when you received the gift. P.S.
gift don't need return if you don't like it. I've never seen something like that before. Anybody ever got that when you ordered something? Man, that was funny.
I laugh for a while for that. I'm like, what in the world? And it was one of those little pop. That was the gift they gave us.
I guess it was a plus. I'm excited. We're going to talk about, we've been in increase. This is the verse that I started off with.
I launched the series. It's the verse I want to use to wrap up because I didn't get to touch on the piece part. There's just been a piece that has been released into my life that is unexplainable. I've been trying to put a pin on it on how to maybe help release that.
But I really believe that God's getting ready to release a piece and show us that our purpose as a church is peace. How many of you know that we inherited peace from our father? If he came to establish it, what do you think we were given to carry on? Not sure question, you can say it.
Peace. Amen. He came to establish peace. And he's going to use us.
And I'm hoping today to show you that we leave with a little bit better understanding of the purpose of peace. The purpose of Palm Sunday and get a different look at it. And that we see really who our father is, who our king is. I said it a while back.
Remember when I said the kingdom of God works a little backwards? I'm hoping we get a little bit more understanding that how he approaches things is a little different than how we would. That if we would honor that and partner with that, I believe that we would see there would be a piece that would be released to us but then released to others to set them free. Amen, Church?
Because we serve a God that's a good God. He's the Prince of Peace. Did you read that with me? It says mighty God.
He's all of those things wrapped up but the Prince of Peace. It's just super interesting to me because we approach things so differently. I read the message translation a lot. If you're new here, I apologize if we have any super saved King James people.
Bethany pointed to David. He knows I like to pick one. But Isaiah 9, 7 reads like this in the message translation. It says, his ruling authority will grow.
Everyone say grow. And there will be no limits to the wholeness he will bring. Did you hear that, church? The wholeness that he will bring.
What do we serve? What do we have people search for? You all just want to be half filled up. You want to be whole, right?
Thank God that our God, he makes us whole. He doesn't do half of the job. He came to establish peace. And now we are no longer separated.
I'm excited for Easter. I love the resurrection. We don't have nothing if we don't have the resurrection. But we have it.
And I'm so excited to dive into that next week. It says he'll rule from the historic David throne over that promised kingdom. He'll put that kingdom on a firm footing and keep it going. What did it say?
A firm footing and keep it going with fair dealing and right living. Beginning now and lasting. How long? So when does all we saw?
The zeal of God of the angel armies will do all of this. I'm going to bring up a, I don't know if you guys remember, there's two messages I did in between series on peace. This is a little while back, but there's two different piece. I'll talk about both of them today because I think they go hand in hand.
But this one is peace, shalom, which is completeness, soundness. This is the translation of the Greek word. It says welfare, peace, completeness, and number, safety, soundness, and body, welfare, health, prosperity, peace, quiet, tranquility, contentment, peace, friendship. Are you getting the picture here?
It's of everything. It's a piece of all things. Peace from war. Right?
We're about to read that he's going to say no more. No more. And I hope today, leaving here church, that we become a people that understand that we carry peace from the Father. That our weapon is peace.
That's what we fight with. We fight with peace. That brings peace. Oh, it's going to be good.
So the first kind of point that we're going to talk about here is this is a prophecy of peace and increase. Zachariah, if you have your Bibles, if you don't, I'll pray for you later. No, I'm just kidding. If you've got your Bibles, you can pull them out.
If not, it'll be up here on the screen. Zachariah 9 is where we're going to start. And starting in verse 8, it says, I will set up camp in my home country and defend it against invaders. Nobody is going to hurt my people ever again.
Nobody is going to hurt my people ever again. I'm keeping my eye on them. Thank you, God. Now, if you're not his people, I don't know what to watch out.
Verse 9 says, Shouting Cheer, daughter's on. Listen, y'all, I told you I get excited, right? I'm reading this and I got it. I got it.
I'm my biggest cheerleader. This is going to sound weird. But I have to be, right? Most of the time it's just me here.
So I got to be my biggest cheerleader. But I'm in here and it says, some translations of the message translation says, raise the roof, daughter Jerusalem. I'm in here. I'm trying to get my cell phone though, raise the roof, right?
It's exciting. We should get excited about this. It says, your king is coming. A good king who makes all things right.
A humble king riding a donkey, a miracle of a donkey. I've had it with war. Here we go. A humble king riding a donkey, a miracle of a donkey.
I've had it with war. No more chariots in Aepram. No more war horses in Jerusalem. No more swords and spears, bows and arrows.
He will offer, say it with me, church. Peace to the nations. A peaceful rule worldwide. From the four winds to the seven seas.
No more chariots in Aepram. No more war horses in Jerusalem. No more swords and spears. You know what he's saying here?
Church? He's saying, this is an inside job. What do I mean by that? Peace will be our weapon like I said a minute ago.
You got to understand, this is inside. This is inside. This is the inside where he's coming. He says, what I'm about to set up, shop in.
We're not fighting with war horses, bows and arrows. I don't know if you guys are hearing what he's saying. He's not taking it from them. They're keeping theirs.
He's saying, that's how we're approaching this. This is a different fight. This is a different approach. And we're going to use peace.
Because peace is so much more powerful than anything else. And it's going to be a peaceful rule worldwide. We're going to impact this world with peace. Oh my God.
Help us. No more chariots. No more. No more.
No more. We're not using this no more. Church, you're going to see here, this is a prophecy that's about, I think it's 740-700 BC. So we're going to see as it's coming to get to the point of Palm Sunday of him coming in to establish this peace that we're talking about.
And I think it's so important that we understand this that if he's screaming no more then and comes to establish that, what are we doing now? What do you think that he's calling us to do now? Because guess what? He's coming back.
I get one amen. Only one person excited that the king is coming back once and for all. Didn't you hear what it said? That his kingdom would be of what?
Forever. Never ending peace. You guys aren't as excited as I am about this. Now, you all, listen.
Never ending peace. That passes all understanding. I think that's some of the stuff we're starting to get into. We can't wrap our brains around it, but church, here what he's saying.
And then you're going to piece together that when this is all happening, the times and it's coming to take place and then he's coming and they see him. They see the king or in a donkey that symbolizes peace and they can't do nothing but shout. Because I believe when we see that our king is a king of peace that he's come to establish that, he's shown us, then he's given us a visual of what we're supposed to do in the meantime until he comes back to continue to advance his kingdom right here right now. And how we're going to do it is with peace and using peace.
No, no. Yeah, those pieces are fine too. But so verse 11 says, and you because of my blood covenant with you, I release your prisoners from their hopeless selves. Come home.
Hope filled prisoners. This very day, I'm declaring everyone say a double bonus. Ooh, we, everything you lost in return twice over. Only one person wants to receive that.
Hey, twice over. It says peace and increase. Come on somebody. He said double over.
I love that God is so awesome. He don't ever just do like he wants to double while you. You ever notice that? He'll do one thing that impacts you and impacts another person.
You're just like, my God, only you can do that. Phew. And it says, oh, I got so excited about the twice over. Judah is now my weapon.
The bow I'll pull, sending E from as an arrow to the string. I'll wake up your son's o' Zion to counter your son's o' Greece. From now on, you're already people are my swords. What did I say?
Oh my goodness gracious. If that doesn't excite you to know that you're his sword. Oh my God. He said people are now my swords.
We walk around as believers. We're like, yeah, God uses people. He uses people to do his Francis Kingdom, right? And it's like, yeah, he's saying, yeah, you're my sword.
What are you doing? What are you doing? My people, you're my sword. That's how much I trust you.
That's how much I believe in you. That's how much I put inside of you. You're the one that's spreading this peace. You're the one that I'm going to use.
Come on church. I hope you see and listen, I put this in there just so you know. You can kind of see the breakdown of the timelines here because prophecy fulfilled is so amazing. Here you got an Zechariah.
This is around 520 to a 518 BC. And it's just incredible that these things are spoke of that long ago. And they're fulfilled and being fulfilled. It's amazing.
Alright, so that's a little, my little back launching pad backdrop to what we're going to get into leading up to the moment of that prophecy that was in Old Testament about a king coming on a donkey. Which now we have today as the start of Holy Week that leads up to, I like what Fred messes me this morning. He said, are Super Bowl. Which yes it is.
So I start off with this. Peace. Everyone likes to say this. I'm going to change up our sayings here for a little bit.
We always like to say, coming in, but you can't come in hot on a donkey y'all. I don't know if y'all know, but yeah, you can, I don't know. I'm sure you can try to speed it up some. But there's only so fast the donkey's going to run.
You know what I mean? Alright, we got to stay. Don't give me off track y'all. Here's what I want to just say to start like I've kind of started off with.
Because I believe this and I agree with the other statement to an extent, but I just want to kind of add to it. But I put down here, it's on my heart and say what you see will determine when you start. When you start will play a huge part in how you finish. Because I know we say things a lot that sound great.
That's like it's not how you started. It's how you. Okay, but if you never start how many of you know you'll never finish. Right, so I want to encourage some people today that yes, it's important that you start.
It has a lot to do with what you see. Because when they saw that, when they saw their king sitting on a donkey y'all. And yes, he meant to grab the donkey. Right, leaders back then, they would ride on donkeys to let you know that they're coming in peace.
If they were coming on a war horse, like I was saying, then they're coming for war. But they would come nice and slow to let you know that, hey, I'm coming in peace. And they saw that. And I don't want to jump ahead.
But it's so important that what we see. Because if we don't see it, y'all, we're going to miss it. And guess what? If we miss it, you know what we do often, we flip it.
When we don't see it, we miss it. We flip that thing real quick. And we get so off track. So I hope that we see today our king and what he's trying to establish.
Just a little fact about in 1 Kings 133, it says, then he ordered, gather my servants, then mount my son Solomon on my royal mule and lead him in processing down the guy on. Sorry, guy on y'all know to Cumberland. He was in Maryland. He was in Alabama.
He came down to Cumberland. But that's King Solomon. That's the day that he was anointed king. Said he wanted a mule.
The leading man. The show, how he was coming. See, these are just things in Scripture. I think if we don't piece them together, we'll miss them.
But remember what I said, leaders, Ryan and Donkey, was a sign that they came in peace. Now let's go ahead and jump into this. And John, I use John. It's in all the gospels.
Matthew, Mark, Luke. I use John today because there's some things in there that I really like about it. To turn to John 12 and start in verse 12, it says, the next day the huge crowd that had arrived from the feast heard that Jesus was entering Jerusalem. They broke off palm branches and went out to meet him.
And they cheered, Hosanna, like we just shouted during worship. Blessed is he who comes in God's name. Yes, the king of Israel. Jesus got a young donkey and he wrote it.
Just as the Scripture has it. No fear, daughters on. See how your kings come riding a donkey a cold. I don't want to get off the track here, but it says just as.
You guys see that? Just as the Scripture has it. Prophecy is being fulfilled. It's important.
Let's just take a little side track here. I think details are important. Obedience is important. Following the word that was spoken is important.
You guys hear what I'm saying? Like it says that just as it was written, he did it. So that kind of shows us right off the bat that he's setting the example that being obedient to the word and living it out is super important. Amen.
It's don't have to be super confusing. It says just as it was written, he said, all right, it's going right a donkey. Go there and get a donkey. Some of them say a donkey has never been written.
All kinds of different, whatever one you read, you're going to get a little bit different. You can read all of them. But we have an example of Jesus following the scripture to the tea. It's pretty cool to see, huh?
We struggle with that. I'll keep on. Don't get upset with me. It says, no fear, daughters on.
See how your kings come right in the donkey. A donkey's cold. The 16th disciples didn't notice the fulfillment of many scriptures at the time. But after Jesus was glorified, they remembered that what was written about him matched what was done to him.
Interesting thought there, huh? It's people on 17th. The crowds that had been with him when he called Lazarus from the tomb, raising him from the dead was there giving eyewitness accounts. It was because they had spread the word of this latest, everyone say, God's son, that the crowd swelled to a welcoming parade.
The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus from the tomb, raising him from the dead was there giving eyewitness accounts. I think they were there giving eyewitness accounts. No, because they saw what he did with Lazarus. Can I ask this show of hands in here?
If you don't mind? Have you seen God do something in your life? Right? A lot of people, right?
Says the ones that saw, the ones that followed with him as he was doing these things. It's all who he was, or who he truly was, was there with him. And it's interesting because I think if we would, as people, whoever, everyone just raise your hands, listen, if you haven't seen him do something, this is like an infomercial right now for Jesus. Trying for 30 days.
If he does not show up in your life, you can return him, okay? But I promise you he's going to do something in your life that's going to say, oh my God. Someone give him a hand if he's done something in your life, please. But it says they were there giving eyewitness accounts.
That's why, why, as the church we struggle to say, hey, when we step out, why is it such a hard thing for us to do to say, man, let me tell you about Jesus. Let me show you what he's done. And I ain't talking about like Fred's Bible bat that he's talking about. That can be done, but what about just loving on him?
Me living my life in peace, someone's going to be like, man, what's different about him? That's going to present an opportunity to be like, hey, let me tell you about my friend. The big man upstairs, he's great. But if you don't see what he's doing in your life and to give eyewitness to that when the opportunity presents itself, what are we doing?
We're missing, we're missing great opportunities to do this thing. But it says the crowd that have been with him when he called Lazarus from the tomb. Listen, y'all, I was dead. I don't know if you hear me or not, but I was a dead man.
He called me up out of the tomb. I made my bed, y'all, in hell. And he said, no, get up. Come on.
And I got up and I walked out and I'm following him. And I'm able to give eyewitness to that. Because remember what I said earlier, he's coming back. And we play a part, to be a part of that crowd, that when we see him coming, we're going to be like, Jesus, Jose and I.
But guess what, y'all, if we don't see what he's done in our lives, we're going to miss it. Like many of them did. Like the ones we're about to read about did. It says the Pharisees took one look and threw their hands up.
It's out of control. This world is in a stampede after him. And you know what's sad? That's a lot of the leavers today.
Because they can't understand. Why there's a peace, why there's an excitement, why there's a joy. Why I want to tell you about him. Like they can't see it.
And they're just like, what is the big deal about this guy? This guy's nuts. Do you see him over here? He's talking to a wall.
He's telling me no language he's speaking. And I love how Luke puts it. Luke 19, 39, 40 says, some Pharisees from the crowd told him, teacher. Teacher, teacher disciples under control.
But he said, oh, I love this. If they kept quiet, the stones would do it for them. Shouting praise. Oh my God.
And you know what you know what you know what he's saying? This king's going to get his honor. He's going to get praise even if they impossible has to happen for him to get the praise that's rightfully owed to him. In Colossians it says, for everything, absolutely everything.
Everyone say everything. Above, below, visible and invisible. Rank after rank after rank of angels. Everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him.
Honor is what a king deserves. Honor is what a king is going to receive. And I'm hoping today guys, like I said, as we're going through these, you're just going to see here that what honor will do. Honor, honor, honor.
When you see it, you want to know who the king is and what he's doing and what he's done. You will take the garments off of you. You will go cut branches down, upon branches, to lay down as he's coming, because you know who's coming. You know the importance of it.
Wanting to honor him, and it's going to translate into our life's unbelieve in it that you want to honor God with your life. I'm going to take him in and I hope you hear me. And whatever it is, the most important thing, as a husband, I want to honor my wife because it's honoring God. I want to honor my brother and sister because it's honoring God.
I want to live my life to the fullest. You know where it starts, it starts in your secret place. I have so many people talking about their secret place and I love it in its school and you got yours filled with Jesus posters and when you walk in the lights. And you know that light comes on and says, well, yours is decked out and that's awesome and I'm happy for you.
But if you can't ever walk out and that happens, like if you can't get there in that place with him and say, God, I love you so much. I want to honor you, Father, with my life. And everything that I do, God, whether it's I'm at the store, I'm at home by myself, God, I'm in control of the remote father. Yeah, I know that's it.
I'm talking to your father, this is irrelevant, but no it's not. He said, will you honor me when no one's looking? Because if you can't, you're not going to see me when I'm coming because you won't know. So honor starts in your secret place.
I wanted to give him everything because you understand he gave everything for you. All right, I know some of you clock watchers are watching me. Our is broke up there to be fair. We haven't had one in like a year.
So if you're wondering why I'm like in holding patterns, you know, you've been on a plane, you're in a holding pattern. That's why that's happened sometimes. It's not my fault. After you 21.
I'm just kind of your notes. I'm just bouncing through the of the this passage in the different gospels. And verse four and five says, this is the full story of what was sketched earlier by the prophet. And we read tell tell Zion's daughter, look, your king's on his way.
Poison ready mounted on a donkey on a cold fowl and on a pack animal. That's four and five and eight. It says, nearly all the people in the crowd through their garments down on the road, giving him a royal welcome. Why would he need a royal welcome because he's a royal king.
Others cut branches from the trees and threw them down as a welcoming mat. This is their this is their form of honor. Like this is this is what they went to honor the king coming. They saw him as king coming in because of things that he did and because of their belief in him.
And church, I'm challenging us today. We've read the story a thousand times a thousand times and he had the palm branches and exciting. Yeah, he's there. Right.
I'm missing the king coming. Hear me, church. He's coming back. Those that honored him then saw him coming because they could yell.
They could shout. They see me. They were able to get the branches. That's their form.
Like I said, it's their form of honor. Different things I was reading said that they'd take their mantles off and lay down like important things stuff that meant something. I'm not talking about something didn't mean something. Talking about they actually were like, no, here he comes.
Here he comes laying it down to give him something to walk in on. They said, no, here he comes. And I feel like there's so many of us that are like, yeah, I'm well, yeah. Oh, I got 10 years.
He ain't got to come in my time. I can all here's my favorite. I'll honor him tomorrow. It's like my workout plan.
I'll hit it tomorrow. Right. And then four days down. My wife's like shame in me.
This guy's calling me Meatloaf. Like I'm getting, getting ashamed and I'm not going to the gym. Right. Because we always think tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow.
You know what I noticed what it is the lack of what the honor him in our life. It's a lack of understanding what he brought in, what he did when he came in to establish me and everybody sitting here to be able to have the peace. This thing's trying to get me to be able to have the peace. And I'm just like God help us today see that these things go hand in hand that you came to establish peace.
But the only way I was able to see that is because the honor of who you who you are. And I'm like what there's some like things I was like, okay, what's this mean? Like what can I use here? Like it's important what you ride in on.
I'm like, not doesn't sound good. But what he was right. Yeah, no, I'll stop right there. But how many of you know it was so important for him to see what what them people to see what he was riding in on.
They needed to they needed them to know what I'm about. That's peace. I don't know what you're about. But you're going to miss it.
I'm about restoring peace. And this is this is church. What I believe he's calling us to do. Right.
There's so many different denominations out there. There's so many different approaches. All that. But you know what's hard to do.
It's hard to humble yourself. It's hard to say, you know what? I know what this is going to look like. But guess what I'm going to do anyway because I want to honor God.
And if that would be our heart, we would see such a shift. If we would receive peace coming, guess what we're going to release. Come on, basic math. So tell me, why is it the struggle to do it?
Why is it the struggle to say? Listen, I'll do this because I know that's what God wants me to do. And I believe he's drawn us back to a place to say, listen, this is what I established. This is how important it is.
And this is what I want you guys to carry on to welcome in my kingdom. Right. Because he's coming back to you. Believe that church.
And I want to see him. I don't know about you guys, but I want to see him coming. Like, I want to recognize them. The king's coming so I can grab my palm branches.
I can take my garments off and lay them down in front of me. I want him to know, hey, you're welcome here. We know how worthy you are. We know what you did for us.
You made it whole. You made us whole. We're no longer separated from the Father. We're no longer separated from the Father.
We have complete access. Y'all, I don't know if you know that from no one's told you. You have 1000% access to the Father because of what Jesus did riding in on a donkey to establish that for you. So let's carry that with us today.
All right, I'm going to start to wrap up. Just give me a minute with. So, yeah, go ahead. I'm going to touch one another type of piece that I told you about.
Like I said, I know this in two different words here. You look up the translations. You're going to see two different words. I'm just going to show you some.
It says, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of what? No, you didn't say it. That comes from the gospel of this piece means exemption from rage and havoc of war. Peace between individuals.
Harmony. Security. Safety. Prosperity.
Felicity. Of the Messiah's peace. Of whose peace? The way that leads to peace salvation.
And with your feet fitted with the readiness. Like, I think, you know what I was thinking about when I was reading this. You ever thought? My pants are like painted on.
I might rip them if I get down there. Yeah, my wife got in the painting on this one. But you know how when you get down for like a track race and then they're like, as they're getting ready, then they push up and then they're what? Soon as that goes, they're gone, right?
What says your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace? Tell me we're not supposed to be carrying peace. Why did he say the gospel of peace? I believe because that's so important.
That the peace part of the gospel is one of the most important things because that's what he came and gave his life for and established so we could have life. And then I'm just going to read the real quick, the message translation of this part. It says, and that about wraps it up. God is strong and he wants you strong.
So take everything the master has set out for you, well made weapons of the best materials. Y'all, we don't get the worst. We get the best. And put them to use.
So you will be able to stand up to everything the devil throws your way. Did you hear what he said? He said to five things that the devil throws your way. No, he didn't.
He said everything. Everyone say everything. Do you all want something to fight everything the devil throws your way? Okay, well he says this is no weekend war that we'll walk away from and forget about in a couple of hours.
This is for keeps. A life or death fight to the finish against the devil and all his angels. Verse 13, be prepared. You are up against far more than you can handle.
Everyone say on your own. How many of you know you're not on your own? I'm a little worried about that. How many here knows you're not on your own?
All right, that's better. Sorry, I wasn't just going to be able to go if you didn't know that you wasn't on your own. And it says, take all the help you can get. Every weapon God has issued so that when it's all over but the shouting, you'll still be on your feet.
You ready for this? Here's the keys. Truth, righteousness. Everyone say peace.
No, peace, faith. What we learned about last week and salvation are more than words, Church. You guys hear that? These things we read about are more than words.
They're meant for us to live. Learn how to apply them. You'll need them throughout your life. God's word is an indispensable weapon.
It's all peace is the weapon. If you honor the king, peace will be the gospel you use. You guys seeing this? You can go ahead and come up.
So remember what I said, we honor the king, right? You guys want to honor the king? Do you believe he's worthy of honor? He just told us this is how you do it.
My kingdom will be a kingdom of peace. It'll be, did you read with me, Church? Whoa, rolling a peace. So how do we honor him with our lives?
It's not hard. We just read so much about how peace is a crucial part of this. How peace and honor go hand in hand. If you want to honor him, it's by being peaceful.
Because he said that's the kingdom and that's how we fight. It starts within. I love that so much. You know why it starts within?
You know, it starts within you too. The peace isn't in here. Peace can't come out here. And if you don't have peace, you're not going to see the king.
You're going to miss him. You're going to miss him coming. In Luke 19, he said when the city came in the view, he wept over. You had only recognized this day and everything that was good for you.
But now it's too late. In the days ahead, your enemies are going to bring you up. They're heavy artillery and surround you, pressing in from every side. They'll smash you.
Your babies on the pavement, not one stone, will be left intact. This isn't to fear you. Did you hear what he said earlier that if you're my people, you will never not be protected? This said he'd weep if you had only recognized.
If you had only seen me as king, everything that I was going to need up to this, if you would have seen me as king, coming in. If you only would recognize. Church, listen, I don't know if there's somebody here and they haven't recognized today. Listen, it's okay if you haven't.
But our king gets coming back. And I don't want to waste a moment or an opportunity to share and say, hey, if you don't recognize the king, let me introduce you to him. He's a peaceful God. He's a mighty God.
He's everlasting. He is all the things that we read about. And he wants a relationship with you. All because he didn't recognize.
And it says, and welcome God's personal visit. How many of us know that Jesus was God's personal visit to us? It was his personal visit to deliver us from all these things, to establish peace. And this was the big thing that God showed me.
In Revelation 7, I don't normally preach out of Revelations, but I felt like this goes along with it. And it started in verse 9. I want you guys to see something because he used the donkey to get us to see. He was the king, right?
But fill in the prophecy. It says, I looked again and I saw a huge crowd. Right before this he goes through the 12,000. It starts to name all the tribes.
It says, right after it says, I looked again. I saw a huge crowd. It's huge to count. It's a lot of people, y'all.
It said, everyone was there. All nations and tribes. All races and languages. And they were standing, dressed in white robes.
You know what, everyone always talks about the white robes. You know what struck me? They said they were waving palm branches. You guys didn't hear it.
They were in white robes waving palm branches. Right? They said you can't take up with it, but somehow they got palm branches. They had honor.
You didn't see it. It said earlier that that was a civilization of honor. Victoria, seeing the king. It says here that they were standing there waving palm branches.
Before the throne in the Lamb. Singing salvation to our God. On His throne. Y'all ain't going to say it with me.
I'm going to say it by myself. Salvation to our God. On His throne. Salvation to our God.
On His throne. They're standing there. They're waving the branches. Y'all.
And God said, I saw this is how you're going to, this is how you know. He connected me with the palm branches. The honor. They had honor for the king.
That's how they were able to see. Just like him on the donkey before he was coming in, they ran. Because they seen him. He said, how are we going to be able to see the king?
Because we're going to have honor for him. I don't know if you see it with me, Church. The palm branches were significant. They were holding something.
Shouting at the king. Because they had honor in their hearts. They wanted to honor him. I believe that's why they were standing there.
I believe that's why the whole crowd was standing there. And they were able to see him because he said they had honor in their hearts to be able to see him. Some people missed it. Did you see?
If they only would have recognized. So the ones that are going to be there, Church, amongst all those people are going to be the ones that said I want to honor God with my life. I know what to do with the palm branches. I lay them down for a way for the king to come through.
I wave them. Because I understand who you are. We stand with the Church. He's showing us a sign just like the donkey.
He's giving us a look into revelations and standing there. And the palm branches. Honoring him is the key to seeing the king. If you can't honor him, I don't know if you can see him coming.
What do I mean by that? If you can't do it in the little things we've been talking about, you ain't going to do it at all. That's just the harsh reality of this. Would you just ask him, God, what are you?
What can I do to honor you? My life that you laid down for me, what can I do to honor you, God? What does that look like? To go into your secret place and ask him to seek out his voice.
Don't look over here to the left of what he's doing or what she's doing. What can I do to honor you, God? Because it's going to look different. It's everything that he created.
He's got a purpose for you, your life. Everybody here is going to disperse into their own life after we walk out of this building. What will you do to honor him? Will you give him room to move?
Your response is my last point I want to leave you with today. Your response reveals what kingdom you honor. If you heard me, church, and I said, your response reveals what kingdom you honor. When you see the king, hit and draw a response from him.