Crowned and Committed

If we're honest, sometimes we don't worship Jesus in this way. Sometimes we hold back from what we have to give to God because we think we can put our time into something that's more important than what God has called us to do. And we have to ask the question, does God truly get our best or do we just leave him with whatever is left? Hey church family, we are so excited that you are here today as it is Palm Sunday and man, God is doing some incredible things in the life of our church. I just want to say if you have a Bible, go ahead and grab it and flip open to Matthew chap 21. Matthew chapter 21 is we're going to be diving in in just a second. And as you're flipping there, maybe as you've joined us today, if you are new with us and you're kind of getting to know our church and you're like, "Who is this church?" Like, uh, what are they about? Uh, who is this crazy guy that has great style that looks like he's wearing my old grandma's tablecloth on his shirt? I know. It's a good drip right now, right? As the kids say, but my name is Andrew. I'm the pastor here at Cross Church Fries. And here's what we're about. Is today you are going to get a preview as it is a special Sunday. And we're going to unpack that in just a second, but you are going to get a preview of what we value here at Cross Church, of really what is our heart about, of how we are going to continue to make the gospel known as we continue on in this series through the great commission. But today, in this special Sunday, as we are one week out from Easter, we're going to take some time to reflect on the Palm Sunday message and how it propels us forward to what God has for us. So, if you have your Bibles, Matthew chapter 21, we're going to be starting in verse one. Here's what the word of God says as we dive into the story. It says, "When they approach Jerusalem, this is Jesus and his disciples. And they came to Bethage at the Mount of Olives. Jesus sent two disciples telling them, go into the village ahead of you. At once you will find a donkey tied there with her colt. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, say the Lord needs them and he will send them at once. Don't you wish you had that line? If you were telling your kids to say it, just say the Lord needs it. All right? And you'll get it right away. Verse four. This took place so that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled. Tell daughter Zion, "See, your king is coming to you gentle and mounted on a donkey and on a colt the f of a donkey." The disciples went and they did just as Jesus had directed them. They brought the donkey and the colt. Then they laid their clothes on them and he sat on them. A very large crowd spread their clothes on the roads. Some others were cutting branches from the trees and spreading them on the road. Then the crowds who went ahead of him and those who followed shouted, "Hosana to the son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosana in the highest heaven. When he entered Jerusalem, Jesus Christ entered. The whole city was in an uproar saying, "Who is this?" The crowds were saying, "This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee." Let's pray as we go into this time of reading God's word. Dear Lord, I thank you, God. I thank you for your word that you give us. God, I thank you for the text that you have placed on our hearts to be able to preach to our church to be able to live out in our daily lives. And Lord, on this sacred Palm Sunday, Lord, on this commitment Sunday, as we enter into God, that your presence be here. Lord, you direct our steps. Lord, you guide our hearts and Lord, you create in us an urgency to do the work that you have set out. God, we thank you for all who are here today. God, we thank you for the ability to be faithful to you. And we lift all this up in Jesus name. Amen. Well, church, today is a special day. And today is a special day for a couple reasons. First, it is Palm Sunday, the day that the church remembers when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. And as he rode into Jerusalem one week before Easter, he came into this city and people laid down their cloaks. People shouted, "Hosana, blessed is he, he who comes in the name of the Lord." One week before Easter when he would rise from the grave. But the second reason today is a special Sunday because for here us here at Cross Church, those of you that call this your church family, today is commitment Sunday. You see, for the past five weeks, we've been parsing out a 2year commitment, a two-year disciplehip journey, a two-year vision for where God would lead our church. And week after week, as we've studied through the great commission, we have said that our goal, that our heart is that we would be fulfilling the great commission one church at a time. That as Jesus leads us down this path of saying, "How are we going to go therefore and make disciples?" As we are going to go, therefore, make disciples by making more churches. We're going to be celebrating next week as we're getting to baptize more than 10 people. And that list is continually growing next week in Easter here in Surprise. And we do that and we celebrate. But new churches baptize more people at a faster rate. And we celebrate that. We want to be a part of how we're making Jesus known. Not just here in Surprise, but beyond. And in this series, let's go, as we've been studying through the great commission, we've seen that worship ultimately fuels that mission. We've seen that God empowers that mission. We've seen that Jesus commands the mission. And we've seen that the church is the one that carries out that mission. And today all of that comes to a point. Today we respond. But before we get to that response, I want us to wrestle with a question. And it's a question that Palm Sunday forces us to answer. Is how do we crown Jesus as king? yesterday if you were driving around Surprise, I guess downtown Surprise, and I actually avoided that area kind of around our city area because I didn't have to go to Butterbuzz for coffee. Um, I just went to soccer games over here and then took my son on a day of fun celebrating his birthday last week. But downtown there was a no kings protest. Now, I have no comment on no kings protest. All right? And I don't know where you land on the side of that. Uh, we're in a nation where we have no kings. Can we agree on that? All right. But here's the deal. America for 250 years has never had a king. Hopefully, it never will have a king. And we don't have to get into the politics of that. But in this church, we have a king. >> Throughout Christianity, there has been a king. >> And for 2,000 years, the church has seen Jesus as king. And today as we come to this text, we are going to see how Jesus is king of our lives in what that calls us to do. Because here's the thing about Palm Sunday. On that day, the crowds were ready to crown Jesus as king. They were shouting out praises. They were waving palm branches. They were treating him like royalty. But here's what's crazy and baffling to me. In less than a week, all from all the sudden from Sunday to Friday, some of the same voices that shouted hosana would shout crucify him. The crowds sometimes will celebrate Jesus as king, but they won't live in obedience to actually following him as king. So the question for us today is whether we'll celebrate Jesus today that goes beyond just a mere Sunday and whether we'll crown him with every single day of our life. I want us to look at three ways this morning. Three ways that we crown Jesus as king through Matthew 21. And we'll flip to Matthew 28 in a little bit. But here's the first thing we see is we have to crown him with your worship. When we look at our God, the first thing we need to do is we need to crown Jesus with our worship. Let me set the scene for you a little bit here as we dive into Matthew chap 21. This is the week of Passover. If you don't know what Passover is, Passover is the biggest holiday for the Jewish faith. And this is when they would remember how God delivered them out of Egypt. How they were in slavery, but God through Moses and what we see in the stories of the Old Testament, he brought them out of Egypt. And they would celebrate this. And it was this giant feast. And all of a sudden, all of these Jews from the surrounding region, they would come to gather and to celebrate in Jerusalem. This was essentially Jewish Easter. That's what you're going to remember as you leave here. Passover is Jewish Easter, right? But here's the deal is the city was packed. The expectations were high. The tensions were higher. And Jesus does something no one expected. He sends two disciples ahead of him to find a donkey and her colt. He mounts the colt and he rides it into the city. And Matthew tells us that this happened to fulfill the prophecy from Zechariah 9:9. That prophecy is tell the daughter of Zion, see your king is coming to you gentle and mounted on a donkey. Now you see this is important because Jesus didn't ride in on a waror. He didn't come with an army. Instead, he came in on a donkekeyy's cult. You see, how we enter into spaces matters. How Jesus entered into that city mattered. I don't know about you, but sometimes you got to figure out if you have kids and I got four of them and they're varying ages from two to almost 10 and and how you approach them means a lot. Sometimes I just go in and I want to start yelling and that doesn't well and sometimes I have to come in gentle and then I think of Kyle who is leads our youth and our sports and he's a pretty loud person, right? >> You should see how he enters our offices swinging the door open. Ah, loudest breather in the world. I don't know. I I pray for his wife every single day and you should too. What were we talking about? I don't know. Uh, I have a Kyle rant locked and loaded all the time. But when we know Kyle's coming in, like I'm I'm the first in the office. I get there early. I'm studying cuz it's quiet and no one's there. I'm writing my sermons. I'm praying over them because I know when the staff gets in and when Kyle gets in, the volume of that place, I can even shut my door, but I still hear it through the walls reverberating my whole office. But you see, how we enter into rooms and in conversations and into cities matters. When Jesus came on a cult, it was a symbol that he was coming to bring peace. He was coming in peace time. If Jesus rode in on a horse, Jesus would be telling them, "We're going to war." But when he came on a donkey, he said, "The fight is over." He said, "I've already won it, and I'm going to show you in a week how I've already won the war." And he came to say, "I bring peace. I do not bring war." That I don't call you to fight. I call you to to trust in me as the king who has already won every battle we will face. And you see when Jesus came in peace, he came not only to that place in peace, but Jesus comes to you in peace today. Jesus comes to us to bring us peace in our lives. Peace from the busyiness, peace from the shame, peace from the sin and the stresses that weigh on us. When Jesus enters into our lives, he does not come to make us to wrestle in a greater way. He comes to truly restore us to God, not to keep us in the wrestle of our sin. But as Jesus comes into the place, the crowd then responds and it tells us that they spread their cloaks on the road. They cut palm branches and laid them down. They shouted, "Hosana to the son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosana in the highest heaven. This word hosana literally means save us now. Help us God. This was a cry of worship, a cry of desperation. All at the same time, they're saying, "God, you are the one. Jesus, you are the king. Save us." And here's what I want us to see in this first point as we begin to break this down and we ask how do we crown Jesus as king is you you see the thing here as he's walking in. These people didn't just believe Jesus was important but they demonstrated with their actions. They laid down what was theirs, their cloaks, the branches they had cut, and they placed it on his path. And here's the thing. Worship has always been about laying down something from our lives. It's not just about singing songs on Sunday morning. Worship is taking what is yours and placing it at the feet of the one who is worthy. I think that's often why sometimes when we sing songs or we're praying through pieces of scripture, when we're together as the church family and we're in acts of worship, sometimes it can be emotional. A few weeks ago at our advanced commitment Sunday, we we had gathered our churches together. And it was such a cool moment. We had worship leaders from all our churches in the Cross Church Collective leading us in worship. And I was right here on this front row with my wife. I'm lifting my hands singing. And for some reason, I just start crying. And I'm like, I got to go on stage in like 10 minutes. I'm like I was like, hopefully Jackie talks for 20 minutes so I can go on stage later. But I'm like, why am I crying? I had no idea. I'm like wiping the tears away. I'm like, usually I only cry when my sports teams win. So, I don't cry very often. We'll get to that later. But there is just this weight of this moment. I could feel God's presence in the room. God's weight that it wasn't about a song, but it's about the words we're saying. It's about the unity we had in the room of God. You are calling us to lay something at your feet. And I could feel the heaviness and the burden of being obedient to him. And you see, worship isn't just what we do in this room. Worship is what we do with our lives. Romans 12:1 puts it this way. It says, "Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true worship." You see, worship is laying down our preferences, our plans, our resources, and saying, "Jesus, you are more important than all of it." If we're honest, sometimes we don't worship Jesus in this way. Sometimes we hold back from what we have to give to God because we think we can spend it or we think we can use it. We think we can put our time into something that's more important than what God has called us to do. And we have to ask the question in our lives, does God truly get our best or we do we just leave him with whatever is left? Do we give him the best, the first fruits of what we had? And here's the deal is the crowd, they crowned him with their worship. And that's where it has to start for us, too. But worship isn't alone isn't enough for that day because it's not enough for us either because not only do we crown him with your worship but you must crown him with your obedience. Look at what happens next in this passage in verse 10. He says when he entered Jerusalem it says the whole city was in an uproar saying who is this and the crowds were saying this is the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee. I want you to notice for a second when they asked this question of who is this? And then it says before they asked that question, it says the city was in an uproar. The the original uh language, the word for uproar here is seo, which is actually the root word for what we use for seismic, meaning a seismic shift, like an earthquake happening. And what it's saying is the city was so loud. The city was in such an uproar that literally it was shaking. If you think it's ever too loud in here, we've never shook the building that much. I promise. All right. It It was shaking in here. I I grew up going to concerts my whole life. And the first concert, like big concert I went to was at 14 years old. I went to Warp Tour. I had no business meeting a 14-year-old Warp Tour when it's 110° in a Poria Sports complex in an outdoor venue. But I remember walking through there and literally I could feel the bones inside my skin shaking cuz it was so loud. And I'm like, "Throw me up. I want to crowd surf. This is awesome, right?" BUT IT WAS LIKE SHAKING and you could feel it literally every bump is like and I'm surprised I can still hear to this day. I should have damaged hearing. But hey, it's worked out over the years. But in here, they walked into this city in Jerusalem and it was so loud. It was such an uproar that you could literally feel the noise. And as you could feel the noise and all of this happening, the arrival of this king that disrupted everything they had, they asked this question, who is this? But then they answer it. And as they answer this question, it's funny. They said, this is the prophet Jesus from Na Nazareth in Galilee. You see, that answer was right, but it wasn't fully right. They stopped short of truly who God was is he was not just a prophet. He was the greatest prophet, but he was also the God that the prophets were pointing to. And you see, he was not just the prophet, he was also the king. He was the son of God. And to recognize him as king requires more than just celebration. It also requires our obedience. Go ahead and if you have your Bible, flip to Matthew chapter 28. And over the past four weeks, we have spent a lot of time in this passage breaking down these verses in the great commission. But I want us to revisit them and how it marks to our obedience, how it calls us to be obedient. And in verse 18, Jesus says this and and he's after the cross has happened. Fast forward to the Friday after this Palm Sunday and he is arrested. He is placed on a cross. He is nailed there. He eventually dies. And as Jesus dies, he is wrapped up in linen and placed in a tomb. And they think it's over. But 3 days later, he pops back out. And as he's risen from the grave, as he's proven, okay, this guy's a little different. He's not just a prophet, cuz the prophet's going to come back from the dead. All of a sudden, Jesus, as he's established something different, he writes in verse 18 to his same disciples who saw him ride in on a donkey just a week earlier than this, just such a short time. It says this, he came near and said to them, "All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth." He says, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations." You see, the one who rode into Jerusalem on a donkey now stands as the resurrected king with all authority. And his first command is to go. And I love that because the connection to chapter 21 is in chapter 21 the crowd asked, "Who is this?" And in Matthew chapter 28, he says, "I am the one who has all authority." He says, "I am the one who has the authority of God. Is that me and God are equal?" That we are together with the Holy Spirit. We are one God in three persons. He says, I am the king of the entire universe. And all of a sudden, that holds a lot more weight. They're like, this was a prophet from Nazareth. He's like, no, no, no. This was the God who came down from heaven. And what does this God from heaven say to us to do? He tells the disciples and he tells us today is to go. Think about this for a second. If God truly does have all authority, if Jesus is God who holds all that authority and he tells us to do something, shouldn't we be obedient to what he tells us to do? And as the church, here's the thing is we cannot call him king and live however we want. We cannot wave a palm branch on Sunday and then just bail on that the rest of the week when times get too hard. Oh, we cannot ignore his commands when he has giving it when he gives it to us. Crowning Jesus as king. Me saying, "Jesus, whatever you ask, I will do." About 20 years ago, God wrestled in my heart to call me to ministry. And you probably are like that, how old were you? Like five years old. All right. I was 15. All right. So, not not far off. Um, I was 15 years old. and and God called me into ministry. This is 20 years ago in the summer. And I remember it vividly is how he called me. And I never knew exactly what that looked like. I knew, hey, go be a part of a church. Go maybe be a pastor one day. Go kind of in this. But it took some time for me to realize what obedience truly looked like. And it's funny, fast forward 10 years later than that and all of a sudden there's this big open door where God's like, I want you to leave the comfort and cushiness of your life to be obedient following me into a greater way. I was working full-time for Target that and pass Target then and and had a great job was a manager and rising up the corporate ranks and pastor Jackie approached me and says, "I want you to start a church." And I said, "I've just gone to church. I don't know anything about being a pastor." He's like, "I'll teach you along the way. It'll be fine. And as I started and we try we we started Cross Church Phoenix. We just celebrated 10 years last week and God and God's done incredible things there. Yeah, you can give God a hand for that. And as we started that, we're like, "Hey, we'll just start you part-time. We'll we'll start you part-time. We'll do some video venue then." And then like as we got into it, we're like, "I don't know if it's working." And then Jackie's like, "Hey, I got this wonderful opportunity. Uh we need a principal and an administrator over at the school. You should do that." I was like, "I don't know anything about education." And he's like, you know, just figure out the finances. Get some good people around you and we'll do it. And and you know what? I was scared guy. I was I left in there. I was like, this is going to be terrible. Like, I don't know how to be a pastor. I don't know how to be a principal. Like, this is going to end in tragedy. And God just kept on sending people around us to do it. But here is this this lynchpin moment as we sit here and I look back 10 years and I can't believe how well Phoenix is doing and how well our school is doing despite the fact that I was not qualified to be a part of either of those. and God grew them despite me. But in 10 years ago, I remember very vividly as God was like, "Are you going to leave and close the doors of your comfort of this path that you have before you where you can go live the nice American dream in front of you is you can go make a lot of money. You could provide for your kids. You can go on vacations whenever you want. You could live this life that the world tells you you need to pursue. Or you could close that door and go you and you go be a part of what I'm calling you to do in cross church for the next 10 years and beyond. And I'm so glad that I didn't know what I was saying yes to cuz I might not have said yes then. But God used that yes, that act of obedience to open a door to do work that I could not imagine. And you see, he calls all of us to go to be a part of something. And Jesus asks the church is go make disciples of all nations. And that's what we've been going through in this series and in this initiative called let's go. It's been about from day one. This is not a fundraiser. This is not a campaign. This is a response of obedience to the king who said go. You see cross church surprise and Phoenix and Cornville and Elmarrage and Mayor and Eacia. We exist to obey the king's commands. Starting more churches is not optional for us. It is the obedience to the one who has all authority. We need to crown him with our worship. We need to crown him with our obedience. And finally, this last one when we see what it calls us to do is the scripture tells us that we need to crown him with your commitment. as he keeps going in Matthew in the second half in 28 of the great commission in there when he says go therefore and make disciples of all nations. He says what they are to do in order to do that and we looked at this in depth last week is baptizing in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you and remember I am with you always to the end of the age. You see, when we talk about crowning him with our commitment, notice the scope of what Jesus is asking us to do, to be baptizing, to be teaching, and then he says what? To the end of the age. He doesn't say until you're tired. Until you can't walk anymore, until this season closes. Until all of the sudden you think you've done enough. He doesn't say any of this. This is not a one-time event. This is a lifelong commitment. Jesus didn't ask for a burst of enthusiasm. He asked for a sustained, sacrificial, enduring commitment. And here's what I love because he gives us a promise that makes that possible. In verse 20, he says, "And remember, I'm going to be with you that whole time." I'm going to be walking alongside you when you're tired, when you're worn out, when you're weak, when you're not well equipped, when you don't know if you can do it. He will be there. The same king who commands the mission promises that he will be present throughout the whole process. And you think about this for a second. What the crowds did on Palm Sunday is they laid down their cloaks. They waved their branches. But a few days later, when the cost became clear, most of them were nowhere to be found. And here's the thing. Celebration is easy to do. But commitment is so much more costly. I mentioned that I only cry when my teams win and it doesn't happen very often except for when the Suns are playing the Jazz. So, we win that game. All right. But the Diamondbacks actually opened this past week and we were winning against the Dodgers two-0 in every single game. But they called Japan and bought more players in the middle of the game to win those cuz they're cheaters. All right, but let me be honest. This past year in the sports world has tested my hope and in my just lack of like is is there a God of sports? There's a God over everything, but definitely not a God of sports. I've lost all confidence. All right, it doesn't work. He he supersedes that. But he doesn't care about sports. That's what I found out. He lets Satan run rampant in sports teams. All right. Because in this past year, the Dodgers have won. The Seahawks have won. >> I'm glad there's a boo in that. They're quiet cuz they feel bad for me. UVA is in the final four. Like, don't clap for that. All right. It's not Arizona. It's Mexico. All right. Okay. If the Lakers win an NBA title, I think this will be my worst nightmare as an or Arizona sports fan as a yeartime period of all the teams winning that I despise with the core of my being. All right, it has been a tough tough year. But here's the deal. As I think about that, I'm like, man, celebrating my teams, it is easy when they are winning. It is so hard to be committed to them when they are trash like the Cardinals are for the next 15 years. All right. As they've been the last 50. And it is hard to commit to something even when you don't see the results. Even when it's hard, even when you push through, it's easy to be a bandwagon fan and throw on when everyone is winning. It's easy to come to church and be here on Easter or around Easter when when all of a sudden people are excited and people are happy. It's a lot harder to be here and to serve and be part of the church when it's 120° outside and you wish you lived anywhere else besides Surprise Arizona. And here's the deal. It it can be easy to celebrate what God is doing. It's a lot harder to commit to saying, "I am going to be a part of what God is doing." And you see, and on Palm Sunday 2,000 years ago, the crowd celebrated, but the crowd ran. But the disciples, they celebrated. They're probably also confused cuz they were on donkey logistics as this whole thing is going through. But even after the noise went away, they still committed to the king of the universe. You see, the div disciples, they didn't just show up for the parade. They showed up for the mission. They gave their lives, their finances, their careers, their comfort, even their safety to carry out what Jesus had commanded. I think about Annie Armstrong. Annie Armstrong was born in Baltimore in 1850. She served as the first executive of the Women's Missionary Union for 18 years. And during that entire time, she refused to take a salary for every single one of those years. When she was asked about it, she quoted 2 Samuel 2 24:24. She said, "I will not give to the Lord what costs me nothing." She spent her life traveling the country at her own expenses, wrote over 18,000 letters by hand advocating for missionaries and raised support that planted churches across North America. The Easter offering that still bears her name funds church planning through the North American Mission Board, which we are part of to this day. And it was all because she weighed, I'm not just going to celebrate, but I'm going to commit to what God is doing. You see, that's not just enthusiasm. That's not just waving our hands when it's right. That's commitment. And it changed a nation as a result. Cross church, what I'm asking today is not a moment of our time, not a burst of excitement, but I'm asking that we be committed on this Sunday and beyond. We have a commitment to worship God with our lives day in and day out. We have a commitment to obey obey Jesus with our actions when we're feeling like it and when we're not. When our kids are well behaved and when our kids are not. When we're driving down Bell Road or we're stuck on Grand and 163rd and we want to move our home. I'm speaking of experience. I want us to have commitment to join the mission with the resources God has given us and our time and our talents and our money and all the things he has placed in our care. Will we have a commitment to declare Jesus as king? Because here is the deal. This is our foundational truth today that we see through Matthew chap 21 and through Matthew chapter 28. If he is worthy of a crown, he is worthy of our commitment. If he is king over the entire universe, then we should be committed to following him. >> I mean, just think about that for example. If Jesus truly is who created the entire universe, who sustains the entire universe and who will join and who will welcome us into eternity inside of the greater universe that we don't know know do not know yet, a new heaven, a new earth, shouldn't we be devoted to him and to following him and honoring him? You see, the bottom line this morning is if Jesus is who he says he is, who this book says he is, the risen king with all authority, then there is no part of our lives that belongs outside of his reign. Revelation 5:12 tells us more about who Jesus is. It tells us of the songs that we sang when we say, "Who else is worthy?" When we talk about crowning him as Lord in Revelation 5:12, it says, "Worthy is the lamb who was slaughtered to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing." Church, if he is worthy of a crown, he is worthy of our commitment.