House of Prayer

FINAL EDIT

Man wasn’t last week a great week? If you were here you got to be part of a service where we saw 12 people give their lives to Jesus and 7 more bear witness to that fact as they were baptized, can we celebrate that for a moment. The numbers 12 and 7 came up for me on Wednesday as well, someone came up to me and though they seemed a little disappointed I loved when they shared with me that last week they had invited 12 people but only 7 of them came! You can know today that God and your pastor are never disappointed when 7 of your friends come to church.

We have titled today’s service house of prayer. I know it’s Palm Sunday and we traditionally might focus on Jesus’ entrance in to Jerusalem and we certainly aren’t going to ignore that today. But I’m going to share with you for a couple minutes about what we have titled this morning’s service house of prayer, and then explain our format for moving forward today.

Right after Jesus entered the city on a donkey, the event for which we celebrate palm Sunday. We see Jesus approach the temple area where He sees people buying and selling sacrifices for the passover. The Gospel accounts tell us that Jesus made a whip to drive out people, he was flipping tables, and made the statement that as the prophet Isaiah had written, my house shall be called a House of prayer, but you have made it into a den of thieves.

We have studied and dissected this statement over the years and argued and discussed why they couldn’t sell things there. Was it because they were ripping people off? Playing off their spiritual vulnerability? How should the church respond today? Is the church allow sell raffle tickets, or do fundraisers? Can we sell cap city t-shirts or hats? This week, the Lord really brought my attention not to what it was that they were doing instead of praying, but to the fact that they were doing ANYTHING else but praying.

It caused me to apologize to God, Lord if your house is supposed to be a house of prayer, forgive for anytime I see it as ANYTHING other than that.

In a one hour church service we spend about 30 minutes preaching, about 20 minutes singing, about 5 minutes doing announcements or whatever else which leaves us praying for only about 5 minutes. Now I believe that we can be in a spirit of prayer as we worship, I believe praying is the act of talking to and listening to God so hearing His word preached can be a part of prayer. But what if on this Sunday before Easter we spoke more of His word intentionally? What if we worshipped more together corporately? And what if we moved in an out of prayer freely and without inhibition?

Here’s what we are going to do today. I’m going to give a short devotion on celebration that is centered around that first Palm Sunday. Then we will sing two songs of celebration and the altars will be open to celebrate Him. Then I’m going to ask you to help me with some confession, we will sing two songs that tune our hearts to confession, and the altars will be open to confess. We will close out today with the thought of crying out. And we will cry out with two songs to close the service in whichever way the spirit would lead us to cry out to Him.

Celebrate (worship and thanks) INVITE TEAM

As they make their way to the stage we will begin our focus on celebration with the prophecy of Zechariah chapter 9 verse 9 which says

Zechariah 9:9 “Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; He is righteous and endowed with salvation, Humble, and mounted on a donkey, Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

When He entered the city the people worshipped Him. They quoted from the psalms, the prayer book of the people what was written in Psalm 118

The Psalmist writes in Psalm 118 starting in verse 19

Psalm 118:19–26 “Open the gates of righteousness to me; I will enter through them, I will give thanks to the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord; The righteous will enter through it. I will give thanks to You, for You have answered me, And You have become my salvation. A stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief cornerstone. This came about from the Lord; It is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day which the Lord has made; Let’s rejoice and be glad in it. Please, O Lord, do save us; Please, O Lord, do send prosperity! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.

When the religious leaders heard this, they told Jesus to tell the people to stop, to which He replied that if the people failed to praise Him, that the very stones on the ground would cry out in worship. And so this morning we will not let the rocks cry out on our behalf.

Would you stand and celebrate Him with us today?

Blessed… is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.

SING REJOICE AND GRAVES INTO GARDENS

Transition: You may be seated for a few minutes as we consider the idea of confession this morning.

Confess

Confession for many is not a idea to get excited about. Very rarely when we start out a sentence with the words, “I have to confess something” it’s not usually followed by the best of news. With that in mind we are going to consider two sides of the coin when it comes to confession. But we are going to start with what comes to mind more frequently, and that is the confession of sin.

The Lord’s Prayer is our model prayer and central to this prayer is the recognition of sin in this world and in ourselves.

We pray forgive us our sins, which signals that we are ourselves our sinners. We pray forgive our sins as we forgive the sins of others, this signals that OTHERS sin as well. We pray to be led away from temptation and delivered from the evil one which speaks to the fact that sin even seeks… us… out.

We rarely if ever do something like this but I’m going to invite you in to a time of responsive confession with me this morning. I will state a question and the response will come up and we will say it together. If any of the questions seem to catch you off guard at first I assure you that we will progress in our belief towards Him as we confess in unity.

Do you believe that you are a sinner?

Yes, I believe it. I am a sinner.

Are you sorry for your sins?

Yes, I am sorry that I have sinned against God.

Do you hope to be saved?

Yes, that is my hope.

In whom then do you trust?

In my dear Lord Jesus Christ

What has Christ done for you that you trust in Him?

He shed His blood for the forgiveness my sins.

Church I believe there is great power in moments like this where we confess corporately that we have sinned and that we know our forgiveness is in Him.

I mentioned two sides of the coin when it comes to confession. While the confession of our sin is crucial to a healthy relationship with Him, perhaps more powerful is the confession of those things which we believe. As we prepare to worship together again and seek Him at the altar as we feel led, let’s stand again… and before we sing, let’s make a confession of our belief in who He is, What He has done, and His continued work in our life. Will you join me as we confess our belief in Him through the reading of the Apostle’s creed.

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth.

And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit

Born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate

Was Crucified, Died, and was Buried

He descended into hell

The Third day He rose again from the dead

He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty

From thence He will come to judge the living and the dead

I believe in the Holy Spirit, The Holy Christian Church

The communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins

the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting, Amen.

Let’s worship, pray, and confess our sins. Let’s confess His Lordship and our need for Him in our life together.

SING RUN TO THE FATHER AND HOLY FOREVER

PEOPLE SEATED

Cry out (for others and ourselves)

Finally this morning we bring our minds to the idea of crying out to Him. Looking at a few verses from Mark 11 starting in verse 7 we see this

Mark 11:7–10 “They brought the colt to Jesus and put their cloaks on it; and He sat on it. And many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches which they had cut from the fields. These were palm branches for which we coined the name Palm Sunday, and it says, And those who went in front and those who followed were shouting: “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord; Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David; Hosanna in the highest!””

Hosanna interpreted means SAVE US NOW! The people who had been in darkness for so long had seen a great light which was Jesus, and their response, and their cry was for salvation. God longs to hear the cries of His people. Our recognition of our need of Him moves the heart of the Father. And when we cry out He comes! He comes humbly to us in the same way that He entered town on a donkey over 2000 years ago. But they also cried out “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Blessed is the coming kingdom!”.

We don’t just cry out from our sense of need. But we cry out to Him with great expectation of His coming. We cry out to usher in the king, and we cry out to for His kingdom which is coming but also now is. Psalm 22 tells us that we enthrone Him with our praises. And in turn he takes up residence within our hearts, and then a continual cycle of crying out to Him and receiving His saving grace and mercy is initiated. This morning we cry save us now! Hosanna to the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings! Hosanna in the Highest. Let’s stand one more time this morning and move into whatever posture the Spirit would lead us into as we cry out to Him.

SING LORD I NEED YOU AND HERE AGAIN

Closing:

This week let us set our minds on him, let us usher in the king, let’s give thanks for his sacrifice, and prepare our hearts to come together next week and celebrate who we are in Him through the resurrection.

Join us this week for thrive groups, Friday at 7 for Good Friday, only place around doing child care for Good friday, and then let’s fill this House next week to celebrate the resurrection together!

EASTER ETIQUETTE