Hosanna

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WELCOME/Announcements

Welcome to Fox Valley Christian Church, where every member is a missionary.
I hope that all is going well with you during this COVID-19 season. If you have any needs whatsoever, please do not hesitate to reach out. You can contact me at anytime at (630) 449-9678 or at Josh@FVCC.com
Typically during our welcome and greeting times we ask you to greet each other and share something specific. For fun, we are going to keep doing that.
If you are watching this via our Facebook or Faithlife pages, I want to encourage you during this welcome time to add a note in the comments section answering the following question:
“What unexpected blessing have you experienced during this COVID-19 season?”
While you are thinking about that, I am going to update you on a few things going on here at FVCC:

BIBLE STUDIES:

Our Bible Studies are online. If you go to www.FVCC.com/biblestudy you can listen to the Bible Studies and download pdfs of the study materials. I went back and did the introduction and the first four chapters. I also am recording them in smaller chunks. This way you can listen to them throughout the week and you can share them with friends and family if you want to.

KIDS WORSHIP:

We are offering Kids Worship online. We recognize that this is hard on our kids. They have so many things being taken from them and they are having to adjust to a new normal. We still want to support you and your family during this time. If you go to www.FVCC.com/kids you will find full worship services for our kids. There is even a “Talk about it” section near the end of each video so that you can engage with your kids on the weekly topic.
On that page, you can also find and download a .pdf with extra information and ways your family can engage the lessons throughout the week.

PRAYER CALLS:

We have moved our prayer calls to daily. We pray at 8:00am and 5:30pm. These calls are not just for us. We do not want to be inclusive. We believe this is a time where people are turning to God (as they should) and we want to encourage you to send out the phone number to your friends, family, and neighbors. All you have to do is call (951) 799-9548 and you can access these prayer calls.

WORSHIP:

You will see today that we now have worship in our online service. We partnered with Parkview Christian Church in Orland Park, IL and they are letting us download their worship experience and add it into our online services. I hope that you enjoy the opportunity to worship as a family as we prepare our hearts for to draw closer to God through His Word.
Welcome to Church … God’s body
His constant reminder that nothing can separate us from God and His love. Not death or life, not angels or rulers, nothing we are currently experiencing or ever will experience … there is no persecution, no suffering, no plague, no pandemic, no physical distance … nothing will be able to keep us from drawing near, experiencing His love, and praising Him.
Welcome to Church
WORSHIP SONGS (3)
SERMON SERIES INTRO VIDEO

Introduction

Thank you again to Parkview Christian Church for allowing us to join them in worship of our great God.
We are in the middle of a series that is going to lead us up to Easter. Today’s sermon is a unique sermon because if we were meeting at the Church, this sermon never would have taken place. There is a 5th Sunday at the end of the month and we would have done something completely different that day and stepped away from this series.
But now, we have an extra week between now and Easter and we filled that week with today’s sermon. When things like that happen, things that go against what we planned, things that are fully in God’s control. I lean forward and I take notice.
I am not saying that this is a special sermon because I am the one delivering it, I am saying that God altered our plans and today is the result of His altering. I hope that today’s sermon blesses, encourages, and motivates you to draw nearer to God. Nearer to Christ, the Lamb of God.
Last week we looked at Jesus, the Lamb of God. The Lord who came and didn’t quite fit the bill. They were looking for a lion and they got a lamb. They were looking for physical enemies to be destroyed and He defeated sin.

THe Triumphal Entry

We are going to be reading from John 12 this morning. Before we jump in, I want to give you an idea of what is going on.
Jesus, on His way to Jerusalem, raised His friend Lazarus from the dead. This was remarkable. And as a result, people saw this great event and they began talking about it. They began spreading stories about what Jesus did.
This did not sit well with the Pharisees so they began plotting how to kill Lazarus. What a funny statement, but that’s what we see at the beginning of John 12. Large crowds are gathering to see Jesus and the rulers of the Jews, the Chief Priests, are making plans to kill Lazarus. Him being alive is causing a scene. He is direct evidence of these stories that people are sharing. And this is where we pick up today.
John 12:12–19 ESV
12 The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. 13 So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!” 14 And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written, 15 “Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt!” 16 His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him. 17 The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness. 18 The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard he had done this sign. 19 So the Pharisees said to one another, “You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him.”
PRAY

GOD IS ON THE MOVE

As we did into this text today there are some things you are going to need to understand. We want you to lean into God, to recognize Him as Lord, and if we are going to do that there are a few things we are going to need to understand.
The first is that God is on the move. God set something in motion when humanity first sinned and that was salvation. He prepared salvation for us in advance. He has been leading and guiding His people so that He could bless all nations by saving all nations.
And part of that preparation was this Passover feast. Where they would gather every year and remember how God saved them from their Egyptian captors.
John 12:12 said “the large crowd,” that’s not very specific. In a time (for us) where large gatherings are being defined as over 100, over 250, over 1,000. We want specifics here. How many people are we talking that were gathered?
Josephus … A trusted Jewish Historian writes that during the week of the Passover they would get at least 2.7 million people that would gather in Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover meal. It is estimated that 500,000 of them would have been coming from the same region that Jesus was coming from.
So at this time, as He is entering, this large crowd could be thousands, tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands.
God is on the move here. He is literally gathering His people for this event that is going to alter the course of human history and human destiny.
God is on the move.

Hosanna

Further evidence that John gives to God orchestrating something great is what the people are shouting.
“Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!”
Hosanna, what does that mean? Hosanna. You have probably sung songs of praise to God using the word Hosanna. Do you know what you were singing?
This word Hosanna means “Please save me.” The people were there, entering Jerusalem and as they hear that Jesus is coming into they city they begin moving out the way. Laying down a path of coats and Palm Branches and recognizing Him as the Messiah and shouting … Hosanna! Please save me! Please save me!
This word Hosanna comes from Psalms. It is a prophecy of the coming Messiah and the people where literally shouting scripture, they were shouting the Word of God to Jesus as He entered Jerusalem.
Psalm 118:25–26 ESV
25 Save us, we pray, O Lord! O Lord, we pray, give us success! 26 Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! We bless you from the house of the Lord.
Save us, we pray, O Lord! … or … Hosanna! O Lord!
God has spoken of this coming King. The people have been waiting for the Savior. They meet every year to remember that the God who saves is sending a Savior.
Here He is. The Lamb of God. Save us we pray!

ON A DONKEY

Then we get this picture of Jesus. A lot like last week. They wanted a lion, they got a lamb.
This week, if Jesus were a conquering King … ready for war … He would ride in on a horse like He does in Revelation 19:11. But instead, He is on a donkey.
This represents a King coming in peacefully and not at war. That’s why they quote Zechariah 9:9. This prophecy that talks about the Savior coming in humble and riding on a donkey.
Again, fulfilling prophecy. Again, showing that He is the Savior, the Messiah.
God is on the move and He has been shouting these truths from His Word for hundreds and thousands of years. Well in advance of Jesus’ arrival. Well in advance of this day. Preparing people for what was happening.

APPLICATION

So why is this important? Why is Jesus fulfilling prophecy important?
Like … listen. I got a lot of things going on right now. I am trying to figure out:
- how many more days of toilet paper I have left,
- how long I can feed my family,
- how far my money is going to last me while I am not at work,
- how I am going to keep my sanity with my kids home
- how I am going to keep my sanity with no one in my home that I can talk to
- how I am going to protect myself and my loved ones from this virus
How is Jesus fulfilling prophecy going to help me with that? How is that important here and now?
The reason why Jesus fulfilling the prophecies. The reason why Jesus being not only the Son of God, but Hosanna … Savior.
The reason it is important is because you need to know that He is the great promise maker and promise keeper.
While you have a lot going on, you need to know that:
- you have one who is unfailing,
- you have one who is always going to accomplish His Word,
- you have one who is always working for His glory and your good,
- you have one who is saying I have made promises and fulfilled them and there is still more to come.
If He has promises for you … He is going to keep them.
The problem is, we walk through life in a dark haze. We are genuinely confused as to what promises are for us. We have a hard time weeding the truths from the lies.
We sometimes find ourselves turning to a tweet for a promise, turning to a quick quote from a minister for our promise.
But you haven’t even opened up your Bible to see what God has promised to you. It would be so hard for me to have hope in a hopeless situation if I couldn’t open up my Bible and read the very thing that would actually bring me hope.
- Goose bumps on a Sunday Morning doesn’t carry you through your darkest hour.
- Pretty preaching on a Sunday Morning doesn’t carry you through your darkest hour.
- A quote, a meme, a tweet … they don’t carry you through your darkest hour.
They might give you a quick feel good moment, an instant burst of energy … but if you want to get through your darkest hour you need the great promise keeper in your life, standing beside you.
You need to be quoting His promises into your life, hiding them in your hearts, remembering that He is a God of character who keeps His Word.
If He fulfilled the Old Testament promises, then He is going to fulfill the promises He has for us.
He is the lamb of God, the God who came to save. God … please save us! Hosanna!
Pray
COMMUNION INTRO VIDEO

COMMUNION

It is time for our communion, remember, what we are eating and drinking is not as important as who we are remembering. Jesus. The King of Kings and Lord of Lords, our Savior.
When we look at the triumphal entry of Jesus and we look to the book of Matthew. Matthew gives us a wild encounter that happens after Jesus enters Jerusalem.
Matthew 21 tells us that Jesus went to the temple and began flipping tables and driving people out of the temple that were using it to take advantage of the weak and the poor. They were using the temple to take advantage of those that had traveled these great journeys to make their sacrifice to God.
When Jesus does this the blind, the lame … and even children begin to cry out to Him … “Hosanna to the Son of David!” Please save us! King, please save us!
As we gather together in communion, let us turn our eyes to the King. The King that has saved us from our sins. Let us shout together as one, Hosanna!
God we need you. We cannot find salvation apart from you. Please save us!
PRAY
Scripture with song for communion
voice over offering with offering image on the screen

OFFERING/CLOSING

I want to thank you for joining us today as we have gathered to worship our Lord, the lamb of God, our Savior.
Now would be the time that we would gather for offerings, if you are able … you can give your tithes and offerings online at www.fvcc.com/give you can also sign up for recurring gifts there if you have not already.
We are going to join together in one final song of praise, I thank you for joining us and pray that you have a safe and blessed week.
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