Palm Sunday Message - Spring Cleaning: Becoming an Influencer for God

The following message from Pastor Greg Laurie is made possible by Harvest Partners, helping people everywhere know God. Hey, I want to hear from you. Would you consider emailing me? You can reach me at Greg at Harvest dot org. Again, that's Greg at Harvest dot org.

And you can also make me one of your friends on Facebook and drop me a comment. Are you a bridge or a barrier to people coming to Jesus? Today on A New Beginning, Pastor Greg Laurie points out it's our job as believers to share the hope we have with others. See, there's five Gospels.

You say, No, Greg, you're wrong. There's four. No, there's five. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and you. You're the fifth Gospel. You're the only Bible some people are ever going to read.

What kind of a representative of Jesus Christ are you? This is the day when the lost are found. This is the day for a new beginning. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound. Again, you hear when the angels are singing.

This is the day, the day when life begins. We all have a circle of influence. It's those people who listen to what we have to say. Maybe it's our family, friends at school or at work. Or maybe it's hundreds or thousands of people we connect with on social media.

But do we influence those in our circle of influence? Today on A New Beginning, in a message preached on Palm Sunday, Pastor Greg Laurie helps us consider the message God wants us to communicate about the price His Son paid at Calvary, a price paid so that we might live. This is the day, the day when life begins. Turn to Luke chapter 19. The title of my message is Spring Cleaning.

Let me say this at the outset, and this might surprise some people. God is not mad at sinners. As I've often said, God is not mad at you. He's mad about you.

He loves you. Now, Palm Sunday. This is the day that Jesus rode that donkey into Jerusalem and they waved the branches. But this is also the day that we see Jesus display raw, real human emotion.

Know this about Jesus. There's never been a man who walked the earth like Him. He was not just a good man.

He was that, of course. He was the God-man. Not a man who became God.

That's impossible. But God who became a man. He was fully God and fully man.

How does that work? I don't know. But I know that though He was God walking among us, He still had human emotion. He still felt physical pain. He was still hungry.

He was still thirsty. In fact, the Bible says of Him in Hebrews 4.15, We do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but he was at all points tested as we are yet without sin. So what this means is Jesus understands what you're going through right now. I know a lot of you are worried. I know a lot of you are frightened. I know a lot of you have so many concerns weighing down on you. I know that you get up in the middle of the night with a lot of troubles.

And I'm telling you, Jesus understands and He cares and He wants you to cast that care and give those burdens over to Him. So let's set the scene for our story. There was an air of expectancy in Jerusalem. The name of Jesus was on everyone's lips. In fact, Luke chapter 19 verse 11 says, When they heard these things, He spoke another parable, because He was near Jerusalem, and they thought the kingdom of God would appear immediately.

In other words, they thought this was it. They thought Jesus was going to establish His kingdom then and there. And in their minds, the Messiah would overthrow Rome. You see, the Jewish people had been conquered by the Roman Empire. And they were under Roman control.

And they didn't like it one bit. They wanted these Romans out. And so they thought Jesus, the Messiah, would overthrow the power of Rome. And they thought He would establish His earthly kingdom then and there.

They failed to understand their prophecies which said that before Messiah would come and rule the earth, He would come and die for the sins of the world. Before He would sit on the throne, He would go to the cross. So Jesus was not coming to overthrow Rome. He was coming to establish His kingdom in the hearts of men and women by dying for them on the cross. So as Jesus is coming into Jerusalem and they're laying the palm branches before Him, the supreme issue in His mind was not Rome's army.

It was God's temple. And this reminds us that when God wants to send a spiritual awakening to a nation, it starts first with His people. 2 Chronicles 7-14, a verse most of us know, says, God speaking, If My people, which are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and churn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land. Notice God does not say if government will humble themselves or if Hollywood would humble themselves. And they all ought to. But He says, if My people, that's us, folks, those of us who believe, if My people, the Lord says, which are called by My name, listen, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and churn from their wicked ways.

Is there any wicked way you need to churn from right now? General George Washington, when he was fighting in the Revolutionary War as the general of our forces and later to become our first president, had a special banner prepared. This is before the American flag, folks.

And this banner had these words written on it. Appeal to heaven. Appeal to heaven. Washington understood that our only hope to become a nation was by the intervention of God. We need to appeal to heaven.

So here's the story. Luke chapter 19, verse 37. As He rode along, the crowd spread out, their garments on the road ahead of Him. And when He reached a place where the road started down the Mount of Olives, all of His followers began to shout and sing as they walked along, praising God for the wonderful miracles they had seen, saying, Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord.

Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven. Ah, but some of the Pharisees said, Hey, this isn't right. Rebuke your followers. Tell them to not say that, Jesus replied.

I love this. He says that they kept quiet. The stones along the road would burst into tears.

And as they came closer to Jerusalem, He saw the city ahead and He began to weep. It's hard for us to wrap our mind around Jesus riding a donkey. That doesn't seem like the coolest creature to ride. I mean, not a white stallion. That would be like, you know, a conquering hero in a parade driving a Prius. I'm kidding.

Don't take it personally. But, you know, a donkey. But actually, in this time, it had a different meaning than it has today. By the way, Jesus will come back riding a white horse in the Second Coming. You could call it Air Horse One if you like.

You don't have to. It's just a suggestion. Anyway, to ride a donkey had symbolism to the Romans and the Jews. For the Romans, they knew when a conquering general would return from war, he would come riding a donkey, meaning he's a victor. To the Jews, it was a reminder of the prophecy of Zechariah that said, When Messiah comes, He'll come riding a donkey into Jerusalem. So the Jews understood Jesus was saying He was the Messiah.

The Romans understood Jesus was declaring Himself as a King. He was playing His hand, if you will. Up to this point, He would repeatedly say, My hour has not yet come. His mother said, Come on, Jesus, do a miracle here at the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee. He says, Woman, my hour has not yet come. But now His hour has come.

The hour has come for Him to go to the cross and die for the sin of the world. And here everybody is having a great time. They're singing, Celebrate good times, come on.

No, I don't think that song was wrong back then. But they're having a big party and Jesus is weeping. Did anyone notice?

Did anyone see? Why was He sad? God's sad when people are too busy for Him. God's sad when we sin against Him. God's sad when we reject Him. So Jesus wept. But He not only wept, but then He displayed anger. Go back to Luke 19, verse 45, and it says this.

I'm reading from the New Living Translation, by the way. Jesus entered the temple. He began to drive out the people selling animals for sacrifices. He said, The Scripture declares, My temple is a house of prayer and you've turned it into a den of thieves.

And after that He taught daily in the temple, but the leading priests and the teachers of the law and other leaders began planning how to kill Him, but they could do nothing. I love this, because all of the people hung on every word He said. Pastor Greg Laurie will have the second half of his message in just a moment. So many listeners have commented on the encouragement they receive from these daily messages.

Like these posts on social media. Pastor Greg, 20 years ago I gave my life to Jesus after listening to you on the radio. God bless you always. Pastor Greg, God bless you all from Seguin, Texas. Thanks for being there for us. If it wasn't for your ministry, Pastor Greg, I would have lost hope when my husband passed away last year.

Thank you so much for all you do. Has Pastor Greg heard from you? If these daily studies in God's Word have encouraged you, why not drop him a comment? Email him at gregatharvest.org.

Again, that's gregatharvest.org. Well, Pastor Greg has been pointing out the sadness of the Lord when people are too busy for him. He continues now with his message called Spring Cleaning. Okay, we've talked about what makes God sad. What makes God mad? Aren't you glad God doesn't just lose his temper? What if the Lord had a temper tantrum like planets flying around?

No, he doesn't do that. When the Lord displays anger, it's what we would call righteous indignation. It's not the kind of anger that you and I feel. Like I get angry or irritable when I'm hungry, right?

I think you'd call it being hangry. No, the Lord isn't like that at all. But he was angry. Now, the Gospel of Mark gives us a really interesting detail about the story. Same story, different Gospel, different perspective. Mark 11, 15 says, He entered the temple, drove out the merchants, listen, and knocked over the tables of the money changers and the stalls of those selling doves.

Wait, knocked over the tables? What happened to the meek and mild Jesus? Oh, listen, Jesus was not the first hippie, as some people think.

You know, peace and love, man. No, Jesus was a man's man. He was a strong man to overturn a table. These are big tables, not foldable little card tables. He's overturning these tables because there's righteous indignation. I mean, when you turn a table over, that's going to get people's attention. We've all seen the westerns, of course, you know, and there's going to be a fight in the bar, you know, and usually there's the bar scene and everybody's just, you know, carousing about, making a lot of noise. And there's a piano player, I don't know why, he always has a garter on his sleeve and a little bowler hat, and he's always playing this, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, something like that. And all of a sudden, you come to the table, and there's a bunch of cowboys around there, and one cowboy says, I think you're cheating.

The other cowboy says, I'm not cheating. And then the one guy turns the table over, the cards go flying, the chips go flying. It's a fight, it's a brawl, and everyone hits everybody. So if you turn a table over, you're making a scene. Jesus was creating a scene. He was angry.

Why? Bottom line, these people who were in charge of the temple were price gouging. That's right. See, here's how it worked. You came in with your little lamb that you loved, and you're going to offer it as a sacrifice, and one of the people in charge would say, well, this is not really acceptable, but we have these other animals you can buy at a hiked-up price. And so this angered God because these people were standing in the way of people coming to believe. So here's my question for you.

Are you a bridge or a barrier to people coming to Jesus? See, there's five gospels. You say, no, Greg, you're wrong. There's four. No, there's five. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and you. You're the fifth gospel. You're the only Bible some people are ever going to read.

What kind of a representative of Jesus Christ are you? So Jesus cleaned the temple. Now I have to tell you one other thing that I find very interesting. This is the second time the temple was cleansed. He did it once before. Two times he cleaned the temple up. And what happened? Well, everything was fine for a while. They got rid of all those money changers, but a little time passed.

One guy sets his table up, and another person sets their table up. Pretty soon things are back to normal. That's us. You know, we're doing well with the Lord. We asked Jesus to come into our life. He cleanses us of our sin. We're a whole new person with a new set of priorities.

But then maybe we let a little compromise back in our life. A little vice creeps back in. One thing leads to another, and all of a sudden it's time for house cleaning. I entitled this message, or titled it, Spring Cleaning. And I don't know about you, but I'm a messy person. And I don't like messes.

That's the irony. But I make a lot of messes. And Kathy, in contrast, my beautiful wife, is very clean. She's very neat. She's very tidy. She'll make a meal, and she wants to clean the dishes before she'll eat it. The other day she made the bed, and I was still in it, and I was missing for two days, okay?

No, but she's very tidy and always attending to these things. And I'll say, I'll get to it later. Greg, clean up your desk.

I'll get to it later. And the books start stacking up, and the messes start building. And then out of frustration, I'll clean it.

But then the mess will start up again. Kathy's always cleaning. So you have two approaches to cleaning, the Greg way or the Kathy way. The Greg way is never do today what you can put up until tomorrow. The Greg way, if there's some dust, sweep it under the rug. The Greg way is if you want to get rid of some, just throw it in a drawer. The Kathy way is clean the carpet, clean under the carpet. The Kathy way is organize the drawer you throw something into. There's two ways you can live your life.

You can live like I do in the way I clean messes up, and let them build into big problems. Or you can constantly be seeing your need to be cleansed, having your temple cleansed. You are the temple of God, the Bible says. God's Holy Spirit lives in you. In the Old Testament, His presence would be in a tent, later in a temple. But now we are the temple of God.

He lives in us. And sometimes we need our temple cleansed. We need the Lord to come and do some spring cleaning in our own life. Is there some sin that has crept into your life or back into your life? Or maybe some of you listening to me right now have never asked Jesus to forgive you of your sin. I've got to tell you, you all sin.

Let me restate that. We all sin, all of us. Maybe some sin more than others, but one sin is enough to separate us from God.

But we have this promise, 1 John 1. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourself and the truth is not in us. So if you'd say, oh man, I'm good, I'm a good person, I don't sin, sorry. If you say you have no sin, you're deceiving yourself. The truth isn't in you. You're a sinner because you've broken God's laws and you've fallen short of His standards. But then it goes on to offer this promise, but if we will confess our sin, He's faithful and just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Some of you are saying, you know, I want to believe, but I don't know where to start. Maybe if I just clean my life up and then I would come to God. Don't clean your life up and come to God. Come to God and He'll clean your life up. Come to God with your problems. Come to God with your vices. Come to God with your sin.

Come to Him and say, Lord, I can't save myself and I need You to save me right now. Yes, we've talked about what causes God to be sad. God is sad to see you separated from Him.

He wants friendship and relationship with you. Remember that story of that boy that ran away from home? We call it the story of the prodigal son. When the father saw him a long ways away, he ran to greet him and threw his arms around him and welcomed him home. That's how God feels toward you right now, no matter what sin you have committed, because Jesus died on the cross for that sin. Palm Sunday is really pointing to the cross. Jesus rode into Jerusalem and then ultimately He began His journey to the cross. The same people that cried Hosanna on Sunday would be crying crucify Him only days later. But no one forced Him to hang on that cross. He went there willingly. Nails did not hold Him to that cross. Love did for you and me.

Why? He died there for our sin so we could be forgiven, so we could be made right with God. And I wonder if there's someone watching me right now that does not know if they're right with God or not. What do I mean by that? Well, you know that you'll go to heaven when you die. Do you know that?

I know I'll go to heaven when I die. You say, well, that's kind of bragging, isn't it? Well, maybe if I'm bragging on Jesus. It's not anything I did.

It's based on what He did for me. I'm just a sinner. And I said, Lord, forgive me.

And He did. And He'll do that for you no matter what sin you've committed. Remember that story I told about the sinful guy who just said, God, be merciful to me, the sinner.

That's all you've got to say. And then the Savior will come and forgive you of all of your sin so you can know with certainty that you will go to heaven when you die. So you can be ready for the return of the Lord and so you can enter into this relationship with a God in heaven who loves you. The God in heaven who has a plan for you. He'll give you the meaning of life on earth and He'll give you the hope of life beyond the grave.

Doesn't that pretty much cover it? Jesus said, I've come that you might have life and that more abundantly. And then He said, I am the resurrection and the life. He that believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever lives and believes in me shall never die. You don't have to be afraid of death itself because Christ defeated death at the cross. Death died when Christ rose. Let's give you that opportunity to ask Jesus to come into your life so you can know that you'll go to heaven when you die.

So you can find the meaning of life you've searched for. So if you want Jesus to come into your heart right now, if you want to begin this new relationship with Him, why don't you just pray this prayer with me? Wherever you are, just bow your head. Yes, God in heaven will hear this prayer. Pray it after me.

You can pray out loud if you like. Again, just pray, Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner. But I know that you are the Savior. And I ask you to forgive me and come into my life.

I choose to follow you from this moment forward. Thank you for hearing this prayer and answering this prayer. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Pastor Greg Laurie with a word of prayer today here on A New Beginning. A prayer with those who are making a decision for the Lord today. And if you've just prayed that prayer with Pastor Greg, we'd like to follow up with you and help you as you begin to live the Christian life. We'd like to send you our New Believers Growth Packet, free of charge.

It'll answer the questions you might have and get you started on the right foot. Just ask for it as you write A New Beginning, Box 4000, Riverside, CA 92514. Or call us any time 24 hours a day at 1-800-821-3300. That's 1-800-821-3300.

Or go online to harvest.org. And then we want to make available Pastor Greg's outstanding book called Jesus Revolution. The subtitle is How God Transformed an Unlikely Generation and How He Can Do It Again Today. You know, Pastor Greg, my son and his family used to live pretty close to some railroad tracks, and trains came through quite a lot. I noticed that you can feel the rumbling before the train gets there.

That's right. Let me ask you, is there a revival coming down the tracks? Are you feeling some rumblings right now? My response would be, I hear the train coming. It's coming.

No, it's Johnny Cash. Okay. I pray so, and I hope so, because there's a lot of turmoil and trouble in our nation right now. And if God doesn't step in, I don't know how we're going to heal this nation of ours. But God does give us a prescription for the healing of a nation from 2 Chronicles 7, 14, which I've quoted before. And I'm sure I'll quote again, because God says, We need the Lord to heal the nation, and we need to pray for a spiritual awakening. The last great spiritual revival in the history of our nation was the Jesus movement, also called the Jesus Revolution. Well, since I was there, I wanted to tell people what it was like.

I wanted to sort of take you back in time and try to put you in that place. But then I have take away truths that I've written in this book that you can apply in the hope that you could have a spiritual awakening in your life, or in your church, or in your community, and in our country. We need God in America.

We need God in our lives. We need to be returned to our original state. You know, I think sometimes we over-spiritualize the word revival. Let's just use another word, restoration.

If I were to take an old beat-up 57 Chevy sitting around in a junkyard and restore it to original condition, get the engine running, redo the upholstery, give it a new paint job, put it back out on the street, you'd say, that is a beautifully restored car. We want to see our nation restored. We want to see our lives restored. We need to see a revival.

Let's pray for that together. And to help you learn more about what God did in the last great spiritual awakening, I want to send you a copy of my book, simply titled Jesus Revolution. I hope that it will inspire you to pray that you will have your own personal revival. And I'll send you this book for your gift of any size.

Whatever you send will be invested into this ministry so more people can hear the word of God and so more people can come to know Jesus Christ. So order your copy of Jesus Revolution. Yeah, we hope you'll do that today. We have a copy waiting for you. We'll get it on its way to you just as soon as we hear from you. Hey Dave, don't forget to tell them that there's also a study guide that will send them along with their copy of Jesus Revolution. Again, for their gift of any size.

Yeah, that's right. It's a great tool to help you study these insights on a deeper level and even lead a small group study. Learn how your Bible study group or home fellowship group can help pave the way for the next great spiritual awakening. So we hope you'll send a generous gift today and that you'll ask for Jesus Revolution along with the study guide. And today is our last opportunity to mention this, so get in touch right away. You can write A New Beginning, Box 4000, Riverside, CA 92514. Or call 1-800-821-3300. We're here to take your call 24-7 at 1-800-821-3300.

Or go online to Harvest.org. Hey everybody, Greg Laurie here, personally inviting you to join us for what we call Harvest at Home. It's a Bible study. It's a worship service. It's church in your home. Maybe you're not able to get out to your church right now. If so, join us for Harvest at Home. People are listening in from around the world.

Listen to this. We have seen thousands of people make a commitment to follow Christ. So join us this weekend for Harvest at Home at Harvest.org. Well, next time, Pastor Greg helps us consider the self-sacrifice of the Easter story. We'll focus on Jesus' willingness to lay down His life so that we might have life. Join us next time on A New Beginning. This is the day, the day when life begins The preceding message from Greg Laurie was made possible by Harvest Partners. Helping people everywhere know God. Sign up for Pastor Greg's free daily email devotions at Harvest.org.