Last week was a remembrance of a very significant time in our history. The start of the Holy Week is Palm Sunday, during which Christ was welcomed as King into Jerusalem. As He entered the city, the people celebrated him with palms, a symbol of victory, rulership, and kingship. But as we read the passage of Matthew 21, we also see that a large crowd had spread their cloaks on the road (Matthew 21:8).
On Palm Sunday, Pr Matthew Varughese, founder and Senior Leader of Kingdomcity shared a message about the essence of faith and obedience. The cloaks in Matthew 21: 7-8 symbolised a surrender or yielded obedience. ‘The real price attached to the privilege of calling Christ King is our obedience,’ Pr Matthew conveyed. ‘It is Personal, and it involves sacrifice and surrender. And obedience precedes the hailing’. The crux of his sermon centered on the passage of Matthew 21: 1-3 and the responses to Jesus’s instructions in it:
Matthew 21:1-3
As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2 saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. 3 If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.”
Obedience of a Disciple
First, there was the response of the two disciples. Notice Jesus did not tell them to buy the donkey and the colt. Instead, He said to bring the donkey and the colt and to reply to anyone who asks that the Lord needs them, and the owner will send them immediately. Putting ourselves in their shoes, many of us might have questions, among which would be a concern about accusations of theft.
‘It required an act of faith, but the disciples were used to it,’ Pr Matthew shared. ‘They had left their nets to follow Jesus, and they followed Him up mountains and walked for miles. As they walked with Jesus, they would have seen the miracles He did. They were used to finding the miracles along the way and that the miracles often happened in the obedience.’
Acts of faith always involve trust in the One who gives the assignment. When the wine ran out during the wedding, and Jesus instructed the servant to pour water into the jars, it did not seem rational. But the servant obeyed, and as the water was poured into those jars, the water turned into wine. Seeing all the things they had during their journey with Jesus, the disciples learned to develop a perspective: ‘When Jesus said to do something, just do it.’ The journey of faith with Jesus is a journey of learning to trust Him.
‘The instructions of the Lord often do not include plans. They often come in simple statements. And many of us are afraid to obey. Before we can wave the palm, we have to throw down our cloaks of fear and security, we must be willing to throw down the cloak of “I must know everything”,’ Pr Matthew conveyed.
‘We are often so conservative that we are waiting for the blueprint, but God is waiting for the footprint. Just respond in obedience, and the story will unfold. So much of the Christian journey of faith is simply to walk out (in obedience) rather than working everything out.’
Because the disciples were obedient, we have hosanna. God is looking for obedient disciples today. Ones who are willing to get up and go into the village, the highways and byways, into the city, and say “You know what, we are willing to go and untie whom the Lord has asked us to untie because the Lord has need of us.”‘
Obedience of the Owner
The second obedience was the obedience of the owner. As with the disciples, imagine our viewpoint from that of the owner. From his perspective, we might have seen two thieves making off with our possession. ‘But I believe something melted in his heart and came alive. Nevertheless, he still had a choice, and he had to obey’ Pr Mark expressed.
The owner’s obedience was not about his steps but about his stuff. All of us are owners in some regard, Pr Matthew shared. We all possess something, and we own our choices and our decisions. The obedience of the owner involves surrendering his possessions. ‘Obedience involves not just our steps, but also our substance’ Obedience to the Lord involves learning to trust and honour Him with our possessions. The little boy gave up his lunch, and we have miracles to tell for it.
In his sermon, Pr Matthew shared testimonies from his own life. Tests of obedience are often not easy, but it is how we learn to honour God. The challenge is; Do we truly see Him as King? But besides those of the disciples and the owner, there is another lesson on Lordship from this passage.
Obedience of the Donkey
While the disciples surrendered their plan, and the owner surrendered his possessions, the donkey and colt surrendered their purpose. They had previously belonged to the owner. But from that day onwards, they had a new mission.
For some of us, learning to surrender our purpose may involve such things as our career plans. It might mean going full-time when the Lord calls, giving up our career for ministry, and giving up our comfortable environment to being a missionary in a foreign land with a foreign culture. Surrendering our purpose can be the hardest test of obedience, and many of us instinctively balk at it, but when we surrender our purpose to His Lordship, we will be blessed, Pr Matthew shared.
‘The donkey and colt might have been afraid on that day, being led away by two strangers, but the Lord had a purpose for them, and it led them from being disadvantaged and marginalised to one of honor. We carry God’s presence with us.
‘When people see your business prosper, when they hear your voice and see your talent when you perform, when they see the great family you raised – when they see how God is using you, the praising and worshipping should be on the One we carry. Whatever good is in our lives, all glory goes to God, and all the honor goes to God. We get the privilege to carry Jesus, and what a privilege it is. In our life, in our work, in our family, in everything we do, let it be unto the One who is worthy of all praise.’
This is an adaptation and abridgment of the message shared by Pr Mark Varughese at Kingdomcity on Palm Sunday 2023. For the original full message, you may access the video sermon at https://www.youtube.com/live/1k5qit5Kwb0?feature=share
|Share The Good News|
Leave a Reply