The Most Important Decision You Will Ever Make
Matthew 21:1-11
It would probably be an interesting meditative exercise this holy week to sit down and identify the three most important decisions or choices of your life. Now I have something of a jump on you because I decided to preach on decisions or choices this Palm Sunday because it jumps out at you when you consider the events of the first Palm Sunday. Jesus made the choice to go to Jerusalem, which was a choice that shaped his last days. More about the First Palm Sunday later.
We have been given the power to choose the way we will live when all the choices are made, a life is lived. I am convinced that the future is a place we are creating by the choices which we make day by passing day. Some choices, some decisions, are more important than others:
The choice of being an honest person and telling the truth was definitive in my life.
I have not always told the truth, and I am here to tell you when I have compromised honesty, I have lived to regret it. The truth and nothing but the truth, that’s the way. Jesus once said: “What is hidden in the darkness will be seen in the light of day. What is whispered in the basement will one day be shouted from the roof tops.” Truth telling has to be among the top three at least for me.
The choice to be a positive, believing person is Biblically based, and believing that you can do something is half the battle. This has been true when learning to ride a bicycle, and finally passing second year Spanish. The choice of a believing, positive attitude could be among the top three.
The choice of a career, deciding what one wants to be and do has to be among the top three choices of every person.
Sitting beside a person in an airplane recently, they talked about their struggles in their career and I merely listened. When it was time to get off the plane, he asked hurriedly, “Say, What do you do for a living?” And I said, “I work in northwest Florida.” And, he said, “Oh, I thought you might be a minister or something?” And I thought, does it show? Whether it shows or not, that was one great life choice. In some ways, that was the best decision I ever made.
My choice of a life mate, now 42 years ago, has shaped my life in a thousand ways.
My choice 21 years ago to move to this wonderful church and community, was one of the best career decisions I have ever made. Although if you have ever known Dot Stewart, who was at the time chairman of the Staff Parrish Committee, and ever tried to say no to her, you would wonder how much influence I had in that decision.
The choices of the people I have chosen to work with on staff has been very important for our church. We are interviewing associate ministers now and I need your prayers concerning these decisions. As you look around as to who is working in this worship service, I realize that five years ago Fred came here as associate and he will soon be retiring again. Alan came 3 years ago, Rick and Heidi some 11 years ago. I have tried to make decisions for the good of the entire church. I would like to think of myself like Andrew Carnegie, who once said he would like to have put on his tombstone: “Here lies a man who attracted better people into his service than he was himself.”
Of all the life choices or decisions I have made over the years, the most important decision I ever made was the decision to accept Jesus Christ as my Savior and Lord.
I grew up in the church and it was assumed that this was my decision, but really, it was my parent’s decision until I was in the 11th grade in High School. At that point my parent’s faith became mine.
Since that time, I have grown in appreciation of the fact that Christ is my Lord, for I now feel real, not artificial, empowered, and not afraid. And about death, if and when death comes, I will go into that dark night whistling, “Oh what a beautiful day, everything is going my way.” To choose Jesus Christ as one’s Lord means that you do not have to hide in the darkness of a lie because you live in the openness of truth.
It means that you live on the right side of Easter, that you do not live on the Good Friday side, but on the Resurrection side.
Today we celebrate the original Palm Sunday when Jesus and his disciples entered the city of Jerusalem much as the Kings of Israel, David, and Saul, and Solomon had done before him. He rode on the back of a donkey through the crowded narrow streets and the people having come from the entire region to the capital city to celebrate Passover Week were curious as to the nature and plans of this stranger from Galilee.
It helps to remember that the Passover celebration was a time of nationalistic expectations. The Hebrews in 1200 BC had been slaves in Egypt and Moses went to the Pharo asking that they be allowed to go free. Having refused the petition, there ensued a series of awful plagues: frogs swarming out of the Nile, flies covering man and beast, hail storms on the fields, Locus that devoured the crops, the Nile river water turning fowl, and the death of the firstborn of the Egyptians. As the story is told, the death angel when the first born were killed, passed over the homes of the Israelites as their doors were marked with lambs blood, and thus the death angel passed over. Thus the name “Passover.” So a week of Passover was a time when the people would remember a day gone by when they were freed from a hated foreign power and in Jesus’ time the people were under the domination of Rome-a foreign power like the Egyptians had been, just dressed in different garb. Yet the whip felt the same and the spears still killed and thus defiance was in the air. So there were some who watched Jesus in hope that he might be the one to lead a rebellion, to free the nation as Moses had done in the first “Passover”. There were those in the crowd who chose the way of Jesus because they saw a way to freedom.
Whatever motivates you to make the decision concerning Jesus, I encourage you to make it.
If I could do anything for you in these remaining days of Lent, it would be to say to you simplify your lives. While others are telling you to read more, I would tell you to read less. When others are telling you to do more, I would tell you to do less.
Your friends do not need more of you, they need more of God and you don’t need more of you, you need more of God. Our Christian experience does not consist of what we do for God, it consists in what God has done and is doing and will do for us.
So relax, rest, enjoy living in the trusting way of Jesus Christ.
There was once a closed furniture store with broken windows, but now there is an activities/reception center for the entire community that welcomes the people of the entire community 24/7. No wonder it is called, “The Wright Place.”
There was once a funeral home, a place we would bring our deceased to on Wright Street, but now the old building pulsates with new life as a youth activities center.
Once an abandoned car dealership sat deteriorating before us with vagrants and varmints moving in an out of its rickety doors, but now there rises from the red clay soil a new villa, a haven, a Wesley home for the elderly. Churches of all brands are alive and well on Wright Street, teaching the children faith and raising their voices in song and praise to the Creator. There was once a failed restaurant, but is now an outreach ministries building where new hope was born and new life begins.
Yes, there is new life on Wright Street! And this morning it is a great privilege to gather to celebrate new life on Wright Street, and to officially open our Sanctuary for the 184th year that the Resurrection has been celebrated here in the heart of Pensacola. We gather on the Resurrection side of the death of Jesus and proclaim that though death is a part of our journey, He is alive! And because he is alive, we claim his promise that we also shall live, for we now live with Jesus on the Resurrection side of Good Friday.
We come together to sing, not to mourn. We gather to rejoice, not to cry. In our sorrows, there is joy, because of the Resurrection!
I must confess this morning that there are things about life that do bring tears to your eyes, not unlike the times of the first Resurrection.
We learn from reading the Resurrection stories that, “while it was still dark, some of the women came to the tomb where Jesus had been placed on Friday.” They came “while it was still dark.” The emotions of Mary, Johanna, and Mary of Magdalene were dark and sad. They wept, for Jesus had been violently taken away from them. The tears of Mary blinded her eyes rendering her unable to distinguish the strange man whom she thought might be the gardener, but who was Jesus. Jesus alive and standing before her, and calling her by name, and grieving with and for her. When the day began, Mary was on the Good Friday side of the Resurrection. Tears of sadness washed the dust from their unwashed faces.
Luke recalls that angels asked the women at the tomb: “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but He has risen!”
Jesus was out of the tomb, the women were not. Although it was Sunday, they were still on the Good Friday side of the Resurrection. Little did they know! The reason I know that they were on the Friday side of the Resurrection, is because there was sadness, confusion, uncertainty and doubt.
You will recall that when Lazarus had died, Jesus cried. As a child in Sunday School, you were asked what was the shortest verse in the Bible and it is the sentence, “Jesus wept.” The occasion was the death of his friend Lazarus. But the tears were also due to the fact that Mary and Martha, some of his most intimate friends didn’t yet understand what his coming to their life meant. He was about life not death, abundance not scarcity, hope not despair, eternity not this present moment. The present moment of Lazarus’ death, the loss of his friend, and Mary and Martha’s disbelief, brought sadness to the heart of Jesus and he wept.
Jesus wept! He wept over the city of Jerusalem. He wept over the city because it was dying and did not see nor sense the possibilities that had come to it. He wept over the death of his friend Lazarus and the lack of understanding of his sisters. With Jesus, the whole world had changed, but they did not recognize it. They were living on the Good Friday side of Easter.
Jesus asked Mary: “Do you not believe in the Resurrection?” So Jesus wept, because at that time with all of the emotions, even Jesus was on the Good Friday side of the Resurrection. Which side are you on today?
If this morning you are living your life on the Good Friday side of the Resurrection, then there are reasons to cry today: We wept when we lost our homes on the night of September 15th this past year. We wept when we realized the damage of our church building was over a half million dollars, because I know what that kind of money could mean in ministry for Jesus Christ. There are things in our society that bring tears to your eyes: Some of our young have forsaken the faith. There are so many who live in Pensacola who never worship God, who do not know our hymns, who do not know the words of the 23rd Psalm, “The Lord is my Shepherd.” There are those who don’t know the words nor the reality of Jesus as their shepherd. Some have given up on faith and started taking drugs. Sometimes I weep for the children who don’t know that they are the children of God. Many are not being taught that they are made in the image of God and their destiny is to live a life of expectancy of the best there is! When we teach the children to value the things of God rather than God, I weep. When I see how people value rock stars and sports players, many whose values are distorted and sometimes violent, and will do whatever it takes to get what they want. When I see people who see themselves as losers, I weep. I weep for the lonely, the frustrated, the addicted, the hungry, and the illiterate, for those who are living on the Good Friday side of Easter. I weep for the Palestinian teenager and the Jewish youth who both died in Tel Aviv when a suicide bomber pulled the trigger. We live in a world where there is war and hatred, and it just does not have to be!
I weep often, because of all of the illness, disease, accidents, and disappointments, and death, which surround us every day. I carry a heavy heart for the pain of our people. Since last Easter when we gathered here, there were ten others who were here who have died. Empty places at the Church family table. I weep for them and for our loss. I weep when we experience the pain of the Good Friday side of Easter Sunday, my feet get heavy, the sky grows dark, the rains come and the flower fades.
But I have news for you. This morning, it is no longer Friday. We are no longer living on the Good Friday side of Easter. Never again do we have to live our lives on the Good Friday side of the Resurrection. Those days are done. It is now Sunday, Easter Sunday, and, thank God you are here to voice together that in spite of the Good Fridays of this past year, today it is Sunday!
Which side of Good Friday are you living on? It is a choice you know? Do you ever say,” I can never do anything right?” Why me? I’ll never amount to anything? I’m a failure? I have made this awful mistake. If so, you are living in the darkness of Friday. It is the Third day, it is not the day of death! Are you living in the aftermath of the hurricanes which have destroyed our lives or are you living with a confident spirit that with the help of God we will Rebuild Pensacola? Why not chose to live on Wright Street where there is new life! We are, after all, on the Resurrection side of Death!
Winter is over! Springtime has come. Easter is today! He is alive, He is alive, He is alive! The winds of adversity have done their dastardly deeds of destruction and we are still standing. May the new life we experience in this place on Wright Street be like the coming of springtime for your family and for the entire city of Pensacola. Faith in God does not focus on one who dies on a cross as a victim, but one who is the Resurrected Savior of the World.
Choosing to live on Wright Street is a spiritual choice. Life is very complex. Wonderful events happen. Yes, there are deaths, but there are births. There have been ten deaths since we last gathered for Easter, but there have also been 30 births.
Jesus Is Out Of The Tomb, But Many Are Not. That Can Change Today if you chose to live on the Sunday side of Friday, on the Resurrection side of Death. A choice to be a follower of Jesus Christ is a choice for life, hope, faith, love, which leads to victory, while other choices will mean you will live on the Friday side of Easter. I invite you to live on Right Street.
Today choose the Easter side of Friday. Today is the fist day of a new week. For some of you, it can be the first day of a new era of your life! Welcome to the right side of Good Friday!