Sunday Service Report | April 13 2014 (Palm Sunday)

Hello, a very 'Blessed Sunday Greetings' to you all!

What a day. We began with worship. Today I enjoyed it the most since there were few alternate elements to it. Guess what, fiddler is in the building and he is nailing the roof down. The way worship team played, it felt as if we are watching a nice Alternative musical concert. I like this direction.

Here is the list of worship numbers:

1) Revival Fire - Paul Baloche

2) Shout Your Fame - Hillsong United

3) Overcome - New Life Church

4) Hosanna (Holy Holy Holy) - Integrity Music

Such a great worship. Really enjoyed it.
We move on to offerings and announcements lead by Pastor James Joute, who started with a powerful prayer ending the worship session. Before we start with the announcements, Sunday School Children almost hijacked the main stage (in a way they should do it more often). Here is the photograph of Children waving Palm Branches and singing HOSANNA, IN THE HIGHEST. 

It was another yet powerful praise session by sunday school. Children were looking beautiful holding those branches. 

Here are the list of announcements:

- Holy Communion will be this this Thursday 7:00 PM on-wards at Hotel Avion, Mumbai.

- Good Friday Service will begin 9:00 AM at Navinbhai Thakker Auditorium, Vile Parle (East).

- Resurrection Sunday: Two morning services (No evening service this Sunday), 8:00 AM and 9:45 AM respectively.

- Women's fellowship begins at 4:00 PM on-wards on 19th April. 

- Men's fellowship begins at 6:30 AM on-wards on 30th April.

We move ahead and this is time for the "Food for Soul".
Pastor was looking great and energetic as usual (Amen). Today's reading is taken from the Gospel of Matthew 21:1-11. (The Triumphal Entry)

"Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and he will send them at once.” This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying,

5 “Say to the daughter of Zion,
‘Behold, your king is coming to you,
    humble, and mounted on a donkey,
    on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’”

The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them. Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?” And the crowds said, “This is the prophet Jesus,from Nazareth of Galilee.”"

 The word of God here talks about people who have gathered and expecting their messiah. Jesus has actually come to establish spiritual kingdom, not worldly kingdom.

As we noticed in two of the worship songs today, Hosanna. In a liturgical context, it refers to a cry expressing an appeal for divine help. Hebrew meaning, "O Save (cf: 2 Sam 14:4) son of David." The crowd acknowledges that Jesus is the Davdic messiah. In a similar context, Matthew 9:27 talks about the account of healing of two blind men has significant differences from the healing of Bartimaeus (Matt 20:29-34, Mark 10:46-52, Luke 18:35-43) and should not be thought of as the same event. Jesus no doubt healed many blind people over the course of His ministry. SON OF DAVID. A reference to the promised messianic deliverer from the line of David where kingdom will continue forever (2 Samuel 7:2-16) and the first of several times in Matthew that people refer Jesus by this title (Matt 12:23, 15:22, 20:30-31, 21:9-15, 22:42 cf:1:1). The messianic age was to bring healing to the blind (Isaiah 29:18, 35:5). 

The Gospel of John 12:13 says, 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!”. By waving the palm branches (a jewish national symbol) the people hail Jesus as the Davidic king and echo the lnguage of Psalm 118:25-26 hoping that Jesus is the promised Messiah. Most of the crowd probably understood the king of Israel in a political and military sense, still hoping that Jesus would use his amazing powers to resist Roman rule and lead the nation to independence  like Caiaphas (John 11:49-52), nowhere they spoke better than they knew, as his disciples later understood (John 12:16).

Moving further, we see an interesting subject, "Can we learn any lesson from the donkey, on which Jesus rode?"

Well, the donkey was tied and ignored, probably in a corner where there weren't enough footfalls. People in Jerusalem were all focused on Jesus, and if we notice what Jesus say in Matthew 21:2, saying to them, "Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me." This show, how much aware Jesus was that He remembered the poor creature. If Jesus can care for an animal, how much will He care for us, whom he has made in His own image? Again, if we read further in the light of traditions during the lifetime of Jesus, majority of kings and rulers used to ride on the best horses claiming their victories, and here we have Jesus who comes riding an indeed humble animal, the donkey. Sometimes in our life, while discussing generally with people we at times forget the names (Oh! I forgot his name, that tall guy with brown waivy hair), Jesus doesn't forgets. If Jesus can remember that donkey, how can he forget us?

As we move further, we have few cross references:

Hebrew 4:13 - "And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account."

Jeremiah 23:24 - "Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the LORD. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the LORD."

Isaiah 41:10 - "Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand."

If god can have a plan in donkey's life, He has a plan for you. By the way,  if you remember, Abraham loaded up his donkey when he was off to sacrifice his only son Isaac and knowing that the Lord Jesus had ridden into Jerusalem for the last supper, just before the crucifixion, God's only son. A donkey must be important for us to read if you can find it in four of the gospels, and the Old Testament. Notice it says "gentle and riding on a donkey". In Bible study on Donkeys, Horses and Mules, we can find that folks that rode donkeys were not necessarily poor and many of the same folks owned horses and or mules. It was a humble, sometimes submissive means of transportation; read I Samuel 25. It is interesting that Jesus rode a young jack, that had never been ridden before, into a parade type atmosphere as people crowded and were setting palm tree leaves, coats and jackets down before unbroken colt jack. Ever try to train a donkey to walk over things. If not, give it a try, go for potholes or water. Jeremiah 29:11 says, "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope." Now reading this same verse in the light of the story of donkey, it is amazing, how Lord has a plan for us. John 15:16 say, "You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you." Exactly, like Jesus chose one particular donkey out of many probably present in that city.

2 Timothy 2:15 says, "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth."

Romans 12:1 says, "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship."

John 12:32 says, "And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself."

So the things what we can learn from the donkey are:

1- Jesus chose us first.
2- If He lives in us, we will be high among all. 
3- God has a plan for us.
4- We must be submissive.

As we move towards the closing, we had a powerful prayer and everybody was engaged. The spirit of God was moving, what a wonderful way to celebrate the day of God. We move to meet and greet session.

P.S. We had electricity outage during the end of the service, we hope the hotel takes care of this issue next time.  :-/

I WOULD ENCOURAGE YOU TO VISIT OUR CHURCH, TRUST ME, YOU WILL LOVE IT!

We hope you enjoyed this service. How was yours, please let us know in the comment section. God Bless!