Spontaneous Worship! | Matthew 21:7-8

[00:00:00] Real Truth Daily, This is Daily Truths with Dave Ahlman

[00:00:30] The people of God had come into Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

[00:00:37] And it just so happened that they heard by word of mouth that Jesus of Nazareth was coming into town.

[00:00:44] Many of them, as you know, believed that he was a Messiah.

[00:00:48] And remember, just a couple days before this, he had raised a man from the dead in a little town by the name of Bethany.

[00:00:54] And so this was impromptu worship! Right?

[00:00:57] Oh my goodness! By word of mouth they heard, the Son of David is coming into town.

[00:01:02] The promised Messiah, we must worship him.

[00:01:06] And so how did they do that in this spontaneous impromptu-oriented way of worship?

[00:01:11] Well it says this in verses 7 and 8 of Matthew chapter 21.

[00:01:17] They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks.

[00:01:21] And he sat on them. Most of the crowds spread their cloaks on the road,

[00:01:26] and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.

[00:01:30] Now remember it was two donkeys, the mother and the colt, the foal of the donkey.

[00:01:35] Now why were there two? Not only in fulfillment of prophecy,

[00:01:38] but many people who are specialists in animals and donkeys, donkeologists,

[00:01:43] would say that this was a colt that had never been ridden before

[00:01:47] and so to settle it down the mother was accompanying the colt.

[00:01:51] Now what else did they do? They took their cloaks, their cloaks or their cloaks

[00:01:55] and they spread them in the road in front of Jesus.

[00:01:58] The disciples took their own cloaks and used it as a saddle on the colt.

[00:02:03] How cool is that? This too was done for Jehu, the king of Israel

[00:02:08] in 2 Corinthians or 2 Kings chapter 9.

[00:02:11] When he was anointed king the people put their cloaks in his way

[00:02:15] to designate that he was the king.

[00:02:18] So the people took cloaks and put it in the road for Jesus.

[00:02:21] But not only that, they took palm branches.

[00:02:24] And what did palm branches symbolize?

[00:02:26] That Jesus was a liberator who liberates us from sin, we know that now,

[00:02:31] was a liberator and also the victor, the victor over death.

[00:02:35] So all of that was symbolic if you will, was a precursor

[00:02:39] of what was going to happen later that week.

[00:02:41] When Jesus would liberate us from the guilt, power and punishment of sin

[00:02:45] through his death on the cross and would be the victor over death

[00:02:49] through his resurrection. How cool is that?

[00:02:52] So we said that this worship for these people is very impromptu.

[00:02:56] It was spontaneous. It wasn't premeditated.

[00:02:59] It wasn't precipitated by weeks and weeks of planning.

[00:03:03] They heard Jesus was coming into town. Let's worship him.

[00:03:07] So how can your worship in your own individual life, apart from Sunday morning

[00:03:12] be spontaneous and impromptu?

[00:03:16] Well, let's talk about that. When God does amazing things in your life,

[00:03:21] here's the way that you can worship him in an impromptu manner.

[00:03:25] You can simply say praise be to God or you can say thank you Jesus

[00:03:31] or you can break out in a hammer song.

[00:03:34] I do that very often when I'm so glad for what God has done in my life.

[00:03:38] I just break out in song or even you can start to weep in front of the Lord

[00:03:43] because tears is especially a language the Lord understands.

[00:03:47] Let me give you an example. Today, I was thinking about how blessed I've been

[00:03:51] in my life to worship a wonderful congregation for 25 years at Peace Lutheran Church.

[00:03:57] I loved the people there, right?

[00:03:59] I was their pastor for 25 years along with Tim Lindemann and John Larson

[00:04:04] and Pastor Larry McGurr. It was just a wonderful ministry there

[00:04:08] and I thought I'll never have it as good.

[00:04:10] But then the Lord took me to this congregation by the name of Mount Hope Lutheran Church

[00:04:15] and I've met some new friends there and wonderful people.

[00:04:18] There's four or five men there at that congregation that are dear friends of mine

[00:04:22] and I thought how cool is this?

[00:04:24] How wonderful is the Lord to bring me to this special place?

[00:04:27] And I started to weep because I was so grateful to God for bringing me

[00:04:33] to such a loving congregation where I've met new people that have enhanced my life.

[00:04:39] I see Jesus in so many of them and it's just made my life even better.

[00:04:46] Well, that's not by accident. That's not because of luck.

[00:04:51] That's because of God. And what did I do? I started to weep

[00:04:55] and I simply said to the Lord, thank you for what you've done in my life.

[00:05:00] This was impromptu worship.

[00:05:02] So my friend, when you feel like worshiping the Lord wherever you're at,

[00:05:06] uttering praise, saying thanks, singing a hymn, whatever it is, go ahead and do it

[00:05:12] because there's no better example of that than what happened on Palm Sunday, right?

[00:05:18] It's impromptu worship, spontaneous worship. It is a good thing.

[00:05:24] Have a great day in the Lord Jesus Christ and that is today's Daily Truth.

[00:05:48] For your next Daily Truth.