 And Pastor Lee and Jane, thank you so much for having me. Radiant, it's really an honor for me to be here today. My fourth grandchild was born on March 31st last year. I just came from Nashville, where we celebrated his first birthday. And on my phone, for those of you who have phones that give you memories, what happened today, a year ago, five years ago, and just picked up the phone a couple of days ago and tears filled my eyes as I'm looking at us holding our grandchild for the first time. I don't believe there are iPhones in heaven, thank God. But if the Lord had an iPhone, and his memories would come up for today, and he took pictures, there would be pictures, of his beloved son riding into a city, a city over which he wept when he rode in, because Jerusalem didn't recognize him as Messiah. Imagine the heartache of the one who came for the Jewish people. Jesus himself said, I've come only for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. The Jewish people were looking and waiting for the Messiah to come. But as he rode in on Palm Sunday, and everybody was waving their palms at him, he wept as he overlooked the city as he was coming in, Luke chapter 19, because they did not recognize Jesus as Messiah. Oh, they were waiting for him. The Messiah in the Jewish people's minds were to release them from Roman captivity, set them free living in days of total and complete freedom with their king enthroned. But they didn't recognize him. No wonder he wept. Today I wanna talk about why I believe Jesus is the Messiah. You may be sitting here and you say, I believe Jesus is the Messiah. Thank God. You may be sitting here wondering whether Jesus is the Messiah. I ask you to open your ears and open your hearts because when he reveals himself, our lives are forever changed. So Father, I just pray today that you would supplement my human words with your spirit. Lord, maybe you walk out of this service sensing something fresh from you, not because a man spoke or worship played, but because you were here. You change everything. So Lord, we yield to you today as our Messiah and King in Jesus' name. Why do we need a Messiah? What happened that forced the heavens to move? And for God to give his most beloved possession to the earth. This is the week that we celebrate Jesus' triumphal entry, his death and his resurrection. Why did he have to come? Well, God created the heavens and the earth. Everything was perfect. God created the land, the sea. It was all good, good, good, good, good. He created man and woman. He puts them in a garden. He says of any tree you may eat, accept this one. For the day in which you eat of it, you surely will die. Not only are there not iPhones in heaven, but there's no death in heaven. God is a God of life. Everything about God is life-giving. Jesus came that you might have life and life more abundantly. Death is not a word that's affiliated with God. God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. God doesn't want there to be death. So when man and woman ate of that tree, death was introduced and God went into a mode of saying, how can we overcome sin and death? And he prophesied over the snake, the serpent and said this, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers. One is coming that will crush your head and you will strike his heel. This is the first Messianic prophetic word in the Bible, God prophesying in Genesis chapter three that one is gonna come to crush the head of that serpent who introduced sin and death into the world. And we know that one obviously is Jesus. Now if I was the Lord, I would have sent Jesus the next day. Cause I'm that kind of guy. When it's my birthday, if somebody gets me, if like if my wife gets me a gift a week before my birthday, I'm like, oh honey, can I open it please? She's like, no, you're waiting for your birthday. If I get a gift for Beth and it's a week before her birthday, I'll give it to her. I'm like, open it now. Nope, I'm waiting for my birthday. God's timetable is different than ours. In the New Testament it says, in the fullness of time Jesus came, he came at the perfect time. But after he gives this word, one's coming that will crush your head, he was looking for a people through whom that one would come. It wasn't Cain, it wasn't Abel. It wasn't Noah. Genesis chapter 12 were met with a man named Abram. And God chooses Abram, whose name he changed to Abraham, to be the one through whom that Messiah would come. This is what he says in Genesis chapter 12 verses two and three. I will make you into a great nation. And I will bless you. And I will make your name great and you will be a blessing and all the peoples, everybody say all the peoples, all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you. All the peoples, the Jewish people, the non-Jewish people, every nation on the earth will be blessed through your seed, Abraham. You know what's really interesting about Abraham? He married a woman who could produce no children. God is a God who gives life to the dead. That's who he is. It's remarkable to me when I think of the lineage of Jesus, which we'll get to in just a second. He chooses Abraham, whose wife could bear him no children, which makes this promise impossible unless God shows up and takes a barren womb and takes a barren womb and fills it with life. By the way, do you know that when Sarah was 89 and Abraham was 99, God showed up at a tent and said, this time next year you're gonna have a son? Well, that was impossible. The book of Romans says, Sarah was beyond the age of bearing children. Her womb was dead. Not only was she barren, but even if she wasn't barren, her child bearing years were over. Romans 4 says Abraham's body was as good as dead. So you got Mr. Dead here and Mrs. Dead here, and God shows up and says, this time next year you're gonna have a child. That child is Isaac. Isaac marries a woman who could bear no children. Jacob marries a woman who could bear no children. The womb of our patriarchs was barren. And that's the lineage through whom Jesus comes. That's pretty cool. Because God takes that which is dead and brings it to life. That's who he is. God shows Abraham, and if you look at the genealogy in Matthew chapter one, verse one, we get to these amazing words. This is the record of the genealogy of Jesus, the Messiah, say Messiah. Some of you in your Bibles have the word Christ. Same word. Jesus, the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham. We need a Messiah because we need our sins blotted out. We need a Messiah because God desires for us to have everlasting life. We need a Messiah because this world is going in the wrong direction and God is raising up a people to shine the light of the Messiah to the nations of the world and to Israel. Why I believe Jesus is the Messiah. You know, I was just struck as Pastor Lee was praying for Israel. What an amazing thing that work together, radiant and the different campuses in the city are joining together with literally millions. I heard the number could be as large as 100 million. Can you imagine 100 million people praying for Israel? Israel did not recognize the day of his appearing. I'm gonna give you seven reasons why I believe Jesus is the Messiah. And then I am going to give you a so what should we do with it now ending. But before I do that, I just wanna quickly tell you, I was born and raised in a Jewish home. Jewish people by and large only say Jesus Christ when they're swearing. It's become a common name and cuss word in the homes of Jewish people. My father was born in an Orthodox Jewish home, very, very religious. So religious that when we would walk to synagogue with my grandfather on Saturdays, if we had to pass a church, he would cross the street so as to not walk on church property because in a Jewish person's mind, Christianity and the sign of the cross has been an oppressive sign to them. The crusaders marching into Jerusalem with their cross bearing their shields with crosses on it, gathered Jews into the synagogues and burned it down while singing hymns. The sign of the cross to Jewish people in their minds, you're either Jewish or you're Christian. That Christian symbol was worn by men and women who went to church on Sunday and incinerated Jews on Monday in World War II. You would say, Scott, those weren't true Christians. Oh, I get that and I understand, but you have to understand that the sign of the cross and the name Jesus Christ causes Jewish people to not like you. So when my Jewish uncle, my dad's younger brother, he had two brothers, the older one was a lawyer, the younger one, philosophy major at Rutgers University who in the early 1970s moved with five other Jews to California and became a pot-smoken, hippie Jewish radical, gets saved on the streets of San Francisco, he came home to tell his orthodox Jewish family that Jesus was the Messiah. It was not a happy day in that house. My grandfather spat on the ground. He said, if you don't recant what you just said, you're no longer my son and I'll never talk to you again. My grandmother got up, my father got up, everybody left the table except my mother. Does that ringing mean I'm supposed to stop right now? My mother stayed at the table and she looked at my uncle Paul, she said, Paul, you can believe whatever you wanna believe, but don't tell me that this is the only way. My uncle Paul looked at my mom and said, June, you don't have to ask me, you can ask God because the Hebrew scripture says, anyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. That night, my mother woke up from a nightmare in the middle of the night. She, who had never been to church, who had never prayed on her own outside of synagogue prayers that are fairly rote prayers, she just said in the middle of the night, God was Jesus Christ, your son. Remember Jesus Christ, Jesus the Messiah. Christ comes from Christos, which is Greek Messiah. Same word in Hebrew Mosheah. The Messiah was Jesus Christ, your son. Now you have to understand something. My mom never watched Christian TV. I don't even know if it was in existence back then. She was never in a church service. She had no grid for even understanding what would happen if God answered her prayer. According to her, she was lying on her bed and the curtains in the bedroom started looking like they were in flames. She said her tongue started to gyrate up and down and in her mind she was saying, June, this is just your imagination. This is the middle of the night. She wasn't responding to an altar call in a church. She said she felt this presence come into the room and clean her out. Out of her mouth she was saying words that she didn't know. Those words ended up being the Lord's prayer, our Father who art in heaven. She said that prayer three times and after the third time everything went back to normal and she felt clean and she knew Jesus was the Messiah. My father woke up, she looked at my dad, his name's Sheldon, everybody calls him Shelly. She said, Shelly, what Paul said last night was true. God revealed himself to me, Jesus is the Messiah. My dad said, take two aspirin, go back to bed and you'll be okay when you wake up again. Well, she wasn't okay, thank God, she was truly okay. 17 months later my dad supernaturally bowed his knee to Jesus as king and our lives were changed. My family was written off by their relatives because that's how people respond when you say Jesus is Messiah. No wonder Jesus wept over the city as he rode in. They didn't recognize him really quickly, seven reasons why I believe Jesus is the Messiah. And by the way, there's approximately 60 specific Old Testament scriptures that say that Jesus is the Messiah and they don't say Jesus is the Messiah. They predict what the Messiah would be. Jesus fulfilled every single one of them. I read just this morning before I came, the probability of that, the probability of Jesus fulfilling eight of the 60 is one times 10 to the 17th power. I'm no mathematician, but that's one in one with 17 zeros after that. A gargantuan number. The person who wrote this particular article said, that's likened to if you put silver dollars one feet thick over the entire state of Texas. Imagine a silver dollar, this thick, silver dollars, this thick over the entire state of Texas, one of them is marked black and you blindfold a man. He's gotta be able to pick out that one black silver dollar on his first try. That's the likelihood of Jesus fulfilling eight, but he fulfilled 60. I'm only gonna give you seven quickly. Number one, he was born where the prophets said he would be born. Micah 5-2, if you've got your Bibles, I encourage you to open them. A lot of these scriptures aren't gonna be on the screen. Micah 5-2, but you, Bethlehem, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me, one who will be ruler over Israel. Are you kidding me? Bethlehem, where was Jesus born? Oh, little town of Bethlehem. That's another, it's a couple months away. He was born where the prophets said he would be born. He was born how the prophets said he would be born. Isaiah 7-14, therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and you will call him Emmanuel. Francis is hundreds of years before. My kids are now at the age of having kids, except for one of them. I've got a 32, a 30, a 29, and a 27-year-old and a 14-year-old, 13, I'm sorry, 13. When we were 44, Beth came to me and said, I think I'm pregnant, I said impossible. It wasn't an immaculate conception, but it was thoughtfully impossible from my perspective. My kids are at the age now of bearing children and we can't even predict the gender. And we got a 50-50 chance. These prophets are not only saying when they would be born, they're saying how they would be born and where they would be born. Luke 1.35, the angel answered and said, the Holy Spirit will come on you. The power of the most high will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Reason number three, he was born when the prophets said he would be born. I don't know how many of you are going to Israel with Pastor Lee later this year, but if you go to Israel or if you go to New York, you'll see pictures on polls of a man named Menachem Schneerson who many Jews believed was the Messiah. He lived in the 1900s. As a matter of fact, when he died, this is before the days of cell phones, there were beepers. The Jewish community wore beepers so that they would be notified when Menachem Schneerson rose from the dead. But he couldn't be the Messiah because the scriptures teach that the Messiah had to be born before the Second Temple was destroyed, which was in 70 AD. Malachi chapter three, verse one. See, I will send my messenger who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant you desire. The prophets are predicting the Messiah coming and he's coming to a temple before the temple was destroyed. Haggai 2 9, the glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house says the Lord. And in this place, I will establish peace. Daniel 9, all these eschatological scriptures. Friends, the prophets predicted where he would be born and he was born. The prophets predicted how he was to be born and that's how he was born. The prophets predicted when he was gonna be born and that's when he would be born. The prophets predicted how he would live. There's so many scriptures, I'm just gonna give you one. Isaiah 35, listen to this. Be strong, do not fear, your God will come. Then will the eyes of the blind be opened. This is such a glorious scripture, Isaiah 35. The eyes of the blind will be opened, the ears of the deaf, deaf, unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer and the mute tongue shout for joy. When he comes, everything changes. Blind eyes open. Deaf ears opened. Dead being raised to life. That's who Jesus is. That's why I believe he's the Messiah. Not only did they predict how he would live, they predicted how he would suffer and die and he did exactly the same way. We held up the bread just a moment ago. He was pierced for our transgressions, Isaiah 53. He was crushed for our iniquities. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter. He lived like the prophet said he would live. He suffered and died like the prophet said he would suffer and die and he rose again. Like the prophet said he would rise again. You're celebrating that one week from today. Isaiah 53, 11, after he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied by his knowledge or by knowledge of him, my righteous servant will justify many and he will bear their iniquities. He was born where they said he would be born. He was born how? He said he would be born. He lived, he died, he suffered. One times 10 to the 17th power possibility that Jesus is the Messiah, if only eight of the 60 were fulfilled, but he fulfilled all 60 of them and he ever lives today making intercession for you. You know, in the Old Testament, in the Jewish scriptures, Mosheach is used to describe three kinds of people. I don't know Hebrew. This is more of a Dr. Brown kind of thing, but I'm gonna tell you Mosheach in Hebrew means Messiah. It refers to anointed ones. When kings were anointed, that word anointed is the word Messiah, the anointed one. It referred to kings. It refers to priests. They were the anointed ones who would go and make sacrifices for the forgiveness of sins. It refers to prophets, Jesus, prophet, priest, king, and sacrifice himself. Who else could be the Messiah? We've got just a couple of minutes. So okay, if I walk down here, listen. There's an anguish in the heart of the apostle Paul. Romans nine, 10, and 11. This is that the apostle Paul who says, rejoice in the Lord always is the apostle in Romans chapter nine who says he has great sorrow and unceasing grief in his heart. The apostle who in Romans eight writes nothing can separate you from the love of God. In Romans chapter nine writes that he wished he could be separated from God. For the sake of his kinsmen, the lost sheep of the house of Israel, we've got just a couple of minutes left. Jesus rode into Jerusalem today 2000 years ago, approximately today and approximately 2000 years ago. But that's what we're commemorating today. And he wept, he said, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often I long to gather you together as a hen gathers her chicks, but you were not willing. Look, I served in a pastoral role for years and I often had parents in my office, specifically mothers though, who had children who wanted nothing to do with her. The despair in the mother's heart, you can't, taking a child away, a mother feels things so differently. The one time in scripture where Jesus likened himself to a mother, a hen, how often I long to gather you like a hen gathered her chicks, but you were not willing. And then he says, you will not see me again until you welcome me back and say, bless this, he who comes in the name of the Lord. Friends, as we're commemorating Palm Sunday today, there are people for whom the Lord came that do not recognize him as Messiah. And there is a grief and a pain in his heart until they all come in. As Pastor Lee said, there's a day coming when all Israel shall be saved. But God is looking for a people. The Bible says in Romans 11, salvation's come to the nations to provoke Israel to jealousy. We are the nations, friends. We are the nations, people from outside of the Jewish DNA, the people of the nations, the Gentiles. That's not a dirty word. Gentile isn't a dirty word. But we, the people of the nations, need to be bearing what the Lord is bearing even as he walks into Jerusalem and weeps. Let me read to you really quickly a prayer that's prayed every day by Jewish people around the world. I believe with complete faith in the coming of the Messiah. And even though he delay, I will wait for him every day until he comes. Their eyes are blinded because they didn't receive him. There's a partial blindness over their eyes, a God-induced blindness over their eyes because of their rejection of Jesus as Messiah. And as we close today, it's just in my heart to stand together and pray that as we celebrate this passion week where Jesus rides triumphantly into the city where he gives his life and where he rises again, that the same people who are praying every day and waiting for the Messiah to come, that their eyes would be open to recognize what I recognize and you recognize Jesus is the Messiah. Would you just lift your hands with me? Father, I thank you for this gathering today. And Lord, we, as we raise our hands, which is a spiritual posture in prayer, as we raise our hands, Lord, we thank you for opening up our eyes to Jesus as Messiah. And Lord, we pray that you would do for Israel what you've done for us. Lord, that your heart aches. It's not fully complete until all of your children, the ones for whom you came and died, recognize you as king. And Lord, as we yield to you today, we bless you and we thank you for the life of the Messiah living in us. In Jesus' name, Jesus' name. Friends, you might be sitting here. You've never bowed your knee to Jesus as king today. If you hear his voice, do not harden your heart. We've got leaders here who'd be willing to pray with you and stand with you. Don't leave today. If your heart is moved towards bowing your knee to the one I am convinced is the Messiah of Israel and the Savior of the world. Thank you so much. Lord bless you.