Sermon texts: Matthew 21:1-9; Mark 11:1-11; Luke 19:29-40; John 12:12-19; Zechariah 9:9-10; Psalm 118:26
The name “Palm Sunday” itself is worth examining closely, because the palm branches, while present in the narrative, aren’t actually the focus of what’s happening in the triumphal entry. Comparing all four gospel accounts side by side reveals something more precise: what did Jesus and his disciples actually initiate versus what did the surrounding crowd do on their own? Scripture often reports events accurately without necessarily endorsing every action within them—there’s a difference between passages that are prescriptive (telling believers what to do) and those that are simply descriptive (recording what happened).
Month: March 2026
Don’t Settle for Second Best
Sermon text: Colossians 2:8-15
The church at Colossae, located in what’s now southwestern Turkey and never personally founded by Paul, was wrestling with a problem still recognizable today: syncretism—the practice of cobbling together a belief system from multiple, often contradictory sources. In Colossae’s case, this meant blending Jewish legalism, pagan philosophy, and elements of the Greek Stoic and Epicurean thought Paul had already challenged on Mars Hill, with genuine Christian teaching mixed in somewhere alongside it all. The result, later termed the “Colossian heresy,” produced a faith system that couldn’t withstand scrutiny because its individual pieces contradicted one another. This pattern shows up constantly in modern belief systems too—people picking up a bit of Christianity, a bit of Eastern religion, some New Age influence, whatever resonates emotionally, until the resulting patchwork faith collapses under any real examination, unable even to stay internally consistent.
The Original Fellowship Meal
Sermon text: 1 Corinthians 11:17-34
The church at Corinth was a mess in many ways, which makes it an unusually instructive case study for what not to do in church life. Paul had already addressed divisions over leadership loyalties and spiritual gifts, but here he confronts something more fundamental: how the church handled its shared fellowship meal, connected to their observance of the Lord’s Supper.
God’s Mission First
Sermon text: Haggai 1:1-11
The book of Haggai sits at a striking crossroads in Israel’s history, and understanding what led to this moment matters. After Solomon’s death, the kingdom split into northern Israel and southern Judah. The northern kingdom fell to the Assyrians around 722 BC, while the southern kingdom held on for roughly another century before Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylonian forces conquered Judah in multiple invasions between 605 and 587 BC, ultimately destroying Solomon’s temple and carrying the population into 70 years of captivity, just as had been prophesied.
Is That Your Final Answer?
Sermon text: Matthew 21:28-32
By this point in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus is deep in a series of tense confrontations with Jewish religious leaders. Just before this passage, they had challenged his authority, and he had turned the question back on them regarding John the Baptist’s authority—they refused to answer, so he refused to answer them. Their religious system, built on rigid tradition and personal profit, was actively blinding them to genuine faith, even as they insisted publicly on their own righteousness.