Last week, I began blogging on our Sunday sermons to help myself review; today, I’m continuing that by covering our Palm Sunday service, based on Luke 19:28-44.

As before, I won’t summarize the sermon or provide detailed notes on it, since it’s available for streaming. I’ll instead focus on what I take away from it. Still, I’ll briefly recap the main points:

  1. God’s love is deliberate: Jesus fulfilled prophesy in so many ways on Palm Sunday and in his final days, highlighting how God had planned this work from the beginning of time, and has declared it ever since the fall of mankind. Every detail of the work of Christ was devised by God and fulfilled by him, thereby revealing his great love for us.
  2. God’s love is patient: Jesus had compassion on the people, and was concerned about their destiny and welfare – even weeping over the coming destruction of Jerusalem. God has been like the father in the story of the prodigal son, waiting for his children to return to him in repentance.
  3. God’s love is powerful: His love is powerful to bring us peace; we can heave peace WITH God and the peace OF God, but only through the work of Jesus Christ. And this peace of God is something that is independent of our circumstances, but only through Jesus.

Overall, the phrase “peace with God and peace of God” really stuck with me and prompts a key question coming out of the sermon – do I have the peace of God through Jesus Christ (which comes out of peace WITH God), a peace that does not depend on circumstances? If so, then that peace can carry me through these troubled times of COVID-19, economic difficulty, and turmoil.

I was also thinking of this aspect this week as my oldest daughter developed a bad cough and I had all of those “what if…” thoughts about what if she has COVID-19, gets seriously ill, etc. In these times, every cough can lead there, I think. I came back to this idea of the peace of God and was reminded that I can have peace regardless of circumstances, so even if she gets seriously ill. Not only that, but she’s a believer so she, too, can have the same peace – even facing illness or death.

So far, the cough has been just that – a cough – so I’m thankful. But more importantly I’m thankful that we have a hope which is not in this world; we have peace with God, the most important thing of all, so our destiny is already secure and we can rest in his love and sovereign plans.