The Story That Forms Us

About this episode

This sermon explores the competing stories surrounding Jesus's entry into Jerusalem and the implications for understanding His message of peace.

We live in a world of competing stories — and competing meanings attached to those stories. The logo at the end of a story shapes everything: what we believe it’s about, who we become because of it, and what we do as a result. So what happens when the story of Jesus gets the wrong logo attached to it? In this Palm Sunday message, Pastor T. C. walks through Luke 19 and the clashing perspectives present at Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem: the crowds who wanted a warlord, the Pharisees who feared the explosion of a social powder keg, and Jesus himself, weeping over a city that didn’t recognize the things that make for peace. Against the backdrop of voices today that are actively reshaping the meaning of Jesus’s story, this sermon invites us to pay careful attention to the story we’re actually inhabiting. Holy Week, it turns out, is the meaning. Follow Jesus through Palm Sunday’s prophetic procession, the temple protest, the upper room, the garden, the cross, and the empty tomb—and you’ll find a story that forms us into people of peace, protest, presence, prayer, passion, and promise. Not a story of domination. A story of self-giving love.

People in this episode

Host: Pastor T. C.

Topics covered

• story of Jesus
• Palm Sunday
• peace
• self-giving love
• clashing perspectives
• Holy Week

Keywords

• Jesus
• Palm Sunday
• Jerusalem
• peace
• Holy Week
• story
• self-giving love

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Luke 19

Places: Jerusalem

More episodes of Roots Church Sermon Podcast

• With You in the Valleys · February 15, 2026 · 22 min
• Salt, Light, and Shalom · February 8, 2026 · 28 min
• New Heaven & New Earth · November 16, 2025 · 9 min
• Judgment as Liberation · November 9, 2025 · 23 min
• Unmasking Empire · October 12, 2025 · 25 min
• From Weeping to Worship · September 22, 2025 · 32 min