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Easter Week Worship Guide 2020

LifePoint Church

Easter Week Worship Guide

For the next week, we will be walking with Christ through His final week before His resurrection on Easter Sunday. As we prepare with our families and church communities to celebrate the redemption Jesus purchased for us, we also remind ourselves of the important moments that preceded the empty tomb. Each day, from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, teaches us something about who Jesus is and what He accomplished. We hope that you and your family will be blessed as we walk with Jesus through the most important week in human history.

Sunday, April 5 [Palm Sunday]: The Real Jesus

Read: Zechariah 9:9; John 12:12-19

Reflect: 

The Sunday before Christ was crucified, He entered Jerusalem to rejoicing and celebration. The people welcomed Him as a King who they hoped would liberate them from their Roman rulers as they laid palm branches and tunics on the ground before Him. Tragically, they didn’t realize why Jesus had come to Jerusalem. They didn’t realize that He didn’t come to defeat Rome, He came to defeat sin. Once the people saw the true reason Jesus came, they rejected Him (Mark 15:10-14). 

This should lead us to ask: Do we know the true Jesus? Do we want a Jesus who comes to give us what we want - who is made in our own image? Or do we want the true Jesus revealed in God’s Word? The Jesus who came to free us from our sin and conform us into His image?

Pray: 

  • Thank Jesus for His bravery - to enter Jerusalem on Palm Sunday knowing what awaited Him. 

  • Praise Jesus for being the true Son of David who came to free us from our sins. 

  • Ask God’s help to always see Jesus for who He really is rather than someone we want Him to be.

Sing:

Monday, April 6: Pure Temples of God

Read: Matthew 21:18-19; Mark 11:15-18

Reflect: 

Jesus has two very important interactions on Monday. First, He curses a fig tree that He found to be fruitless. Often throughout the Old Testament, Israel was compared to a fig tree (Jer. 8:13; Hosea 9:10). This interaction illustrates that Jesus found Israel fruitless just like He found this fig tree. Here, the withering fig tree represents the coming judgment that would soon come upon Israel because of its fruitlessness.  

This leads right into the next important interaction: Jesus in the temple. Jesus arrived at the temple knowing that He would find it filled with people abusing it for their personal gain. He found money changers and salesmen seeking to profit off of those coming to celebrate Passover. Instead of the temple being a place for the nations to come and worship God (Micha 4:2), it had become a “den of robbers”. So Jesus sought to purify the temple by cleansing it of the wicked people operating within it. But as we will see, the sinfulness of Israel went much further than what was happening in the temple at Passover. 

Our bodies are called the temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinth. 6:19-20). Are there sins and/or false-motives within your own heart that need to be driven out? If Jesus showed up to the temple of your heart, would He find it like he found the temple in Jerusalem? What would a thorough examination of your heart reveal?

Pray:

  • Ask God to reveal sins within your own heart that need to be driven out. 

  • Ask the Holy Spirit to help you put to death these “deeds of the body” (Rom 8:13). 

  • Thank Jesus that His blood brings cleansing to our hearts when we come and confess to Him (1 John 1:9).

Sing:

Tuesday, April 7: The Coming Judgement

Read: Matthew 24:1-14

Reflect: 

Tuesday was a busy day for Jesus. He taught His disciples, engaged in different controversies in the temple, confronted the Pharisees, and gave some shocking predictions about the future. The common theme throughout all of what Jesus did and taught this day is that God’s judgment was about to pour out upon an unrepentant Israel. 

After they commented on how amazing and massive the temple was, Jesus tells His disciples that very soon it would be destroyed in an act of God’s judgment upon Jerusalem. His words were fulfilled in a matter of decades when the Romans utterly destroyed Jerusalem, as well as the temple, in 70AD. As Jesus warns His hearers of impending judgment from God, we can’t help but rejoice at the fact that the greatest act of judgment was poured out upon Jesus, Himself. Jesus’ predictions about what would become of an unrepentant Israel were severe, but thank God that all of our sins were placed upon Christ on the cross. He bore the terrifying wrath of God in our place so that all who put their faith in Him could be saved from His wrath. 

Pray: 

  • Thank God that Jesus has paid the price for your sin on the cross, saving you from God’s wrath. 

  • Praise God for His great love and mercy toward undeserving people like us. 

  • Ask for God’s help to continue enduring toward greater obedience and love for Him. 

Sing: 

Wednesday, April 8: Jesus Patiently Waits

Read: Matthew 26:3-5; Psalm 37:1-11

Reflect: 

Wednesday is a quiet day compared to the three previous days. We assume that Jesus continued to teach and travel between Bethany and Jerusalem. The crowds continued to listen closely to what He said, and the religious leaders continued to plot about how they could kill Him. There is a sweet lesson here from Christ about patiently waiting. Jesus knew that the following day would start the beginning of His sufferings as He made His way to the cross. We can imagine His heart would race as He thought about what lay ahead in the coming days. Perhaps Jesus was more reflective on Wednesday as He meditated on the Father’s love for Him, as well as His love for His people. 

None of us have ever experienced stakes as high as what Jesus felt that day, but we have all had to fight to wait for the Lord and trust in His love for us. Thankfully, our Lord Jesus can relate to that feeling. No matter what lay ahead - whether we know what is coming or not - we must always trust in the Lord because He is both sovereign and loving. We can trust that He will work all things for our good, in His perfect time (Rom. 8:28). 

Pray: 

  • Thank Jesus for being our perfect model of patience and trust in the Father’s goodness. 

  • Ask God to help you to always rely on Him, no matter what situation you’re facing. 

  • Rejoice to God about how faithful and trustworthy He is. 

Sing: 

Thursday, April 9: The True Passover Lamb

Read: Matthew 26:17-29; Luke 22:39-53

Reflect: 

As Jesus and His disciples celebrated Passover, they remembered the way God saved Israel from the hands of the Egyptians. To break Pharaoh's hard heart and liberate them from their captivity, God sent 10 terrible plagues upon Egypt, the final being the death of all the firstborn. However, instead of killing the firstborn of the Israelites, God told them to offer a spotless lamb in their place and cover their doorposts with its blood. That way the angel of death would see that a sacrifice had been made and pass over the home. 

On Thursday, in the upper room with His disciples, Jesus instituted a new sacred institution: The Lord’s Supper. Jesus was about to serve as the true Passover lamb by spilling His own blood and offering His own body for the sake of God’s people. As He passed the wine and bread to His disciples, Jesus gave both them symbols of His death that would be used for centuries to come. Jesus is the true lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29).

Pray: 

  • Thank the Lord that He supplied a substitute to take His wrath in our place. 

  • Praise Jesus for bowing to the perfect will of the Father even when it was scary.

  • Ask God to help you always remember the sacrifice Jesus made to purchase your freedom from sin. 

Sing: 

Friday, April 10: Good Friday

Read: Isaiah 53; John 19:16-30

Reflect: 

It may seem strange that Christians refer to this day as “Good Friday.” On this day, Jesus endured the most painful, excruciating suffering any human has ever endured. Jesus bore in His own body the pain and wrath that was meant for us by allowing Himself to be beaten and nailed to a cross. Jesus willingly did this, consumed with the hope of what He was going to accomplish through His suffering (John 10:17-18; Heb. 12:1-2). 

Everyone comes into this world as an enemy of God (Ps. 51:5; Eph. 2:3). And because of this, we all deserve punishment for breaking God’s Law (Rom. 3:23; 6:23). But on Good Friday, Jesus took all the sins of God’s people upon Himself so that He could pay the debt that we owed (Rom. 5:8-10). So even though Christ suffered unimaginably, we can rejoice at knowing that He suffered in our place so that we could be transformed from rebels to sons. At the cross, Jesus paid the price for our redemption completely. His final three words give us the ultimate reason why this Friday was so good: It is finished. 

Pray: 

  • Praise Jesus for His sacrifice on your behalf. Praise Him for His love. 

  • Ask God to help you understand how steep the price of your redemption was so that you can be even more thankful for Jesus. 

  • Confess any lingering sins to Him as you reflect on Christ’s death. 

Sing: 

Saturday, April 11: God Rested

Read: Luke 23:50-56; Matthew 27:62-66; Exodus 20:11

Reflect: 

For many people, Saturday is a day of relaxation and leisure. Throughout Israel’s history, Saturday was their Sabbath - a day of rest from all their work. But for Jesus’ disciples and family, this Sabbath was anything but restful. Although they obeyed God’s commandment to rest (Luke 23:56), we can imagine that they were restless. We can imagine the disciples pacing back and forth in the place where they were hiding. We can imagine Jesus’ mother, Mary, weeping all day as she pictured her son’s suffering over and over. We can imagine Peter beating his chest ceaselessly at the humiliation of denying his Lord the day before (Luke 22:54-62). Even the Pharisees spent the day plotting and worrying about what would happen next, making sure the tomb had guards posted so that nothing else would come of Jesus. 

But what did Jesus do? While everyone else was restless, frantic, and panicking; what did the Lord do? He rested. Just like in Genesis 1, He worked for six days and then rested on the seventh. In the same way, Jesus worked for six days and rested on the seventh. While Jerusalem was in a frenzy (Luke 24:13-18), God rested. His work was finished. 

Pray: 

  • Thank the Lord that He has control of all things, even when things seem chaotic. 

  • Ask God to bring stillness to any panic or fear that might be seizing your heart. 

  • Thank the Lord that He will never stop sustaining you even when you lack faith. 

Sing:

Sunday, April 12: Easter

Read: John 20:1-23; Philippians 2:6-11; Revelation 1:18

Reflect: 

After resting on the Sabbath, Jesus rose again in triumph. At the cross, Jesus paid our penalty for sin. On Easter Sunday, He rose - guaranteeing that He had the authority to make His death effective for all who put their faith in Him. By raising from the dead, Jesus proved that He is God and that He has the power to give life to all who trust in Him. He proved that redemption for God’s people had been accomplished and that our future in Heaven with Him is secure. 

Because Jesus died and rose again, He is rightfully called “King of Kings” and “Lord of Lords” (1 Tim. 6:15-16). After His resurrection, Jesus spent many more weeks with His disciples before He ascended to the right hand of the Father (Acts 2:33). Jesus is alive today, ruling and reigning over all things with perfect power, sovereignty, wisdom, and love. All praise be to our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ! 

Pray: 

  • Magnify Christ as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. 

  • Celebrate to God how wonderful His power over sin and death is. 

  • Ask God to fill your heart with more and more joy as you reflect on His triumphant resurrection from the dead. 

Sing: