Do You Know Him? Why Palm Sunday Demands Knowing Jesus Personally
- The Love Church
- Mar 29
- 8 min read
Today is Palm Sunday — a day of waving branches, swelling music, and joyful celebration of the King who rides in. And yet, if we stay only on the surface of this story, we will miss the most searching question that Palm Sunday asks of every one of us. It is not simply "Will you praise Him today?" It is far more penetrating than that. The question Palm Sunday presses to the center of our chests is this: do you actually know Jesus personally — or do you only know about Him?
That distinction, as we will see, made all the difference in Jerusalem two thousand years ago. And it makes all the difference still.
The Week That Went from Ecstasy to Tragedy
Matthew 21:5 sets the scene: "Tell the people of Jerusalem, look, your king is coming to you. He is humble, riding on a donkey — riding on a donkey's colt." The crowds went wild. They spread their garments across the road. They cut branches from the trees. They shouted, "Praise God for the Son of David! Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord!" The whole city was in an uproar. The energy was electric, the emotion overwhelming, the celebration completely unrestrained.
And then, by Friday of that same week, those same voices were shouting something else entirely: "Crucify him."
How does that happen? How does a crowd go from kicking up a cloud of praise dust on Sunday to calling for a man's execution on Friday? How do people who ate the bread He multiplied, who listened to His teachings with open mouths, who sang the songs and knew the stories — how do they turn on Him that fast?
The answer, I believe, is more straightforward than we might expect. They didn't know Jesus for themselves. They were caught up in a movement, swept along by a collective emotion, thrilled by the spectacle. But when the cost of truly following Him became clear — when their expectation of a political deliverer who would overthrow Rome collided with the reality of a King who came to conquer something far deeper than an empire — the crowd scattered and turned.
They knew the songs. They knew the stories. They just did not know Jesus.
Knowing About Him Is Not the Same as Knowing Him
This is one of the most important distinctions in all of Scripture, and Jesus Himself made it in the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 7:21 stops us cold: "Knowing the correct password — saying 'Master, Master,' for instance — isn't going to get you anywhere with me. What is required is serious obedience — doing what my Father wills."
He went further. He described the scene at the final judgment — thousands approaching Him saying, "We preached the message, we drove out demons, our super spiritual projects had everyone talking." And His response: "You missed the boat. All you did was use me to make yourselves important. You're out of here."
That is not harsh theology. That is the most loving warning Jesus could possibly give us. Because there is a version of Christianity that looks indistinguishable from the real thing on the outside. You can attend church faithfully, sing every song, give offerings, serve at the food pantry, know the liturgy, say all the right things — and still not know Him. In many parts of the world, believers draw a clear distinction between nominal Christians — those who know all the trappings of religion — and those who have truly bowed their hearts to Jesus, repented of their sins, and received His Spirit.
Jesus knows the difference, even when we cannot. And Palm Sunday is the day He invites us to ask ourselves honestly which side of that line we are standing on.
A Moment to Reflect
Pause here before reading on. Sit with this question for a moment: Is your faith in Jesus a personal, living relationship — or has it become mostly a set of habits, a Sunday routine, a cultural identity? No condemnation in the question. Just honesty. The most important thing you could do today is answer it truthfully before God.
The Cry That Changes Everything: "That I Might Know Him"
The Apostle Paul had every religious credential a person could possess. He was trained at the highest level, zealous beyond his peers, devout from birth. And yet, after his encounter with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus, he counted all of that as — in his own words from Philippians 3:10 — "inferior stuff." He gave it all up, he said, "so I could know Christ personally, so I could experience his resurrection power."
That phrase — that I might know him — is one of the most passionate cries in the New Testament. It is not the cry of a man seeking more information. It is the cry of someone who has tasted the reality of a living Person and wants more. Paul was not asking for a better theology. He was asking for a deeper encounter.
And he understood what that encounter required. "If any man wants to really follow me," Jesus said, "let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me." The cross, in our lives, is the intersection point where our will and His will meet. Where what we want and what He asks come into direct conflict. And the question at that intersection is always the same: Not my will, but Yours. That is what Jesus prayed in the garden — "Let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but thy will be done." And that posture — will surrendered, heart opened — is precisely what releases us into knowing Him more.
God blesses and anoints most what is most surrendered. Not most talented. Not most educated. Most surrendered. When we stop insisting on our own way and open our hands completely to Him, He begins to show us who He really is in ways that no amount of church attendance can manufacture.
Getting Lost in Jesus
I want to tell you about something God dropped in my heart while on a cruise ship recently. We were listening to a talented little band — they called themselves Fleetwood Mac and Cheese, of all things — and the lead singer, Luca, was pouring himself into a song. The music built and built, and then it stopped, and he just stood there, staring into the middle distance. After a moment, he came back to himself and said, almost apologetically, "Sometimes I get so lost in the music that I forget we're doing a public set."
And in that moment, God said something to me. If a musician in a ship's lounge full of strangers can get so lost in the music that the whole world around him disappears — surely there is a way for my people to get lost in me.
Getting lost in Jesus. That is what I want to call you toward today. Not just reading the words on the screen during worship and moving on. Not just logging your daily Bible reading and closing the app. I mean genuinely, deeply, losing track of time in His presence — in worship, in the Word, in prayer.
Moses went up on the mountain to meet with God, and he stayed so long that the people below grew restless and built an idol. When he came back down, his face was glowing — so radiant with the presence of God that they had to ask him to cover it. Young Joshua, we are told, would linger in the tabernacle after Moses left, soaking in the atmosphere of God's presence like a sponge. He was a warrior. A nuts-and-bolts, sword-swinging man. And yet he learned to tap into the presence of God — and it was that intimacy that prepared him to lead a nation and conquer Canaan.
Do you know that this is possible for you? That you can spend time with Jesus until you lose track of the hour? That you can get into the Word of God until the stories swallow you up — until you are standing in the crowd as blind Bartimaeus receives his sight, until you feel the hem of His garment in your hand, until the stones of David's sling are warm in your palm? That kind of encounter is not reserved for pastors or mystics. It is available to every person who comes to Him with an open and hungry heart.
Knowing Jesus Personally: An Invitation on Palm Sunday
This is Palm Sunday. Billions of people around the world are waving branches and singing Hosanna today. Some of them know Jesus deeply and personally. Some of them — perhaps many of them — are doing what the Jerusalem crowds did: picking up the energy of the room, going through motions that are deeply familiar, celebrating Someone they have never truly met.
I do not know which category you are in today. Only Jesus does. But I want to tell you what He offers — because it is more than religion, more than a weekly ritual, more than a moral framework to organize your life around.
He wants to forgive your sins — every burden of guilt, every regret, every weight of shame you have carried for years. He wants to cleanse your soul. He wants to transform you spirit, soul, and body. He wants to fill you with His Spirit. He wants to spend eternity with you. He gave His very life so that you could know Him — not know about Him, but know Him, personally and intimately, as the most real relationship you have ever had.
2 Peter 3:18 is a command as much as a promise: "Grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." Not knowledge about. Knowledge of. The kind that comes from time spent, from surrender practiced, from presence sought.
So as we wave our branches today, let this be more than a Sunday tradition. Let it be the moment you open a door that has perhaps been only cracked. Or the moment you press further through a door you have already walked through, hungry for more of Him than you have ever known before. He is not hiding. He is not distant. He is right here, knocking — and He has been knocking all along.
🙏 A Prayer and a Next Step
Wherever you are today — whether you are coming to Jesus for the very first time or renewing your pursuit of a deeper walk with Him — I want to invite you to pray this prayer right now, in your own words and from your own heart:
"Father in heaven, forgive me for my sins. I believe that Jesus died to pay the penalty for everything I have done wrong. I receive His forgiveness. Fill me with Your Spirit. I don't want to just know about You — I want to know You. Personally. Intimately. More than I ever have before. I surrender my will to Yours. In Jesus' name, Amen."
If this message stirred something in you today — whether it is a first step toward faith or a fresh hunger for more of His presence — I would love to hear from you. Leave a comment below and share where you are in your journey with Jesus. Share this post with someone who needs to hear it this Palm Sunday. Or, if you are looking for a community that is serious about going deeper with God together, come join us for a service. Holy Week is the most powerful week of the year to take a step you have been putting off. The door is open.
Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.
Preached on March 29, 2026 — Palm Sunday | Horseheads, New York
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