Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Trinity
Sermons. This week we are continuing our sermon
series called This is the Way, where we look
at what it means to follow in the way of Jesus
and what are some of the practices that help
us to become more like Jesus. Today we also celebrate
Palm Sunday, that day when we remember Jesus'
triumphant arrival into Jerusalem, riding on
a donkey surrounded by hundreds and hundreds
of people. But are all of those people the same?
Do they all have the same kind of relationship
to Jesus? Or does Jesus actually intentionally
choose some of them to be his closest friends,
his closest disciples? That's what Rob's going
to unpack for us in today's sermon as we think
about who are those people in our lives that
we want to be our closest friends, and who are
some of those crowds that surround us. The scripture
reading is taken from Mark 11, verses 1 to 11.
As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethpage
and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent
two of his disciples, saying to them, Go to the
village ahead of you, and just as you enter it,
you will find a colt tied there which no one
has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here.
If anyone asks you, why are you doing this? Say,
the Lord needs it. and will send it back here
shortly. They went and found a colt outside in
the street, tied at a doorway. As they untied
it, some people standing there asked, What are
you doing untying that colt? They answered, as
Jesus had told them to, and the people let them
go. When they brought the colt to Jesus and threw
their cloaks over it, he sat on it. Many people
spread their cloaks on the road while others
spread branches they had cut in the fields. Those
who went ahead and those who followed shouted,
Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name
of the Lord. Blessed is the coming kingdom of
our father, David. Hosanna in the highest heaven.
Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple
courts. He looked around at everything, but since
it was already late, he went out to Bethany with
the twelve. The word of the Lord. We missed you
guys last week. Last week, our family had the
great opportunity to go to Vancouver Island where
we did a whole lot of hiking. In fact, some of
the hikes we went on last week were like, you
know, four hours long, five hours long. And when
you're hiking with a group of six for that long,
there are times in your mind where you ask yourself,
would this hike go a lot faster if these other
people were not with me? And I'm not trying to
name any names. names, but when you've got that
many people, you know, people get distracted
along the way and it slows you down. And the
truth is, yes, of course, you would go faster
if you were just on your own. But what happens
if, you know, ran out of water or something like
that? Or what happens if you hurt yourself? And
it's in moments like that that you are certainly
glad to be going with a group. There is an old
African proverb that says, if you want to go
fast, go alone. But if you want to go far, go
together. In our world today, we all want to
go. fast. We want everything to be efficient
and quick and right away. That attitude, unfortunately,
has also bled over into our spiritual lives.
We want to grow. We want to grow spiritually,
but we want that also to happen quickly. We want
that to happen efficiently and fast. And after
all, doesn't it make sense, therefore, to kind
of go it alone on our spiritual journeys? Isn't
that faster? After all, isn't it just really
about me and Jesus? Isn't it really just about
me and my prayers or me and my Bible? Should
we just go it alone in our spiritual lives? Well,
we're in the middle of a teaching series we're
calling This is the Way. And we've been asking
the question, you know, how does one experience
spiritual transformation? And if you're like
me, then probably over the past few weeks, you've
missed one or two Sundays. And so therefore,
I thought before we go too much further today,
it might be good for us just to look back and
recap where we have been. It all started back
on Ash Wednesday when I was up here on the platform
and I had a big thing of clay. You guys remember
that if you were here Ash Wednesday? And my point
was, is that we're all made of dirt. We're all
made of soil. And as such, we're constantly being
formed and changed. Whether you like it or not,
whether you realize it or not, you're being changed
and formed into something. And my point that
night was that only God should be the one to
form us into the people that we were meant to
be. And then on the following Sunday, we talked
about how one of the most important... transformational
decisions you can make in your own life is the
decision about who you will follow. We are all
following someone or we are all following something.
And Jesus comes along and says, follow me, be
my student, be my apprentice, be my disciple.
Let me show you how to live your life. If you
remember, the week after that, we welcomed a
guest speaker, Kristen Dede Johnson from Wycliffe
College. And she spoke to us about the formative
power of studying scripture. Not studying scripture
just for information, but studying scripture
for transformation. And then the week after that,
if you're still tracking with me, you remember
I was up here on the stage and I had a basketball
in my hands. And the point I was trying to make
that day was, you know, just like none of us
could ever possibly expect to become like Michael
Jordan unless we adopt the practices and the
habits and the disciplines of Michael Jordan.
So too, none of us could ever expect to really
become like Jesus unless we're willing to accept
and adopt the disciplines and practices of Jesus.
And it was that day that we started to talk about.
about what some of those disciplines were, like
prayer and solitude and so on and so forth. The
very next week, we talked about how it is so
important for us to put these ideas into a plan,
right? Spiritual growth doesn't happen by itself.
We need a structure. We need a plan. And we encouraged
everyone to start putting together what is called
a rule of life. This is what we've been doing
all Lent long, and we've been handing out these
little booklets. Hopefully, by the end of Lent,
you're going to have a solid plan for how you
can grow spiritually. And then, of course, last
week, Sandra was here to talk to us about how
important it is for us to go through a process
of healing as part of our spiritual transformation.
You cannot run a marathon if you have a broken
leg. And it is really hard to grow spiritually
if you have unhealed wounds in your life or unresolved
sin in our lives. All of these teachings and
all the podcasts and all the practices that we've
been developing as we go through this, they're
all available on our website, trinitystreetsville
.org slash thisistheway. And if you were to go
and if you look at this, you'd probably say,
okay, well, that's pretty much got to do it.
I mean, what more really could there be? How
much more could there be to this spiritual formation
thing? Well, we're not done yet. There's today,
Palm Sunday. and then Maundy Thursday, and then
Good Friday, and then even Easter Sunday. We're
going to talk about the final four kind of practices
and aspects of spiritual growth in our life.
So as Kyla said at the beginning of the service,
please stay with us and keep tracking with us
all the way through. And that brings us to today.
Today, we are going to look at what very well
may be the most overlooked part of spiritual
growth. You cannot follow Jesus alone. Solo Christianity
is a myth. The truth is that it's only by gathering
with others that we can spiritually be transformed.
Today is Palm Sunday. And today, Jesus begins
the most challenging week of his life. It is
a week that will lead to his own suffering and
death. And he does not go into that week alone.
Now, can you imagine if he had? Can you imagine
if Jesus had ridden into Jerusalem alone? No
disciples, no crowds, no people around him. Just
one man on a donkey heading into the hardest
week of his life. I mean, how much harder would
that week have been for Jesus if he had gone
it alone? What would have even become of the
Jesus movement, which we call Christianity, if
he had gone it alone? But of course, Jesus never
lived that way. And Jesus never called us to
live that way either. Because Jesus knew that
spiritual formation cannot happen in isolation.
It happens in relationship. It happens in community.
This is the picture that we're more familiar
with when we think of Palm Sunday. Crowds and
disciples and waving branches and people crying
Hosanna. Where did those people all come from?
Well, from the very beginning of Jesus's ministry,
he was constantly gathering groups of people
around him so that they could follow him and
so that they could be formed by him. Jesus did
not come just to save individuals. Jesus came
to create a community around himself. So therefore,
this is the takeaway point. Following Jesus.
Always means following Jesus with others. But
who are these others? Who are these people, especially
around Jesus on this day? Now, if you look closely,
what I want to suggest to you is it's not just
one group. There are, in fact, four or more groups
here. There's a psychologist by the name of Robin
Dunbar. And he has determined that there are
at least four circles of relationships in everyone's
life. And Jesus also has these four circles of
relationships in his own life. And we can see
them all on a day like Palm Sunday. And I've
given you guys some teaching notes. If you want
to follow along today to make sure you get the
most out of this, I encourage you to do so. Let's
start with that very first circle, which I'm
going to call Jesus's core group. This is what
Robin Dunbar would call Jesus' intimates. Did
you know, many people don't, did you know that
Jesus had a core group of friends that he was
especially close to, more than he was with the
others? Now, that core group definitely included
these three guys, Peter, James, and John. This
was Jesus's inner circle, right? They were given
exclusive access to some of the most important
and intimate moments of Jesus's life. So for
example, on the night that Jesus was arrested,
he was praying in the garden of Gethsemane. And
who did he have with him? Peter, James, and John.
And it's also very interesting that Jesus had
another little core group of people that he hung
out with all the time. In fact, the day before
Palm Sunday, where was Jesus? He was in Bethany.
What was going on in Bethany? Well, in Bethany,
there... were these three dear, dear friends
of Jesus, Mary, Martha and Lazarus. John tells
us that Jesus loved Mary and Martha and Lazarus.
That is Jesus's core group. These are his kind
of little core groups. And there are moments
in your life and moments in my life where you
don't need more and more people around you. You
just need the right people. You need that core
group of people. The people who know you, like
know you deeply. They know the good. They know
the bad. They know the ugly. And research would
say that really in these core groups, we can
only sustain like maybe three or five or six
people that are this intimate to our lives. The
Celtic Christians had a name for this kind of
a friend. It was an Anamkara or a soul friend,
someone who knows your innermost self. Some people,
granted, might feel like they don't have this
kind of a friend in their life. I really hope
that you all do have someone like this in your
life. Someone that you can be yourself with.
Someone you can bear your soul to. Because they
are absolutely essential for spiritual transformation.
Just as they were for Jesus, so too for us. Now,
let's zoom out from that picture. Remember that
picture? Let's zoom out one step from the core
to what I want to call The companions. Now, when
I speak of Jesus' companions, I'm not talking
about those three to five core. Now, I've expanded
it to include the twelve. The twelve apostles.
You see, Palm Sunday, in Matthew's version of
the gospel, we are told that as Jesus was making
his way to Jerusalem along the road, that he
took aside the twelve disciples by themselves
to talk to them. There are some things that Jesus
does not want to talk to the crowd about, but
he wants to talk to his 12 disciples about. In
this case, it was about all that awaited them
in Jerusalem, suffering and death and the cross.
This is a conversation for Jesus and his companions.
And all through the gospel, we see Jesus hanging
out with these 12, right? He eats with them.
He travels with them. And Mark 12 says, Jesus.
collected these 12 just so he could be with them.
I love that line, just to be with them. Now,
sociologists will say that this circle of friends
is usually around like 10 or 15 people big. And
these are the kind of people that we actually
do life with. Remember when Jesus said, love
one another. That's this group of people. Forgive
one another. That's this group of people. You
know, pray for one another. That's this group
of people. You know, bear one another's burdens.
That's this group of people where we do all that
one anothering. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said that
the Christian needs another Christian who speaks
God's word to him. He needs him again and again
when he becomes uncertain and discouraged for
by himself, he cannot help himself. There are
things you just can't see in yourself. And there
are moments you need someone else to remind you
who you are. So here's a question. Who's a question?
Who are your spiritual companions? Right? Who
walks this journey of faith with you? Because
Jesus didn't just have a core group. He had these
companions as well. Now, I want to zoom out.
Let's zoom out to the next circle. From the core
group, from the companions, to what I want to
call the crowd. And now I'm going to refer to
the crowd as disciples, which may sound really
confusing because Rob, didn't you just talk about
the 12 as disciples? Well, I call the 12 companions.
I'm calling the crowd disciples. And here's why.
Jesus had more than 12 disciples. In fact, again,
let's go to the Palm Sunday reading from Luke's
gospel this time. We are told that the whole
crowd of what? Disciples. It's a crowd of disciples
began to joyfully praise God. So there was this
core. There was his companions. But then we often
read about the crowd. The crowd. And look at
what this crowd is doing. I find it fascinating.
What are they doing? They are joyfully praising
God. They are celebrating Jesus. They're worshiping.
So therefore, in my mind, when I think of a crowd
and I think of worshiping, I, of course, think
of a church, right? And again, sociologists have
this rule that they call the rule of 150, which
basically says you can really only sustain about
150 relationships in total. In your life. Which
is interesting. Because you know what the kind
of average size. Of most churches is. It's around
150. Now Trinity is. A church that's bigger than
150. But for our purposes. Think of the crowd.
As this church. This is us. When we gather to
sing. When we gather to pray. And praise God.
To celebrate Jesus. When we're doing that. Something
important is happening in your spiritual formation.
And researchers have shown that people who participate
in what you're doing this morning in communal
worship, they have stronger predictors of long
-term faith, of resilience, and of emotional
well -being, right? You can, of course, over
here on your own encounter God all by yourself.
But something powerful happens when we gather
to do this thing we're doing as a crowd. James
K .A. Smith puts it this way. Worship is the
arena in which God recalibrates our hearts, reforms
our desires, and rehabituates our loves. When
we gather here week after week, that's what is
happening. Look to your left. Look to your right.
The people that are around you this morning,
they are essential to your spiritual growth.
Okay? So we have the core. We have the companions.
We have the crowd. But finally, we have the community.
The community is that larger group of people
with which you identify. For Jesus, of course,
his community. Was the Jewish faith. It was the
people of God. It was Israel. God's chosen people.
And on Palm Sunday. They were there too. Now
Jesus did not know who all those people were.
He did not know their names. He had never hung
out with them. And yet they were part of his
community. We read that a great multitude of
people were there that day. That had come to
the feast. Having heard that Jesus was coming
to Jerusalem. This is your people group. This
is Jesus's people group. They were gathered around
the markers of their ethnic identity, the city,
the temple, their worship, their shared life,
their identity. It's the story that, you know,
binds them all together, right? This is the widest
circle of all. And it's not people that you necessarily
know personally, but you belong to these people
nonetheless. You're part of something bigger
here at Trinity Streetsville. You're not just
part of this congregation. You're not even just
part of the Diocese of Toronto. You're not even
just part of the Anglican worldwide communion.
You are part of something bigger than that. You
are part of the great body of believers in Christ
all around the world. Sometimes sociologists
call this your tribe. Right? It's that group
of people that give you that sense of identity
and purpose. It's, you know, when you ask yourself
the question, what am I a part of? Who am I a
part of? That's your community. Dallas Willard
says that God's aim is to create an all inclusive
community of loving persons. That is the vision
of the church. It is not about where you attend.
That's your crowd. But it's where you belong.
And you belong to this community, whether you're
in Mississauga or Montreal or Mozambique. Okay,
so here we have it. The core, the companions,
the crowd, and the community. These are four
circles that shape you spiritually. But let me
ask you the question. Which one of these circles
do you think is most important to your spiritual
formation? They're all important. Jesus had all
these circles in his life. We need all these
circles in our life. But they don't all shape
us equally. Right? And here's the truth. You
can be part of a community and still remain unknown.
You can be part of a crowd. And still feel alone.
You can come to church on Sunday. And still remain.
Untransformed. And that's because research shows
us. That while large groups. Can give us a sense
of identity. Deep personal change. Happens in
those smaller circles. Greg Ogden says. Life
transformation takes place. In the context of
intentional relationships. Not in crowds. Intentional
small relationships. You can hear a sermon in
a crowd. You're hearing a sermon in a crowd right
now. But you're going to be formed more by your
core and by your companions. Those are the friends
who see you, know you, can challenge you, and
encourage you in ways that I cannot up here.
There's a guy named Ken Shigematsu who wrote
a book on spiritual formation. And in that book,
he talks about... Four kinds of friendships that
we're all going to need in order to grow spiritually.
Here's the first one. We need friends who show
up. Who are simply there consistently. They're
present and they are faithful. Not just when
it's convenient. Not just when life is easy.
But they're there when you need them. You see,
spiritual transformation takes a long time. And
so you need people who are going to be there.
And they don't disappear when things get hard.
So question number one, who shows up for you?
Who do you show up for? Secondly, we need friends
who lift us up. We need friends who encourage
us, friends who remind us of what is true and
point us back to the Jesus when we forget. Because
in our spiritual lives, we're going to have moments
of, you know, where we feel dejected and we're
going to lose our faith. And it's in those moments
we need people to come along and say, no, no,
no, no, no. That's not who you are. Remember
who you are. So question number two, who lifts
you up? Who do you lift up? Third, we need friends
who open up. We need friends who are willing
to be real and vulnerable and honest with us
and not just talk about surface level chit chat.
We can do that in a crowd. We can do that in
the community. But we need people with whom we
can name our struggles and we can take off our
masks and we can stop pretending. So question
number three. Who do you open up to? Who actually
knows your real life? And question number four,
or number four, is we need friends who speak
up. We need friends who are willing to tell us
the truth, even if that's a truth that we don't
want to hear. Hey, Rob, you're drifting. Hey,
it seems like you're stuck. Hey, I think God
has more for you than this. Left to ourselves,
we will minimize these kind of things, or we
will justify our problems, but real friends ask
the hard questions. So question four, do you?
have friends like that. These are the kind of
relationships that form us. Friends who show
up and lift us up and speak up and open up. We
don't need a hundred people like this in our
lives, but we do need a few because this is where
real transformation happens. Now, maybe you're
saying, oh, Rob, yeah, I agree. This sounds really
good, but I have to be honest with you. It's
hard for me to find friends like this. I don't
have. Friends like us. I have a community and
I have a crowd I'm part of. But yeah, it's hard.
I'm not trying to say this is easy. But just
as we close today, let me suggest just a couple
of ways that you might begin to build your own
inner circles this way. First, pray for companionship.
Pray to God. Say, God, would you send me the
kind of friends I need? God, I need a spiritual
friend. God, I need an Anamkara. Someone who
I can walk with and someone who I can grow with.
God cares about you. So pray and ask God for
a spiritual companion. Second, pursue those connections.
You know, don't just sit back. Take the initiative.
You know, don't wait for these friends just to
land in your lap. Why not invite someone to coffee
or start up a conversation with someone? Invite
someone to a meal. Because every meaningful friendship,
you know, starts with the first step. And I'm
not saying they're all going to turn into like,
you know, spiritual bosom buddies. But you got
to take some initiative. Thirdly, rather than
pining for a friend. Just start practicing being
a friend. Be the friend that you're looking for.
Someone who shows up and lifts up and opens up.
Be that to someone else. Fourthly, plug in. to
some fellowship. Take an intentional step to
inject yourself into community. See, here at
Trinity, we have ways of trying to help people
develop these kind of friendships. Right now,
you're gathered in a crowd, and that is wonderful,
but we also have ways of getting people into
smaller groups. We call them life groups. Life
groups are groups of 10, 12, 15 people that meet
all around our city, and I believe that is where
most of the transformation takes place. this
congregation, not in this moment on a Sunday
morning, but in those moments on Tuesday nights
or Thursday mornings in the coffee shop, whatever
they are. So if you're interested in being part
of a life group, please visit our welcome desk
after the service and ask about how you can start
exploring a life group that is a good fit for
you. And finally, finally, if you're trying to
find some people in your life, just remember
to keep prioritizing your relationship with God.
make sure you prioritize your friendship with
God because the deeper your relationship with
God becomes, the more you're going to be drawn
into relationship with others. You see, God himself
is a relationship. Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
And when we follow God, we find ourselves drawn
into relationship with others. So let's end where
we began. Jesus riding into Jerusalem, surrounded
by people, a core, his companions, a crowd, and
his community. He didn't walk into the hardest
week of his life alone, and neither should you.
If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want
to go far, go together. This is the way of Jesus.
Amen. Thanks for listening to this week's episode
of Trinity Sermons. This sermon was recorded
at Trinity Church Streetsville in Mississauga,
Ontario on March 29, 2026.