Jesus

Good morning. Hey, welcome. My name is Jeffrey. I am the lead pastor here.

If this is your first first Easter at Beltway, welcome. It is my first Easter as well. So, I mean, I've been on staff here like 20-something almost 20 years, but it's my first time to ever get to preach Easter. I finally kicked David off the stage. I have won. I am victorious over him. I have slain the giant. The story with me and David is opposite of David and Goliath. So, he's still alive. He was in first service, okay? Didn't really slay the giant David. But, I am I am so excited to be here.

And And this Easter it has been a time of uh personal revelation since Thursday. Sarah, my wife, whenever we were talking about what we're going to wear, cuz that matters a lot when you're going to take a picture, she told me I had to dress nicer than I normally do and I couldn't wear black. And I was like, "Listen, lady, you get one rule, not two." Um Alas, I am wearing a blazer today. And I guess I didn't realize how bad I dress because I am wearing tennis shoes and a T-shirt and I've had 1,000 people say, "Oh, you look so nice." I'm like, "I dress like a hobo, I guess. Like, what is wrong with this?"

Uh but I I love Easter. It's It's one of those times that even if you didn't grow up in the church, there are some stories that that just people know in secular culture. They are They're just known. We know about Jonah getting eaten by a whale and then spit up, right? That's a common story. Noah, he built an ark. Everybody thought he was crazy. Builds ark in the middle of the desert and then rain comes, floods all over. Like, that's a It's a story that that people know. It's a It's a common story. There's the one that I've really tried to teach my kids lately so that they get it is a There's a man named Elisha and he's walking and some kids call him bald and then he calls down two bears from the woods and they maul 42 kids. And I keep telling my girls like, "You tread lightly. Like, stop saying I'm bald."

And so, Easter is one of those stories though. Easter is one of those that that even in secular culture, the story of Easter is known. That Jesus went to the cross and he died and he rose again. And the hard part with stories that we know that if we know a lot of the details, we'll feel like we've heard them a bunch. It's easy to kind of just fly over like the magnitude of the story. And with Easter, we do that. And we miss like, I want to invite us to do something today. I want us to imagine like we're experiencing this for the first time. Not Not a story we've heard a bunch of like we're experiencing it for the very first time.

Think about what it was like for the early church. That Jesus had walked up to them and he'd gone, "Hey, you. Uh I'm the son of God and you should follow me." I don't know if you've ever had somebody walk up to you and tell you that they were the son of God. I haven't. And they did. And then they gave up everything. And they followed him. And they began to just go where he went and listen to what he would say. They watched him stand there one day, spit on the ground, make a mud pie, put it in a guy's eye and it It's blind man healed. They watched him tell the lame who hadn't been able to walk to walk. They watched him him yell at a tomb. And this guy that'd been dead 4 days, they watched him walk out. Like, they they It was Jesus. And then they watched him get arrested and go to the cross and be put in a tomb. You imagine what that would have felt like? Them standing out there seeing their savior put into this tomb. You imagine the despair? Imagine like how you would have felt. Like, is this it? Like, is this the end of the story? I gave up everything and I guess this Is this it? I do. Probably not at that level, for sure not at the level they were feeling that. But, I I get those questions.

If you've been around Beltway very long, we're about to get way more vulnerable than you normally get on an Easter. So, just enjoy. It's my mic. I can do what I want. Uh If you've been around very long, you've heard me talk about my wrestles with anxiety. It is like not the clinical anxiety, which is a real thing and people can go to the doctor and they can get their body put back into order. Mine is Mine is just that I super duper love to be in control. And anytime I'm not in control, it bothers me. And God seems to feel like he wants to be in control more than I get to be in control. It's a wrestle, but what happens then is I begin to feel anxious. In the last 10 days, I've been on an up and down roller coaster of anxiety. And on Wednesday of this week, I was finishing the sermon. I'd gotten all the back end of it done. I knew everywhere we were going to go on the back part of it. And I couldn't get into the message. And I felt the pressure of this being the first Easter I've ever preached here. And I felt the pressure like I want to Like, I want to tell a funny story. I got great stories. I want people to laugh. I felt the pressure like I need this really great illustration that grabs people. And I'm sitting there wrestling with the Lord going, "God, what do you want me to talk about?" And he's like, "Buddy, I think you know." And I was like, "No, tell me, God." And he's like, "You know." I was like, "But, God, I super don't want to talk about being anxious on Easter." That does not sound fun. And so, here I am talking about being anxious on Easter cuz he usually gets his way.

And the hard part for me is on Wednesday when I was getting to this place, I was asking that question. Like, "God, is this all it ever is?" Like, is this the end of the story? Am I always going to feel this way? I felt this way for a long time. Is this how it's going to be? I felt him go, "No. It's not." But, we often get to those places. And maybe for you Maybe for you it's not anxiety. That's not the place that you begin to ask God the questions. Maybe it's in your marriage and you've had all the discussions. You've had the same fight over and over and over again. And you're still not where you want to be. And you sit there one night and you go, "Is this how it's just going to be forever?" Maybe it's that you had a kid that walked away from your family and and they're just estranged right now and you have differing viewpoints and there's fights and arguments and you're like, "God, this is my child. Is this Is this the destiny that our relationship is going to have? Is this Is this the end? Is this how it's going to be?" Maybe it's down to like your very identity as you look and you've got this person over here and they got the nicer car than you. And this person, they got the nicer house. And that marriage, they've never fought before in their whole life. And you're sitting there going, "God, is this my life? Like, is this my lot in life?"

What I love about Easter is Easter is a declaration, "No." Easter is a declaration that things do not have to stay in that place. And I want to show you. Uh when we met, I was a really bad alcoholic. One of the things I did um while I was under the influence is I like to pretend I was a Christian in a way. Um Not really pretend, but No, I said I was a Christian. Um but I was never never really doing what I was supposed to be doing. So, when I was with her, that was my main thing was I did a lot of drinking. One of the things that we did We We attempted to go to church, um but it was not We weren't really We didn't really have that fruit of the spirit. Um We just weren't really doing what we were supposed to be doing. Wasn't able to control my temper a lot. I had a lot of a lot of internal issues, yeah.

So, I grew up in the church as a kid. When I went to college, I decided that all of that was nonsense. And I was an atheist probably from 18 to a year ago. And when we met, we were both in relationships at the time. Um And we left those relationships to come together. We got married. We weren't going to church. I wasn't a believer. Um And I felt a lot of guilt after we got married about the way that we had treated our partners that we were with beforehand. Um And so, when we started coming to church, I heard about re-engage. And I went on the website before we started actually going to the open group. I saw a testimony that was almost identical to our story. Like, you know, some things were different. Um But, the wife in the testimony, she'd been an atheist and the first time she stepped into a church was to go to re-engage. We started going to open group. Um We had some issues during that time that led us to separate. And I uh called Mike Hill and we met with him. And then after that, we we remained separated. Um But, we still went to re-engage. We finished re-engage. And then we moved back in together.

So, we had separated and I went to stay with my dad. And while I was at my dad's house, I just prayed. I was in the shower and I prayed. And I had asked for forgiveness for the way that our relationship went, the way we treated people, how we had hurt people and let people down. But, I never accepted forgiveness. And so, in that moment, I did. I accepted forgiveness and I felt the Holy Spirit, which I'd never ever felt in my, you know, growing up in the church. And And then from there on out, I was really focused on my relationship with God and then continuing re-engage, us coming together and um trying to focus on God first and then each other.

When we were separated, I It was really difficult for me. We were very very close to getting a divorce. Um Actually, I took the ring from her. And she had filed for divorce. Um And I mean, we were That was it. We were done. And then she ended up coming back over. What I saw I I saw a big change in her that day. I hadn't really been seeing her a whole lot at the time. But, when she came over, it's like she just had this She had this glow about her. I knew something something in her had changed. And And just just seeing that in her, seeing that change in her, like it made me feel something familiar. Um Like, it was just like this spark. I've never really been like taught on like the Christian perspective of how to treat your wife. That was kind of eye-opening to see, you know, how you're supposed to love your wife like Jesus loved the church and that's one thing I've been focusing on is instead of focusing on serving myself, I've been focusing on serving my wife, putting my wife first and

So, since I've I guess joined the family again, um accepting God, started believing, praying, putting giving up some control because I'm a huge control freak. I've noticed I'm more patient with my kids, understanding that they're little people with their feelings, too, more encouraging of them. My son is getting baptized in April and I'm excited about that now, whereas before I would have been like, "Oh my gosh, another another thing that we don't agree on." I used to be so focused on controlling everything and it just used to be just a lot of emotions that I would bottle up inside and they'd come out in really negative ways. But, one of the things that um especially like through re-engage, through boot camp, and going to church regularly that I've learned to do is just I don't I have no control. So, I give it to God and my life has been just been so much more peaceful. Other couples that are struggling, like infidelity, alcohol, substance use, no matter how messy your relationship has been, like our relationship is really messy, but we were able to repair the mess that we made with God. We could not have done it alone.

Their story is this reality that the resurrection reveals God's power and proves our life doesn't have to stay the same. The resurrection and the reality of Easter, it should radically change our entire world. It should change our entire life. It is not just this one singular moment in human history and then we move past it. It should change us entirely. So, I want us to look at it together. If you will, find a Bible, open up to Matthew 27. We're going to be at the end of Matthew 27 starting in verse 61 and then we'll jump into Matthew 28.

While you turn over there though, let me just really quickly give us a reminder of what has gone on in the life of Jesus over the last little while up to this point. So, Jesus, he has the last supper with all of his disciples and then he goes to the garden and then he gets betrayed by Judas and then he gets arrested and he's taken to the high priest's house and then the high priest then gives like they're the then they begin to like put him in trial and then his trial goes really weird because the at this time they could release a prisoner and and the Jewish people chose to keep Jesus and let Barabbas, this bad person, go free. And so then Jesus is strapped to this post and he's whipped with this this brutal whip. It had shards of glass and rock in it and it was made to stick in your skin and so when you pulled it out it would rip out chunks of flesh. And then he has a crown of thorns shoved on his head. And then he's he's humiliated and stripped and they they make him walk with this big log that he is going to be nailed to and he he can't even get all the way up to the place that he's going to be crucified. He gets there, he's crucified, it's a brutal death. Crucifixion's horrible because the way you die not from blood loss or anything, you die and the whole point of it is to suffer. And so you suffocate to death. You lose the ability to breathe and it's a long process. His body's taken off. His body's taken off the cross. He's put in a tomb and that's where we pick up our story in Matthew 27 starting in verse 61.

Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there sitting opposite the tomb. The next day, that is after the day of preparation, the chief priest and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, "Sir, we remember how that impostor said while he was still alive, after 3 days I will rise. Therefore, order the tomb to be made secure until the third day lest his disciples go and steal him away and tell the people he is risen from the dead and the last fraud will be worse than the first." Pilate said to them, "You have a guard of soldiers. Go make it as secure as you can." So, they went and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone and setting a guard.

So, we see two women here, the two Marys are here. And what has happened is is the religious people and the political people, they knew that Jesus had said, "Hey, in 3 days after when I die, 3 days later I'm going to rise again." And they wanted to make sure there were no shenanigans that went on with the disciples and Jesus' body. And so they put guards outside of this tomb. And this tomb was sealed with like a little small rock. No. This stone that was in front of the tomb would have weighed between 1 and 1/2 and 2 tons. Jesus' body sealed in a tomb guarded by Roman soldiers. Like it is he's dead and this feels final. They would have seen his body, the the early church would have seen his body put in there and would have gone like, "This is it. Like he's in there." And he's guarded by all these soldiers. Thankfully, they didn't have to wait long for him to show back up.

Starting in now verse 1 of chapter 28. Now, after the Sabbath toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow. And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. But, the angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he is risen as he said. Come and see the place where he lay, then go quickly and tell his disciples he is risen from the dead. And behold, he's going before you to Galilee. There you'll see him. See, I have told you." So, they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy and ran to tell his disciples. And behold, Jesus met them and said, "Greetings." And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshipped him. And then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee and there they will see me."

The Marys are back. But, notice their posture. We know the end of the story. Remember, we're we're trying to pull ourselves back and experience this for the first time. So, they they don't go to the tomb expecting a resurrected savior. They go to, if you look at the text, it says they go to see the tomb. Not to see Jesus. This is the way Mark describes what they were doing. When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb and they were saying to one another, "Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?" These women came to the tomb to mourn, not to celebrate. They came to grieve.

God's greatest work is often where hope seems absent. Often it is in the very times where where hope just feels impossible that God shows up and he shows off. That is where they were at. They are they are worried, they're stressed, they're anxious, they're sad, they're full of grief. And then they get to it, they get to the tomb, and then an earthquake hits. Great. And then they look up and there is an angel there. And I noticed something this time for the first time in all the times I've read the Easter story. I I've always pictured it whenever whenever they get there and they see the tombs rolled away and the earthquake hits, they see the angel, I always picture it like like this angel being super angelic, right? Like just big, tall, beautiful angel with a weapon and he's standing there and he's like, "Alas, hello." The posture is so different. If you look at it, it says the the earthquake hits and then they see the angel and the angel is sitting on the tomb. Howdy, ladies. And then I mean, think about what IT WOULD HAVE BEEN LIKE FOR THEM. SO, he leads off with uh "Hey, don't be afraid." You think? Jesus was dead. Earthquake just hit and they see an angel there. They had every right in that moment to be afraid. And yet the angel leads off with, "Do not be afraid." Why? Why did that matter so much in that moment? Why is the first thing he told them like, "Hey, don't be afraid"? Because they had a calling and a responsibility on their life that they they had a role to play in declaring that Jesus was alive. They had a purpose and they couldn't let fear stop them from doing what God had for them. Fear can easily keep us from stepping into what God has for us. And now let me tell you this, I don't I don't care or know where you're at in your spiritual journey. I can tell you this, God has a plan and a purpose for you and a calling for you. And it can be fear that stops us from doing it. Fear of like looking different. Cuz you know what? Really chasing after Jesus, you do look different. It it can it can be a little fearful for us to raise our kids different than everyone else. We can have a little fear of looking like a different employee or or having a different There's a fear can keep us so easily from what God has for us. And so the angel leads with, "Hey, don't be afraid."

But then like then you got to go tell people about Jesus. You got to go tell the disciples where where they can where they can see him, where they can meet him. And so they go on their journey and they start to go find the other disciples to tell them to meet Jesus in Galilee and they see Jesus. And this is another funny part of the story. Like Jesus in this moment does not go uh children Marys sisters I am Jesus and I am not dead anymore. He says "Greetings." If you go back to the original language, this is basically like "Hey, what's up?" This is Texan for howdy. I promise this is true. This is like Texan for howdy. And Jesus, he they saw him dead. They see him and he HE "HEY, WHAT'S UP, MARY? It's me, Jesus." And then and then he does the same thing. Hey, fear not. And then you you got a role to play.

But notice what they do first. They see Jesus and he really casually and what I love about Jesus saying greetings right there is just how relational it shows us Jesus is. In this moment, he knows the two Marys and he's like, "Hey, it's me. Hi." And then they fall at his feet and they begin to worship. Because when we encounter Jesus, it leads to a response in our life. An encounter with Jesus always leads to response in our life. When we really and truly meet him, we must do something. And then the first command that Jesus gives after he says fear not is, "Hey, you got to go and tell people about me." When we've met the risen savior, we can't keep it to ourselves. I mean, think about it. If the resurrection is true, if if Jesus walked out of that tomb, how can I not tell people about it? Like I mean, if it's really true that Jesus was dead and then he is alive and he overcame death and he took on the sins of the world and then he rose again. If that is true, how can I keep that to myself? How can I not tell people? How can it not be the thing that I lead with? Hi, I'm Jeffrey. Have you met Jesus? And that doesn't mean I'm going to kill you. I mean, like let's talk about our savior.

But one of the things that happens a lot with the Easter story and the other big ones I even talked about at the beginning is we get to this place because of the world around us and just because of our own natural things is we get to this place that we're skeptical about the reality of them. We're skeptical did this stuff really happen? And if that's you and you hear that Easter story and you're skeptical, you're like, "Did that really happen?" Welcome to the club. I mean, this is one of Jesus' own disciples. Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands and put out your hand and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe." Like the the struggle with believing this story is it's real and and we can go, "Well, I mean, but yeah, like did it really happen?" Because if Easter really happened, then my life has to be radically different tomorrow. If Easter really happened, then things have to look different.

And there's so much actual evidence of Jesus' resurrection. So, we're going to get a little heady for a minute, okay? So, what one of the things that is said often is that well, Jesus didn't really die. That's how he rose from the dead. He He just like went into a coma. If there is one thing the Romans were really good at, it was killing people. They were experts. They knew the maximum amount of pain they could get somebody to and then help them die. You You don't find people that were crucified that didn't die. Crucifixion led to death. So, so it doesn't make any sense to say that Jesus fell into a coma. They would have known Jesus was dead dead. But then they shoved a spear in his side and we see what pours out of his body confirming he's definitely dead. And then they take him and they put him in a tomb. And they put him in a the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. And this is a guy that's a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin. He is an important person in society at this time. And if you were going to lie about the resurrection and you were going to fake the whole thing, you would not use a prominent person in society as the as the person who's going to help you do this bamboozling of everyone else. You would have done it with like some random nobody. You would have put it in the Jeffrey Turner tomb, not the Joseph of Arimathea tomb. Because otherwise, the odds of you getting caught in your trick are high.

And then and then another argument against the resurrection is well, maybe the disciples just stole the body. Let's take this for a second. In the book of Matthew and in the book of Mark, it says that once Jesus was arrested, all but two disciples run and hide. You're telling me that the rest of those disciples all of a sudden in three days got real tough all of a sudden and went and thought, "You know what? We'll overcome the Roman guards. We'll take them all like we'll take them all on." They're fishermen. They're going to hit them with a pole? Like it was not what they were good at by any means. And the disciples wouldn't have been in a place to even go after and and overcome the Roman guards and then steal the body.

But probably the greatest evidence of the resurrection of Jesus is who was told first. If you were going to to lie about Jesus being resurrected, you know who you would not use at any level as your first witness? Women. You wouldn't have. And before you like take offense to that, it's pastordavidawele.org. So, like you wouldn't have. In this day and age in society, the very last people you would have used is women. The at that they were looked so lowly upon that you could not even like their their voice was not admissible in court. They could not be a witness. So, you wouldn't have used these two women to be the first people that see the risen savior, that have the responsibility to go declare that he is not dead, that he's alive. You just wouldn't do it. But I do love what it shows us about the nature and the heart of God. Like I I know that it shows how he views you as a woman. And as a girl dad with two girls of my own, I want them to be all that they're called to be. And we look and see that Jesus chose to reveal himself first to two women, which is incredible. And then the disciples begin to talk about Jesus being resurrected and they do it in the same place that Jesus was crucified, which you would never do that cuz all it would take is the Romans pulling out Jesus' body and going, "Look, he's actually dead." And then you would have gone off into the middle of nowhere and you would have gone in this far off city to begin declaring that that Jesus was resurrected and they don't. They do it right there in Jerusalem.

And I know maybe maybe you're at the place even with your skepticism you're like, "But all this comes from the Bible." Did you know that the Bible is the most historically accurate document in all of human history? The only one that that experts will ever point to as an argument against the historic historicity of the Bible is Homer's Iliad. Now, let's look at those two together. The Iliad has about 2,500 copies. The Bible has 5,800 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. If you include other language, it's close to 24,000 manuscripts. The earliest copy we have of Homer's Iliad is about 400 years after it was written. The earliest copies of the Bible that we have are about 25 to 50 years from the original date. I don't know if you know the difference in 25 and 400. It's many much difference. And then when you go to like see the differences in scripture over time, it is 99.5% accurate from the very earliest manuscripts and almost every change is a grammatical change. Like when you put the Bible up in literary criticism, it holds up over time and has for thousands of years. And it's the exact same telling the same story, which is he rose. I mean, this this this declaration of Easter, it has not changed over time. It is the same. And the declaration is he was dead and he's not dead and that changes everything about everything in our lives. We cannot stay the same knowing that Easter is true and we can trust the reality and the power of the resurrection. And our response has to be the same as the two Marys. They fall at his feet and worship. Cuz you know why? If he was dead and then he wasn't, like how can I not worship with all that I am? You want to know why at Beltway we worship the way that we do is cuz I believe he was dead and then he's not. I believe that he he was in that tomb and he was there for three days and then he walked out of that tomb and everything changed with the resurrection. And so my Sunday morning should be all worship, my Wednesday night, my Friday afternoon. Like worship is a response to the risen savior. You don't have to sing good. I don't care. I sit by Pastor David a lot, okay? I know that's true. It It's just our posture has to be you're worthy of everything. You're worthy OF ALL THAT I AM. You're worthy of every breath in my lungs.

And then he calls us to follow and the resurrection calls us to follow him, not know about him. We're great at knowing about God. Like this is the middle of the Bible Belt. We are the belt buckle of the Bible Belt, one of the most religious areas in all of the world. It's easy for us to know about God and not be radically altered by this. Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet he shall live and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?" I mean, that's that's powerful stuff. AND IT'S NOT JUST IT'S NOT JUST A GET OUT OF HELL free card. The resurrection isn't just about not going to hell. That is a great piece of it. The most important piece, I would say. BUT IT'S NOT JUST ABOUT THAT. SEE, MY TOMORROW should be different because of the resurrection. My next week should be because this is what Jesus said. He said, "I came that the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I'm the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep." We only find life through the resurrection of Jesus. If If want a better marriage, more Jesus. You want to be a better friend, more Jesus. A better parent, more Jesus. You want anything better in your life, every good and perfect gift comes from the Father who is who it does not change. He doesn't change from the moment Jesus walked out of that grave, he's the same today. And my life should be radically altered by the risen savior. The way I navigate big stuff, big moments in my marriage, but it's not just that. We we can be good at like going to him with the big stuff when our marriage is in crisis or we lost our job or we we we're great at going to him when things feel like they're burning down. You know what he cares about? Me feeling anxious on a Wednesday afternoon. He cares about like you wrestling with grief and not knowing how to how to navigate it. Or needing joy and not knowing where where do I get that? Like he cares about those things. Not just the big stuff. And so next week we're going to kick off a new series. It's called triggered. And in this series we're going to talk about how we navigate our emotions. Cuz he cares about those. Because the resurrection changed those. See, when sin came into the world, it broke that part of our life too cuz it broke everything. And Jesus came so that we could have abundant life in every single area and we only find a life through Jesus.

So the question today is, what are we going to do with the reality of the resurrection? If it really happened. If he walked out of that grave. Then everything about my life should be different. Cuz this is how scripture describes us. You however are not in this flesh but in the spirit if in fact the spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you although the body is dead because of sin the spirit is life because of righteousness. If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you. Think about what that verse just said. It said the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is in you. If you've said yes to Jesus. Jesus was dead. And then he wasn't. And Romans tells us that that same power is in every single Jesus follower. That is the power of the resurrection. If Jesus if Jesus walked out of that tomb then the empty tomb changes everything. Addiction doesn't get the last word. Difficulty does not get the last word. Stress doesn't get the last word. Anxiety doesn't get the last word. Fear, hopelessness. You fill in the blank for you. I don't know what it's like for you, but I can tell you this, nothing gets the last word even to death. O death, where is your victory? Death, where is your sting? There is one last word and it is the empty tomb. The empty tomb is the final word that shows who our God is. So the question today is like, what are we going to do with that? If he walked out of the tomb. Like what are we going to do? How how can I stay the same? At any level. How can I not be radically altered?

And so there's like two groups of people in here today. I'm not naive enough to look in a room this size and at the north campus and think there every single person has said yes to Jesus. If we go back to that verse in Romans, it says if Christ is in you then you have the same power that raised Christ Jesus from the dead. If you've never said yes to Jesus. The empty tomb can be your empty tomb as well. The only reason I I can walk out of the grave is because Jesus did first. I can't do it on my own. I'm me. And if you've never said yes to Jesus. I want you to know that there is life and life abundant found in one singular place. And it's in Jesus. And it's only in Jesus and it's only through Jesus that we find life. And I so want you to to meet the savior that walked out and said, "Hey, greetings. It's me, Jesus. I did what I said I was going to do."

And maybe you're one that has said yes to Jesus and you need more resurrection power in your life. Me. Wrestling with anxiety. I need more of his power in my life. He overcame it all. He walked out of the grave. I don't know what that might be for you. I know this, what feels final isn't final. Jesus rose. That's the final word. He took on the sins of the world. Three days later he walked out of the grave. So if you will, we're going to take just a moment. I know we're a little bit late cuz we started late, but if you'll put your stuff down and close your eyes. I'm going to give us a chance to just respond to him. We're going to talk about those two groups of people.

If you're here and you've never said yes to Jesus. I want you to know that it is only through him that we walk out of that grave. But it's easy and hard at the same time. It is us just declaring I need you. And I can't do it on my own. And then us declaring tomorrow I need you and I can't do it on my own and then the next day and the next day in a lifestyle of going I need you. I can't do it on my own. But in that you will find life. So if that's you and you want to say yes to Jesus. Uh all I'm going to ask you to do in a second is raise your hand and then I'm going to pray for you. And there's there's nothing magic that happens when you raise your hand. It's just sometimes our bodies need to move to remember what we're doing. So if that's you, if you will, raise your hand and I'm going to pray for you. Pray with you. God, we thank you. And we thank you that you offer us saving grace in Jesus. I don't understand it. It makes no sense. I know me. But God, I thank you that you sent Jesus. And that he took on the sins of the world. And that he walked out of that tomb so that I can have life. God, for every person that raised their hand at south or north. We just ask God that there would be a recognition that it's only you. And then tomorrow recognition that it's only you.

And now for anyone else. If you're in that place that you're holding on to some stuff. That you you want to to lay some things at his feet. Like for me this week with anxiety. That's you, I'm going to ask you to raise your hand and I'm going to pray with you and for you. Can be anything. And I thank you for every person raising their hand. I thank you God that the the big things matter to you, but the small things matter to you cuz we matter to you. And so God, I ask that you would give us together the boldness to come to you with those things. Cuz the resurrection shows your power. And then it also changes us today. Cuz if that is who you are, that is what you will do in our lives. So we grab hold of that this Easter Sunday. It's in your name we pray. Amen.