Relate Easter Sunday!

IT IS FINISHED, BUT IT’S NOT OVER

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary
Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been
removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon
Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said,
“They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!” John 20:1-2

 John 20:5

Then the disciples went back to where they were staying. John 20:10

Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she
bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in
white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and
the other at the foot. They asked her, “Woman, why are you
crying?” “They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t
know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, John 20:11-14

Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have
seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her. John 20:18

1. Remember the reason

Sin is the root cause of all  pain.

To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing
very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate
fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must
not eat from it,’ Cursed is the ground because of you; through
painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life.                 Genesis 3:16-17

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Romans  3:23

Until you see yourself as a sinner 

you’ll never recognize your need for a savior

2. Remember the Cross

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and
through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things
on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through His blood, shed on the cross. Colossians 1:19-20

Jesus didn’t just suffer; He suffered for us.

Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we
considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for
our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on
him, and by his wounds we are healed. Isaiah 53:4-5

3. Remember the empty tomb

Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb… John 20:11

Learn to lean -in and look for Jesus

God is with us and working all things for good 

Thank you for listening to the Relate Community Church podcast! Don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. If today’s message spoke to you, share it with a friend or leave us a review to help spread the word. To learn more about Relate Community Church, visit us at www.relatecommunity.com. You are always welcome here, and remember—you are loved

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Amen, amen. Can you just say so be it God? Sometimes you just gotta get into alignment with the Lord. He's got plans and he's got ways that are higher than ours. They're better than ours, and we have to just say so be it God. Amen, Lord, amen, amen. Well, happy Easter, everybody. Is there anybody excited to be

Worship Response And Welcome

SPEAKER_00 0:26

at church? How about that? Okay. First off, I want to say welcome to church. I'm so glad that you're here. And then I also want to say, um, I don't see many empty chairs. We're trying to figure that out right now. So the ushers, if they ask for the chair next to you, they might need it. Someone said I think we need three services, but I thought we could do it in two. You just have to sit by somebody. I know you don't want to sit by somebody. Awesome. Let's give it up for Jesus one last time. Come on. Awesome. And can we give it up for the band? What about the band worship team always does an awesome job? Awesome. Thank you guys. You're you are amazing. So talented, such talented people on the actually, the whole dream team does an amazing job. It's about 120 people or so every uh week. They're serving every month to just do an awesome job serving us, serving the church, serving the Lord together. So, with that said, I'm excited to jump into an Easter message today. But before I do that, I want to look right into the camera and just tell everybody watching online how much you mean to us and that it means the world that you chose to click and to watch with us, to serve with us, to uh celebrate the goodness of Easter and the power of resurrection today. And uh, can we do something in the house? Can we in the room? Can we just give it up for everybody watching online? Let them know we care about them. I feel like it's impossible for anyone to be at home because they're all right here today, and in both services are full today. Uh, but there are always people watching online all over the world, and so that means a lot to us. So today I'm gonna dive right in. Hang on to that Easter survey card. Somebody asked, why do you need all this stuff from us today? We do an Easter survey because it's the day when you're all here. We ask all the questions when you're here. So it's your fault. Nope, you get to answer the questions. But at the end of service, I'm gonna ask you to pull that back out. So keep it close. Today's message is titled, It Is Finished, but it's not over. If you're taking notes, uh, I love that. We did this the probably the one. Uh also, usually on Christmas, we don't do printed notes, but we are a note-taking church. So if you want to do notes, pull them out. You can we we do have the um the online notes available if you go to the uh to the app. Those of you who know how to do those things,

Naming The Pain We Carry

SPEAKER_00 3:01

I usually get lost in it. So today I think is the perfect day to address something that all of us um deal with. All of us carry, some of us more than others, and some of us today more than ever. Um, I want to talk about when life gives us pain. And today there might be somebody in the room. In fact, I can guarantee there are people in the room that are carrying, it may feel like you walked in today and everybody's celebrating, and you just don't, you can't get it. You can't feel it because life's been heavy, life's been hard, life's been a struggle. And uh today I want to offer hope to you. I want to let you know that even in the pain, even in the darkest of times, it's not over. That God's got more for you, that God has a plan for you. And if you still have a pulse, he still has a plan. So uh this week as I was preparing for this message, it bec it become more and more obvious to me as I get older that when you hit a certain age, and I won't call out anyone in the room, but I'll just let you know I'm 46 years old, and when I hit probably 39, there's like weird pains that pop up, and all of a sudden you have pains that you don't even know where they came from. And if you're laughing, you know, you know. So don't you're you're telling on yourselves. I don't even have to tell you. Sometimes they say you just woke up and had pain and you don't know what happened, you just slept and then hurt yourself, or you sneezed, or you yawned, and all of a sudden it's just it's just I'm not right after I yawned this morning. Pain happens. We live in a world that's full of pain. There are those in the room who uh you want more pain than everybody else has. You look for that optional pain. This morning in the first service, I saw Trey. Trey does Spartan runs. Trey says, give me more pain. Um, Leo, where's Leo? Where are you at, Leo? Leo fought last night and uh I think he came in wounded today. Yeah, yeah. Some stitches and some he just says, I want more pain. I don't understand it fully, but um that's the life of some, right? Others of us say, I'm not gonna run, I'm not gonna have any, I'm not running unless somebody's chasing me and I don't want any pain. But listen, whether it's those types of pain or whether it's the pain that life gives us from things like betrayal, thing maybe it's abuse, maybe it's the uh the loss of someone that we really loved. So that that happens. That's what life gives us. Um, maybe it's the pain of being left out, being feeling like you've been left out. In fact, um, psychologist studies are showing that there's great pain that comes from even being left on read. When you text someone, you can see they read it. You feel rejected because they're not calling you back or texting, they're not responding. Am I not worth it? There's all kinds of pain that we pick up and it sticks to us and we carry it. It might be a diagnosis, it might be a health issue or uh something clinical, even depression, divorce. Listen, there are things that you think no one can understand, or that no one can see you where you are. But I want to offer you hope today and say this that even in the middle of the darkest of days, God sees you and he gives us hope. He gives us real and lasting hope in the middle of that. So I want us to look today. If you have your Bible, you can open it up to the book of John, and we're gonna look at the resurrection morning. And I think there's a lot of hope to be found right there as the disciples go to the tomb and find that he's not in the tomb. That in itself is a lot to celebrate. That in itself offers a lot of uh hope and a lot of truth. But I want to show you a few pointed things as we start with John chapter 20, verse 1. If you're ready, say I'm ready.

John 20 While It Was Dark

SPEAKER_00 7:00

Here we go. Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark. Everybody say, While it was still dark. Can I tell you this? Right there in the in the first line, we have hope. Because even when we are still in the dark, even when darkness seems to have uh surrounded us, there's more to the story. We know that at this moment on that Easter, first Easter Sunday morning, the disciples have experienced a week that feels like their life has been flipped upside down. It feels like a week ago everything was good. A week ago, the city, people came out of their houses and chanted and had a parade for Jesus, threw down their coats and waved palm branches and celebrated this king. And now he's been arrested, accused, beaten, tortured, crucified. He's died, he's in the tomb. This story feels over, it's done. And on top of all of that, they're about to get to the tomb and realize he's not there, and it's it's gonna feel like a bad thing. Sometimes the bad thing, sometimes the good thing feels bad because everything's been going bad. And we don't know how to recognize the good and in the midst of the bad. So watch this. In in verse 2, it says, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple. Notice two, Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one uh Jesus loved, and said they had taken the Lord out of the tomb. They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him. So this is where things feel like, what's going on? It's bad stuff's happening. Also, notice that the guy who wrote this, the guy who wrote this chapter calls himself the one Jesus loved. Because we know that's John, and he writes the book and says, Well, there was Peter, and then he doesn't refer to himself as John, he refers to himself as the one Jesus loved. Just saying. Mary Magdalene is um struggling in this moment. She comes back and tries to get some solace from the disciples. Let's figure this out. There's all it's like when life gives you the worst thing and then it gets even worse. Sometimes that happens. Watch what happens. What do the disciples do? They're gonna run and go check it out themselves. So Peter and the other disciple, you know who that is, started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter. Again, John, come on, man. I can imagine them arguing over who got there first. No, I touched it first. No, I touched it. Well, I will show Peter. I will write the story of what happened and make sure everybody knows that I beat Peter. Whoever reads this letter will know. I reached the tomb first. It says he bent over. So here, watch this. The men, they bend over, looking at the strips of linen lying there, but they did not go in. So at some point they're investigating what's going on here, but I imagine that it says he bent over. They look in, they see what they can see kind of from the outside, and then in verse 10, it says the disciples went back to where they were staying. Can I tell you that today maybe you came looking for something? Maybe you came to investigate. Maybe you're in the middle of pain, struggle, the darkest day, and you bend over, look, and what is tempting to do is if you don't feel or see or experience anything that is worthwhile, all you just a few a few linens over there. The temptation is that in the middle of our pain, we take a quick look around and then we just

The Temptation To Go Back Home

SPEAKER_00 10:59

go back home. We take a we take a quick look around and then we just go back to where we were. We just need to go back to the house so we can continue mourning, try to figure out how do we deal with all of this trouble. I imagine that they they had like we do, when something bad happens, we kind of talk it to death, we mull it over, we chew on it, and we re-experience it and retell the story. And I can't believe they did that when they took Jesus, and then we could we couldn't do anything to stop it. And what are we gonna do? And then I can imagine all this is going on, and they're trying to figure out like we don't have time to investigate, we don't have time to look for anything. Let's just go back to the house and do what we were doing. That's the temptation in painful times is to not look a little bit deeper. Today you may be wondering where where God is in the middle of your pain. I think we're given a little hope from this next verse in verse 11. It says, Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. So now you got the disciples who came, looked, they went home. And now Mary. Mary looks, watch this. It says that as she wept, she's still mourning, she bent over and looked to look into the tomb just as the men did, and saw two angels in white seated where Jesus' body had been. So I'll just say off the top that there's a difference between men looking and women looking for

Mary Magdalene Looks Deeper

SPEAKER_00 12:23

something. It happens to me all the time that Angel will say, Hey, can you go in the house or go in the room or go in the office and grab this thing? It's right there on the desk. I'll go look. It wasn't there. Where else is it? Either you were wrong. She says, Okay, I'll get it. She walks in there, grabs it, and I say, It was not there. I see a little bit of that happening with the men. It says they bent over, but they did not go in. They didn't look deeper. But what happens? Watch what Mary does when she looks. She's weeping. It's not that she feels better. She doesn't have a better outlook. She's weeping, and she bends over, looks in, and she sees something more. There was more there to see. She bent over, looked in, saw two angels in white seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head, the other at the foot. They asked her, Woman, why are you crying? She says, They've taken my Lord away. I don't know where they have put him. And at this, watch this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there. Can I ask you, implore you, in the middle of your pain, sometimes you got to look a little deeper. Press in, lean in a little bit, because Jesus is there to be found. In the middle of your pain today, in the middle of your whatever you're carrying. I don't want to make light of it. You may be weeping, and I'll weep with you, but I will say this that Jesus is alive to be found. He's not hidden, he's not gone away, he's not been taken. There's nothing happened to him. He's there to be found. You just have to lean in and look for him a little bit deeper. So, in in pain, in darkness, I want to show you three quick practical how how do I get from the pain to God's plan? Or how do I get past this? I can't see anything, I'm weeping, it's just it's just uh hurt everywhere. How do I get from that to okay, there is more to this story? How do I make that jump? Because it's

Three Steps From Pain To Plan

SPEAKER_00 14:21

so hard to not go back. It's so hard to actually see when you're looking to find. So here we go. I'll give you three. Number one, you have to remember the reason. I get that, I actually I get this a lot. As a pastor, if if if you and I spend time together, I think one of the first questions I get for a lot of people, from a lot of people, is this why do I have to deal with this? Why is this happening? Why is God letting this happen? That's the that that is a reasonable, respectful, that's an honest

Remember The Reason For Pain

SPEAKER_00 14:55

question. What do I do with this? Like, why me? How come like that? Why not someone else? What if God is loving, if God cares about me, why did he let this happen to me? Well, I can tell you. I can give you the actual reason, and it's this that God created this world. You go back to Genesis and see that God created a perfect garden, and he put Adam and Eve in the garden, and what happened? He gave them, he said, You can do anything except one thing. And what did they do? They did, they only had one rule and they broke it. And when they broke that one, when they were disobedient to God, we see that sin was allowed to come into the world. Sure, they were tempted, sure the devil was behind it, but they had a choice because when God put Adam and Eve, when God put humans on the planet, he said, I'm gonna give them a choice so that they can choose which way they will go. Otherwise, we'd be robots. And God doesn't want robots to worship him, so he gave us a choice. So if you're taking notes, you can write this down that sin is the root cause of all pain. Sin is the root cause of all pain, and we chose the sin. So, because of a decision that was made by Adam and Eve, I'll read it to you in the book of Genesis, actually, just a quick part to show you. See, after they had eaten the fruit, that God said, Don't eat the one rule after they broke that rule. Not only did they hide themselves because they knew they broke the rule, they knew God was in the garden, they hid themselves. He says, Why are you hiding? Come out. He says, Here's the punishment. To the woman, he said, I'll make your pains in childbearing very severe. With painful labor, you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you. So, women, we get uh you get pain in childbirth, but I can also tell you this that Angela and I have two kids, and she was a trooper in childbirth. She she did amazing, she did not want an epidural, she ended up having an epidural because it was painful, but it takes a lot just to do that, right? But I can tell you this at the end of the day, when our first uh first child, Jake, when he was born 23 years ago, at the end of the day, after hours and hours and hours of childbirth of labor pains and all of that, I can tell you it was so painful. It was excruciatingly painful, and I was exhausted. Not only did I have to sleep all night in two chairs facing two chairs facing each other. Yeah, poor me. I was this is the worst night of my life. No, she did all the hard work, but that that came from pain entered the world. Before that, there wasn't pain in childbirth. God's original plan for us was perfect. And yet we chose sin, we chose disobedience that led to pain. In fact, the Bible says that the uh the cost of sin is death. The wages of sin is death. And then to Adam, he said, because you listened to your wife, that could be its own message right there, because you listened to your wife, but we won't go there. We'll save it for next week, for sometimes people suck. I'm not saying anything. I'm just he said, cursed is the ground because of you through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. Here's what happens there's pain in life. Everything that is good for us is painful. Everything that's good for us doesn't feel good, right? We have to exercise, diet, we have to uh work out, not just physical things. Being sober is sometimes harder than doing the things that the world offers, right? Living a life of purity, being faithful to church. They're harder things. There's pain in growth, there's pain in health, there's pain in growing seeds out of the ground. The right way is the wrong way is easier because we live in a fallen, broken world. Romans chapter 3 says this also for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. That's all of us. There's none of us, none of us can say, well, we live in a broken world, but I haven't done anything wrong. When I'm born, when we're born, we are born into sin. We inherit sin. And the world will tell you that deep down you're a good person. I got news for you. Deep down you're not a good person. I'm not talking to anyone specifically. I'm saying, so don't look at your husband or your neighbor, your wife. I'm saying that all of us, me included, deep down, we are bad. We are sinful. If left to ourselves, we will rust and rot, and we will sin. Because that's that's the world that we're a part of. So I wrote you can write it down this way until you see yourself as a sinner, you'll never recognize your need for a savior. That's the first step, is realizing that there's a reason behind all of this, and that it is sin. And that there has there the pain that I'm carrying is not because God wants me to experience pain, it's because sin is in the world, therefore pain is in the world. Let's go to number two. The second thing that you need to remember is that you need to remember the cross. Like there was a reason for the cross, and the cross, the reason for the cross was the sin. There's a reason Jesus had to go to the cross and die. And it's uh it it reminds me of this. And many of you guys know that uh about four or so years or four, four and a half years ago, I started off on a real health journey, realizing that if I

Remember The Cross Paid In Full

SPEAKER_00 21:25

want to live for a while, if I want to be healthy as I get older, I have to start working out. I have to so I started uh training jujitsu. And if you don't know what jiu-jitsu is, then um good, good for you. It's not it's not for everybody, but I realized that I wanted to quit every day that I went and trained because I'm getting crushed and black eyes and bruises, and why am I doing this to myself? But I already made a commitment, I'm gonna do this for a year. And uh somehow I stuck with it. Um, but even today, when a brand new person comes in. The into training, I'll see they they it doesn't matter what age, they could be 20, they could be 15, they could be 50. They come in for their first day of training and uh they have the same look on their face about an hour into training where they are just miserable. And you know that you'll never see them again. I know that I'll never so I try to encourage them. Man, you're doing so good. This is this is for a reason that you can't, you did you this is uh to get what you're you're working towards something, right? There you're not here just for the pain, the pain is for a reason. You gotta get healthy, you gotta get strong. I'll see you tomorrow. I'll see you Thursday, I'll see you next week. I think that's what Jesus showed us on the cross. He said, He showed us that he had to come to pay for the sin that we couldn't pay for. There had to be, there was work to be done on the cross that was beyond just the pain. Something was being bought, and it wasn't his freedom. The Bible says that he was uh he was innocent, falsely accused, he paid a price for our sin. Watch this in Colossians chapter 1, verse 19, it says, For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, Jesus, and through him to reconcile himself all things. Whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross. In other words, his blood paid the price for all things to be reconciled to him. So that means to me, not just the death and uh resurrection of Jesus when we talk about the song that we sang earlier that dead things come alive. That is that all things, whether it's that divorce or whether it's the um the hurt feelings that you've carried or the abuse, I'm not, I don't want to make light of any of the things. Maybe it's the pain of loss or a health situation, all things reconciled to him. Jesus paid a price that none of us could pay. And he didn't just suffer, because he did suffer, but he didn't just suffer, he suffered for us. He suffered for you and for me. In Isaiah, hundreds of years before Jesus was even born, the prophet speaks about a savior that would come and pay a price. Watch what he says. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him and afflicted. But he was pierced, not because he was guilty, he was pierced for our transgression, he was crushed for our iniquity. The punishment that brought us peace was on him. That means that when he hung on the cross and died and bled and was crucified, he did that so that we could have peace. He did that so that today, as I'm walking in darkness and bad things happen and life hits me like a freight truck, freight train, that I know that there's peace on the other side of it. There's peace in it, but I have to look for it. I have to find it. I have to accept it. The punishment that was that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. That's the price he paid. When I was 16 years old, I started driving and working and doing all the things that probably most of you did. Um I remember that I my kids are such good drivers. Jackson, you're an awesome driver. Jake, Grace. I don't see anyone. Like for me at 16 years old, I was training to be a race car driver on the street. My car was going as fast as it could go. My kids don't know how fast their cars go. They just they're just trying to get somewhere. Needless to say, it wasn't long before I had a speeding ticket, and I had my registration was out because I wasn't paying attention. I was just driving. And I had the bright idea that I was gonna postpone my uh my court date, and so I put it off like a couple of months, and I'm I need to reschedule it, I can't do that, so I'll be there. In the middle of all of that and working and being, I think, a young man, and somehow I forgot that I had a court date. And so I forget the court date, and then it comes out that I was like, oh man, I forgot the court date. I better call and figure out what I need to do. Well, it turns out that there was already like a warrant out for my arrest. I was like, oh my gosh. I'm a criminal. And so I made a payment plan and I ended up having to, I had to do so many things. And all of a sudden, what should have been this small little ticket probably ended up being more money than I had ever had before. And it was like this insurmountable amount of money that I'm probably after I get after my kids are grown and I'm dead and gone, they're gonna have to pay off this ticket, is what it felt like. I can never pay this off. I'm just paying for weeks and months and months. I'll never forget when I paid it off. It was like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Like I have a new life. I can finally pull up next to a cop and not have to worry about if I'm gonna get arrested. Not have to hide from the police on the road. It was a dark time. But I imagine, listen, when Jesus hung on the cross and he said the words, it is finished. You know what that means? That means it's paid in full. That means the peace that he paid for with his blood, by his stripes, we are healed. That he already paid in full. It's like a stamp on our lives. And a lot of times we think we have to earn God's approval, we have to earn God's uh love, we have to earn peace, we have to earn healing, we have to listen. The truth is, he's paid, it's already finished, and there's more to the story, but you can't be so overwhelmed by the darkness and the dark days and the pain that you go back home to sit and talk about it some more. The third thing that you have to do, and then we'll close is this that you have to remember the empty tomb. I love reading when Mary bent over and looked into the tomb. She said she says she stood outside the tomb crying as she wept, she bent over and looked into the tomb. There will be times in your life where you gotta remember that the tomb is empty, and you have to lean in and look for Jesus. So today, don't just let this service, don't let the worship, and it's easy to do because

Remember The Empty Tomb

SPEAKER_00 29:34

I love going to church. And sometimes you just go because that's what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to sit, and oh, we're supposed to stand now, we're supposed to do this and clap and doing all the things. It's easy to just get into the motion of things and stop actually just leaning in and listening and looking and searching for Jesus a little bit. God is with us and working all things for good, and even though you might not see him, he's there. Whatever pain, emptiness, loneliness, despair, look for Jesus. In the trouble, when you get that bad report, start looking for Jesus. That's the challenge today. Is in the middle of all of it, let's realize that Jesus endured the cross to pay a price we could never pay. And in the end, the tomb is empty, and he has more for us. I want to tell you a quick story before we close and before I dismiss you, and that is this. There was a time in the life of our church. So Angela and I started relate with just the two of us and then our two kids. And there was a moment in uh when we first realized, okay, we're gonna start a church, and then Hurricane Harvey hits, and then we're trying to help people, realizing

Terry’s Story From Anger To Faith

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we can't have church services, so we just want to serve and we want to help the community and love people and do all those things. But we we didn't have enough money. We we started getting pizzas and walking down the street and just giving people pizzas and help pray for people in the streets. So we decided let's have a garage sale so we can raise some money and then we can do more. And it's a crazy thing happened. It was the the the first day of the garage sale on a Thursday, and we were we were so excited. We have we had music playing, a speaker sitting out there in the driveway, and the whole driveway full of all the stuff we could find that hey, we'll just sell all this stuff. There's probably five or maybe four or five people shopping at the tables that we had stuff set out. And I remember this lady came walking up, she kind of had a uh just an odd look on her face. And um she made her way up, and as I would do when any new person came up to the garage sale, I would say, hey guys, welcome. I just want to let you know that um we're having this sale today in order to raise money to serve in the community and to start a brand new church. Right away, I found out later her name was Terry, and right away she just said, Well, I hate church, and I hate God and church people too. I was like, Oh, okay, welcome. I don't know, but you're here, we're here. Within just a few minutes, we got her life story. She had no problem telling the story. In fact, she she was very brash and belligerent and just I within about two or three minutes, everyone else who was shopping had already left. They were like, Can't stick around for this lady, she's too much. She was cursing and just I think trying to like um shock us a little bit, just being just being ugly. And yet we just continued to smile and oh well, that's so good. You can I pray with you, like just trying to be a light in the darkness. She would have none of it. She didn't want to pray, she didn't want to talk about it. She just kept like cursing God and every other thing. And then when she finally left, we thought, wow, that's good. Let's just put her on our prayer list, we'll pray for her from a distance. The next day at our garage sale, day two of the garage sale, we were excited to get back into it. About the same time of day, here comes Terry. I said, Oh no, turn the music down. I'm not bringing up God or church or anything. Just let her shop and hopefully she doesn't say anything. Nope, she's the same story, everybody left, and same exact thing happened. Um, long story short, because uh it's it's a very long story because everywhere she went was more to the story. But it turns out over the next few months, every event that we did, I think she started following us on Facebook, and every everything that we did, she started coming to. She didn't want prayer, she didn't want to talk about God, she was still cussing, cursing, she was still being ugly and mean to everybody that she didn't want God. But something about in the middle of all of her pain, in the middle of stage four cancer, being a young mom, and all the pain and trouble that I realized she has been through so much. We're gonna just keep loving her. She kept showing up. It was amazing in one of our first few services, and Leanne Whitlow sitting right here on the second, second row. I remember walking out of the auditorium, and Terry wouldn't even come down for prayer whenever it was time to pray. She didn't want prayer. Something led her to Leanne, and I remember her standing in the hallway of the movie theater. She stood, both of you guys, weeping. She's crying. I'd never seen her not upset. Giving her life to Jesus. And then over the next few months, watching the transformation of her and her family, her extended family. It was the honor of my life. One of one of the honors of my life to be able to preach at her funeral and watch as every one of the people in her family had been touched by her decision to lean in and look for Jesus. Can I just ask you today that what might God do if you would lean in and look for Him today? Before we close in prayer, I want to invite you to pull out that Easter survey card and then I'll explain what's at the bottom. This is a different kind of a close for the service, and we're gonna pray. But I just want to point out that in the middle of this group of people, there are, I think, four different groups of people. And I think that everyone here fits into one of those four groups, and so we've

Four Groups And The Survey Card

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labeled them A, B, C, and D. And what I would love for you to do, if you would, is identify yourself. And even if you don't mark it on the card, which I hope you do, think about which category you fall into. The first group is this the first is A. You know what, Pastor Sean? I've already I already know God personally. I look for him and I found him, and I'm already uh living my life for him. That's the the the group A people. Then there's the group B. And this is the people who you're sitting in the service today saying, I'm ready. I'm ready to make a decision to begin following Jesus. That B is I'm beginning a real relationship with God today. You're ready to make a decision, you're ready to say that prayer, to make a confession and let God show up in your life. The group C is this. I want to consider what God wants to do in my life a little longer. Like you're not ready to commit, you're not ready to say, I'm following Jesus yet, but you're you're ready to lean in and maybe look a little bit. And that's okay too. I I love that we are we are a church where you can kick the tires as long as you want before you decide to buy in. Before you decide to believe. You can just watch, witness, hear. Because what happens when you really start leaning in and looking for Jesus is that you find him. So I love that we are that kind of church. You'll never have a pressure. In fact, we call it our no-hassle guarantee. We're not gonna pressure you to serve or give or do any of the things. You do what you want when you're ready. No one's coming to your house. And then there's finally there's the the the D. Every year when we do our Easter survey, we have people who are in this D group. And I'm okay if you're in, I'm not gonna come to your house and say, I saw you'd marked a D. How can I get you to C? Not gonna send a negotiator. We're not, that's not gonna happen. You you can stay there as long as you like because here's the deal. I know that Terry was at D for a long time. And all I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna commit to pray for you and commit to pray that God would show up and reveal Himself to you. So wherever you fall, A, B, C, or D, I want us to pray together. And in a moment, after you've marked a card, we're gonna pass the offering buckets and receive those during the song. But I want to talk to the B group right now. I want to talk to those of you who you're you're right on the edge, ready to make a decision to follow Jesus. This is the, I think, one of the best moments of the rest of your life where you become reconciled. The scripture we read earlier that he paid the price so that all things could be reconciled to him. And this is you saying, I believe and I accept that free gift, that free gift of life. Because the Bible says, whoever calls

Prayer To Begin Following Jesus

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on the name of the Lord will be saved. And so when you open your mouth and you accept that Jesus is your savior, you choose to follow him, you ask forgiveness of your sin. What what forgiveness is, is that price that he paid. We repent, that means I'm turning from this way and I'm going this way. He has a new life for you. And so that if you're in that group B, I want us to, would you just, I want you to pray with me today. I'm gonna ask you to repeat after me. I won't ask you to stand up or come forward or anything embarrassing, but just pray right from your chair, or if you're watching online today and you're ready to make that decision. I will just invite everyone in the room, would you bow your head right where you are, close your eyes, no one looking around, and I'm gonna pray, and I would invite you to repeat after me as we make a confession of faith and start a journey, a new life with Jesus. Would you say this out loud? God, today I give you my life. I choose to follow you. So take my heart, take my mind, take my life, take my sin, and give me a new life. Breathe your life into me, and from this day forward, I will follow you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Let's put our hands together for everybody who said that prayer. I'm proud of you guys who said that prayer for the very first time. And uh in just a few moments, the ushers are actually gonna join us right now, and we're going to uh pass the offering buckets. If you came today and this is your church, then I would invite you to prepare your tithes and your offerings. Uh, if you are a guest today, we don't expect you to give. We hope that the service is a blessing to you. And um, with that said, I would invite you to give and worship with us as we get ready to close the service, and then the band will dismiss us at the end. And uh, would you stand up on your feet?

Offering And Closing Worship

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Don't forget to put that Easter survey card right into the bucket as it goes along. Let me pray for you. Lord, we thank you for your many blessings in our life. God, we thank you for every dollar that's given in the offering today, that you would multiply it and use it so that we might see more lives transformed in your name. The miracles that you want to do in our lives. God, those who are struggling today, those who are in pain, those who are walking in darkness, Lord, I thank you that you are bringing light and that you are rewriting the rest of their story. In your name we pray. Amen. All right, let's worship together.