APR 21 2019 | Rolling Stones

Sea Change Church · "Rolling Stones" Pastor Adam Stadtmiller · April 21, 2019
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

I'm Pastor Jim, Associate Pastor here at La Jolla Christian Fellowship. It's a privilege this morning to read the gospel, and Pastor Adam's going to be teaching from that in a moment, with permission, two things. One is that I am wearing this Easter tie. Someone will say it doesn't match any known color in nature. I understand. But I'm wearing it this Easter morning because it was my brother's tie. My oldest brother, 13 years older, he has passed on, he has graduated four years ago into heavenly places.

Some will say, what difference does it make that Jesus rose from the dead? This is the difference. I'm going to see my brother again in heavenly places. Christ won the victory, and I just celebrate that this morning. The second thing is, we, as many of us will know, as we read the scriptures, we will do something that unites us, after the reading of scripture, with millions around the world, where we say, this is the word of the Lord.

Many people say, thanks be to God. Some of you will be aware that when the gospel is read, then the word is, the gospel of our Lord, and the response of the people is, praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ. So if you'd like to join in that, don't be startled by the difference after the reading, but praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ, will be the words lifted up. Mark chapter 16, verses 1 through 8. When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, brought spices so they might go to anoint Jesus' body.

Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb, and they asked each other, who will roll the stone away from the entrance to the tomb? But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. And they entered the tomb, and they saw a young man dressed in white robes, sitting on the right side. And they were alarmed. Don't be alarmed, he said.

You're looking for Jesus, the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen. He is not here. See the place where they laid him. Now go, tell his disciples and Peter, he is going ahead of you into Galilee, and there you will see him just as he told you, trembling and bewildered. The women went out, fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because for then they were afraid. The gospel of our Lord Jesus, praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen. Pastor Adam, bless you. Thanks, Jim. Appreciate it. Good to see you all this morning. It's a really good question that these women ask. Who's going to move the stone? And a great question I tend to ask myself on a regular basis, right? Maybe you do as well. They get these stones, these obstacles in our lives. We ask ourselves, who's going to move that stone? You know, back when I was a young man or a kid, my mom moved a lot of stones for me.

My parents moved a lot of stones, but at some time, at some point in life, it was time to grow up, try to be a man, and see if I could do some stone removal myself. And what I found out was I'm horrible at stone excavation. I'm like really bad at it. I tried real hard, but it didn't seem to work out time and time again until I gave up the work of stone excavation and began the journey, the adventure, like we like to say here, of seeking Christ and allowing him to come in and do that monolithic work in my life to say, hey, you know, the alcoholism, which will be 30 years sober this year, or the different things in my life that were there.

Yeah, right on. If you want to get sober, talk to us. We'll help you. God's good at helping us get sober, which is amazing, and hopefully that'll be a, maybe a little journey for you. But God, I began to say, I knew how to get home, and that's the thing. I grew up in the church and kind of went my own way and kind of did my own things, ran through the South Pacific, out to Indonesia, doing all kinds of stuff, chasing me.

I was chasing me. The problem is I never found myself until I quit trying to chase myself, and I found Jesus, and Jesus introduced me to me, and that's one of the best things. If you want to know who you are, meet your creator. It just works. And he begins to speak to you about who you are and who he has determined for you to be and to join in that adventure. And so one of the things I'm going to say today in just a moment is that if you've got some stones in your life, and we all do, right, and maybe you've had a bunch of them moved, that one, God is in the business of moving stones, but two, he's not in the business of having you do it alone.

He is the miracle worker, and what we need to do is get really good at the prerequisite work of going to the place where the stone is, which very few people who get well or have stones removed into life are people who are not willing to go to the place where the stone is. You have to go to the tomb, as these women did. They went to the tomb, they did the prerequisite work of going, and they were asking that question, who's going to move the stone, and maybe you've been there.

Maybe you have a stone in your life right now. I was a stoner, and I had some problems in my life, and I just couldn't get rid of that. It's all legal now, but whatever. It was a problem back then for me, and let's leave that one at that. I'll tell you how the day started. I came in, and I wished someone a Merry Christmas. That's how we started the day, so awesome, awesome. So, and then the other thing is, is then all of a sudden, I went to the place where the stone needed to be removed, and for me, that was, did some 12-step work, did a bunch of stuff that I felt like I needed to do prerequisite, but nothing was going to cause me to get free of that.

It was going to have to be a miracle, and maybe you need a miracle. We're going to ask you that in the end. When was the last time you had a miracle in your life, and maybe you need a miracle, because I feel like faith living is miracle living. Faith living at least allows you, at its base, allows you to live beyond yourself, and one of the things we say here on a regular basis is, the Bible doesn't ask you to be the best you you can be.

That's a world thing, to be the best you you can be. The Bible actually wants you to live exponentially beyond anything you can be, because God is stepping in and doing the supernatural work of causing you to live in a territory far beyond what you could do on your own. So we say being the best you that you can be is probably the base is where we want to begin, perhaps, but we want to be far beyond that and what God has for us.

And so, if I can, I want to read. If you look at your notes right now, I want to talk about experiences, and the experiences that oftentimes bring stones into our lives. My best friend, he says the reason he loves vacation and traveling is because in traveling, you have multiple life moments, life-changing moments that happen in a concentrated event. So he said, in my normal life, this is my friend Brett, my best friend from Australia, we met on a plane going to Indonesia.

You never know who you're going to meet on a plane going to Indonesia. Sat next to him, ended up becoming my best friend. I was running from God at that point, and so was he. And we found God together in Bali and became best friends. Gosh, it's been, he's known me since I was a teenager, so I'm 49 this year. He's one of my longest friends. And one of the things he said is in traveling, you go to the place, you go to that mountain, and you see a vista, and you have a revelation like you've never had before.

When you get out of your circumstances, and he went to Europe with his family, and he said it cost him $10,000 to take a month-long trip. It's a long way, Australia, to England, and beyond in Europe. He said it cost $10,000, but he said he had 22, like, aha moments in his life in this one month. He goes, if you get that down, that's like $400 in aha moment. He goes, where are you going to get that? He goes, I just did the math on aha moments.

What's it worth to you? And I thought that's a really good way to look at it, this life-changing moment. These are moments you don't have too often just in the monotony and the common glory of life. And we do believe here that life has a common glory, that in the midst of common moments, God works, and it is the little decisions that you make in your life on a regular basis, the way you speak to your kids, the way you encourage them, or the way you break them down, that actually cause the trajectory of your life.

But then there's these other moments, these aha moments that when you go on a missions trip down to Mexico or just a trip to help orphans or you go work with the poor, you have this moment where you meet somebody and their eyes radiate with a penetrating blue or brown like you've never seen before. And when you see that happen, all of a sudden, there's a change in your heart and in your spirit. You know the moments I'm talking about.

And I think these are the moments that oftentimes make us feel most alive. I know I feel alive and we want to be fully alive. And I think that, you know, so often the culture is telling me, you know, if you jump out of a plane or you go do some crazy thing, then you're going to feel alive. But I think living and true life happens when we're giving our life away and going to places and allow ourselves to be shaped outside of our comfort zones and outside of our boundaries.

And so these women in this story had had a moment. They'd had this moment. They had a moment where they set their eyes upon this man who was different than any other man that had ever walked the face of the earth. And let me just say, I want you to do the research. There is no religious leader. You can call Jesus a religious leader. We call him the son of God. But there is no religious leader in all of history that has done more to empower and free women than Jesus Christ.

Go and do the research. Willing to touch women that were to be healed when no one could touch a woman. Willing to set them free when others would stone them. Willing to have them be in his inner circle to give them freedom to go to them on a regular basis. So be aware that the women, if you're a woman especially, that we're looking back at some women that were able to look at a man in a different way and saw something unique where they said, we want to give our lives for him.

And actually, they were some of the most bold because when the disciples scattered or when the disciples hid, who was at the foot of the cross? It was the women. They were there. Women were bold and courageous. And so I want you to understand because I believe that you could be in the Bible. All of us could be in the Bible. The Bible is made up of normal people. And I want you to have a relationship and understand who these women are in this moment.

They'd had a life-changing moment. They'd seen somebody doing it differently. Someone empowering them when no one empowered them in a culture that was oppressive and abusive. Someone that came and called them beyond. And Jesus was calling them not because they were women. He was calling all people to something that was beyond anything that they could be on their own. And they saw something in that moment. And that moment changed their life radically.

And for many sitting in here, that moment has changed our life. It was Jesus that changed my life when I was 12 years old. And I really didn't know what I was doing when I went forward and the man came and prayed with me and he said, boy, do you want to, you know, the old southern preacher guy, his name's John Maxwell, actually you might know him. He's become a leadership guru. He said, boy, do you want to accept, ask Jesus in your heart?

And I'm like, yeah, whatever. I'm like, sure. So I went forward. Well, it stuck. It was odd. It really stuck. And I got involved in the youth group and then I started getting some stones in my life. But here was the thing. When I was 19 and had a heart attack and nowhere to go and I knew I just wasn't being myself anymore. Maybe you've had that experience. I remember I was laying in PB in my bed and I woke up one morning and I was still feeling all the mess from the night before and I thought, I don't even know who I am anymore.

And I definitely know I'm not who my parents raised me to be. I know that. And maybe you're there now. And I thought, I want something different. And what I did was I began to look back and I went back because here's the thing is I knew how to get home. And this is why we want to tell kids who Jesus is and give them an opportunity at faith because there is a crossroads in our culture right now. And one is for a life of faith and one is for a life of understanding of what you can see.

And faith is seeing things, is being able to determine and understand things that you cannot see. So if you look at your notes, it says, it is often true that a handful of key events will shape the trajectory of your life. Now here's the deal. How you respond to these is what will, I want to put often, defined your existence. It is often true that a handful of key events will shape the trajectory of your life. How you respond to these is what will define your existence.

I remember the day I looked up and saw my wife for the first time. Life-changing moment, right? I was sitting there and I had a friend, he was the ski patrol instructor at Mammoth. He's a good friend to have. You know, lift tickets were a lot cheaper back then. And I heard this woman standing next to me say, hey, I want to go up to Mammoth and be a lift operator. And I looked up and there she was and I thought, my moment.

You know, I got everything I need to onboard this right here, you know? And so I looked up and I said, by the way, I gave her a business card. She still laughs at that. I handed her my business card. All business, baby. So, she laughs at me, makes fun of me. I'm like, you're here, aren't you? It worked. Who's the winner now? Winning. Life-changing moment. Life-changing. 22 years going on, 23 years of marriage, love of my life.

We've battled. Marriage is awesome. Marriage is gnarly and hard and rad and everything mixed in a poultice of goodness and difficulty. You know what it is if you're married. But it changed my life forever and it's been so good. But that one life-changing moment has not only given me the experience to, or the opportunity to experience some of the greatest joys in our life, having a child, but it's also opened up a lot of tomb.

I don't know if you've got some tomb in your life, but there was a tomb and as we began to be purified through our relationship, which is what marriage relationships will do if you allow them, I began to see that there was a lot of darkness, a lot of things I didn't want to look at. And so these women, here's the radical thing and this is key. These women were willing to go to the tomb in order to experience the resurrection in a different way.

And I would say to you that, look, even if you don't choose to have faith in your life, if you're going to get better, you're going to have to go to your tomb. You're going to have to be willing to walk to the tomb and look at it. And like my mom said, at my age, 49 years old, this is her story and she's told it, so I feel like I can tell she's told it up here from the pulpit. At 49 years old, coming home in her evening gown because that's what she was all about, prestige and San Diego and being a part of the, you know, the 1960s culture and 70s culture that was happening here in San Diego and being a mover and a shaker and all the little columns she was written up in and all those different things back in the day when they still had those type of columns.

She ran her car into a telephone pole, drunk. She woke up and the police were there and took her to jail and she was sitting in a jail all beautiful because my mom can do it up. I don't know if you've seen my mom. She can do it up. She likes to look nice. If you ever talk to her, she was a, this is a cool, a little fun fact, she was Audrey Hepburn's makeup girl in Philadelphia back in the day before Audrey was big. So my mom knows how to do makeup and does all that and has some good history.

But she woke up and there was a life-changing moment and the tomb was exposed. What are you going to do when you get to the tomb? And then there's a great question. Here's a really good question. Who's going to move that stone? Because that stone is nasty but they went to the tomb. So the first thing I want to say is, is this, is the first, you know, earlier I said the faith-filled life never asks you to move your own stones.

They ask each other who will roll the stone away and it's a great question from the entrance of the tomb. But when they looked up they saw that the stone which was very large had already been rolled away. Love that. Said that faith does require, it doesn't require that you move your own stones. And my mom didn't have any clue of how that stone was going to be moved. I didn't have any clues. I laid in bed and looked at my addiction and thought to myself, how, I didn't know how it was going to get better.

Had no idea. But I started showing up in places where I knew that health existed. I started showing up in places where I knew that there was power. I started showing up in places where I could look at people and say, I want to be like that. Because I was hanging out with people that were awesome as well and created to be amazing but weren't the kind of people and myself included that I wanted to be with. And I began to say I wanted to see that faith-filled life.

Faith does require though, let me tell you what faith does require, because you won't have to move your own stone. Jesus is going to have to move the stone. And the biggest stone that he rolls away is our inability to be good people so that we can spend eternity in heaven with God. We believe that there is a blight of sin, you know the story of Easter, and that mankind can do nothing to change that no matter how good you are.

But only through the perfect sacrifice of Jesus on the cross you know the story, right? That the blood of Jesus washes us free. I got to say that you couldn't move the stone. We don't come and tell you that, you know, ten steps to be better. That isn't what we're all about. We're all about showing up and letting God do the miracle like he did on the cross because that is an example for every other stone in our life. And then doing the ancillary work to continue that on and perpetuate that to where it becomes your legacy.

To where you become to take your inheritance. You begin to walk in a new land and a new territory. And I won't go into the rest of the story about my mother, but she has begun to take territory and now she lives like a giant in the land with an inheritance that came and started out with a decision that she made in a jail cell in San Diego when life wasn't going so well. As you look in your notes, faith does require the prerequisite and the ancillary actions that lead to and support the work of a miracle.

I got to say, if you want a miracle, you got to show up. You got to be ready for a miracle. This world doesn't believe in miracles. Excuse me, miracles. Where am I from? Miracles. Miracles in America. Doesn't believe in miracles anymore. But we believe in miracles and we see them every day. We see them in the healing of relationships. We see them in the actual physical healing of people's bodies here. We continue to see God moving and we believe in a miracle that will begin to come against a culture that is either numbing itself with drugs or taking its own life.

I've said this multiple times to our congregation that the number two reason for deaths for 18 to 35 year olds. Number one is accidents. Number two is suicide. 18 to 35 year olds taking their lives. In the prime of their life, why? Number three is drug overdoses. So you're either escaping and you're going to die and the devil doesn't care how he gets it. He comes to rob, kill, or destroy. And whether you're meant to take your life or not, he wants it.

And what we believe is that miracle territory happens on both sides of the cross. Showing up with the prerequisite work to do the work to show up. These women showed up at the tomb. The miracle had happened. The stone had already been rolled away. And the Bible tells you something funny which is interesting that your stone has already been rolled away. Christ has already done the work. The freedom exists. The question is do you want it?

There's a verse in the Bible that says it is for freedom that you have been set free. Now that's interesting, right? Because it just said say you've been set free. But it doesn't say that. It says there's freedom out there and you've been set free so you can go get that freedom. But many people have been set free and continue to live in bondage. We want to see people live free lives. We believe in freedom. The freedom of Christ to be everything that you are and can be.

And this is what these women were and were becoming. It is Christ before, Christ now, and Christ will be in our lives. I would say that faith does not require, once again, faith does require the prerequisite and ancillary actions that lead and support the work of a miracle. Verse 2, very early in the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were anxious. I love it. I love when you're anxious to get your healing.

You know? It wasn't like, oh, after brunch, we'll go see what that Jesus is up to. They got after it. I found that a lot of change in my life doesn't happen without a measured degree of desperation. Maybe things are too comfortable. First day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb. Where were they going? The tomb. Why do you go to a tomb? Because you believe in resurrection. I want to invite you, whether you choose faith or not, go to your tomb.

It might be your spirit, it might be your unforgiveness, it might be the darkness of your thoughts, it might be your inability to be whatever. Go to that tomb and look at it and sit with it. Be willing, get comfortable with it. Tell it that this is not you and speak to the tomb. And see if God would not create a miracle that you might rise out of that tomb like a phoenix from the ashes, from the flame, to live a different life.

And so many people, maybe you know those people, we all know those people that had this story of it once was but it now is. And I want to be now is people. I want people to be people that rise up and maybe you are becoming one of those people but the question is, are you terrified to go to your tomb? You got to go to the tomb. And I found in faith it's taken me, God allows me to go to the tomb over and over. And every time I'm willing to stand there and reconcile with what happened, it seems like God has shown up.

The Bible once again also says, all things will work together for your benefit, for your good, for your trajectory, for those that love God and are called according to his purpose. The Bible also says that God would not have, that anyone would perish and so I would say that you are called according to his purpose. If you want to do the prerequisite work, are you willing? That's the first question and I want to lay that at your feet today because we want to be practical here.

I want on Wednesday, I want you to think about this on Wednesday. Whether you ever come back in this church again that you'll think about it, do I want life change? Do I want a legacy life where people look around and say that person made a difference? When people need to call somebody that you're the one they need to call or in those moments or at your funeral, you've been to that funeral and they say, if it wasn't for or remember when they over and over again to be that person, we believe to do it in the name of Christ.

The miracle though, once it happens, once you get sober, once your relationship with your kid who no longer talks to you gets healed or there's a miracle of healing, the miracle needs to be buttressed by a meaningful response. A lot of people who met Jesus, got a miracle and walked away. Don't be satisfied with the miracle. Get hungry for more. You want to live in exponential miracles. The miracle life that begins to change other life and the greatest miracle is to see life changed.

A lot of people are just looking for these powerful supernatural experiences. A supernatural experience is when one of these kids who's 25 years old that doesn't want to live anymore because of your influence in their life says, I want to live another day. That's a miracle. That's the kind of miracle that life changed because people are the miracle. God in people. People are the miracle. Every miracle will pass away.

Every supernatural miracle will pass away. But Jesus cared about people and he came and he said, you can be a people of my temple. Matter of fact, you will become the temple of my spirit and I will live in you. It needs to be buttressed by a meaningful response. So if you get that miracle, if you get sober, if you get whatever that thing is, those addictions, whatever that thing is, it could be anything. You know what your thing is.

I don't. Can you buttress it with a meaningful response that lasts more than a week? Meaningful response. He says, and this is so interesting, go to verse seven. So after the miracle had happened, they got there, they didn't know who's going to move the stone, they got there, the miracle had already happened and like I said, I believe that this freedom has already happened, that it's available to you if you want it. Jesus can set you free from anything.

I can tell you that. He can set you free from anything. I've seen it. Then it says, there's an ancillary response to the miracle and this is where life gets hard because once you get a miracle, once you get a life change, it's so easy to go back to old patterns, right? Old things that used to happen. So the angel says to them and he uses a conjunction and you're going to see this is the power of the conjunction. He says, but go.

I love these little words in scripture. Powerful words. If. If you do this. But do this. Instead, Jesus did that. You see those words and you look on both sides of it and usually there will be a meaningful response biblically to something that happened and so there needs to be a meaningful response and the question for you is maybe there's been something on your heart that you think, I've been needing to do this. I've been needing to make this relationship right or I've been needing to quit this job and go do the thing that I'm always supposed to be but you're so terrified of living on the other side of hope and living on the other side of what if and faith that you've never done it.

And so there needs to be a meaningful response that says, but go. And so the question is, you've shown up here. You're here for a reason today. You've done the prerequisite work. I'm offering you the miracle. I can't say when it'll come but the question is what are you going to do now? You can go out and go to brunch. That works. But I'm talking about deep life change for you. That you begin to live the life that you've always seen for yourself.

But go. So he offers these women a choice and they're terrified with it. He says this, verse 7, but go. Tell his disciples. And I didn't preach on this but I just want to say it. And Peter. Anybody catch that? The dude that betrayed him. Now two people betrayed him. Judas and Peter. Judas didn't know how to get home. Peter did. Peter knew how to get home. And Peter was waiting for his savior. And I just, it's such, you know, God wants to, he came to save the world.

Jesus wants, this is a personal relationship. It is a, he, if you were the only person in the world, there'd be an Easter sermon. Jesus comes for individuals. And I have to say, if you don't understand the beauty of the writing of the scripture, people look, oh, the Bible, this, most people that, you know, harp on the Bible have never read the Bible. I talk to people on a regular basis. Oh, the Bible, this, this is wrong, this date's wrong.

I say, have you even read the Bible? You read the whole Bible? Oh, no, don't talk to me until you read it. Go talk to me, go read the Bible and then we can have a meaningful conversation. But besides a bunch of you're just harping at me. Sorry, that a little too harsh. A little more gentle. The season for gentility is ending. Jesus was somewhat like that as well. And he says that life is on the other side of this response.

And he goes to Peter to this individual. And this is the beauty of the Bible. He comes to, I mean, if you read the Bible, just the fact that that's in there, it's so perfectly crafted to say you matter to God. You, you matter. It's not all about you, but it's all about you. Does that make sense? It's not all about you. Don't make it all about you. But when it comes down to it, it's all about you. Jesus on the cross died for you.

That's our message. It is a message of individual freedom through Christ Jesus. You might know him and you might be free. Through the walk of faith, coming in for a landing now, circling the tower. this adventure, and this is why we call it an adventure. This is why our video shows adventure, terrifying things of Brian climbing up things. I would never climb up. It was awesome. And drones that could have hit Chris in the face and scary things.

Drones terrify me. These women were terrified when they left. And I think faith needs to have, I don't know about needs. I don't like being definitive. But faith often has an element of terror. Because faith doesn't pencil out. It doesn't scientifically work out into a little, a little, you know, algorithm. It leaves doubt. And people say, well, I have so much doubt. That's the point of faith. You, by the way, you can't have faith.

Faith doesn't exist without doubt. Do you get that? Because faith is the very essence of faith is overcoming something that you can't see. That is doubt or fear. Without doubt, fear, it is a foregone conclusion. You don't have faith. And so faith will often terrify you. How is this going to work out? Gosh, if I go back and humble myself to this person, I'm going to lose my entire platform of being able to manipulate and control them.

That terrifies me or whatever it is. You know, be willing to, to, like I said, quit that job at the right time or do whatever it is to walk into. It's terrifying. And I think it's supposed to be, but it's one of the greatest adventures you'll ever live. And what I have seen is over and over again, God has shown up and he's been there. Sometimes it's long seasons. It's not a, it's not a microwave Jesus. We don't offer microwave Jesus here.

Occasion you might get the three minute pop. You know what I mean? And it's going to do it. Jesus version. And you're going to get a miracle in your life, but it's a long journey. It takes courage. So that version, that's about courage. People who don't understand that the life of faith takes courage have never tried a life of faith. The life that says, we want to give you more than you can be. Verse eight and nine, he is going ahead of you into Galilee.

And Jesus is always going ahead. Wherever you're going, he's already there clearing it out with a spiritual machete. He is hacking it down. And you're going to walk through. And I love saying machete. It's one of my favorite words. It is. It's terrifying. Scares the, should scare the hell out of you, so to speak, right? In the right sense of the word. To grow it. I mean, it's just terrifying. Because there's so much darkness and so many things we hold on to.

It's terrifying to follow Jesus. But once you jump, for those that have done it, once you jump, I got to say, there is a feeling of freedom and euphoria, a spiritual euphoria. You know, you don't live in that, by the way. But there were moments, and you know what I'm talking about, those that have done it, where that moment happens, and there's that aha moment. Like I'm talking, you're on the Vista in Africa, overlooking everything, and you're having that aha moment, that God really loves me.

See, I've never had a problem knowing that God exists. That's been easy for me. It's never been a problem. It's never doubted. Many people do. And it's a powerful struggle. I just had the problem, does God really love me? I know he exists, but does he love me? And getting to the place where those moments, and he just says, I'm going to prove myself again to you, because I love telling, you're my boy. I love telling you how much I love you.

Loves me. He's been there for me, through thick and through thin. And that's what we offer. The final verse, he's going ahead of you into Galilee, and there you will see him, just as he told you. Bible's full of things, just as he told you. I find it over and over again, trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled. Fled. That's awesome. Fled. I've run from the tomb so many times. I get there, I'm like, ah, gotta go.

They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid. And then Jesus shows up, if you continue the story. And so, the question I just have for you, is when was your last miracle? It's a good question. When was your last miracle? Has it been a long time, since you had a miracle? I want to say that, that miracle isn't always some poof, and some supernatural thing that's happening. It's just a reconciled relationship. It's the anxiety in your heart, beginning to settle down, and all of a sudden, you no longer live, in a constant state of fear.

Hope expanding, love, being able to change, your entire disposition, the ability to smile again, the ability to have hope again, those are miracles. miracles. My question is, when was the last time you had a miracle? Because I meet a lot of people, who have not experienced, either a miracle in decades, if not their entire life. I don't know if you've experienced those people, but what we want to offer you here, not always supernatural, and sometimes it is.

We saw someone get healed of liver disease, this week, completely healed. Gave them, you know, months, completely healed. Scar tissue gone, everything gone. That's just one of many. We want to offer you as a miracle. And the question is, is do you want it? Are you willing to go to your tomb? Are you willing to have faith, no matter how scary it is? And are you willing to do the ancillary work, of following up that, to live a life that will bring you a legacy?

This is what Jesus offers, and besides that, all of eternity, and nothing less. This is what we offer you. We offer you everything, that Christ has, that he died on the cross for. That's Easter. That's what it's all about. And so this is what I want to say. If you're new, you've never come here before, I invite you to come for six weeks in a row. That's what they do in AA. That's what they told me when I went to AA. It's a good deal.

We're going to steal that. Come for six weeks. See if you like what we're cooking. There's not perfect people here. We've, you know, we stub our toe all the time, but there are people here that are fighting, that you can lock shields with. And you say, I want to get better. I want some of that. I want a piece of that action. Show up for six weeks. Say, you know, make a decision. Okay, I'll try it out. Because if you've never tried faith before, I want to challenge you because there might be something more than you've ever seen.

Amen. Amen. If we stand, Chris is going to lead us in our final song. And then I'm going to bless you. And then we're going to eat cinnamon rolls. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.