Easter At Rock Point 2022 | Bill Bush

I was thinking, I I remember back in 1995, for many of you, long ago. And I my father-in-law, my brother-in-law, we had a friend that worked for the Orlando Magic in the in the front office.

And he called up my father-in-law and says, hey. I won't be there, but but the the Orlando's coming into town. They'll be in LA, and I can get you some sweet tickets to their game. Would you wanna come? And in '95, they were awesome teams. Shaquille O'Neal was young. He was dominating the NBA. He wasn't just selling pizza and all that stuff.

And and and he and a matter of fact, that year, they they came in second in the NBA championship. First service, which seemed like ten days ago,

I said they won it, and one of y'all fact checked me and told me I was wrong. And I'm like, okay. You caught that. You missed the nine doctrinal and biblical errors in my sermon, but you you you caught that. And and

they were really good. So I wanted to see he had he was transforming the game. So I was like, that'd be fun. Good seats. Let's go. So we found out the day, the time, all that, and we take off. We're about an hour and a half from LA, so we head out. We're running a little late, a little bit of traffic. So we get there about a half an hour before the game, thinking it's gonna be really hard to get a parking spot and all of that. And, and it turns out we pull in. There's no traffic. We pull into the forum where, you know, where the Lakers play, and it's empty.

Nobody there. No cars.

And this was before you could just grab your phone and say, Siri, help me out. You know, you couldn't just go online. You couldn't figure it out. We just so we sat there for a while. I don't understand what's going on. This is the day. It's the time. We know. But as we were leaving, we saw a security guard. So I asked him, hey. What happened to the game? He goes, what game? I go, the the the the Magic Lakers game.

And he goes, Orlando's not playing the Lakers tonight. They're playing the Clippers in Anaheim, which the way we had come, we had passed Anaheim, like, thirty minutes before getting there.

And and, now to go back, we're going into the traffic in the evening. So now it that thirty minutes turned into over an hour to get back, and and and so we missed most of the first half of the game. We almost missed the game completely if we didn't run into the sky. And and and what's funny about that is we had almost all the right information.

We we knew what was going on. We knew the right game. We knew the right team. We knew the right whatever. The only thing we had wrong was the destination, the address. So here's the problem. You could know everything else and miss this one thing and miss the whole thing.

As we come here to talk about Easter, as we come here to celebrate, there's a lot more people here than normal. And it's usually because everyone decides that this is their church comes on the same day.

Because you feel like it's double points day. You know, Christmas and Easter, you gotta be here. You feel like if I'm not here, God's gonna hate me. I'm I'm a bad child if I'm not here on those days, so y'all show up. But that's not God talking. That's your mom.

Your mom's the one that says if you don't come here on the holidays, you're a bad child. Okay?

But anyways, I would hate as we look and we're all here and we come here and we're talking about Easter and we're talking about who Jesus is. I would hate for you to have come from all different backgrounds. Some of you come to church all the time. Some of you rarely.

Some of you, you're only here to get ham afterwards, and that's okay. But you're you're sitting here, and and here's I'd hate for you to know all these things about who is God, who is this, and know a lot of stuff, but miss the most important thing. Miss the destination.

Miss what makes Christianity different than any religion. What makes Easter so important?

And so what we're gonna talk about for a few minutes here on Easter is simply this big idea. I like to give a big idea because sometimes people go, what did he talk about? Well, here, I'm gonna tell you what I talked about in case you don't understand anything else I say, and that is Jesus is the destination.

So if you come here and you show up at church for anything other than to know Jesus, you're missing the point.

You might show up here and you're like, I come to church because it makes me feel better, or I come to church because I try to be a better person, Or I come to church because I want the person sitting next to me to be a better spouse.

Or I come to church because I don't know what to do with my kids, so I'm dropping them off with you. Yeah. That that that there's a lot of and and

I'm not saying those are always the wrong thing. I mean, those are things we do try to do deal with. But what the point is, if you do all that, you could have most of these things right and miss the most important thing. And at the end of your life, end up in an empty parking lot in a stadium that no one's at.

And so we wanna talk about what's so important about Easter, and that is Jesus, our relationship with Jesus. Jesus is our savior.

You can't earn his love. You can't earn God's love. What makes Christianity different is it's because of what Jesus did and his love. What the Easter story tells us is why we can be made right with God, and it's because we're not mistakers. We are sinners according to the Bible. That's very different. We are rebels.

By our very nature, we've severed a relationship with God that by our very nature, we want to do what we wanna do. We wanna make ourselves God, and even though even coming to church often, we try to use God to get to what we really want to get to,

and we try to act like every other religion. I show up, and I'll appease this God, and then I'll get what I want, And you've missed the point. The point is what we were built for. What we want is a relationship with God, and it can only happen through Jesus. It's the only way to have life,

and that's what Easter shows, and that's what we're gonna see. Matter of fact, you realize the whole Bible points to Jesus.

The whole bible points to this. You know, you got the New Testament, the gospels, tell the whole story. You got you then they talk about the the the church and how we're supposed to grow and how we're supposed to live. Then you get the Old Testament, which you guys think is like the background information, and that's how God created the world. Called He out a man named Abraham. He created this nation of Israel. He was gonna bless them. Then it tells their whole story in history.

But what you don't realize in the Old Testament

is a bunch of of prophecy, a bunch of clues, a bunch of telling you who this messiah is, that we are far from God, and we need someone to rescue us and save you. He's called the messiah in the old testament. And there are a bunch of prophecies in the old testament written thousands of years ago that actually describe

who's gonna come and rescue us, and they describe Jesus. There are 332 prophecies in the Old Testament that point to Jesus, and Jesus fulfilled them.

And and and here's the thing. The bible was trying to point us to Jesus even before. We look back at Easter, the Old Testament was helping us to look forward to what was coming.

And in these, if you're a skeptic, here's what you gotta answer because there's truth out there. This proves that we are actually sinners, not mistakers because the evidence is there. To have faith does not mean to check your brain at the door. It means to put your faith in the right thing. And if you look at the evidence, you look at the proof, if you're a betting person, odds are you should believe that Jesus is who he said he is and did what he said he did. Because there are 332

prophecies, like I said. And a lot of skeptics have tried to say the old testament was written much later. Why? Because they have evidence? No. Because they know these these prophecies are so accurate and so clear,

they can't believe that that actually could happen because the odds are so low. And they so they say it had to be written later simply because they don't wanna believe in god. I mean, these are not fortune cookie prophecies. There's one that says he'll be born in Bethlehem.

There's one that said he'll die on a cross four hundred years before crucifixion was even invented as a way to kill people. There there there there's one that is so clear. It actually says hundreds of years before this king come on, he says there will four hundred and eighty three years

after a man named Cyrus declares that the temple can be rebuilt, the Messiah will ride into Jerusalem on a colt, a young donkey. Well, if you look in that prophecy, what we know exactly in the April, whatever do the math about is is four whatever BC.

A man named Cyrus came into power. And that's weird enough because when that was written, that prophecy, the the Hebrew that wrote it, Cyrus was not a name that would be known.

If you said the name Cyrus to someone, they'd be like, you just put syllables together. Kinda like what all you young people do with your kids' names these days. Just put some random syllables together, and, you know, this is my son, Yip Yak, and my daughter, Purina. I don't get it.

Only I get is I actually have become the grumpy old man now. I'm complaining about it. Back in my day, we had normal names like Bill and Bob and Becky. We didn't even go past b. Stop there. It was good enough for us. Now I lost my point. Where was I? Oh, I was talking about a prophecy. Sorry. It's the eighth time, man.

I don't even know if I believe anything I'm saying anymore.

So it declares this man named Cyrus, and we know exactly when Cyrus, the king of Persia, declared the temple can be rebuilt. And if you do the math, four hundred and eighty three years later is exactly on Palm Sunday when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a little donkey. Weird. Well, a guy named

Stoner is his last name. You're like, what have you been smoking before you came in here? He he's a mathematician, and he wrote a book about this, about the odds. What are the odds of a person being able to have these 300 prophecies accurate

hundreds of years before it ever happened? And and it's funny. A a guy doing probability and math named Stoner, that'd be like, next professor Spicoli is gonna come give you a literature thing. Yeah. If you laughed at that, you're old. And you're a sinner for watching that movie.

Anyways, back to where I was. He he did some odds, and and a matter of fact, his math and science was peer reviewed by the the World Academy of Math Probability Science. I think that's the name of it. I didn't even know a World Academy existed where they review people's math and science. What what is that meeting like?

Is it like some candle lit dark dungeness room, like an Illuminati meeting and like, we know the last digit to pi.

You gotta know math to understand that joke. And they reviewed his side. They said, I don't know. They didn't say anything about whether they believed in his hypothesis, but they said his math is accurate. And what he did is he said, what are the odds of these accurate

things? Because the Old Testament, like I said, skeptics would say it must have been written later. The problem is they found the Dead Sea Scrolls. I've seen them. And the Dead Sea Scrolls,

we know exactly when they're written. A hundred years to two hundred years in that whole hundred year period before Jesus was born. So when they found them, they found whole copies of the entire Old Testament.

And so skeptics were, yeah. Now you're gonna see when you read that, the Old Testament's gonna be changed. It's gonna be different now than it was originally,

and you're gonna find out all these prophecies weren't in there. They added them later. They retconned it to make it cram Jesus into being real. And then when they looked and they translated all these copies, guess what it was exactly like? The old testament we have now. Nothing changed.

So those prophecies were written before Jesus ever showed up. So this guy did the math, and he said, let's say, what are the odds of just a person having eight of these 350? Any one person having eight of them being accurate. And he came up. This was the number. One in 10 to the seventeenth power.

That number is called a quadrillion. It's basically the median home price right now in in in this area.

It's also the inflation rate and the national debt. You know? If that's a 10 to the seventeenth, there's a one with 17 zeros behind it. That's just eight of them. He then did the math. He only stopped as high as he he went to 48 of them.

For just 48. That's like what? 14% maybe of the whole total? He says, what are the odds of that? I go, you know what? Can't even use let's we need to give some good use to this big screen we made over here. It has to go up there. There it is.

The odds of one person doing that is one in ten to the one hundred and fifty seventh power. That's a one with 157 zeros. That number doesn't even have a name. The highest number we go up to, and then you skip all the way to the Googleplex,

whatever that wizardry number is, but the highest regular number is 10 to the hundred and twentieth. And it's nove it's a novem Trigatillion. A novem trigotillion is the highest number we have a number for. One ten to the hundred and twentieth. One to the 120. Novem trigotillion.

That that's a weird name, ain't it? Doesn't that sound like a ball in, like, the eighteen hundreds? Pardon me, dear chap. May I have the honor of escorting your daughter to the no Novem Trigatillion? He's like, how dare you? We duel it done.

I don't know why I said that. It's probably because this is the last time. I just don't care.

But look at those odds. Compare this. In 2018, there was a mega millions lottery jackpot that got up to $1,600,000,000. You know what the odds of winning that were? One in three hundred million.

The odds of someone accidentally getting these prophecies right is so astronomically low.

If you're a betting person and you want to say, I'm a person of reason and logic, math, you should bet on Jesus. Just saying. If that's so true, why do people not know this? Why do they believe it? It proves what the Bible says. We're not mistakers. Sinners means we're a rebellion.

We suppress who God is. We don't want to believe it because we don't want to believe it. Science and math and all that show the other way. Logic and history and information show the other way. So if you're a skeptic, you're actually looking at what's out there.

And so we need Easter. Matter of fact, I wanna read the Easter story in a different way.

I'm gonna read it out of that passage. We've already read some. It's Isaiah 53. You know why? Isaiah 53 is one has some of those the whole passage is one of the prophecies. It even has a prophecy within the prophecy here. It's talking about this messiah they call. We didn't know his name was Jesus yet. They were looking forward to it, but it's describing. And it describes why he came. It describes what Good Friday is. It describes the resurrection. It describes what's going on. And here's the crazy thing is, this was written seven hundred years before Jesus was born.

Seven hundred years before.

And here it goes. Says, who has believed our message? To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm? My servant grew up in the Lord's presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance. Nothing to attract us to him. He was just an average looking guy. He was no Ryan Reynolds.

He just looked like an average schlub. He was like pastor Daniel out here, small biceps and all. Nothing special.

Had to throw that in there. But that's interesting because in the actual Easter story, when they arrest Jesus, it's always weird, like, Judas had to go kiss Jesus so they could identify him. Have you ever thought, well, if Jesus is already notorious, shouldn't they know what he looks like?

He looked very average. He looked like the other guys. It's not like he walked around with his blue eyes and his flowing hair and was taller than everybody else and and just, like, had some or, like, glow about him. He was just an average guy. This is saying that seven hundred years before.

He was despised and rejected. A man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we didn't care. Yet,

it was our weaknesses he carried. It was our sorrows that weighed him down, and we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins, but he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed.

All of us like sheep have strayed away. All of us like sheep. When I went to seminary, they taught me the deep meaning of all. And you know what all means? All means all, and that's all all means. That's what they taught me. I think I paid too much money for seminary. He says we have left God's paths to follow our own.

What sin is, yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all. He was oppressed and treated harshly,

yet he never said a word. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth. Unjustly condemned, he was led away. No one cared that he died without descendants, that his life was cut short midstream,

but he was struck down for the rebellion of my people. He had done no wrong, and he had never deceived anyone. He was buried like a criminal. He's put in a rich man's grave. There's another one of those prophecies. We know that Jesus was buried in a borrowed tomb of a rich man.

But it was the Lord's this verse ten's powerful. It was the Lord's good plan to crush him and cause him grief.

It was the Lord's good plan? That's where we get the name for Good Friday when Jesus was hanging on the cross. Why is that good? Doesn't that sound bad? You know why it was good? It was good for us. He had to die. Why?

See, there's a there's there's there's a thing out there that even if we go, okay, maybe there's a god. Maybe we we think of religion as just be a good person. We we say all religions basically are the same. Just be good and they lead to god. That's not true. And if you're a Christian that says that, you're, like, spitting in the face of Christ's sacrifice.

Because the truth is, if there was other ways to be made right with God, then Jesus dying, if that was the plan, that's a bad plan.

Jesus in the Garden Of Gethsemane, you know, he's God taking on flesh, but he still he he feels like a human, but he knows like a god like god. And and and he actually prayed, hey. If there's any other way is basically how his prayer went, and then we could do this, that would be nice, but then he goes, but not my will, thy will be done. Jesus knew there's no other way.

Why do we need Jesus? Why did the son of God have to die? Why did and and some of you go, like, why would I would not follow a religion where a father would kill his son? You don't understand the relationship of father to son when it comes to God. It's not like us as humans. The father did not create the son.

The father, son, and holy spirit are triune, coequal, eternal god.

They have their own separate person. They're not just they are kinda talking themselves. They're three in one, and that's whole another sermon. Sounds weird to you. One plus one plus one equals three. How could it be three in one? What's one times one times one? One. There you go. Mathematically, it's not confusing.

It's confusing when you try to figure it out. He chose sonship. He chose a relationship. He's the father in the sense of you are gonna be the leader. I'm gonna go fulfill the mission, but I'm god. I'm doing my part. The father thought it. The son bought it. The spirit brought it. That's how it works. There you go.

And so he's choosing this, and he says it's a good plan because it's the only plan. It's good because it's the only way we can be made right. There is no other way to God but through Jesus Christ. No other way. That's what separates every other religion. Every other religion says you can get better, you can be good, you can appease God, you can you can get to this moment, you can there's even some around this area that teach Jesus teaches you to do this. Get to God, become God, and and do this,

but it's not true.

And what's funny is when you say there's only one way, our culture now says, you are bigoted, you are closed minded, you're thinking one way, really? If you're in a burning building and a fireman comes to you and says, hey, the only way out is you gotta crawl down here, turn to the right, there's a hole in the wall, That's the only way. Every other way the building's falling apart, full of flames, you're gonna die. Hurry yourself. Oh, really?

Isn't that a bit, woah, closed minded, my good fellow fireman? Isn't that your opinion? I feel like there are many ways to get out of this building. Alright. Go ahead and do that and see how it works out for you. If there's one way, there's one way. The reason it's a good plan is it's the only way.

Why do we fight that? Because of our sin natures. We wanna figure out a way to do our own stuff, even our own way to be made right with God. We even try to do that on our own. That's what sin is. It's a rebellion. It's a brokenness. He says it's the only way.

He will enjoy, yet when his life is made an offering for sin, he will have many descendants. That's kind of cool. How could he have descendants? He died. Jesus never had kids. This is the coolest thing. If you know Jesus, he's talking about you. Twenty eight hundred years ago,

the bible was already talking about those of us that know him now. We're the descendants. And here's what will blow your mind.

God's outside of space and time. So when he says it, he's not saying it like, and down the road, we're gonna make all these sales, and we're gonna have these friends, and you're saying it, but you don't know any of them. When God said this, when this was written, he already knew your name.

He already knew you. He already knew you'd be sitting here right now.

You know, oh, Christian, I need the bible. That's for stupid people. You figure it out. You're stupid.

Hanging out with my grandson too much.

And now I lost my place because I'm old and can't see. Here we go. Verse 11. When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish, he will be satisfied. And because of his experience, my righteous servant will make it possible for many to be counted righteous,

for he will bear all their sins. If you see these, my righteous will make it possible. What we're gonna see in a minute, I'm give you an opportunity because just because Jesus died for our sins, you have to accept it. You gotta do what's called repent. You gotta turn to him. You have to confess and profess. You gotta confess that you are a sinner that went your own way and profess a faith in the only way of Jesus.

That's what makes it possible. He says, I will give him the honors of a victorious soldier because he exposed himself to death. He was counted among the rebels. He bore the sins of many and interceded for rebels. See, it says we're sinners. We're rebels. We're not just mistakers who can do better.

And that's why it's a good plan. That's why Easter had to happen. That's why God had to die because for you to earn your spot before God, you'd have to be perfectly holy and perfectly righteous for God is perfect. Can't do it. So Jesus, who is perfect, came and took our sin away for us.

He took he took the penalty. He took it for us, and by putting your faith in that, we are made righteous. That's the gospel. That's what it means,

and I wouldn't want anyone here to miss it no matter how many times you've been in church, how long you've been in church. I'd hate for you to sit here year after year and get everything else right, know all these little tidbits, know all these churchy things, and miss the destination

of an absolute relationship of faith in Jesus because that's what rescues us. That's how it works. Let me let me sum it up this way, then we'll sing a song, and you guys can leave and eat your ham. How's that sound? When

I was in middle school, high school, when I was younger, I used to have a dirt bike, motorcycle, ride out in the desert, do crazy stuff. But one of the things I like to do wasn't so crazy is I like to go on these long trail rides. I'd find a trail I haven't been on, and I go, you know what? I think that goes towards those mountains. I'm gonna see how far I can get before I have to turn around and come back. And and and so I took off one day. Was all by myself out there, you know, and

I was I love the trail. Just going fast. And as I was cruising, I started to see a guy not too far from me. But at first, he kinda stayed the same distance, then all of sudden, he started to rapidly he started to slow down. And so then I caught up to him, and now he's going slow on the trail. And we're like, went from

and I'm like, why am I stuck in rush hour traffic when there's only two people here? And I so I go, I gotta get around them. So I tried to pass them. So I go to one side, and when I tried to weenk around him, he swerved in front of me and then like shushed me, like, stay back.

And then I go, what? So I go the other one. He did it again. Get back. And I'm like, hey, you get back. You know, and then he kept doing it. So after three or four times, I was like, what is this guy's problem? Why is he in my way? Why is he stopping me from where I wanna go? Why is he making me go slow? He's a barrier.

He's being a jerk. So you know what? I go, I'm not gonna listen to him. I'm gonna do my own thing. I'm gonna get off the path. I'm gonna go my own way. So I tore off into the desert, accelerated, started to pass him. As I started to pass him, I looked back at him, and I was like shaking my fist to say, thought you'd stop me. You didn't stop me, jerk.

And he starts pointing at me. And I was like, what the I started pointing back. I'm like

we do that like several times and I realized, wait, he's not pointing at me. He's pointing past me. So I turn and I see what he was pointing at. And in front of us coming up really rapidly is a canyon. It's about 15 feet wide, about 20 feet deep. And here's the problem. On the trail, which I'm no longer on, the path,

it gradually deteriorates and goes down and up. So if you slow down, you can go through it safe. That's why he was slowing down. If you go too fast, you'll still jump off one side and crash in the bottom. But if you go slower, you go down and out. The problem is everywhere other than the the path,

it's a straight up and down canyon. And

I'm heading right towards it. And now I realize, oh, he slowed down because he's been here before. He saw me speeding, and he didn't want me to go around him because he could tell I didn't know where I was. And he was getting in front of me saying, no. Trust me. Stay behind me. Trust me, and you'll be okay. And I'm like, forget you, man. And then I thought he was pointing at me. He's like, no. Look. Look.

And by then, it's too late. I'm going so fast. I look and I go, here's the problem. It came on me so fast. Had a nanosecond to decide. Was I like, if I hit the brakes, think I'm gonna skid and just fall in, and that would be epically lame. So if I'm going out, I'm going out Evel Knievel style.

And in my heart, even though I realized what this guy was trying to do, I was still angry with him. And so I was like, I could still prove you wrong. I'm gonna jump this thing. And when I get it done on my own, your jaw's gonna drop. And I'm like, take that jerk.

Even though he's trying to help me, I'm still trying to be mad at him. So I just decided, forget it. I accelerated full bore. I ducked down in, Evel Knievel style, and I'm gonna jump this thing. Wee. And I went off, and it's like, jump off that thing. And here's the crazy thing. If you've ever done anything like this, which I do not recommend,

but there is this moment when you're in the air like that, it feels awesome. You're like, I'm the king of the world. I'm flying. You feel like you're flying, but if if if if Toy Story has taught us anything deeply theological, it's this: You're not flying. You're just falling with style.

I thought I was flying, but I'm not. I'm actually falling.

And as I came down but I didn't know that. It felt good in the middle of the air, and I was like, I'm gonna make it. I'm gonna make it. I'm gonna I'm not gonna make it. I'm not gonna make it. I and I hit my front wheel hit about six inches below the other edge. Bam, straight into it, and and and I didn't make it.

Well, that's not a 100% accurate. My body did make it. My motorcycle didn't. Because as I hit, motorcycle flew down there, but I threw me off with force. I was holding onto my my handlebar. So I went up over backwards

and went am I looking at the sky as I'm flying through the air, and I pancaked onto the other side. My motorcycle fell down and got pretty bay banged up. And you think, well, at least you made it. I was in worse trouble than my motorcycle. I would have better off falling in. Because what I landed in was cholla cactus.

A bed of it. And not just in it, it enveloped me. I went all the way in. I was covered completely. Covered completely. Now I don't know if you know a lot of you, by the way, act, you know what Choy is. Let me show you a picture.

This that's not a picture of me. That guy had nothing that compared to me. This is a recent picture around here. That's what Choy is. It's very sticky. It sticks in. It's like acupuncture from hell, and it makes you a reverse porcupine.

And and and what that does is it's they had to call paramedics just for that amount because as you try to pull it off, it sticks to whatever tries to pull it off. It's like that booger that won't go away. You know? It's like I don't know why I said that either. Sorry. I know nothing about that. But

this guy's in trouble. That's nothing compared to me. I was completely if it wasn't for my goggles, it would have gouged my eyes. But it was everywhere else. I mean, everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. I don't think I can reiterate enough. Everywhere. You know what I'm saying? Everywhere.

And I was already starting to itch because I'm allergic to everything on the planet. I even think I'm slightly allergic to myself. And so I'm down there going, this is itchy. I'm bleeding.

You hit enough force. It was deep enough that I had some of those gouged in pretty deep, and I I was hurting. It was really a dangerous scenario.

I couldn't move. I didn't know how I was gonna get out of this because every time I moved, it felt like stuff dug in worse. And finally, this guy rolls off, stops, jumps off his ropes, gets over, leans over, he's like, bro, are you okay? It's a long time ago.

And I'm like, what do you think? Tell my family I love them. I'm not okay. And he goes, man, that's what I was trying to do. Didn't you see us trying to tell you to slow down and then I didn't want you to go off the path? And and then and he go, I realize that now. But he goes, let me help you.

Like, don't know how to help. I don't know how to get up. And he goes, can you get a hand up? Just give me your hand. I said, okay. God.

I and he goes to grab my hand, and as he grabs my hand, sticks into him. He has to know, he gets all these things stuck, so he has to go over. And he goes over to the rock, scrapes him off.

Now his hand's all tore up already. And then he grabs my hand. He tries to pull me. He realized the angle, not enough leverage. He can't do it. So then you know what he did? He stepped into it.

Now he's up to his knees. His legs are getting all tore up. And he pulls me up and then he realizes he gets me up this far and realizes it's still not good enough. He gets me just high enough and then he did the unthinkable. He reached down and he bear hugged me

and grabbed me under there. Now we're just hugging. This guy, I can't believe he's doing this to save me. But in the time, I'm sitting there thinking, this is awkward. I shouldn't be gazing into this guy's eyes this close. I don't even know him. But yet he's saving me. He pulls me up, and then he steps out.

Then as he lets go, he goes, Don't move. He steps back, and now he's all covered, And I'm covered even worse. And he goes, just stay still. And he goes over, and he starts using our he starts scraping it all off. And but as he scrapes, some of them break off. So now he is all tore up,

and he's turning red. He's got some blood flowing in his hands and his arms, and then he walks over, and he took the time to sit there and get every piece of that cholla off me. And as he did it, it thrashed him too. And he just kept going and going and going till finally it's all off.

But if you looked at both of us, you probably couldn't tell which one of us landed in the Cholla and which one took the Cholla. It's almost if this guy came to me and said, hey, I'm trying to keep you safe. And now that you're hurt, now that you didn't listen to me, I'm gonna take the cactus from you

and take it upon myself. And after doing all that, as messed up as he was, he had me get on his motorcycle with him and he drove me back home.

That's Easter. That's Christianity. That's what it means to know the God who loves you and made you.

So I don't know if some of you are shaking your fist at the idea of God because he just seems to be a barrier problem. He seems to represent something you're like, hey. It's holding me back. I don't even know if he's real because he's real. All these rules and regulations and and or if I believe in him, but I've got a problem with him because every time I try to get somewhere in life, it seems like he's swerving in front of me. Some of you said, I don't even believe in god anymore. Forget it. I'm gonna prove it myself. You've driven off the path, and you're doing whatever you want, and you're cruising along and saying, shaking your fist at god.

But you need to know that it's the God who made you, that loves you, that's trying to get you somewhere. The destination is Jesus.

And I don't know what's holding you back or what's preventing you or what's stopping you, but God loves you that much. And that's where a relationship starts. We try to live from his love. You don't try to prove yourself to him and live for his love. I didn't do nothing but to reject that guy the entire time.

And then you learn to listen to and say, hey. I'll get on the motorcycle and let you take me back now that you just saved me.

We should follow Jesus because you we realize how much he loved us, and he made us and saved us. That's why we show up. That's why we do the right things. That's why we try to listen to the bible. Because we know that if this guy would do that to save me, why wouldn't I trust him with the rest of my life?

But you need to accept that love. That's what it means to be a Christian. That's what it means. And I don't know what's holding you back. And I go, I don't want you to miss it. And my heart is broken because I think the person in this room that's gonna miss it the easiest is those of you that are still in the air.

Your life right now is feels like you're flying. Things are going good. You're like, what do I need Jesus? I got a good job. I got a good life. I got everything I want. You know, I got everything's working. You know, it's like my kids are listening to me. My spouse is awesome, and and

my job is paying me more than what I deserve. It's the it's the American dream. I got it going. What do I need? You're in the air right now, but you are not flying. You're falling with style. And you know what? I would hate for you to get to the end of your life and realize you're in the cactus, parked out

in front of an empty stadium, and you miss the whole thing, especially because God loves you. And here's the cool thing about the God of love and the God of time. Before time existed, he knew you would be in this moment right now. He knew you'd be sitting here right now.

He knew you'd be subjected to terrible jokes from somebody right now, but he knew it. The best evidence that there's a God is for some of you, the Holy Spirit is tugging at your heart right now. You know this message is true. You need to surrender to his love.

He's out to get you, but he's not out to get you. He loves you. Stop. Let him check. Let him catch you. Surrender to his love. Don't miss it. So what I want to do is I want to pray, because some of you can join the over 500 people already that have become descendants today, this weekend,

have already done this. I want to pray with you because all it takes is a repentant. Just turn from yourself and turn to Jesus. And you can do that with me right now. And so I'm going pray with you. So if you would close your eyes, tie your heads,

and just know that that that that if as I pray, pray with me, but make it your own words. Make it in in your words to God to confess and profess who he is.

It's not a magic incantation. It's just you crying out to God. It's you actually reaching your arm up and say, I see this now, God. I hear your voice. I hear you saying I want you to you wanna save me. So I'm gonna hold my hand up to you and say, yes. I believe.

So as I pray with everybody with their eyes closed, as I pray, if you wanna pray with me that prayer, as we're praying, as you start to pray, I want you to just to hold your arm up. Just hold your hand up like I did to symbolically and freely,

Literally put your hand up and say, Jesus, I'm holding my hand up. I'm holding my life up to you. I'm putting my faith in you. Go ahead and just hold them up. Hold them up while we pray and keep them up while we pray. Just say, I need you, Jesus.

I didn't care. I've lived my life like you're not there, or even I've lived my life like you've been in my way. I now see that I've went off path. I've trusted myself more than you. But right now, in the best way I know how, I turn to your forgiveness and your love by putting my faith in what you did for me.

I put my faith and belief and trust in the fact that you did come, you did live that righteous life and then you died on that cross for me taking my sin, taking the cactus of my sin away. And then you didn't stay dead. You rose back to life giving me the opportunity to come to life,

to live eternal life, to be able to hop on that motorcycle with you and drive through eternity together. That's what I turn to and put my faith in right now. Thank you for that. Thank you for forgiving me, and help me to leave from here, not with just my hand lifted to you in this prayer,

but with my heart attached to your heart. Help me to understand what your love means more and more each day, and help me to learn to live from it, not for it. I thank you, and I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. There hey. There was a lot of hands in this room,

and I want us to remember what Easter is. I wanna sing us one last little short part of the song we've already sung about how the his cross is my freedom. It's not a burden. It's the way we're free. I And want you guys to stand up because you know what? There were so many hands in this room. There was already over 500 people. And those of you that raised your hand and even those of you that prayed with me that didn't raise your hand, God saw your heart. He knows. I know there's some of you that did that. But if you just put your faith in Jesus, guess what? Jesus wasn't the only one that rose from the dead on Easter. Now you have to. Now you have eternal life. You know the destination.

The destination is Jesus.

And that's what faith is. That's what it means to be a Christian. It's about how he loves you and he wants you to trust him and relax in his love because he died for you. He took a beating for you. He came back to life for you, and he gave us life, and that's the only way to have life. And we need to sing about it, and we need to celebrate it. Amen.

Come on Rock Point. Can we just give God one more huge round of applause for all that he has done this weekend and for these incredible people that have pulled off eight services so that all people could and hear the good news of Jesus. Hey,

a couple things, man. Thank you again so much for joining us. If you were one of those people that said yes this weekend, you are part of over 500 people who've given their life to Jesus. But we wanna know so we can come alongside of you and give you some next steps in your faith journey. Go to rockpoint.io.

There's a tab that says, I said yes to Jesus. Fill it out and we'll give you some more information. But other than that, we hope you guys have an incredible weekend. There's tons of stuff outside. Enjoy

all the baby animals. I think they're giving away bunny rabbits, so make sure your kids don't go there. If you need to pray with somebody, our prayer rooms are open. But other than that, have a great rest of your weekend, guys. We will see you all next weekend.