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Easter At Rock Point 2022 | Bill Bush · Rewind

Rock Point Church

69 min

Pastor Bill Bush · Apr 17, 2022 · 5 min read · 69 min listen

The big idea

Jesus is the destination — you can get everything else right about church and Easter and still miss Him, and miss the whole point.

In this message

The big idea
Point 1 of 7Jesus is the destination — you can know everything else about church and miss Him entirely.
Point 2 of 7We are sinners, not mistakers — rebels who severed our own relationship with God.

Point 3 of 7The Old Testament's hundreds of fulfilled prophecies point unmistakably to Jesus as the Messiah.
Point 4 of 7Isaiah 53, written 700 years before Jesus, describes His ordinary appearance, His suffering, and why His death was 'good.'
Point 5 of 7Jesus had to die because there is no other way to God — every other religion offers a way to earn it, but only Jesus offers a rescue.
Point 6 of 7The dirt bike and cholla cactus story pictures what Jesus did — He took the pain that was ours to save us.
Point 7 of 7Some people are 'flying' through life right now but are actually just falling, and will miss Jesus the easiest.
Take it into your week
Transcript

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Scripture in this message

Isaiah 53
Isaiah 53:10
Isaiah 53:11

Rewind AI drafted the Big Idea and some point headings shown here from the sermon transcript. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Pastor Bill Bush · Apr 17, 2022 · 69 min watch · 3 min read

Easter At Rock Point 2022 | Bill Bush

In this message

Big Idea
Key points
Application

Scripture in this message

Isaiah 53
Isaiah 53:10
Isaiah 53:11

Big Idea Key points Application

Big Idea

Jesus is the destination — you can get everything else right about church and Easter and still miss Him, and miss the whole point.

Easter is not about showing up, feeling better, or being a good person — it's about a relationship with Jesus, the only way to be made right with God. Because we are rebels, not just mistakers, God Himself paid the price we couldn't pay, and He is inviting every person here to stop running and accept His love.

Key points

1
1Jesus is the destination — you can know everything else about church and miss Him entirely.
Pastor Bill tells the story of driving an hour and a half to see a basketball game with all the right information except the address, arriving to an empty stadium. He applies it to Easter crowds: people can come for tradition, guilt, self-improvement, or ham, and have almost everything else right while missing the one thing Christianity is actually about.
2
2We are sinners, not mistakers — rebels who severed our own relationship with God.
Pastor Bill explains that Christianity differs from every other religion because it isn't about appeasing God to get what we want; it's admitting we by nature want to be our own god. This rebellion, not mere mistake-making, is why we need rescue rather than self-improvement.
3
3The Old Testament's hundreds of fulfilled prophecies point unmistakably to Jesus as the Messiah.
Pastor Bill cites 332 Old Testament prophecies fulfilled by Jesus, including the Daniel prophecy about Cyrus and the 483 years to Palm Sunday, and appeals to mathematician Peter Stoner's odds calculations (one in 10^157 for 48 prophecies) verified by a math review board. He notes the Dead Sea Scrolls prove the prophecies predate Jesus, answering skeptics who claim they were written later.
4
4Isaiah 53, written 700 years before Jesus, describes His ordinary appearance, His suffering, and why His death was 'good.'
Pastor Bill reads through Isaiah 53 verse by verse, pointing out that Jesus looked average (unlike Judas needing to identify Him with a kiss), that He was despised and pierced for our sins, and that being buried in a rich man's tomb was itself a fulfilled detail. He explains 'Good Friday' is good because it was the only way, not because suffering itself is good.
5
5Jesus had to die because there is no other way to God — every other religion offers a way to earn it, but only Jesus offers a rescue.
Pastor Bill walks through Jesus praying in Gethsemane for another way and finding none, and explains the Trinity's shared plan: 'the Father thought it, the Son bought it, the Spirit brought it.' He uses the illustration of a fireman insisting on the one true way out of a burning building to answer the charge that exclusive truth claims are closed-minded.
6
6The dirt bike and cholla cactus story pictures what Jesus did — He took the pain that was ours to save us.
Pastor Bill recounts crashing his dirt bike into a cactus bed after ignoring a rider trying to warn him, and how that rider tore up his own hands and legs pulling the cactus off him and carried him home. He connects it directly to Jesus taking our sin/cactus upon Himself even while we were still fighting Him.
7
7Some people are 'flying' through life right now but are actually just falling, and will miss Jesus the easiest.
Drawing on the Toy Story line that you're not flying, you're falling with style, Pastor Bill warns that a good job, good family, and good life can feel like enough until the crash comes. He pleads with those who feel they have no need for Jesus not to miss the destination.

Application

Don't miss the destination — Jesus is what Easter, and church, is actually for.

Stop settling for lesser reasons to show up
If you come to church out of guilt, tradition, self-improvement, or just for ham, examine whether you've substituted those things for actually knowing Jesus.
Look honestly at the evidence
Skeptics are invited to weigh the fulfilled prophecies and historical evidence for Jesus rather than dismissing it, and to bet on Jesus if they consider themselves people of reason and logic.
Admit you're a rebel, not just a mistaker
Recognize that sin is not simply doing better next time but a fundamental turning away from God that only Jesus's death and resurrection can fix.
Surrender to His love and put your faith in Him
Pastor Bill leads people to pray, confessing they've gone their own way and professing faith in Jesus's death and resurrection, symbolized by raising a hand.
Learn to live from His love, not for it
After putting faith in Jesus, keep growing in understanding His love day by day rather than trying to earn or prove yourself to Him.

Take it into your week

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

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Scripture in this message

From the transcript
“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”
From the transcript
“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”
From the transcript
“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”

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

7-day devotional

A personal reading plan from this message — scripture, reflection, and prayer for each day.

Sign in to track your progress through this devotional.

Day 1

There is something quietly stunning about the fact that Isaiah wrote these words roughly 700 years before Jesus was born. A suffering servant, despised and rejected, bearing grief and sorrow — written not as a guess but as a promise. Pastor Bill reminded us that more than 332 Old Testament prophecies point straight to Jesus, and Isaiah 53 is one of the most breathtaking of them all. The whole Bible, from its first page to its last, is not a collection of disconnected moral lessons. It is one story, moving toward one destination. That matters for how you read Scripture. When you open the Old Testament, you are not browsing ancient history or hunting for life tips. You are watching a long, deliberate arrow being drawn back, aimed at Bethlehem, at Calvary, at an empty tomb. God did not improvise. He announced the rescue plan centuries in advance and then carried it out exactly as He said He would. If you have ever wondered whether the Bible can be trusted, this is worth sitting with. The specificity of fulfilled prophecy is not an accident. It is an invitation to look more closely — and to notice that the One these words describe is still making Himself known today.

For reflection

When you read the Old Testament, do you tend to see it as connected to Jesus or as a separate, older story? What might change if you read it as one unfolding promise?

Pray

Pray for fresh eyes to see how Scripture points to Jesus, and thank God for a plan that was never improvised.

Day 2

"We all, like sheep, have gone astray; each of us has turned to our own way." Pastor Bill was direct about this: the problem is not that we make mistakes and need a little course correction. The problem is that by nature, we are rebels — people who have turned away from God and chosen to run our own lives. That is what the Bible calls sin, and it is a much heavier word than we usually let it be. It can feel uncomfortable to sit with that diagnosis. But notice what the verse does not do: it does not single out the worst offenders. "We all" is the whole picture. The person who has been kind their whole life and the person who has caused real damage are standing in the same sentence. Going our own way is a universal condition, not a character flaw belonging to someone else. The discomfort of this truth is actually the beginning of something good. You cannot receive a rescue you do not think you need. When Isaiah says the Lord has laid on Jesus the iniquity of us all, the weight of that gift only becomes clear when you first feel the weight of what it is covering. Sitting honestly with this verse is not self-punishment — it is the door to the grace that follows.

For reflection

In what area of your life are you most tempted to believe you can manage things well enough on your own, without God's guidance?

Pray

Pray for honesty about the ways you tend to go your own way, and ask God to make His rescue feel as real as your need for it.

Day 3

This verse may be the most surprising one in the chapter: "It was the Lord's good plan to crush Him and cause Him grief." That word — good — stops you cold. How could crushing be good? Pastor Bill addressed this head-on. Good Friday was not a tragedy that God scrambled to redeem. It was the plan. The death of Jesus — the only sinless person who has ever lived — was the only possible way the broken relationship between God and humanity could be repaired. This reframes everything about the cross. Jesus was not a victim of circumstances or a martyr for a cause. He was a willing substitute, and the Father sent Him knowing exactly what it would cost. The word "good" here is not cheerful or easy. It is weighty and purposeful — the kind of good that looks like sacrifice before it looks like anything else. This is also why Easter cannot simply be a moral inspiration or a reason to feel more motivated. If the cross was the plan all along, then the only fitting response is to actually receive what it accomplished — not to file it away as a moving story and go back to managing life on your own terms. The plan was completed. The question is whether you are living like it was completed for you.

For reflection

How does knowing that the cross was God's deliberate plan — not a desperate backup — change the way you think about what Jesus did for you?

Pray

Pray for a deeper sense of the weight and the goodness of what God chose to do, and ask Him to make the cross feel personal rather than historical.

Day 4

"When He sees all that is accomplished by His anguish, He will be satisfied." There is a tender word buried in that verse: He will see and be satisfied. Pastor Bill drew out something personal here — that God knew each person by name before time began. His sacrifice was not a broad, impersonal transaction covering humanity in the abstract. It was personal. Specific. He knew your name. That kind of love is hard to receive, honestly. It is easier to treat God as a distant judge whose standards you are trying to meet, or as a cosmic force that is vaguely favorable toward good people. But Isaiah 53:11 describes a Savior who looked at the full cost of what it would take to bring you back and was satisfied to pay it. Not reluctant. Not resentful. Satisfied. Let that settle somewhere real today. The relentless love Pastor Bill described is not a Sunday-morning feeling. It is a fact about who Jesus is and what He has already done. You do not have to earn your way into that love or perform well enough to keep it. The anguish has already been borne. The satisfaction has already been declared. What is left is simply receiving it — and letting it slowly reshape how you see yourself and everyone around you.

For reflection

Does the idea that God knew your name before time began feel comforting, unsettling, or hard to believe? What gets in the way of receiving that love as personal?

Pray

Pray to receive — not just acknowledge — the personal nature of what Jesus did, and ask God to make His love feel less abstract and more real today.

Day 5

Related passage

Pastor Bill made a point that is worth sitting with for a full day: Christianity is unique. In every other religious framework, the question is what you must do — what rituals to perform, what standards to meet, what version of yourself to become — in order to close the distance between you and God. Jesus answers that question differently. "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through Me." That claim is either the most important sentence ever spoken or a strange thing to say. Jesus does not offer a path; He says He is the path. He does not point to a method; He points to Himself. That means salvation is not a self-improvement project with spiritual language layered on top. It cannot be earned, assembled, or achieved. It depends entirely on what Jesus has already done — His death, His resurrection, His life offered in place of yours. For some of us, that is freeing. For others, it is quietly unsettling, because it means there is nothing left to manage or control. You cannot negotiate partial credit. You can only receive or not receive. The sermon's invitation was not to try harder or show up more faithfully — it was to actually look at what God has done and let that be enough.

For reflection

Have you been relating to God more like a transaction you need to complete, or like a relationship He has already made possible? What does the difference feel like in daily life?

Pray

Pray for the humility to stop trying to earn what has already been freely given, and ask God to make Jesus feel like enough.

Day 6

Related passage

Repentance is one of those words that has collected a lot of unhelpful baggage. It can sound like self-punishment, like working up enough remorse to qualify for forgiveness. But at its core, repentance is simply a turn — away from going your own way and toward the God who has already come to meet you. Pastor Bill's call was simple and urgent: the rescue is complete, the love is personal, and the next step is not a program. It is turning. Acts 3:19 puts it plainly: "Repent of your sins and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped away." The wiping away is God's work. The turning is yours. That is not earning — it is responding. It is the difference between standing outside a door that has already been opened and actually walking through it. This kind of turning is not a one-time moment you either got right or missed. It is also a daily posture — noticing when you have drifted back to running your own life and turning again toward Jesus. The invitation of Easter is not to feel differently about yourself; it is to place your trust in what Jesus has done and keep orienting your life in that direction. Each day is a chance to take that turn again, or for the first time.

For reflection

Is there something you are currently holding onto — a habit, a plan, a version of yourself — that you have not yet handed over to God? What would turning look like in that specific area?

Pray

Pray for the courage to turn — not just emotionally but practically — in one area where you have been going your own way.

Day 7

You have spent a week sitting with a chapter written 700 years before the events it describes. That is worth pausing on. Isaiah 53 is not a poem about a good man who suffered unjustly. It is a portrait of a specific rescue — planned before time, carried out in history, and offered personally to every person who will receive it. Pastor Bill's sermon came back to one question, really: have you received it? Not attended it, not admired it, not added it to a list of things you believe in the background of your life — but actually received it. Let the sin be called what it is. Let the rescue be as complete as Jesus said it was. Let the love be as personal as Isaiah 53:11 describes. If something stirred in you this week — a question, a longing, a quiet sense that you have been treating Easter as a religious habit rather than an encounter — that is worth following. You do not have to figure it out alone. Rock Point exists to walk with people exactly here, at the beginning of what could be a very different kind of life. The next step is not complicated: turn, trust, and let the people around you come alongside you for the journey. The rescue is real. The door is open.

For reflection

Looking back over this week, what is the one thing from this sermon or these passages that you most need to sit with, respond to, or talk to someone about?

Pray

Pray for the courage to respond to whatever God has been stirring in you this week — and if you are ready to take a next step, ask Him to lead you to the right person or place to do that.

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Small-group discussion guide

For leading a group conversation about this message.

Open

This message cuts right to the heart of what Easter is actually about — not a holiday or a habit, but a rescue. Before we jump in, what's one word that comes to mind when you think about the word 'rescue'?

Discussion questions

1
Isaiah 53 was written centuries before Jesus was born, yet it describes His suffering, death, and purpose in striking detail. What stands out to you about that passage, and what do you think it was meant to communicate about who Jesus is?
2
Pastor Bill drew a distinction between seeing ourselves as 'mistakers who need to do better' and 'sinners in rebellion against God.' What difference does that distinction make in how people understand what they actually need from Jesus?
3
Isaiah 53:10 describes the suffering of Jesus as the Lord's 'good plan.' How do people tend to wrestle with the idea that something so costly could be called good — and what does the resurrection add to that picture?
4
Pastor Bill pointed out that Christianity is unique in that salvation cannot be earned or self-achieved — it rests entirely on what Jesus did, not what we do. How does that set Christianity apart from the way people often think about religion in general?
5
Isaiah 53:11 speaks of God knowing each person by name. Pastor Bill connected that to the idea that God's sacrifice was not abstract or impersonal. How might that sense of being personally known shape the way we think about what repentance actually means — turning from going our own way and placing trust in Jesus?
6
Pastor Bill's challenge was simple: don't get everything else about Easter right while missing the destination. As a group, how might we help the people around us — friends, neighbors, family — actually slow down and look at what God has done, rather than treating Easter as a box to check?

Pray together

Gratitude for a rescue that is complete, and openness to truly receiving what Jesus has done

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

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