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And I I I just wanna ask a question, tell a little story. And if you're new here, trust me. We're gonna get to Easter on this, okay, if you don't know my personality. But but have you ever come into those those tough moments, scary moments, hard moments, something you know, if you just wanna get away from something, you wanna get to something, but you're stuck somewhere.
And and in those moments, you're tempted to just go take a path that that that might even look like it's working at first to get you out of there and it ends up being more of a disaster.
And in those moments, a lot of times, it's because you listen to someone else that you normally wouldn't listen to, but you're so desperate that all of a sudden their plan seems to make sense. It's kinda like there's bible verse in the book of Proverbs that says there's a way that seems right to man, but at the end it leads to death. You get into these moments where you're like, okay. I think this is what I need to do, and it's not really the way you should go. An example of this is back when I was a youth pastor a million years ago, Jesus and George Washington were in my youth group, and we were taking a couple 100 kids to camp, and we had two big buses, and how we took those old school buses, the big buses. So we're heading up there. We we picked up another
youth group, a small one, about six students and the youth pastor because their van broke down. So they're crammed in with us. And we're going up there and and we stopped at lunch. We wanted to check the directions and the map to make sure, hey, which way do we need to go? Now we get there. Now I do have to clarify for many of you, you're gonna just map was not an app.
It was a literal piece of paper. And and what you had to do was unfold it. You know, they they unfolded. They're all folded up. And if you knew how to fold it back up, you were given a full ride scholarship to an Ivy League school.
And and and and then when you looked and and and then there'd be a little schedule and I said, this like an inch is this many miles. So we're looking in the map, looking in the directions, and we go, hey, look. There's this other highway that they don't tell us to go that way, but that shaves off almost over a half an inch
of travel. Well, this could be quicker. Let's go that way. And we did. At first, it was great. Then we realized why. It was the highway that time had forgotten. I mean, if people on the that went on the Oregon Trail would have complained about this road. It was windy, mounty. We were going even slower.
And and we had these huge buses and it was so narrow. They didn't even put guardrails on the edges. And so it was just this treacherous road. We're winding around this thing and if that wasn't bad enough, one of the buses broke down.
Right around a blind turn. So we'd had people stand around the corner waiting for guards. Slow down. You're gonna hit a bus. So we didn't know what to do so we said, alright. The only thing can do is we put all the luggage on the broken bus. We crammed everybody we could possible on the one bus
and and and it was overstuffed. I mean, we're like strapping kids to the roof and things
And then and then we needed about 12 of us to stay behind. That one youth pastor, just six, they were half of them. They chose to stay behind probably because he thought we were super irresponsible by putting so many people on the bus. Wow. That was a bad decision for him to stay behind
Because we stayed behind and then we're sitting there. And no cell phones, nothing like that, so they said, We'll send help back when we get there. We have no idea how many inches are left on this road and what's gonna happen. We only had water, no food, hour after hour. It was terrible.
And we just wanted some peace. We wanted to get out of there. And that's when it happened. We listened to Doug. See, Doug was one of our youth leaders, but he was one of those guys that always had the dumb ideas.
You know, you all have one of those in your friends groups. You know, where where they start going, I have an idea. And then everybody, you know, just kinda shuts them down, doesn't listen. You just kinda phase out, let them talk, and then when they're done talking, you go, anyways, and everybody goes back to what you're doing.
You you all have one in your group and and and and and if you don't know which person it is everyone else does.
And he had this idea because he was a mechanic
and he goes he figured out it was the fuel pump why the bus wouldn't work And he goes, hey. These old buses, there's the you can get to the engine from inside the compartment of the right next to the driver's seat. So he opened up and he goes, here's what I can do. We could drain fuel out of the the fuel tank and fill up these thermoses that we have, some of these big ones, and and and and I can pour gas straight into it, and it'll make us go.
And we're like, that sounds dangerous. No. It's just fine. Like, we could he tried to sell us, like, we'll just go to where we can find a wider spot in the road. I'm like, okay. Now it's starting to make sense to us. And I go he goes, the only downside is you can't you won't be able to control the speed.
Windy Mountain Road. I'm like, are we about to turn into Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock here? And it's gonna be if we go under 50, we're blowing up. And he's, I'll I'll do my best. I'll do it. So I go, alright. Well, we're gonna do this safely.
So so I had everybody move to the back of the bus, and then Doug was gonna pour. My friend was in drive, and then this big football player, this Heights senior, he's huge and a mohawk. I just remember that. He's like, I wanna help. I'm like, alright. I handed him the fire extinguisher,
and not a little one. We had this full size one. Now I go, you sit about two rows back, just kinda point it out because we're dealing with combustible engine gasoline.
If anything weird happens, just take care of it. He's like, alright. And then we take off. And you know what? At first, you're like, woo hoo. It's working. But then you realize we're going pretty fast. And we're going on roads. We we literally got onto two wheels a couple times, and it was so windy and fast. Then I'm like, hey. There's a wide spot. We should stop. And now Doug's like, no. This is doing great. We're getting somewhere fast. Yeah. Probably heaven fast, but he keeps going. My friend driving says, no. Let's keep going. Let's see how far we could get. He keeps doing it and now we're whining whining. It's getting crazy. I look over at this other youth pastor with his kids. He's white knuckling on the seat. He goes, this isn't this isn't normal.
And I go, this is Tuesday for us. Don't worry about it.
And then the bus backfires. And when it backfired, Doug's pouring, and it his the stream pouring out caught on fire. And at this moment, you were reminded, this is why you never listen to Doug. Because as he was pouring, all he had to do to fix the problem was this. No more stream. No more line of fire.
But, no, he doesn't do that. He goes, ah, and throws it. And as he throws it, it spills on the ground. It drenches the football player with the mohawk, and then we're going slightly uphill at this point. And so as it pours out, it just it just starts coming back towards us, and that caught on fire.
This this wave of liquid caught on fire, and it's coming towards us. And the and and the football player who wanted to help out panics, and instead of just pulling the trigger on the thing, he starts doing his fast feet drill backwards. And and I yell from the back, use the extinguisher,
before he lights up like a candle, and he does. But instead of just like and putting it out really quick, he freaks out and he just holds this thing. He empties this entire full size canister into an enclosed space. All of the bus windows were closed.
And I don't know if he puts the fire out because how that stuff works, that powder and then that, like, what looks like smoke happens,
is it sucks the oxygen out of the air because it starves the fire. The fire needs oxygen. It can't survive. It kinda puts it out. The powder kind of extinguishes it. But here's the problem. If you took biology class, humans need oxygen too. So then everyone's, like, running for the window.
And now remember, this is those old buses. Some of you remember the old school buses. You have to push the two little buttons in to get it to slide down. And if you get it and if you're panicked, like, one went down. And
then you're like, now you gotta go back up. Now you gotta then they only open this far, so I can't fit out. I'm just sticking my head out in one arm. But
all these little skinnies high schoolers, they're jumping out. Woo hoo. Woo hoo. They're just sliding out, landing on the side. There's a line of cars now behind us on this highway. They're watching what looks like smoke billowing out of a bus. High schoolers jumping out the side.
I look back into the mist to go, what happened to the high schooler, the football player? He comes running out of this mist covered in white powder, looking like he's given a Highland charge in Scotland. And he goes, ah, and he runs and hits the back exit door, breaks it open,
flies out of the back of the bus, lands on the highway, runs right down the highway past this line of cars and just yells, it's gonna blow. He just did it because he was dorking around.
The people didn't know that. They don't know that that's just exhaust from a fire extinguisher that put out a fire. They think this thing is engulfed in flames and is gonna blow up. One guy gets out of his car and runs right behind him. It's gonna blow.
The front car goes, I'm right in the blast zone. So they try to spin around to drive away. Their two tires go off narrow road, catch the lip, and they slide down. It wasn't straight down this one, but it was slides way down at an angle. And they slide down about 15 feet and their car hits, wraps around a tree.
And then they jump out and they hug, they get down. It's gonna blow. And then I see people gabbing kids, grabbing stuff, trying to carry their supplies. Then they all start heading down this highway like they're running away from the walking dead horde of zombies or something.
And then then if that's not bad enough, we didn't even know, but about three miles away was one of those fire lookout towers. And this person's like, hits the panic button or I don't calls on the phone. Why? I don't know how they call it in. But he's like, there's a fire at coordinates, whatever.
There happened to be a forest service helicopter not far away. So within about a minute, the thing flies down, so everybody's like,
looking at us. They apparently called. Some rangers were coming. There was a county sheriff that was only a few miles away. He starts flying down the road, and they all show up and it's all this panic. You know, the high schooler covered in powder with the Mohawk's probably halfway back home.
And it shows up in all this chaos, and I see this ranger and the sheriff pull up, and I'm like, okay. Some some leadership that can be provided.
And they get out the car, they look at me, what's going on? I explain. They go, alright. Well, that bus can't stay here. I go, I know. They go, about 200 yards ahead, there's a wide spot. I go, good. When's the truck tow truck gonna get here? They go, tow truck won't be here for hours. We gotta move it now. And I go, well, how are we gonna do that? He goes, can you do what you did again?
The elected sheriff, the forest ranger, the one that are supposed to provide good leadership. Now this was California, so I understand why they didn't make any sense, but could have been worse. Could have been Washington.
Seahawk hat on or something like that. But but we I'm like, wait. You're literally asking us to do again what just caused all this chaos and damage. Yes. Okay. Sure. And we did it. The point being,
we just didn't wanna be where we were. We were fighting. It was like people were getting kids were getting tense. It was getting stressful. There was lots of dumb ideas. There was thing and and we chose to follow this dumb path, and it seemed like it was working, and it led to more disaster
because of the situation we were in and all that chaos.
Well, the first Easter, the real Easter, when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, the week before, when he comes to Jerusalem, he knew his mission. He knew why he was there, and he knew how it was gonna end. And he was riding into chaos like that. The Israel
all of Israel was in chaos because they were being ruled by a foreign country, Rome, an empire, and they were God's people. And they said, this is right. We want we want better government. We wanna bring back the greatness of Israel.
They wanted they they wanted to prosper again. They wanted a hope for their everybody had ideas. There was a lot of contention. There was a lot there was religious factions that even said, this is how she live. This is how she there was a lot of that, but everybody didn't like where they're at. They wanted to get somewhere else, and everyone had an idea, and they were all following their own path, and it was it was crazy. The culture was just really tense. It was turbulent.
It was scary. It was wondering what's gonna happen. The economy was really weird. People were worrying about jobs. They're worrying about all this stuff. They're worrying about how are we gonna do is God even there? And, fortunately, our culture today is nothing like that.
I mean, it's really good. We're in election year, and everyone's calm and awesome in election years. He was coming into the similar situation. And in that moment, as we look at what he did on Easter, what he did that whole weekend before,
first, look what happened when he came into that the weekend before, what would have been last Sunday, Palm Sunday. People had heard about what Jesus did. He's like these sheriffs. He comes coming into town. They thought, you know, he's gonna be the answer. He's gonna bring us peace.
The problem is had they had their idea of what that should look like. So they're cheering for him. Hosanna, they're calling him the king. And as he rides by, he says, but he knew they didn't really believe him. They believed,
but they believed he was gonna give them what they wanted, but he didn't come for that. He come for what we needed. So as he rode past that moment, he says this in Luke 19. But as he came closer to Jerusalem and saw the city ahead, he began to weep. How I wish today that you of all people would understand the way to peace.
He's looking out of the city. He goes, you of all because you a lot of those people, they they worshiped. A lot of these people say they knew the old testament. They were waiting for their savior. They're waiting for God to show up. And he goes, and now I'm here and they're cheering me right now, but they don't really understand the way to peace.
And the ones that are cheering them now in a few days are gonna yell, crucify them. Why? Because what they wanted was peace, but it was their idea of what peace was.
So once they realized Jesus wasn't going to give them that, they turned. In other words, he's not really the king. We're the king. He's just supposed to be give us what we want. He's not the source of life, the source of authority, the source of how we should
operate and live because he created us. He's just the resource that was supposed to come and give us what we know we want. And he knew that, but he still goes forward with saying, hey, I know you don't get it,
but I'm gonna show up to give you what you need, not what you want. See, they wanted just the peace and the prosperity and the answer to the next moment, which a lot of us I'm not saying those things are When we get those good things, we're blessed. But we think that's the goal in life.
And Jesus says, you need something way more critically. All of us do. See, the reason there's chaos in this world is because all of us have chaos in our hearts. The Bible calls it sin. We wanna be king. We think there's a way that's right, but it leads to death, and Jesus came to save us.
He didn't come to be the king to to be the burger king to let us have it our way. He came to rescue us from ourselves, and they didn't realize it. But here's what's cool. He did it anyways.
He still got on the cross for everyone that said, crucify me because you're not giving me what I want. And you know the story? He goes goes to the cross. He dies a humiliating death, which a lot of people didn't understand. Like, wait. This isn't how you win,
but it is. Surrender is how you win. He died for us in our place. And he goes, he dies, he hangs the cross, he's dead.
On Easter born Sunday morning, you know, three ladies, Mary and some ladies, they're all going to the tomb to to to embalm the body. You know, they're just showing up. They're like, all the single ladies. All the single ladies. And they go. And then Jesus appears and talks to Mary, says go tell the disciples I'm back.
And she runs and tells them, Peter and John run to the tomb. It's empty. Says they scratch their head and then go home and eat ham. No. They didn't do that. But they they were, like, confused even though just,
hey. You know, our last dinner together, you did break bread and said, is my body broken for you. And this is my the cup. This is my blood spilled for the forgiveness of sins and for a new covenant. He did talk about how he'd be gone, and then he'd come back, and then he'd do this. He'd already told them all this,
but they're still scratching their heads. You know why? Because even they were a little bit stuck. Even they were a little bit like, Well, we thought we were with Jesus, so that means we're gonna win. But this doesn't look like winning. Cause as Jesus said, they didn't even really understand what real peace was.
Peace was not having no problems. Peace was not just getting to the next prosperous moment. Peace is not just getting away from the painful thing you're sitting and stuck on the side of the road feeling like you're going nowhere in your life. Peace is not about where you're at. It's about who you're with.
Even Jesus said in Psalm 23, I know if you've never come to church, you've probably heard that. It says, even though I go through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.
It didn't say even though I go through the valley, even though I'm about to go through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil because you're gonna take me around it.
What he says is we're gonna go through the valleys. We're gonna have tough things. We're gonna go through hard. We're gonna go through heartbreak. We're gonna go through struggle. But Jesus, if you trust him, he's right there with you,
and we need him. Otherwise, we will never have eternal life. We'll be separated from God because the only way to be made right with God is what Jesus did. Because the only way, if you come to church and say, I'm here because I just wanna be a good person, the Bible's definition of good is holy.
It says no one is good but God.
Meaning, if you wanna be able to stand before God and say you're good but we like to say, I'm good because we grade on a curve. I'm good because most people are bad in comparison to me. Our comparison is to God. You can't stand in the presence of God and have eternal life with a God who's holy and righteous if you're not holy and righteous.
That's the problem. We need to confess our sin. The fact that we've been king and we go our own way, and Jesus came and died. The perfect sacrifice for us. He paid the price so he can stay holy and just, but we can be justified. That's why Jesus is the only way. And many people struggle with that. You know why?
I'm not gonna trust grace. I'm gonna do it myself. I'm gonna earn it. You're gonna stay on the throne. Or some of you, your struggle is the other end. I can't be forgiven. Your your struggle is not the thing you wanna prosper in. It's the thing you can't let go of, your own shame, your own guilt.
How could God ever love me?
God doesn't love us because of who we are. He loves us because of who He is, and that's powerful because you don't change His point of view.
So what happened after that with the disciples then? They believed in him. Didn't they have peace?
But look what it says, that Sunday evening in Luke John 20. That Sunday evening now we're going to Sunday night. After they already know he's raised by Mary's already told them, what are they doing? Disciples were meeting behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders. What?
They're behind locked doors. She's like, well, they killed him. But Mary's like, but he's back. And I go, yeah. But they still killed him, and we might die too. So they're struggling with this trusting God. Like, well, if he died anyways,
even though he's the Lord, that means we might have to die too, and we don't want that. We still want what we still think of peace as not having problems and and not being hard.
And so suddenly Jesus was staying there among them. And what does he say? Peace be with you. He said as he spoke, he showed them the wounds in his hands and his side. They were filled with joy then the when they saw the Lord. Again, he said, peace be with you. Same thing he said over drills. He's like, guys, peace. Peace. You don't understand. Even though you've believed in me and you followed me, you still don't get it. You're still thinking like everybody else. You don't understand what real peace is. Because then he says this,
as the father has sent me,
I am sending you. In other words, that was kind of an aggressive statement he said. He basically said, why are you sitting here behind locked doors? I came and told you you're gonna be fishers of men. You are gonna you want purpose in your life? Most of us, especially men. I wanna know my life meant something. You realize if it's not the will of God and something he's asked us, he's given us an opportunity to be part of something eternal. And when you think purpose is gonna be, I had a really good job or I did this or I did that, that's not eternal.
But what God came to give us is eternal. That's what you long for. That's what we line. He goes, I gave you the longing of what you really need, and you're locking yourself up because you're afraid of that? Let's get going. It's time to go. They had to figure that out. How about you? What are you chasing
that you think is gonna bring you peace? In other words, some of you are going, when I get this, you fill in the blank. Once I get to this, I think I'll be content. Some of you are, once I can finally get away from this, I can be content.
That's a trick and a lie. It's like when you're out in the desert and you look like you see like water in the distance, you'll never get to it. Because the Bible says that God planted eternity in our hearts. You know what that means? He built us forever to be about eternal things.
And everything we run after in this life is temporary. Temporary will never feel eternal. Only the peace that we get from Jesus. And that peace that we really need is peace with God because we are separated from him. That's what we need and that's what Jesus came on Easter to give us.
So the question you need to answer this morning, whether you've never been to church or you come all the time, who do you trust? Who is king in your life? Even if you say you believe in Jesus,
do you still decide, alright. I'll listen to what the Bible says. I'll listen to what God said, and then I'm gonna take it upon advisement. If you're using God as an adviser, who uses advisers? A king. You're still king. You're still afraid. You're still locked behind a door in some way,
and you're not gonna experience what God wants. You're not gonna experience peace. You're not gonna be able to have that peace. Who is the king of kings and the lord of lords? Matter of fact, a guy guy named Handel wrote what's considered the greatest piece of of sacred music of all time, the messiah.
It's a long it tells the whole story of Jesus. Anybody heard of Handel's Messiah? Anyone in room ever went to a performance of Handel's Messiah? If you did, it was at Christmas time. He wrote it for Easter.
Handel was a 57 year old. Had been a famous composer, but he's past his prime, hadn't done much in a while. And he was reading Revelation 19. He he knew the Lord, loved the Lord, and it talks about Jesus returning.
And and and at the end, it says on his robe was written his title, king of kings and lord of lords. And that inspired him. And in twenty four days, he wrote this huge long messiah, this this orchestral choir, and and and it walks through and tells the whole life of Christ.
Now many of you probably heard of the most famous part of it. It's the very last song. The very it's just a chorus. It's It's a a short little last song that's considered amazing. It's called the Hallelujah Chorus. How many of have heard the Hallelujah Chorus?
Alright. I guarantee more than you raise your hand have heard the Hallelujah Chorus. But the problem is a lot of you in this room have only heard this part of it.
Now be honest with me because we're in church. Even you in the overflow room, you're still in church. When you hit listen to that, how many of you what you saw in your mind was Clark Griswold finally getting his Christensen's lights to work?
See, that's the problem with this story. Most of us have only referenced this to a joke in a movie. Like some long suffering in a comedy finally gets a victory. But man, hand the Hallelujah Chorus, the whole Messiah thing, but Hallelujah Chorus was changing lives for hundreds of years.
And they weren't even doing it in church. They would just have this performance. And what started to happen is this Holy Lucharist kind of called about King of Kings and Lord of Lords. People would stand and surrender to Jesus. They were humbling themselves by, I will not sit. I will stand in the presence of the king.
And it was powerful. So powerful. It was happening so much that when when a king or a queen would come, the sovereign would come, they would they would tell the king, hey. Everyone's gonna stand. Tons of people are gonna stand. But since you sit on the throne, don't stand. Everybody else stands.
Well, you go forward about a hundred and sixty years, and at the performance of the Messiah, enrolled queen Victoria.
I don't know if you guys have heard of her. There's been movies and shows about her. Until Queen Elizabeth came, she was the longest reigning sovereign of the British Empire. Sixty four years she had reigned. Matter of fact, she was probably the most successful sovereign that ever reigned because under her, the British Empire, there's a phrase in in maybe you learned in history class, maybe you didn't, was the sun never sets on the British Empire.
That means that the British Empire was so it was the largest empire, most powerful empire, the rich that this this planet had ever seen. And it stretched so far around the globe that it meant at any given time, at any point, it was always daylight somewhere in the British Empire.
That was actually only technically true during her reign. She reigned in the greatest time of this greatest empire that man had ever seen. She was massively wealthy, massively powerful,
and they rolled her in. She's in her last year of her reign. She's aging. She's old. She knows she's no longer they had to roll her in because she was confined to a wheelchair and couldn't walk and could not really even stand up on her own.
And they sat her down, and I think just out of honor said, remember, when everyone stands, you're the sovereign, you don't. Kinda like knowing she couldn't anyways. And so she's listening to the whole thing and she's being touched and moved by it. Then it gets to the hallelujah chorus.
And then suddenly she started to tear up a little bit when it got to this part.
See that part, he shall reign forever and ever, as she started to reflect, she's near the end of her reign. She knows that she's not long to the world. And she knows that I've been the most successful ruler of this massive empire. And sixty three years went by like that.
And she knows that no matter how much peace, how much prosperity I brought to my people,
it doesn't really matter in the end. There is a king that will reign omnipotent, all powerful forever. And she started to cry.
But then it got to this part of the song and something really changed.
King of kings forever and ever and lord of lords. And when she heard that part out of Revelation 19, she began to tremble,
and she grabbed the side of her her her her wheelchair, and she shook. She looked at her attendants, and she said this, I shall not sit in the presence of the king of kings and the lord of lords. And she used every ounce of strength she had left, and she stood herself up with everybody else. Because she knew, she knew,
I may be the queen, but I am not the one who sits on the throne. She knew the lord. She knew there was something much deeper. She knew that no matter how much prosperity, how much wealth, how many lack of problems, how many good relation, how many that is not eternal. Matter of fact, she had recently told her her
personal chaplain, I would like to be alive when Jesus returns like he does in Revelation 19. And he asked her why. And she said, I would very much so love to be able to take the crown off of my head and place it at his feet. That is what we all need to do.
And if a queen who had been told, you're the queen, you're the sovereign, you don't stand you, told you don't do this,
And you have been leading the most powerful empire that's ever existed. You've had everything you ever wanted. You have all the political say you want. You can establish it how you want. And even she knew that amounted to nothing compared to the king of kings and the lord of lords. She
figured out and she knew by the love of Jesus what peace really was. How about you?
How many of you are sitting here and you're willing, I'm gonna stand in the presence of the king of kings? How many of you though, you're listening to this, and some of you, this will be the umpteenth time you've heard this. You've heard this a million times, and you know what you wanna do? You're gonna sit on your throne of your life, and you're you're tucking your arms under the armrest,
then you're like, I shall not be moved in the presence of what real peace is because you're listening to a lie. You're listening to the ducks. And 99% of the time, the dug is you. You're stuck.
Either you think something's gonna be better or you're mad at God because you think, you know what? I asked for this. I asked for that, and he he wasn't there. And why didn't God do this or why didn't he do that? You know who gets mad when they're told no? Kids.
Because they don't understand that wait and no are part of the three answers that you can give. And if you're a good parent, sometimes no is the best answer.
Sometimes wait is the best answer. But what does your kids do when you tell them that? They keep asking. You say no. No. No. And then they finally say, you're not listening to me. Who's the one not listening, mom and dad? The child. There's a way that seems right to the child, but at the end, it leads to stupidity.
And we act just like kids with God. You know why? Because kids think they're king. What I mean by that is they have it all right here. They don't understand why you won't do what they want you to do. And some of you are struggling because you're doing that with God, your heavenly father. He knows you
better than you know yourself. He loves you better than you can love yourself. And but the only way this is gonna work is if you can humble yourself, stand up, and say, I am not the king. I am not the queen.
Jesus is. And that's what he came to die for.
The reason people get confused by what he did is instead of coming in and ordering people around, he brought us what we needed, like a good parent would do. He's the king that got off of his throne, was born into humility and poverty, lived a life like we did, experienced everything we did as becoming a man,
and went through all of that and then died. A death we couldn't take to give us a life we could never earn.
Will you surrender to that? Will you stand for that? Will you close your eyes? I wanna give some of you in the room a chance to join the over 900 people this weekend already that have done this.
If you have never accepted that love, you've never surrendered the love of Christ, in other words, saying, I have gone my own pathway. I've tried to find my path to peace. I have ran from God, but now I want that peace with God that only comes through a relationship with Jesus.
I wanna turn to Jesus and say, turn away from myself and say, I believe in the death, burial, and resurrection and what he did for me as the only way to real peace in my life. If that's you and you want that and you've never had that before, I wanna pray with you. But I'm gonna ask you to do something this bold.
It's it's it's you gotta humble yourself. You have to choose it with every eye closed and head bowed. I'm asking you do what the queen did.
She had everybody looking at her. This, I'm just saying, hey. You're in a room of people that are gonna be encouraged by this. But if you want that, just stand up where you're where you're sitting. Just stand. I see you over there.
I see you back there. I see you right there. I see you over there popping up all over them. Don't don't be afraid. This is the path to peace. Whatever's holding you back or scaring you, just do it. I see you way in the back. I see you all over the place. Awesome. Just keep standing. I see you over there. Thank you.
I can't see, but I'm assuming there's someone in the overflow room standing up right now.
Before I pray with you that are standing, welcome to eternal life and what real peace is. But I wanna invite some other people to stand before I pray with you guys. Some of you, you do know the Lord. That's why you're not standing up.
But you know you've been afraid of things, and you've started to be like those disciples on Sunday evening. You've locked yourself behind a door. Something in your life you've locked away, and God wants you to be sent. He wants you to trust him. He wants you to surrender.
He wants you to let go of some sin or something in your life that is the wrong path. He wants you to pick up something he's asked you to pick up. I don't know what it is. You know what it is. He maybe even wants the thing you need to let go is your own struggle with shame and guilt or unworthiness or whatever it is.
But you just need to put that down and pick up what he's asked you. Unlock that door. If that's you that you wanna make that moment right now, you'd stand too. Join us. I see you guys standing all over the place. There you go. Yep. Figured there'd be more of you at this moment.
Awesome.
Well, let's pray. For those of you that stood first, just pray with me. Just pray something like this, but make it your own words. Dear Jesus, thank you that you're the king and I'm not.
And right now, in the best way I know how I'm standing to get off the throat of my life, I'm sorry that I've I've chosen the path. I've picked the course. I've I've been doing it my own way, and I know that in the end, that's not leading to real peace.
So right now, in the best way I know how, I've turned to you. And right now, I'm declaring that you are king of kings and lord of lords, and you are the way, the truth, and the life.
And I believe that your death, your burial, your resurrection, and what you came to do for me is the only way to peace, and I commit, and I believe in that. Help me to go from here and understand what that means. And to the rest of the people that stood and to anyone else in this room that's in this moment,
I pray for them that they will unlock what that door you want them to unlock. That we will walk out into the world no matter how dark, how scary it is. We will walk where you asked us to walk and not fear it because you are there with us. That it's not about where we are. It's about who we're with.
That, Lord, that we can trust you because you are the author of life. You are the creator of life. You are the bread of life. You are the living water. You are the first and the last. You are the great I am. You are the king, and you are the king of kings, and you are the lord of lords.
And that means that is all we need because that's my king. Amen.
So good. So good. Come on. Can we give it up one more time for all those that said yes to Jesus? Come on. Let's make a little bit of noise for them. We believe that you made the greatest decision of your
life. If that was you though, don't leave without letting us know. We wanna walk with you, and the best way to do that is by scanning the QR code on the seat back in front of you and filling it out so we can get in touch with you. If you're needing prayer or you need to talk to someone, we have fantastic
individuals in our prayer room on this side of the auditorium that would love connect to connect with you before you head out today. Other than that, we'll see you back here next weekend for our new series, God Man King, and have a happy Easter.