Easter at Rock Point 2024 | Sermon · Rewind

Easter at Rock Point 2024 | Sermon · Rewind

Pastor Bill Bush · Mar 31, 2024

Big Idea

Real peace isn't the absence of problems or getting what you want—it's surrendering the throne of your life to Jesus, the true King, and trusting He is with you through the hard road.

Jesus didn't come on Easter to give us the peace we think we want—an easier path, a fixed circumstance—He came to give us the peace we actually need: peace with God through His death and resurrection. That peace isn't about where you are, it's about who you're with, and it only comes when we stop trying to be king of our own lives and let Jesus take the throne.

Key points

1
1We're tempted to follow the 'Doug' in our lives—the desperate, disastrous shortcut that looks like it'll fix things but only makes the chaos worse.
Pastor Bill tells a long personal story about a youth camp trip where a broken-down bus, a reckless mechanic named Doug, a fire extinguisher, and a stranded youth group spiraled into a highway disaster involving a fire, a crashed car, and a forest service helicopter. He connects it to Proverbs' warning that there's a way that seems right to a person, but it ends in death.
2
2Jesus rode into Jerusalem's chaos already knowing His mission, but the crowds wanted a king who would give them their version of peace, not the peace He came to bring.
Pastor Bill sets the first Easter in a turbulent, Rome-occupied Israel and reads Luke 19, where Jesus weeps over Jerusalem because the same crowd cheering Hosanna would soon cry crucify Him once He didn't deliver the political peace they wanted.
3
3The chaos in the world exists because there's chaos—sin—in every human heart; we all want to be king.
Pastor Bill explains that Jesus didn't come to be a genie granting our wishes but to rescue us from ourselves, dying in humiliation and surrender so that we could be saved, even though the crowd didn't understand it as victory.
4
4Real peace isn't the absence of hardship—it's the presence of Jesus with you in the hardship.
Pastor Bill points to Psalm 23, noting it doesn't promise avoiding the valley of the shadow of death but promises God's presence in it. He argues peace is about who you're with, not where you're at.
5
5Even after the resurrection, the disciples still didn't get real peace—they hid behind locked doors until Jesus showed up and sent them out.
Working through John 20, Pastor Bill shows the disciples knew Jesus was raised but were still afraid and hiding, still equating peace with the absence of danger. Jesus appears, says 'peace be with you' twice, shows His wounds, and sends them out on mission.
6
6You either sit as king of your own life or you stand and surrender to the true King of Kings.
Pastor Bill tells the story of Handel writing the Hallelujah Chorus from Revelation 19 and of Queen Victoria, the powerful sovereign of the British Empire, trembling and rising from her wheelchair during the chorus because she refused to remain seated in the presence of the true King of Kings, even wishing she could lay her crown at His feet.

Application

Pastor Bill's charge is that you have to decide who sits on the throne of your life—you or Jesus—and stand up in surrender the way Queen Victoria did before the King of Kings.

Stop following the 'Doug' in your life
Recognize when you're desperately grabbing a plan or path that seems to make sense but is really leading you further from God; 99 percent of the time, Pastor Bill says, the Doug is you.
Surrender the throne and trust Jesus as King
Stop treating God as an adviser you consult and then decide for yourself; instead, humble yourself and let Jesus, not you, be the one who rules your life.
Accept Christ if you never have
If you've never surrendered to the love of Christ and believed in His death, burial, and resurrection as the way to peace, stand where you are and pray to turn to Him for the first time.
Unlock the door you've been hiding behind
If you already know the Lord but, like the disciples, are still living in fear or holding onto shame, guilt, sin, or something God has asked you to let go of, stand and surrender that specific thing to Him now.

Take it into your week

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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 arresting about the image of Jesus pausing on the road into Jerusalem and weeping. The crowd is loud, the cloaks are on the ground, the branches are waving — and He is grieving. Not because the celebration is wrong, but because He can see what they cannot: they are cheering for a version of Him that does not exist. They want a conqueror who will fix their circumstances, drive out Rome, and hand them the life they have been dreaming of. Jesus is about to give them something infinitely greater — and they will not recognize it. Pastor Bill pointed to this moment as the heartbeat of the whole sermon. The crowd's mistake was not indifference to Jesus; it was using Jesus. They wanted a resource, not a King. And if we are honest, that pull is not just a first-century problem. It is easy to come to Jesus with a wish list rather than an open hand — asking Him to bless our plans rather than surrendering to His. His tears over Jerusalem are not a scolding. They are the tears of someone who loves the crowd more than the crowd loves itself, and who sees the peace they are about to miss. That same love is extended to every reader today.

For reflection

In what area of your life are you most tempted to want Jesus to deliver a specific outcome rather than to simply trust Him as King?

Pray

Pray for honest eyes to see the places where you are cheering for Jesus on your own terms.

Small-group discussion guide

For leading a group conversation about this message.

Open

Think about what it feels like to wait for something you were sure would fix everything — and then it didn't. This message asks a pretty direct question about what we're actually looking for when we look to Jesus.

Discussion questions

1
In Luke 19:41-42, Jesus weeps over Jerusalem even as the crowd is celebrating His arrival. What do you think He saw in that moment that the crowd couldn't see about themselves?
2
Pastor Bill described the difference between treating Jesus as a 'royal adviser' who exists to deliver preferred outcomes versus surrendering to Him as King. What does that distinction actually look like in everyday life?
3
Psalm 23:4 says God is with us through the valley — not that He reroutes us around it. How does that shape the way we might understand what Jesus means when He offers 'peace'?
4
In John 20:19-21, the disciples are locked behind doors out of fear, even after the resurrection. What is significant about the fact that Jesus came to them there — and then immediately sent them out?
5
Pastor Bill said the root of outer chaos is the chaos inside every human heart — what we call sin — which comes from each person insisting on being their own king. How might that idea change the way we think about what's actually going wrong in the world around us?
6
Pastor Bill framed the central question of this message as: Who is king of your life? As a group, what are some of the everyday ways people — including those of us who follow Jesus — can drift back into treating ourselves as king without even realizing it?

Pray together

Surrender — asking Jesus to be genuinely King rather than an adviser, and thanking Him that His peace is His presence, not the absence of hard things

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Topics

Easter Resurrection Sin and Self-Rule Surrender to Jesus as King True Peace in Christ Trusting God's Presence

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