Easter at Echoes | Daniel Goulding | Echoes Church

Amen. All god's people said. Amen. Amen. Come on somebody. Hey, a couple weeks ago, my wife walked in the living room and she was shocked to find me watching season two

of the worst show on the history of the planet, okay? Have you guys ever heard of a show on Apple TV? It's a new one. It's called Severance. Any severance people in the room? Okay, raise your hand real quick if you like severance. Let me see your hands. Okay, you're dismissed.

Jesus literally, Jesus can't help you, okay? Like, there's no

I like it's just I don't like it. It reminds me the show's premise is pretty simple. It's like you, this guy invented a chip and he puts it in your brain and then when you go to work, you forget about your life outside of work and then when you you leave, you know, you know nothing about work. That's the basic premise of the show but it's so weird and bizarre. It's like that. It reminds me a lot of a show I watched about a decade ago. Remember that show Lost?

Like, does anybody even know what the black fog even is? Like, they never even told us. Yet, we watch for season after season for them to never connect any of the dots. Okay? That's that's what severance reminds me of. So all that to say, my wife is like, why are you starting season two? Like, you don't like the show? And I'm like, I'm not here for pleasure. Like, at this point, at this point, I'm here for closure. Like, I need to know. Like, and I don't I don't know why I'm wired this way. Right? Like, my wife is not the same way. She she can watch half of an episode of a show and be like, this show is dumb, and she'll walk away and move on with her life. And I I'm jealous because something happens to me, like, and I don't know where it is, but at some point in a show, like, I crossed this like imaginary threshold and now, like, now I'm pot committed. Like, I gotta see the thing through. And so I've I've gotta watch season two to see how it plays out even though I I'm mad and I don't like the show at all. And the reason the the reason that that I start this, I was I was thinking about it this week even just silly things like Netflix shows. It's amazing how we all have different responses when we encounter

a compelling story and and I would argue that the most compelling story of all took place two thousand years ago and and we see this exact same thing unfold, right? After Jesus dies on the cross, we we see a bunch of people respond differently to his life after

death. See, Luke 24 begins with some of the the women who were followers of Jesus

and they're solemnly walking back to the tomb and they're going through the process of what they think is going to be the religious rituals of laying Jesus to rest because he's dead. Some of his disciples, they they are so terrified that the guy that they thought was going to be their savior has been killed.

They now believe that the Roman government and the religious leaders are going to come for them next. So, they they go into fear and they go into hiding. See, there's all types of different responses

to Jesus' death but what I want to show you today in Luke chapter 24 is a story of two guys. One of them, we we don't even ever learn his name and we want, I want to show you how they respond to the message of Jesus' death and their thought that maybe he would be resurrected.

Here's I want to submit to you this morning. I know some of you are here because you you you don't think Jesus is god. You you're just here because somebody like said that they would buy you brunch or something after church if you went with them. Like, I I can respect that but here's the truth of what we all have to start as an acknowledgement with this morning.

See, even the most staunch atheist,

the most non Christian historian would have to agree that two thousand years ago, there was a name, there was a man named Jesus that was born and he was born to a little nothing town and he grew up. He had a mom named named Mary, a dad named Joseph and he was a he was a brother and he was a friend and ultimately, he became a carpenter and everybody agrees. It's not a disputed fact that he died on a Roman cross.

All of that is agreed upon. Now, where the discrepancy comes in, where the differences of the reaction to the story of Jesus come in is what happened to him after he died and if he came back to life,

then man, I'm telling you, potentially, it changes everything. Here's what want you to consider this morning is that maybe the resurrection of Jesus proves that your story, it might not be done being written and maybe if Jesus could overcome death, then he can overcome anything in your life that you are battling

this morning. Luke chapter 24,

the story begins in verse 13, verse 13. It says that that same day, everybody say same day.

Same day. That same day, two of Jesus's followers were walking to the village of Emmaus, seven miles from Jerusalem. Okay, he says, that same day, well, what day? The same day that we believe that Jesus came back to life. What I would argue is the greatest, most important miracle in the history of the world. Like Paul says, if Jesus hasn't conquered death, then we who are Christians,

we've wasted our lives but if he actually conquered death and he came back to life, then, man, maybe,

maybe there's access to a power beyond anything we could ever understand and if Jesus conquered death, then, maybe there's some dead things in your life that can come back to life as well. It's on, it's on that day that we find two of Jesus's followers

and they're on a journey. They're on a they're on a walk. Now, again, if you like to walk and you live in the state of Arizona, you've got about two weeks left to do it outside, okay? Then, you're going to have to do it on a treadmill in a gym because it's about to be a million degrees around here but but walks are good for you, right? They say thirty minutes a day is what you need like it it's healthy but these guys aren't aren't on, they're not on a walk this day for recreation.

This isn't a walk of leisure or pleasure. This is a walk of deep frustration and disappointment. See, this is a walk of what what what could have been. It it's a journey of what life was supposed to be like and it says, they're going from Jerusalem which is where Jesus's

trial and crucifixion took place and they're now leaving because with Jesus's death, all their dreams and hopes died as well and they're going, they're going home. They're going back on a seven mile journey to Emmaus

and on this seven mile journey, again, you gotta remember they're they're literally walking. It they say that it would take about three hours to make a seven mile journey.

This is a slow, long walk back home and these are guys who are heading back to friends and family that told them, you're you're crazy to follow this guy, Jesus

because you gotta remember, Jesus wasn't the first messianic figure. He wasn't the first man to show up and claim that he was sent from god. He wasn't the first person to do some miracle working things

but with every other one of those guys, when they died, the movement died as well and they were now convinced, man. We we put all of our money on the wrong horse and now, we've gotta walk back home and look at our parents and said, I I I told you so.

We've gotta look at those friends that said, dude, you you walked away from a business to follow this knucklehead Jesus. Now, now, what are you gonna do with your life? See, what you've gotta see in the stories, this is a walk of men who are deeply discouraged, wondering, wondering what the future holds.

And I just wonder how many of us sitting here on Easter morning find ourselves today on a pretty similar journey.

Wondering what the future holds for us. Wondering if because of how life is played out, if maybe our best days are behind us. And here's why I wanna read the story to you this morning is because I need to show you that their story wasn't done being written and maybe your story isn't done being written as well. Verse 14 says that as they walked along, they were they were talking about everything that had happened. I love that verse because it's just one simple line but it says, they were talking about everything that would happen. What what was everything?

I have to imagine these two guys are going through in this three hour walk home and they're just going, wait, how how did we miss it?

What what was all of that? Those last few years of following Jesus like it it was real. We were we were there. We were there that day on the hillside where he took and he taught a crowd all day and remember like we went to Jesus and we told him like, bro, you've been talking for five hours. Like, people are hungry and Chick fil A is going to close like you gotta let him go home and and remember what he did? He he took one little boy's lunch that had a a couple pieces of bread in a fish and he took em and he multiplied them and we we were there. It wasn't a magic trick. He fed twenty, zero people with one boy's lunch. What what was that if it wasn't real?

He said, we know the guy that was born blind. Remember that day when Jesus spit in the dirt and he made mud and he mixed it with his hand and he he put it over their eyes like we knew him. It wasn't a random person. It wasn't a story that we've heard second hand. We know him and he was blind and now we can see. We watched.

We watched as the lame began to walk and the deaf begin to hear. What do we do with all of that? And what do you do when you find yourself in a season where your current circumstances stand at odds with who you believe and think god to be? Because man, I'm telling you, if you're not there today, you'll be there someday.

This is a journey of two guys who are utterly defeated, just wondering what the future has for them to hold. Verse 15,

as they walked and discussed all of these things, Jesus himself suddenly came and began walking with them.

What a beautiful story. Here's why I love the scripture. If you want to know the character and the nature of god, if you want to know who god is, the Bible tells us everything we need to know about god. You know who god is? God is a god who cares about your days of disappointment and your moments of frustration.

See, Jesus has just come back to life and one of the first things that he sees as a priority, a thing that is high on his task list to do this day is to find two guys, one of them that will never even know his name and to come alongside of them in their season, in their moment of disappointments,

and just go on a journey with him and he's near the brokenhearted and he comes into our moments of pain and brokenness. He draws close and now again, this is also one of those the these passages in scripture that you and I have to look at because again, if we all agree that Jesus died on a cross, well, then, we have to reconcile what happened to him after he died because we don't have his body, right? And there's a bunch of theories about what happened. One of them, again, I just listened to a podcast where Joe Rogan was literally talking about this with one of the guest on his podcast and he was asking him which is sometimes a commonly accepted belief but it doesn't hold much water when you think about it. He said, well, maybe when Jesus was hanging on the cross, they thought he was dead but he wasn't actually dead. They put him in a tomb and then he came back to life. He rolled the stone away and then he just walked out of the grave.

Again, just for a moment, go with me there logically. Okay? And here's what you gotta understand. You and I in our Western American culture, we we have no context or understanding for what crucifixion really actually was.

You gotta understand crucifixion was so barbaric that it was illegal for a Roman citizen to ever be crucified.

There was multiple Roman emperors that said a Roman citizen should never even utter the word crucifixion because it was so grotesque and what crucifixion was ultimately the greatest at was making sure that people died but just for a moment,

just for a moment, imagine that Jesus before he was put on the cross, he went and he was beaten. He was flogged. The scripture say that he was beaten so badly that his friends and his family didn't even recognize him. He went through a flogging that most men would die in the middle of.

Somehow, he survives that. He picks up his cross, a literal massive cross. He carries it for a few miles. All of this is is backed up by secular historians, not just Christians, people who are skeptics of Jesus record all of this happen and then he's put on a cross on Calvary

and nails are driven through his wrist. They're driven through his ankles. Some of the most painful places in your body

and for three days, he will slowly die and we know now because of medical reports, the way that you ultimately die in crucifixion is liquid begins to build up in your lungs and eventually, you die from a fix asphyxiation. You you literally drown in your own fluids

and for three days, you'll have to slowly pull himself up enough to get the pressure off of his lungs so he can take a breath and in between the agonizing pain, what is Jesus doing on the cross? He's forgiving the people doing this to him saying, father, forgive them for they they know not what they do.

He's looking at the guy to his left and he says, your story is not done today. You will be with me in paradise. He wasn't concerned about his own pain because he understood this is what needed to happen for humanity to be ransom.

But just for a moment, imagine, he goes to the flogging. He goes to the beating three days. He's hung on a cross like that. He's put in a tomb. Somehow, he survives.

If that was you, I promise you, the first thing you're not gonna do is find your friends and go, you know what we should do? Let's go on a seven mile hike together, right? Like, if that's me, I'm like, I I need a doctor. I need a couple months, and I probably need a stiff drink. Right? Like, I I know Christians aren't allowed to drink. Okay? Don't don't judge me. Like, you can drink a little bit. There's not there's not a lot. That's what the Bible says. Okay?

You're like, what are we talking about, bro? It's Easter. Alright? Chill. It's the fifth service. Alright? I'm coming unglued.

Like, my first response would not be, let's go on a walk and if you really investigate it, the claim that Jesus just almost died and he didn't. It really doesn't hold much water but we can learn everything about the character and the nature of god to know that he cares about two guys who are on a road of discouragement.

It tells me he cares about the season of disappointment that you're walking through this morning as as well. He wants to enter into your story as well. Here's our story continues. Verse 16, but god kept them. God kept them from recognizing him. Somehow, god supernaturally stops them from seeing that it's Jesus but verse 17, Jesus asks them, hey, what are you discussing so intently as you as you walk along? They they stopped short,

sadness written across their faces. See, Jesus asked the illogical, ridiculous question because everybody in Jerusalem

was talking about one thing. The guy that everybody thought was the savior of the world. He he died and he's gone and we don't know what to do and all of the government systems are thrown in in upheaval. All the religious systems are being turned over and they don't know what to do and in the middle of that, Jesus asked these guys, what what were you talking about? And they stopped in their tracks with sadness written across their face

and they begin to talk about the condition of their hearts and their souls and I felt like as I was reading this, preparing for this message, I felt like the truth was as much as you, some of you walking in here this morning, you you put on your Easter vest, you you you put on the suit, you did the makeup, you put on the dress, you got the kids ready, the truth

is what's written across your heart, what's written across your face in this season is not just joy and happiness but it's it's sadness because of the season of life that you're in and I don't know exactly what you're walking through but I know that discouragement is real because

life can be difficult and I'm not here to throw easy answers at what I know to be complicated questions but what I do know is that there's a god in heaven that loves you more than you could ever possibly imagine

and you and I need to understand that discouragement is something we need to we need to deal with. See, here's what discouragement is. Discouragement is a it's a dissatisfaction with the past but it's also a distaste for the present that if we're not careful, it will create a distrust of the future

and see what the enemy wants to do in your season of discouragement is to come in and begin to plant seeds

that will grow and they can lead you down some really dark paths. See, discouragement left undealt with can take you away from your from your destiny and here's where discouragement ultimately comes from. See, discouragement

is the result of the gap between your expectation and your experience. See, every time you have an expectation that's here and your experience is here, there's now a gap that has to be filled and often, often that gap we fill not with trust, not with grace, not with understanding, but with frustration and disappointments

and discouragement.

Okay, let me show you a couple different types of things where you will walk through some discouragement. Okay, these are called Yeezys if you didn't know. They used to be cool. They're not now. Kanye had a whole thing. We'll explain that later but if you try to order Yeezys online, sometimes this is what shows up. You're like, my expectation was here but I got these guys here, okay? Again, this is this is like a whopper. You look at it like, that looks good. Okay, I'm gonna order that. Give me that burger. Then, you order it and this is what shows up. You're like, why is the meat gray? Okay, meat should not be that color, right? For some of us right now, football season is coming and every year, every team is like, this is gonna be our year. We're gonna go to the Super Bowl. We finally did it. We got the right defense. We got the right quarterback. This is the year. And I just need to tell you, some of you, this is gonna be your your season. K?

Cowboys fans, you're just not gonna win in the playoffs. You just need to understand. Alright? Again, you just gotta take the cheap shots at Cowboys fans when you can. Alright? Because they're they're the worst in Jesus name. Amen. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Okay?

As much as as much as I joke, I I don't I don't know what it is for you, but I would venture to guess there's been some things in this season that you were expecting to be different than how they've played out. Maybe for you, it was a promotion you didn't get. It was a job you thought you were gonna be able to land and hasn't worked. A relationship you was gonna work out that hasn't. It's a diet that your friend did and they lost five pounds. You did the same one and you gained 10. You're like, I just thought it would be different.

I I don't know what it is for you, but I would venture to guess that all of us can understand walking through a season of discouragement. But here's what I need you to see this morning. The enemy knows the power of discouragement left undealt with.

And if the enemy can discourage you, he ultimately he ultimately can defeat you. And discouragement left undealt with. I'm telling you, it can take you away from your destiny. It's why it's why I think Jesus coming back to life he knew.

I need to deal with this. I need to journey with these guys. I need to help them walk through the discouragement that they're facing. Look how the story continues. Verse 18, says, then one of them, Cleopus,

again, if you're getting ready to have kids and you're still considering baby names, like I'm not saying it has to be the name but I think it should at least be considered. Cleopus is a really nice name, alright? This poor kid, imagine how much bullying he had to go through, right? Cleopus replied, you must be the only person in Jerusalem who hasn't heard about all the things that have happened here the last few days and I love Jesus like this guy just died on a cross and he's got jokes. He's like, what things? You know? Like, Jesus, of course, you know what things, bro. You were there, right? The things that happened to Jesus, the man from Nazareth, they said, he he was a prophet who did powerful miracles and he was a mighty teacher in the eyes of god and all the people but our leading priest and other religious leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and they they crucified him.

These next three words when I read them, I'm telling you, they jumped off the pages to me and I think if we're honest for some of us, it describes the current condition, state of our heart, and our soul. These guys say that we we had hope. What do you do when you find yourself in a season where you can't find any hope?

Like all the promises, all the church things, all the answers you know to say, but you just can't find any hope to grasp onto. These guys says that they had hopes that he was the Messiah who would come to rescue Israel. This this all happened three days ago. They say, look, man, we we had hope

and even worse, some time has passed by and things haven't gotten better. They've gotten worse and sometimes we say things that are well intended like time heals all wounds but the truth is that sometimes, not all wounds heal over time

And sometimes you expect time to heal them but then you go through a period of time and go, things are getting worse. I don't have any more hope than I had before. What do you do when you find yourselves in seasons where you feel like it's over?

Because I promise you, if you're not there today, at some point in life, life will bring you to your knees. And if you're not ready for it, if you're not prepared for it, the enemy will come in and begin to whisper lies,

he and will get you to focus on his lies instead of the promise of heaven. There's three things I feel like we can learn from this story. Three things that I want you to take from this passage, this Easter morning on what you and I do when we find ourselves in seasons where we think that it's over. The first thing that we see in the story that we have to do when we find ourselves in difficult seasons is we've gotta remember god's promises.

See, here's what's amazing to me about the stories. These were two guys who were followers of Jesus. It implies that they were Jewish which which means that they grew up doing what you're doing today. They they went to church. They listened to the stories in the Old Testament. They listened to the prophets speak about the Messiah that would come one day and almost everyone of those prophets, you know what they saw, they talked about? They talked about a suffering

servant and how the savior that would come to redeem Israel would have to go through suffering.

They should have known that these promises were recorded in scripture that none of this should have been a surprise to them but even if somehow, just for a minute, you take out all of the Old Testament, there was three separate times where the gospels record that Jesus gathered all of his followers. These guys included and you know what he did?

He literally told them what was going to happen to him. He said, here's what's going to take place. I I'm going to die. I'm going to be buried in a tomb but I promise you three days later, I will come back to life and these guys, I don't know like on the cross when Jesus is there, he dies. They're like, okay, he talked about this like, we're good. Everything's okay like we're we're still in. This is all understandable. He talked about this. They put him in the tomb. We're like, okay, we're at step two. This is good but somehow between burial

and resurrection, everything goes out the window and all of a sudden, they forget the promises of god. It tells me that sometimes, life will begin to look so different than you thought it would look. Things will become so hard and so difficult that your pain will become so loud that it will become the only

thing that you can hear and sometimes in certain seasons, you can't see or hear beyond your pain and I felt like god brought me here this morning to remind some of you that in your pain, you you have a choice. You you have a choice of whether or not you're going to focus on the problem or the promise,

but you can't focus on both. You you can't have your soul focus on the problem and the promise at the same time. You have to make a choice that I'm going to choose to remember the promises of god no matter how difficult the lies get, no matter how hard the season is. I love what Jesus says to these guys. Verse 25,

he says, you foolish people.

You you find it so hard to believe all that the prophets wrote in the scriptures. What is he saying? He's saying in a season where your life looks different than you thought it was going to look, you are tempted to believe that the promises of scripture are not true and you better not speak death over situations where god has not said that things are dead.

There are things that god is still writing. There are stories that are still being unfolded in your life and you have to remember the promises of god over your life today, church.

That there are promises that have been spoken to you. There are things that you are going to step into. There's a destiny on your life. There is purpose in your bones. If you have a pulse today, it means that you have a purpose for tomorrow but we have to stop with this notion of thinking that following god in faith is like this this like

dancing around in a flower field of lilies just skipping around with rainbows and like that's what faith is. No, that's like a hallmark movie version of faith but real faith can be battle tested.

Real faith can survive in the trenches but here's what faith really is. Faith, faith is trusting what god has said even when it doesn't line up with what you currently see.

See, real faith is going, no, no, no, no. I know that my current circumstances would tell me to walk away from god or maybe that god has walked away from me but my theology, my belief, and my understanding of god, it is not predicated on my circumstances.

What real faith is is saying that I trust an unknown future to a very known god and it doesn't matter how loud the pain gets. I'm going to hold true to the promises of heaven. You know what's incredible as I was doing research for this message? You know the Bible is filled with 8,810 promises from god for your life.

There are over almost, there are almost 9,000 promises in scripture from god to you. It's almost like god knew that there would be seasons of your life where you are going to need to hold on to his promises.

This is why reading scripture is so important. It's not because you're checking the box of some religious duty. No, it's how you stuff your heart full of the promises of god so that when life becomes really difficult and the pain becomes really loud, you have something to anchor to that is not the lies of the enemy.

There's a couple of them that I wanna share with you that I felt like god told me to speak over some of you this morning. Hebrews chapter 13 verse five says that I will never fail you. I will never abandon you. Psalm chapter 34 says, the lord is close to the brokenhearted.

He rescues those whose spirits are crushed. Romans eight twenty eight, we know that god causes everything to work together for the good of those who love god and are called according to his purposes. John chapter 16,

Jesus says that I have told you all of these things so that you may have peace in me. Here on Earth, you will, not you might, you will have many trials and sorrows but take heart because I have overcome the world. All of this is temporary.

All of this is passing by. This is not your forever home. It's a broken and falling place that is continuing to go down the path of decline. So, stop being shocked when we walk through seasons of disappointments and discouragement. Trust. Trust in unknown future to a very known god.

I love this quote from Cory Tenboom. She says that when a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you you don't throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and you trust the engineer. What do you do when you find yourself in a season where the walls of darkness feel like they're crushing you?

What do you do when it feels like life is too hard to even get out of bed? One of my favorite scriptures in the Bible is to be still and know that I am God. And sometimes it's all we can do.

It's just be still and know that God is with you. The first thing you've gotta do when life feels like it's over is you've gotta hold on to the promises of heaven. You've got to remember God's promises. The second thing that the story teaches us is you also have to learn how to recognize god's presence.

What's incredible to me is that these two guys,

they're walking probably angry at god, talking about how much god has left them and how frustrated they are with him and they don't even realize that god has been with them the whole time. I don't know if you've ever done it where you're like running around the house and you're looking for your keys frantically and you're like flipping couch cushions and yelling at your kids because you know that they lost them and then all of a sudden, you realize that they were in your pocket or your purse the whole time and you're like, okay, I feel like a fool, right? Like,

is I don't even want to say a daily thing with my wife. It's like a multiple times a day thing with my wife in her cellphone. I don't know if anybody else's spouse is like this but like, my wife loses her phone more than anybody I've ever met in my life. And she's like, hey, can you do the, like, find my iPhone thing? And I'm like, no. No. No. It's probably just in your pocket. Like, check your other pocket. Check. No. I checked. Somebody stole it. I promise you. It's missing. I'm like, alright. We'll do the thing. I ping it. Oh my gosh. I don't know how it ended up in my pocket. I'm like, alright. Sweet. I'll see you in an hour and we'll do this again. Right?

The part that's so funny with my wife is that her her phone is with her the whole time. She just she's the one that's forgotten that it's there.

And I think this is the danger of really hard seasons is you will be tempted to think that God is not with you. And what's amazing to me is that the event that these guys were waiting for, the resurrection, for Jesus to come back to life after dying, it had already happened.

The greatest event in history had taken place. But these guys' pain,

their brokenness, their frustration, their bitterness, it blinded them to the greatest miracle in the history of the world. The god that they were mad at that was distant, it was he was right next to them the whole time. Here's what you've gotta be careful. Don't don't be so consumed with what's what's happening to you that you miss who's with you.

Don't be so consumed with the things that are taking place that you forget that god is with you. The scriptures are clear. Even when you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, he is with you and he will never abandon you. He will never forsake you. He is there the whole time and if you can recognize his presence,

I promise you, there's peace that's available to you. Look at how the story begins to wrap up. Jump with me down to verse 28.

It says, by this time, they were nearing Emmaus in the end of their journey and Jesus acted as if he was going in or Jesus was going on. I always love that verse like, what did he do? Is it like a swim move or like a like a three sixty? Like, he faked him out. Thought he was going to keep going on but but they begged him, stay the night with us since it's getting late.

So, he went home with them. Now, here's what's amazing to me with the story. We're going to see here in a second. When these guys make a decision, they don't they don't know why but there's something compelling about Jesus and so they just say, just stay with us. Don't don't leave us. Just come into our home. It's upon inviting Jesus into their home, into their circumstances, into their situations

that all of a sudden, their eyes are open and their circumstances are completely changed but it was predicated on them inviting Jesus into those situations and circumstances.

Here's what you need to see this morning. See, here's what's beautiful about god is that god is not gonna bulldoze his way into your life. He's not gonna force his way into your circumstances but he is eagerly waiting for you,

for you to open the door and invite him in, for you to bring him into the brokenness of your home, to bring him into the brokenness of that addiction, to bring him into the brokenness of your pain.

He's waiting for you to say, hey, just bring me, bring me here and here's what I love this morning is that the resurrection, it proves that dead things can come back to life but it doesn't happen accidentally.

It happens by you making a conscious decision to invite Jesus into those places that need resurrection and I feel like god brought me here to tell you this morning that if you're here and you need a miracle,

maybe invite the miracle worker into your home. If you're here and you need a healing, maybe invite the great physician and if you are here and you need some broken things repaired, bring in the one that can repair all that has been broken. Invite him

in. I wish that I could just give you two or three principles of Jesus's life that you could apply and have an incredible life but that that isn't how it works and being a fan of Jesus, it will do nothing for you but becoming a follower of Jesus, I'm telling you, it can change everything. Here's what I need you to see this Easter morning. There there's a huge difference between having an interest in Jesus

and inviting Jesus into your story. See, these guys, their lives were changed. Their stories were completely altered not because they were interested in Jesus

but because they made a decision to invite him in. I wish that there was somehow that we could document all the life change that is happening inside of our church and all the miracles of what god is doing but it just would be logistically almost impossible but what I wanted to do this morning was to share with you one story of an amazing family that I love and what God's been doing in their life. So watch this real quick.

I'm Aubrey, and this is my husband, Corey, and we've been a part of Echoes Church since interest night of April 2024.

Kind of always known God, like I grew up in the church, but I wouldn't say I ever really followed Jesus. I kind of always tried to live my life based on performance, whether it was hockey or baseball or

work or whatever it was that I was doing at the time. And as a result, it just kinda got to the point to where it was never gonna be good enough. And it was very lonely. For me, I come from a broken family, so I didn't have Jesus in my life growing up. My family had abuse and divorce

and then I found myself in the same situation as a young adult going through a divorce myself. And so very similar to Corey I was trying to find who I was and my identity and everything in this world by the accolades and the titles and the money and chasing peace in all the wrong places. One of the things I've

always really battled and struggled with is understanding or trying to accept God's grace. I felt like I couldn't express that in any way, shape, or form. Yeah. Just kinda isolated myself and tried to find peace in,

I guess, substances, if you will, so that I wouldn't feel anything at all. Not coming from a faith background, I just felt this pull that I wanted to go experience that and I wanted to learn about God. And we lived right down the street from a church and saw that they had an Easter service and was like we should go.

And we went. I think the message was about bringing your burdens to the Lord and I feel like at that point I had so many I was like this is gonna be a lot but it's time to surrender and bring this to him. I just remember we were both in tears and really felt convicted and so we kept going back.

And I think for me a pivotal moment was when we started serving and the ministry I chose to serve in was young adults because it has like such a special meaning in my story. But just like seeing young adults

willingly on Thursday nights praise the Lord with everything that they have just knowing how broken I was at that stage of my life is like so beautiful so that I think really grew my faith and just made my love for the Lord grow even deeper.

You know, at the time I was still I was still smoking a bunch and trying to not feel anything and still manage that thinking I could do both. I was really conflicted. I didn't know what to do. I was confused. I wanted to feel this goodness of God surrounding me that everybody talked about, but

I had to find a way to allow myself to do that. And I've learned recently that the only thing standing in my way is me. As we've been just walking

this journey in our faith, it's been on our heart. What better time than after we joined this church plant to be able to get baptized together and show our kids. When she brought it up, I I fought it

because I was worried about, you know, what would my family think or am I allowed to do this? And and then I just, at the end of the day, like, realized I needed to make that polite declaration for myself. Getting rid of that that shame and that guilt, I think, was the biggest step in my personal walk.

But doing it with my wife and my best friend by my side and, like,

being the first person that she hugged after she came out, that's that's us doing this together and it's we're leading our family together. We still obviously have things in life that are hard and really tough seasons, but the sense of peace that I have knowing that through the hard seasons is just the best blessing.

Yeah. I think post Christ, it's just there's so much more happiness and joy because I can actually feel it. I don't feel depressed or lonely. I still have battles. I can pray now, and I've got a partner here in this world that's gonna be with me for life. I've got a savior that

is with me through everything no matter what, whether I'm next to her or not. And that promise of eternal life and grace and love and knowing that if I fall off of that, like, narrow path, the hand that's gonna reach out is his to pull me back up on it. Post Jesus, Cory has really become a leader for our family and just

our children looking up to him and seeing what a good dad is. For me, that's so important because my childhood looked much different and so to be able to provide that to our kids something that's really special but I'm so proud of him for

just everything that he's been doing the last several years all the work he's been putting in and just the surrender that he's given to the Lord. He's literally transformed.

Trying to be. Man, come on. You love to see it. And here's

here's the best part about all of this is what god did for the Stark family, what he did for these two random guys on the road in Luke 24 is the same thing that he wants to do for you. See, this is the beauty of John three sixteen that god so loved the world that he gave his only son

to die so that you and I, whoever would believe in him, who would never have to perish but we could have eternal life. Look at Jesus's words we find in Revelation chapter three verse 20.

This is Jesus speaking. He says, look, I stand at the door and I knock and if you hear my voice and you open the door, I will come in and we will share a meal together as friends. You know what god wants from you? He wants a relationship with you like that of a friend.

He wants to come in and share a meal with you. He wants to be invited in to your addiction. He wants to be invited invited into your brokenness so that he can begin to help you heal all that has been broken.

He wants you to open the door and let him in. Look at these guys' stories. Look at how it ends. Verse 30, as they sat down to eat, they took the bread and they blessed it. He broke it and he gave it to them and then suddenly,

their eyes were open and they they recognized him. See, I love the order of events in this story because so often, see, we think we've been told, we've been conditioned to believe that you have to earn

everything in this life and so if you're gonna have a relationship with god, that means, you've gotta figure out your life. You've gotta get over the addiction. You've gotta figure out your pornography problem. You've gotta clean up some things and then god wants a relationship with you but this story,

it starts with two men taking a step of faith and inviting Jesus into their story not knowing what's on the other side of it and it's after they invite him in that Jesus opens their eyes and they begin to be changed from the inside out and they see everything differently.

See, this is what separates Jesus from every other religion in the world.

Every other religion says, you have to work to get to god but the gospel is that Jesus stepped out of heaven and he became low. He came to you and what you have to do is not earn the approval of god but receive it. It's an act of grace. It's something that you just invite in through faith

and as you invite him in, he begins to change you from the inside out. He begins to rewrite generational stories.

He begins to create an entirely new identity inside of you but he's not going to bulldoze the door down. He's waiting for you to invite him in. Look at these guys. Their story ends and in that in that moment, Jesus disappears

and they said to each other, didn't our hearts burn within us as he talked to us on the road? And he explained the scriptures to us and within the hour, they were on their way back to Jerusalem. I love this story. These are two guys who are running from their purpose, running from their destiny and in a moment,

in an encounter with Jesus, they turn around and they go running right back towards it. See, Jesus changed everything for them in the same way that I'm hoping and I know that he's gonna change everything for some of you sitting here this morning.

I know that some of you, man, you think you're here randomly but god orchestrated all types of details, all types of events to get you here, to hear this message,

and I believe that what's happening inside of some of you is the exact same thing that these guys are talking about. It feels like there's something stirring on the inside of you. It says, does didn't it feel like our hearts were on fire when we were with them? See, when I sat in a seat just like you are fifteen years ago and I listened to a guy stand on a stage and talk about the gospel,

I just felt something inside of my heart stirring and I've I've come to learn that is the holy spirit drawing you back to god and for some of you right now, this this is your moment. This is a day that was marked before the beginning of time that this is the day that you will surrender your life. You will bend the knee to the lordship of Jesus. You will invite him into your story and god will begin to write an entire new story through your life but if you're not careful, you will believe that Easter is just some event that we celebrate

but I need you to see that Easter is much more than that. At some point, when we find ourselves in seasons where we go, man, what do we do? How do we get through this? You've gotta, yes, you gotta remember god's promises. You've gotta see his presence and at some point, at some point, you've gotta respond to god's power.

At some point, you've gotta say yes and become willing to entertain the possibility that maybe Jesus really actually conquered death and that maybe Easter is much more than just an event that we celebrate once a year but the resurrection,

the resurrection, the resurrection is not just an event that we celebrate. It's a miracle that is meant to be experienced not by somebody but by by you and

I believe for some of you, you know right now, I'm speaking to you and this is your moment. I don't know what the brokenness is. I don't know what the pain is but I want to give you a moment right now in this place to surrender your life, your heart to Jesus, to open the door, and let him in. So, here's what want to do. I'm gonna ask everybody in this room, close your eyes, bow your heads. I I wanna create a private moment between you and god.

I know, I know it feels like there's hundreds of people in this room but I'm telling you, this is an intimate moment between you and your father that created you.

The god that the scriptures say knit you together in your mother's womb who made you perfectly that knows everything that you're dealing with, all your struggles, all your pain, all your disappointments,

and he wants to walk through life with you. He's waiting for you to invite him in. I believe that right now, some of you are going to go from death to life, from brokenness to wholeness, from darkness

to light and all you have to do to do that, the Bible says is you would just confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus is lord, you will be

saved and if you're here right now and it feels like I'm speaking to you, when I count to three, I want you right where you are in your seat. Just throw your hand up. One, this is your moment.

Two, don't let the enemy talk you out of this. This is for you. Three, if that's you, just throw your hand up right where you are. Don't be ashamed. There's hands going up all over the auditorium. If you know this is your moment, just say yes. Let boldness come in. When you respond, you put miracles

into motion and so father, we thank you for all the hands that are responding to you right now. All the hearts that are represented, the stories that are represented. I thank you for every hand that's raised here right now. You can you can put your hands down.

If that's you right now in the quietness of your heart, just say a prayer like this with me. Say, Jesus, with everything that I have, I acknowledge you as savior and as king. I believe that you are the son of god. I I believe that you stepped into my mess. You died the death that I deserve and you conquered death itself

and so Jesus right now with all the faith that I have, I acknowledge you as king, as savior. I ask for you to come into my heart and set me free. It is in the mighty name of Jesus. All god's people said, amen and amen. Hey, can we just celebrate? I'm telling you, man. There's hands going all up over this room.

Here's what I'm going to ask you to do right now. Everybody, stand with me to your feet. We we've got we've got one more song and we're going to worship with everything that we have because the tomb is empty. Jesus conquered death and hope is available to all humanity. Amen? Let's worship.

Hey, right now, ten seconds. With all you have, let's give god some praise in this place. Come on, somebody.