(This transcript was generated by AI. Apologies for any inacuracies)

Oftentimes, we come in a space like this or to a weekend like this, and our hope is sort of deflated.

And what our prayer is, is that God will begin to place hope in your heart so that you can walk out of here walking out your purpose of what He's given you to do in this earth.

You may have walked in here with one thing in your hands, but I do know that the resurrection of Christ can change everything, and God can put a promise in your heart so that you can begin to walk in the fullness of your purpose.

The Bible tells us in the beginning that God created man and woman in His image, in His likeness, and He created us for a purpose.

He said to be fruitful and multiply, basically permeate His presence throughout the earth, and begin to make His name known throughout the earth.

The Bible says that the first man and the first woman got off track.

We call that word sin.

They missed the mark of God's glorious standard.

God's standard was that people would be in a relationship with Him, walk in that relationship with Him, be empowered by that relationship with Him, and fill the earth with the amazing things of God.

But because sin entered the world through that first man and the first woman, the world got all messed up.

And we live in a broken place.

We live in a place that has pain.

We live in a place that has hardships.

We live in a place that has evil.

But the Bible declares to us that, you know what, God is going to make all things right.

The Bible declares to us that God is creating a new heaven and a new earth one day, and all the people who love Him, we're going to live with Him for eternity.

And so I know sometimes the wickedness, the evil, the pain, the hurt, the relationship challenges, all the things that come against us in life, I know that they can suck hope out of us.

But maybe we're going to learn something this Easter from the story of the resurrection of Jesus that's going to put hope back in you.

Maybe it's going to give you a living hope.

Come on.

And because you have a living hope, you can begin to walk in the fullness of your purpose in spite of the circumstances.

I know in a room like this, that we all come from different backgrounds, different situations and different circumstances.

Some of you have had a horrific week.

Some of you have had a mountaintop week.

Some of you have had challenges in your life this week that others of us haven't had.

But the reality of it is, is we all live in a world that we have to learn to walk in and be who God has created us to be and walk in that, in this earth.

And so, again, I believe the resurrection can change everything if you will grab hold of what God wants to do in your heart today.

So today we're going to teach from a passage of scripture found in Luke chapter 24.

And it's where a bunch of women came to the tomb of Jesus to prepare his body for burial that Sunday morning, but they found out that he had risen and he wasn't there.

And because of that, their life was radically changed.

They came to the tomb with one thing in their hands, they left with another in their heart, and they began to walk in the fullness of their purpose.

And I don't believe that purpose was only for those ladies who visited that tomb that first resurrection weekend, but I believe that purpose is for you and for me this resurrection weekend.

So today we're going to dive into that and we're going to begin to learn how to raise our expectation.

You know, I don't know if you've ever had any expectations of anything in your life, but sometimes those expectations can let us down, right?

Anybody ever had an expectation of something and it didn't work out exactly like you thought it was going to work out?

Some of you are saying, yeah, it's sitting right beside me today.

Come on.

That's what my wife would say anyway.

So, but sometimes we're expecting something out of someone and we're let down.

But on the other hand, we can be expecting something out of someone or of a circumstance and greater things can come out of that.

Maybe you came in here today and you're expecting one thing, but God's getting ready to deliver another because that's what happened at that tomb that morning when those ladies came to visit the tomb, they were expecting something.

They were expecting to find a dead body.

They were expecting to honor the body of their friend Jesus by sprinkling spices and anointing his body with oil in that particular region in that day to prepare his body for burial.

In other words, he had been placed in the tomb.

He'd already been tended to by some people, but they came back on Sunday morning to begin to add spices to his body.

It was a symbolic way to say, you know what?

We want to honor you.

We love you.

We're going to miss you.

We're grieving and we're mourning.

As they came to that tomb that morning, God met them there.

When God met them there, everything about their life began to change because of a promise that God had already spoken before they got to that tomb that morning.

I need you to know today, I don't know what you walked in here with.

I don't know who said what they said or did what they did, but I know that God has a promise for every single one of us that walked in this place in space today, whether you're in overflow or whether you're online or you're sitting right here in this room.

And God wants to meet you right in the space you're in.

He wants to deposit that promise in you.

And don't miss this.

He don't only want to deposit the promise in you.

He wants you to walk out of here, filled with great purpose and walking that out every day of your life.

The Bible says in Luke chapter 24, beginning with verse one, it says very early on Sunday morning, the women, they went to the tomb, taking spices they had prepared.

They found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance.

So they went in, but they didn't find the body of the Lord Jesus.

As they stood there puzzled, two men suddenly appeared to them, clothed in dazzling robes, the Bible says.

The women were terrified and they bowed with their faces to the ground.

The men ask, why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive?

He isn't here.

He is risen from the dead.

Remember what he told you back in Galilee?

Remember, he made you a promise back in Galilee before you ever got to this grave today.

He promised this, that the son of man must be betrayed in the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and that he would rise again on the third day.

They remembered that he had said this, so they rushed back from the tomb to tell his eleven disciples and everyone else what had happened.

It was Mary Magdalene, it was Joanna, it was Mary the mother of James, the Bible says, and several other women who told the apostles what had happened.

That morning, these women came to tend a grave, to tend the body of the Lord Jesus Christ with spices in their hand.

But when they got there, the stone had been rolled away, not to let Jesus out of the grave, but to show them something about who he is, to show them something in their heart.

The stone had been rolled away.

They came with spices in their hand, expecting to go in the tomb and find a dead body so that they could begin to prepare it for burial.

In other words, they came to this tomb that morning with pain in their heart.

They came with loss in their life.

Remember, the Lord Jesus was their friend.

The Lord Jesus that we worship today was their leader.

He was their master.

He was the one that they had shouted a few days before, Hosanna, Hosanna, praise God in the highest.

He's the one that came into Jerusalem that was going to rescue them, these people from the Roman rule.

He was going to give them social status.

This Jesus is now dead.

So pain fills their heart.

They're feeling all of their dreams being squished and snuffed out.

Loss had happened.

They're mourning the body of their friend.

They're caught in this space of sadness and grief and fear.

What's going to happen next?

Can I tell you something?

That's what doubt, what shame, what grief, what loss, what insecurity, all of these things begin to make us shrink back.

But what God did in this moment is simply amazing because God didn't leave them in their grief.

And my friend, God won't leave you in your grief.

God didn't leave them in their pain.

God didn't leave them in the valley they were in that morning.

What God did that first Easter morning was he met them right where they were, and he'll meet you today right where you are.

Come on.

No matter what you're carrying, no matter what you walked in here with in your hands, it doesn't matter the mistakes.

It doesn't matter the shame.

It doesn't matter the guilt.

It doesn't matter the bad choices.

It doesn't matter who let you down or who you let down.

What really matters is when you get to the foot of the cross and you understand who died on that cross, this Jesus of the Bible and why he did it, it can begin to change everything.

It's the whole reason Jesus came into this earth.

The Bible says in the book of John, in the beginning was the Word and the Word was God and the Word was with God.

And then the Bible says the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

So the whole reason God sent Jesus into the world is to meet humanity right where we are in a sinful world, a broken world, all of our losses, all of our unmet expectations.

And the whole reason God sent him into the world was to pay the penalty of missing the mark of God's glorious standard, to pay the sin, the debt that humanity couldn't pay on that cross.

And Jesus did it.

Why did he do it?

He wanted to meet you and me right where we are, no matter what we brought into the room in our hands.

And maybe God brought you here today to rewrite your script because maybe today, you know what the script you're writing for your life is simply it's over.

I got pain.

I got agony.

I messed up.

And God is in the business of meeting you where you are and rewriting that script, if you will so dare believe.

It's what happened in my own life at the age of 32.

I'd heard all about God my entire life, since I was a little baby.

I'd even gone to church on a few occasions, and even on some regular basis.

I'd gone on Christmases and Easter.

I'd been in and out of church.

And I knew this story about Jesus.

I knew all of these things about God.

But it wasn't until I got to the end of myself and the end of my ambitions and what I thought life should be.

It wasn't until loss came into my life, grief came into my life, pain came into my life.

It wasn't until I got to that place that I truly began to meet the God, this Jesus, who came from heaven to earth to forgive me of my sin and begin to speak life back into me.

And at the age of 32, God did it through a woman, just like he did as he did it through these women at that first resurrection.

And that woman was my wife.

Her name is Kim.

She's with us today.

But what I began to see in her was what it really meant to live a resurrected life.

What it really meant to give when somebody else is really undeserved for the giving.

Because I was truly undeserving of the love that she showed me in those particular moments.

And because she was willing to shine the glory of God, the representation of God, she's not perfect by any means.

But because in that moment, she was shining the perfect love of God in our relationship.

I said, you know what?

I want to meet this Jesus that lives in your heart.

How do I do it?

And she began to talk to me about the significance of the resurrection.

Because I began to ask questions like, how do you know you're going to spend eternity with God?

What do you mean?

And I began to ask all of these questions.

And she said, I have a peace in my life.

And the peace in my life isn't based on the circumstances of my life.

It's not what's going on around me.

It's not even what's going on with you and me.

It's because I know that God loves me and he cares for me right where I am.

If anybody else never does.

And I have resurrection power in my life because he died on that cross for me and I have a personal relationship with him.

So I'm able to live out of the power of the resurrection.

And my friend, it began to change my life.

I don't know what your story is this weekend, but I do know that the reason Jesus came is so that he can meet us where we are and we can lay down what is in our hands.

That morning, the ladies came with spices in their hand, ready to prepare a dead body.

But at the grave, they found that the stone had been rolled away, not what they were expecting at all.

It had been rolled away and God began to exceed their expectations as the angel of the Lord began to speak to them.

In other words, God had a divine revelation, a divine revelation to give those ladies that morning at the grave of Jesus.

And I need you to know he has a divine revelation to give you today.

And if you begin to understand the divine revelation and the promises of God, everything will begin to change.

Everything will begin to shift.

It's one thing to bring that sin, that pain, that grief, all of that stuff to the cross and lay it down at the feet of Jesus and be forgiven of that.

It's another thing to begin to really understand the promise of life that Jesus offers you through the resurrection.

And the Bible says at this particular time, these ladies begin to understand that God made a promise.

Let me show it to you.

Luke chapter 24, verses five through seven, the angels of the Lord said, why are you looking for the dead?

For someone who is alive among the dead, for someone who is alive, he isn't here, he is risen from the dead.

Remember, the angel says, remember, reflect, remember, remember the promise.

Remember what he's already told you.

He told you in Galilee that the son of man must be betrayed into the hands of sinful men and be crucified.

And that is what, and that he would rise again on the third day.

The angel confronts these women, not to cause confusion.

He didn't just bring these women information.

He was correcting their perspective of what they were seeing.

He was saying, you know, you came here looking for one thing, but don't you remember the promise of what Jesus said.

The women had simply forgot the promise.

And can I tell you, maybe you've forgotten God's promise.

And the whole reason you're in the state that you're in right now is because you've never trusted God's promise.

And I need you to know today what God, your creator, I don't care who you are in this room.

When he created you, he created you for purpose and he created you for significance.

And God promised that what the enemy has stolen, that he will come and he will restore.

If you will so dare believe and the creator created you for significance, he created you for purpose, he created you for life and he created you for life abundantly, life overflowing.

But you got to trust the promise.

And some of us have believed the lie and we believe the confusion.

I'm too far gone.

God can't rescue me.

I've done too much.

God's not big enough to lift me up.

Hey, guy on stage, I hear you talking, but you don't know what I've been through.

No, I don't.

But God does.

And God says that no matter who you are, that if you will call on the name of the Lord, that he will step in in that moment and fulfill his promise in your life.

And so this Easter, I want to show you a few things that God has promised to anyone in this room.

No matter whether you're in an overflow, you're viewing right now online, or you're sitting in one of these lovely seats in this room, no matter if you're in the top row or the bottom row, in the middle row, no matter if you're a man, no matter if you're a woman, no matter if you're a mess up, no matter if you're a screw up, there is a God that promises he will meet you in the middle of all of that if you will trust what he says.

The angel said, don't you remember the Lord Jesus made a promise?

Why are you looking for the living among the dead?

Look what the Bible says in John 3.16.

See, God invites us to shift our question from where is he in my situation to what did he promise me in my situation?

And this is what the Bible says in John 3.16.

It says, this is how God loved the world.

He gave his one and only son so that everyone, no matter who they are, who believes in him will not perish, will not waste away, but have eternal life.

Jesus declared this to a man named Nicodemus in John 3.16.

But he said, everyone who believes can have eternal life.

You know what that means?

That means me.

And that means you.

If we'll trust in the one and only son that God sent in this earth to pay our penalty for sin on a cross and they resurrect you from a grave.

I want to show you what it says in Romans chapter 10, verses nine and 10.

This is a promise from God.

If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved.

So what is faith?

The Bible says faith is the substance of things hoped for.

What are you really hoping for?

Because the Bible says, you know what?

If you will begin to let the expectation for God to do what he says he can do, your hope can begin to be elevated.

But if you're not putting your faith and hoping that God can do what he says he can do in his word, you're missing so much about what your faith is given to you for.

Faith is evidence of things hoped for.

The Bible says in Romans chapter 10 verse 13, for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Notice that verse says everyone.

It doesn't matter what tribe, what tongue, or what nation you come from.

Anyone who calls on the name of the Lord can be rescued, put in a right relationship with God.

It's a promise.

You see those ladies came to that tomb that first Easter expecting one thing.

They brought something in their hand.

They were going to prepare a dead body of their friend for burial ever and ever and ever.

And God says, Oh, wait a minute.

You forgot the promise.

Remember the promise that the Lord Jesus said, he told you he was going to die and he told you he was going to rise.

But you came here today, all down trodden to this tomb, broken in grief and with a lot of pain because you forgot the promise of God.

Remember the promise of God.

You want to begin to have your hope elevated, understand that God says, if you will put your faith in the Jesus of the Bible, not the Hollywood version, but the Jesus of the Bible in the beginning was the Word.

The Word was with God and the Word was God, and the Word made his dwelling among us.

He came to dwell among us so we could begin to understand that God is for us and not against us, that God has a purpose and a plan for our life, that God can fully pay for sin.

He can begin to be put in a grave, he can fully die, but he could be resurrected, and if he could be resurrected from the dead, he can resurrect your situation this Easter.

But you have to embrace the promise, you have to believe.

You see, Jesus said something remarkable to a man named Thomas after he resurrected.

And he told Thomas this, Thomas was one of his disciples, and he told him in John chapter 20, verse 29.

He says, Thomas, you believe because you have seen me.

He says, but blessed are those who believe without seeing me.

What does that mean?

That means, you know what?

I don't have to physically see the body of Jesus Christ to know God's promise.

I can trust by faith and put my hope in the effectiveness of the resurrection, and I don't have to see the physical body, but I can believe without seeing.

Have faith in God's promise.

He loves you, and he desires a relationship with you.

His focus, my friend, if you can get one thing straight this Easter, his focus is not your past.

His focus of being resurrected from a grave is your future.

And what he wants to do is he wants to give you a hope, and he wants to give you a future.

The Bible says that that's exactly what happens in these ladies' life that first Easter.

They begin to have hope again.

They begin to have purpose again.

See, it says it there in Luke chapter 24.

It says, beginning with verse nine, it says, they rushed back from the tomb to tell the 11 disciples and everyone else what had happened.

It was Mary Magdalene, it was Joanna, it was Mary, the mother of James, and several other women who told the apostles what had happened.

In other words, they came with disappointment, but they began to understand that their disappointment that Jesus was dead, you know what?

It didn't disqualify them from the purpose that God had for their life.

And in their disappointment, they figured out that he had been resurrected, that he would do exactly what he says he will do.

And the moment they began to understand and believe that in their heart, their purpose was reignited.

The Bible says that these women who had been oppressed, who had been shoved down, had become the first good news carriers of the good news about Jesus Christ.

And they began to fulfill their purpose.

And they began to go shout it from the mountaintops and from the rooftops and tell everyone about who they had met.

It wasn't about their gender, it was about their savior.

Come on, somebody.

And in that moment, God spoke into their life, resurrected their life, resurrected their purpose.

And I'm here to declare to you this Easter weekend that God can do the same thing in your heart and your life if you will dare to believe.

I wanna show you what the Bible says about you, my friend.

In the book of 1 Peter 1, verses three and four, it says, all praise to God, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It is by his great mercy that we have been born again.

We have a new purpose, we have a new heart, we have a new life, we have a new spirit.

The Bible says it is because of his great mercy that we have been born again.

That's what being born again is.

Other words, I'm not walking in who I thought I was, I'm walking in who God says I am.

And the Bible says because God raised Jesus from the dead, we now live with great expectation and we have a priceless inheritance.

In other words, nothing can take away what God has promised.

And the Bible says that you know what?

You can have hope beyond your situation.

You can have hope beyond your breakup.

You can have hope beyond your poverty.

You can have hope beyond your sickness.

You can have a hope in a resurrected Jesus Christ and you have a priceless inheritance.

And so what that means is you can walk out of here today with a new purpose in glorifying God, that no matter what comes your way, you can begin to declare He is risen and I have eternal life in my heart.

And my friend, if that is what you want this Easter, we have carved out enough room at the end of this service for you to personally respond.

When you came in the door today, you received a little spice bag in your hand.

And in just a moment, if you're ready to lay down that old life, that sin, that shame, that guilt, that defeat, that fear, and you're saying, God, I need you to breathe new life, resurrected life into my heart today, we're gonna invite you to take that spice bag in a moment when the band begins to sing a song and make your way up the outside aisles in this room and lay those spice bags down at the foot of the cross.

And remember, Jesus paid for your sin on that cross.

We're gonna invite you to put that down at the cross.

And then we're gonna invite you, by faith, to come up the center aisles as you make your way around the crosses and pick up this stone.

This stone is a representation that you today have trusted the rolled stone at the grave of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus.

It's got his name printed on it, Jesus.

And you can take that and put it in your heart, in your pocket to remember that today you received his promise in your heart and Easter 2025 changed everything because you personally believed in the resurrection of Christ.

And today is the day of your salvation.

You see, the Bible says the moment we trust the cross of Christ, that God comes in and saves us.

But he doesn't come in and just save us from our sin.

The Bible says he breathes new life into us so that we can walk in purpose.

And my friend, if you have never received that free gift that comes from God, today, Easter 2025, would be a great opportunity to do that.

I wanna declare to you today, you weren't made to tend graves.

You weren't made to just anoint the bodies of the dead, the dead situations, the dead circumstances, but you were made for so much more.

But that more is received in the resurrection of Christ and you fully knowing in your heart who he is and letting him become the leader in the Lord of your life.

No longer you're handing over, you're handing over the authority to God.

No longer are you the authority, no longer am I the authority, he's the authority.

God, I'm laying down my old life and I'm picking up new life in Christ Jesus.

The resurrection changes everything and it can change your destiny today if you will choose to believe in your heart.

Can you bow your heads all over this room?

In just a moment, the band's gonna come out and they're gonna begin to sing.

And if you need to make Jesus the Lord of your life, in just a moment, I'm gonna invite you to come up those outside aisles, drop those spice bags and if you're in the overflow, you can come forward and drop the spice bags.

And as you drop those spice bags, you're gonna make your way around and you're gonna pick up that stone to remember the resurrection of Jesus and he become the Lord and leader of your life.

And then today, I'm gonna ask that you make your way back to your seat and we're gonna continue to worship.

And then in just a few moments, we'll dismiss everybody.

And on your way out, if you make that decision to follow Christ, we'd love to give you a copy of God's word.

There's gonna be people all over the foyer out there holding up Bibles, just stop by and say, you know what, I made that decision to follow Jesus today and I'd like a copy of God's word.

It's a free gift from us to you to help you on your journey.

You see, apart from the word of God, you can't really fully become all of who God has created you to be.

I invite you to get yourself in a life-giving church and begin to follow God.

Don't just show up every now and then, show up on a regular basis and begin to watch God move.

My friend, he has a destiny, he has a plan for your life, but you gotta receive it in your heart and you gotta begin to walk in it.

I can't walk your walk and you can't walk mine, but together we can encourage each other on the journey.

Don't you give up, don't you pull over to the side.

You believe Jesus for who he is.

If you're ready to make that decision today, right where you sit, maybe say something like this.

Say, God, today, I'm tired of doing life my way.

I admit that I have sinned.

I have missed the mark of your glorious standard.

And God, today, I'm gonna come and I'm gonna lay down that sin, that pain, that grief, who I thought I was at the foot of the cross.

I'm gonna receive your forgiveness, God.

Just tell God you're gonna receive the forgiveness that Jesus offers.

And tell God, today, I wanna trust that he resurrected to breathe new life into me.

And I wanna walk in the fullness of that.

Tell God, thank you for that gift because you didn't do anything to earn it.

You didn't do anything to buy it.

God just chose to do it because you believe in his promise.

And so today, if you said that prayer, as soon as they start singing, make your way to the crosses, pick up your stone, make your way back to your seat, and let's see what God can do.

God, we thank you for everyone that made that decision to follow Christ today.

We pray this prayer in Jesus' name, amen.