Amen. All right. Jayden did an awesome job, didn't she? Didn't she do an awesome job? Yeah. I mean, that's like a, ought to be like a weekly event or something, right? I mean, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Okay. All right. Yes. It's always good to watch what the kids may do on stage two. That's always a good thing. If you have your Bibles with you this morning, I encourage you to open up to, guess what, Luke 24. Who would have guessed that? We are going to read the passage this morning, talk about the resurrection, and really want to focus on this morning one item, one element of the story this morning. We're going to focus on the stone. together. The last few years we've taken a different element each year, and so this year I really prayed about it, really thought through it, and really thought, well, let's focus on the stone and how that really can apply to our own lives today. And just the amazing part of that, you think about the tomb and you think about That stone, you're talking probably 4,000 or 5,000 pounds, and that thing was not just rolled away to a point to where somebody could squeeze out of it. It was rolled out to a point to where you could walk in and out of. It's pretty amazing, those things that happen in the story when we see those things. But this morning I want to read the entirety of those first 12 verses here in Luke 24. And like I said, believe it or not, it's Easter. I know you got a lot of plans and all that privilege, but we have a choice every day to be truly free in Christ. And yet for so many believers, we live a life chained to different things. And that's sad. Especially on a day like today when we celebrate the fact that you and I as believers, we serve a risen living Savior. That's awesome. That's exciting. I mean, that's what Easter is about, right? I mean, we like the egg hunts, right? You like the egg hunts, right? You like getting together with family. Some family. All the different things that you may do, we like all those things that we do, but ultimately when we think about it, We get to celebrate our Savior. A living Savior that says to you and I, I want you to be free today. Now, I'm not talking about the kind of freedom, you know, we get all patriotic and there's a big movement in our country to tie the being, you know, patriot and being Christian and all that. I'm not talking about that stuff, guys. I'm talking about real freedom. I'm talking about a freedom that only comes from God. A freedom that when you get released in it, church, listen, nothing else can conquer you. Nothing else can overtake you. When we are truly free in Christ, listen, there is nothing that can hinder us, church. Do you believe that today? Do you? Do we believe that when the Holy Spirit fills us, we're different? So we look at that empty tomb, and that should celebrate. That should be a celebration of our heart and our minds and our hands and our feet, because, goodness gracious, we serve a living Savior. You realize there's no other faith in the world that can say that, right? All the other faiths in the world, they serve what? Dead guys, right? Aren't you glad we're not here this morning saying, well, I am so grateful to God this morning that Jesus is still in the grave. Wouldn't that be horrible? We don't do that, though. And so we're reading Scripture here, and this is an exciting, exciting part of Scripture. I'm going to ask you to stand with me. It's a little lengthy this morning, bear with me. But I'm going to read out of the ESV this morning, Luke 24. I'm going to read down through verse 12 this morning. And again, it's okay to shout in church. But it says, on the first day of the week at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. Wouldn't that be a sight? I mean, I know, I said I was going to read it, but now I'm going to get sidetracked several times. Would that not be awesome? You may stand a lot this morning. Wouldn't that be, imagine just being, having the privilege of being the first ones to show up and be like, now wait a minute, something's different. Now would you have shown up and maybe been like, well, well, you know, or would you have been the one that would have run up and run right on in? Think about it. Let's put ourselves in those sandals and think about what's going on there. So they run up on it and the stone is rolled away from the tomb. But when they went in, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the man said to them, Why do you seek the living among the dead? Now, isn't that awesome? Now that ought to be a Christian bumper sticker, amen. Man, why do you seek the living among the dead? Now again, I can't imagine being in that situation. I can't even fathom but how cool that would have been. Presence of angels and to hear that statement. verse 6 says he is not here but has risen remember how he told you why he was still in Galilee that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise and they remembered his words and returning from the tomb they told all these signs to the 11 and to all the rest That was Mary Magdalene and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale. They did not believe them. But Peter rose and ran to the tomb, stooping and looking in. He saw the linen clothes by themselves, and he went home marveling at what had happened. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, God, we thank you for this morning. God, we thank you for the celebration of Easter week. Praise you for the empty tomb. And God, we praise you for the fact that we do serve a risen Savior who loves us, who desires us, who wants to be in a relationship with us. And God, we just thank you and praise you for it's in Christ's name we do pray. Amen. You may be seated this morning. This morning, like I said, I'm going to be quick. And I know that sounds crazy. And you say, no, it's not going to happen. I promise it will. What I want us to look at this morning is really simple, guys, this Easter. I really want us to focus on that stone. I put a lot of rocks up here. It's something about West Texas, or maybe it's just something about my yard. Every time the wind blows in our yard, okay, it's weird, our backyard, every time the wind blows, we have no grass, we have rocks. Every time the wind shifts in our backyard, we have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands, of these rocks. I could pick up five-gallon buckets full of rocks. If you ever need rocks for landscaping, come to the Parsonage and go in the backyard. We've got more rocks than you ever did. I'm the only guy that mows rocks. But we have all these rocks, and I can walk out in the backyard, and I can be reminded, especially during this season, I can be reminded of the fact that the stone was rolled away. And that is so exciting because what Jesus says to us today, church, is this. I want to roll your stone away. I want to free you. Now, yes, we have been freed through salvation, amen? We've been freed through the cross, amen? Do we believe that today? When you come to Christ, you are freed. You are set free, but the wonderful thing about our God that we serve church is this, is He's not up there and He doesn't put string on us, and He doesn't stand over us like this and say, OK, I'm going to lift this arm, I'm going to lift that arm. OK, some puppets are slower than others, but that's not what He's doing. He says, I give you free will and I'm going to give you choices. I'm going to allow you to make decisions, but in that church, listen, A lot of times we fail God. You hear me? A lot of times in our lives we bind ourselves in such ways that we allow in some ways, and in imagery here guys, go with me, a lot of times what we do is we take the stone that has been rolled away from our hearts and we roll it right back in front of it. You say, I don't do that. You want to bet? And so we're going to look at a few areas this morning as a challenge to you to think about those things this Easter. Because it says in Scripture, and we look at Scripture, we realize that when we come to Christ, when we have that genuine relationship with Him, we are free. We're not bound, church. You know, He didn't die on the cross for just a selection of sin. Did he? No. He died for all of it. Every single one of them. Yet for some of us in the room, we get so hung up on certain things to the point that maybe sometimes we take that stone and instead of choosing God, we choose to allow that stone to roll back in front of our hearts. And we become trapped. Now, let me get, before I get started into some of the points this morning, you do not ever lose your salvation, church. You hear me? There is nothing, nothing, in Romans 8 it says there is nothing, amen, that can snatch us from the hand of God. Now that's quite a love right there, amen. Do you know of any friends that you have today that says, you know what, I love you so much. I love you so much. I'm going to go, I'm going to go get beaten. I'm going to get spit upon. I'm going to get my clothes ripped off. I'm going to let them hang me on a cross. Nail me. I'm going to let them throw me into a tomb. Because that's how much I love you. You have any friends like that? No, we don't, do we? But Jesus says, I'm going to do that for you. I'm going to give you the choices afterwards. I'm going to tell you that you have the privilege in this relationship with me to choose good things or to choose bad things. To allow things that are bad to dictate your life or to allow me to dictate your life. And the sad truth is, guys, is this, is that so many believers and so many Christians today, or maybe so-called Christians, if I may say it that way, are allowing the world and very poor decisions to dictate their lives. Amen? Would you agree with that today? That's the reason we have so many churches today, all over the world today, that are teaching some very false things. Amen? And so this morning I just made a list of some things here that I think too many times we allow these stones of these items to block us from the freedom that we have in Christ. Maybe this morning one of these stones relates to you. And so maybe this Easter you can say, okay God, I know that I can be truly freed. I can live in a freedom that man doesn't even understand, but we have to be willing to make that right choice, amen? Say, God, I'm gonna give you those. Maybe you can guess some of the ones I'm gonna go through this morning. The first one that I see is this. I apologize for the coughing attacks. The first one is this, is the stone of anxiety and worry. Anybody in the room worry? Be honest. Don't lie. Come on now, at least Kel's bold enough to be truthful. He's like, I'm married and she has the credit card. I am worried. No, I'm just kidding. Yes, we do. We allow worry and anxiety to dictate our lives. You do. No, I don't do that. No, I don't think twice. No. God just does it and I just go with the flow. I'm just easy going. See, I've got the strut. Y'all see it? No? Too many times as believers we do. I'm as guilty as anybody. You can ask Kathy, do I worry? Yes, I do. I do. I'm a worrier. I worry about the small things. I worry about the big things. And I can stand here and say I know what's wrong, but guess what I still do? Because I'm hard-headed. I'm confessing on this Easter. I still worry. The sad thing about that is I'm allowing that stone of worry, that stone of anxiety, to block my freedom in Christ. And we do that. That's one of many areas, guys. So the worry and anxiety. The second one is this. Maybe it's the stone of doubt and fear. I just don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. Who does? Right? Well, God, yeah, thank you. Oh, man. We certainly don't. We certainly don't. I mean, we think we have an idea, right? Oh, man. Yet we allow it to dictate our lives in such a way sometimes we just live in a fear. God says, don't worry about tomorrow. Let tomorrow worry about itself. Amen? Yet we get stuck in this cycle of, man, I know we have a calendar on our fridge. We have everything listed out. And guess who still doesn't know what's going on? Guess who still asks, even though it's right in front of me? Yeah, that's me. Where are the kids at right now? Right there. So we do. We allow that fear and that doubt. Now here's the real sad thing, though, and I'm really directing this at believers this morning, though, especially this Easter morning, is this. It's too many times we doubt God. You say, I don't doubt God. I don't doubt God. You know how you doubt God? You question things. That's how you doubt God. Maybe I am worried about tomorrow. Maybe there's a health thing going on and you're allowing the questions and all the research and the worry about it to dictate instead of just saying, okay God, you got me. You got me. So there's that fear and that doubt that lingers. The third one is this, guys, is the stone of unforgiveness and grudges. Now, I know nobody in the room does this, right? Nobody in here does this, right? I'm looking at you. Look at me without smiling. Stone of unforgiveness and grudges. I've had people come in my office in ministry and they will tell me a story. And when I say tell me a story, an hour and a half goes by. And I'm all ears, taking it all in. And then I get to the end of this just horrible situation and life-altering, it's so bad, it's all this and all that. And it happened 15-20 years ago. And yet because of unforgiveness and grudges, and if I may say, just pure stupidity, they've lived their life chained to it. And they can't understand why they can't get free. You say, yeah, it's happened more than once. So we allow unforgiveness, we allow things that have happened in our lives, instead of just making things right or just admitting that, guess what, guys, we can be wrong. Right, guys? Guys in the room, I know all the ones, go ahead and say amen. No, no, not there. So unforgiveness, grudges. You say, no, that doesn't... Mark, you don't understand though. This situation, I can tell you this situation, if I told it, you'd understand. There's a way I can sort of put that over here and still be free in Christ. No, there's not. You can't have something dragging you down over here and claim you're still free in Christ over here, church. You've allowed that stone to roll in front of your heart. And the sad thing of it is this, guys, is we allow it and then we try to justify it, and as we're justifying it, we're going out into the community and our world and our jobs, and we're saying, I'm about Jesus, when they know all those other things going on. So the view of the risen, living Savior they get is very skewed in our witnesses. So we have grudges. We have unforgiveness. Maybe it's just the stone of failure. You ever failed at something in your life? Do we want to be honest enough to shake our heads to that? Listen, I barely made it through school. I failed a lot. Both my kids are A-B students. I'm like, how did that happen? Where are they, mine? Yeah, I know it's Kathy, it's true, yeah. Definitely didn't get it from me. Past failures. We allow those things to linger and linger and linger. That stone rolls in front of our hearts. And here's the thing for believers. Here's what I find amazing. I've seen this in ministry too. Those past failures, guess when they happened? They happened before Christ. They happened before they found Christ. And they're like still dwelling upon those things. I'm like, you've been released. You're free. Yet that stone rolls over and it blocks it. They live in those failures. Moving a little quicker here. Maybe it's the, and here we go church, you ready? Maybe it's the stone of complacency. Now let's get personal in church, right? You ever get complacent in church? Okay, got real quiet. Don't like to talk about this, do we? Oh, I don't have to worship. I can worship Him from anywhere. I don't have to go to church. Oh, I don't have to give to God. Oh, I don't have to use my gifts for God. Somebody else will do it, right? Somebody else will step up and do it. Stone of complacency. It's a bad disease in our churches. It covers our hearts up, it rolls over in front of it, and pretty soon we get to the next one, and it's the stone of being just comfortable. You ever been comfortable in church? You say, well, I'm supposed to be comfortable in church, right? Temperature's supposed to be just right, the cushion's just right, space them out just right, preacher. I'm supposed to be comfortable. I mean, it's about me, right? Right? Wrong. No. It's not. I've said it a hundred times and I've still thought about doing it. You know, show up one Sunday, there won't be any chairs set up. Oh no. Maybe it'll be summertime and I'll have the heat going. Wouldn't that be awesome? And Kathy's like, don't you do it. Throw us off a little bit, right? See, we get complacent, we get comfortable, and somehow we start to make it about us, and pretty soon we're bound to that. We're chained up. And what's sad is we think it's okay. It's okay to give God leftovers, right? It's okay to walk in this room and not be prepared for worship. It's just another week. I mean, we're going to just sing songs and hear a guy talk for 10 minutes, or 20 minutes, sorry, I don't want to lie. I mean, what's the big deal? And the sad thing about the stone of complacency and being comfortable is this, that we can read a story like we did this morning, the truth of the tomb being empty, the truth of the fact that He died on a cross, the truth that He rose again in His living, and we can look at that, and we can be excited, and we can be happy and joyful and say all those things, and yet, I'm okay just being comfortable. I'm okay just letting somebody else do it. I'm okay never using my gifts. I'm okay giving God leftovers. And the sad truth of it is this, church, on this Easter, the sad truth is this. That is the church of America today. You hear me? It is. That is the church of America today. That's what it looks like. The status quo. And all that is, is a big stone rolled over the hearts of the people. Not living a life truly free in Christ. Anxiety, doubt, unforgiveness, failures, complacency, just being comfortable. Maybe you have another one this morning that's a long list. Maybe this morning you have a stone that's over your heart. Do you think Jesus wants that stone over your heart today? No. He wants that bad boy to roll away. To be gone. But here's the kicker. The only person in the room The only person who can make that choice is who? Us. Ourselves. We're the ones who've got to be willing to say, okay, God, I fit in one of those categories or I fit somewhere else. God, I want you to roll it away. But see, the fact of the matter is this, guys. If we don't do it, guess what? We're going to continue to walk in Christ and be bound by something. We are. Christ says, listen, I want to set you free. Don't you want to be completely free in Christ today? Well, it's a great feeling. It's an awesome feeling. You have to make that decision. What is it that I have that I need to have rolled away? So that's my challenge this morning, okay? So I'm gonna pray. We're gonna stand. I ask the music folks to come forward. Song, yes, yes. We're gonna sing this morning. I'm gonna open the altar up to you guys. You're welcome to come take your rock with you. I've got 5,000 million of them in the backyard. A good reminder to you. I scared some of you this morning. I said I was going to stone somebody. I didn't do it, though. I was nice. But maybe you have something that you need to have rolled away this morning, a stone that needs to be rolled away so that you can be completely free in Him. Jesus wants nothing more than to have that with you, to be in that kind of relationship with you. He's waiting to hear from you. Heavenly Father, God, we thank you for this morning. God, we thank you for Easter. We thank you for the celebration of Easter. God, we thank you that we do serve a risen, living Savior. And God, I pray that on this Easter, we would look in our own hearts and see if there are any stones that need to be rolled away. And God, that maybe even in these next few moments, God, that if we need to do that, that can be done right here in this place. For it's in Christ's name we do pray.