Hey, welcome to One and All.

We hope you had a great Easter weekend.

We're so glad that you joined us here to listen to this week's sermon, and we have a treat for you.

Before we get into the sermon, I want to encourage you to download our One and All app.

From there, we have a sermon notes tab to help you follow along as you listen.

Let's get into it.

Thank Man, we had a great Easter, didn't we?

It was just fantastic.

I got to go out to Upland and speak at the 11 o'clock.

I was at Rancho at the sunrise at 7, then at 9 o'clock, and then Saturday I was here.

And just seeing the dynamic that's happening on every campus, I can't remember so much energy, so much excitement.

And we've been in this series called Hope Beyond, and this is the first year I think we've ever completed the series, the week after Easter, because there's something else to say.

And you're in for a treat this weekend.

Dave Stone is a personal friend of mine.

Dave is probably, he's one of the premier preachers in North America.

Now, he would cringe backstage to hear me say that, but the fact of the matter is, he is well-known.

He's an author.

He's a fantastic communicator.

He's pastored the largest church in our movement of somewhere around 18,000 to 22,000 people.

But he's very much in demand.

It's been hard to get him, but I want to introduce him this weekend because he's going to be with us six times this year.

We are really blessed to have him.

I could go on and on, but I know how he is.

He just wants me to get off the stage so he can have his sermon time.

So give a real one and all welcome to my friend Dave Stone.

All right.

Hey, it is so good to be here today.

I've looked forward to this.

I'm looking forward to more times this year.

I have the opportunity to be with you all, but welcome to West Covina and Rancho and Upland and San Dimas and those who are watching online.

And Easter was incredible.

I was online.

I was part of the online campus getting to experience that.

And let me tell you, it came through loud and clear.

And you hear those numbers and you hear...

how many baptisms, dozens and dozens of baptisms.

And you know, God's doing something really special here.

Every baptism.

At every campus was basically a role play of what took place on that Passion Weekend.

It was the Good Friday of dying, of being buried, and rising to walk in newness of life when Jesus conquered the grave.

And you think about the resurrection, you think about all that Jeff talked about last week, and you say, well, how did Jesus do that?

how does somebody come back from the dead?

It reminds me several years ago, a magician and illusionist, David Copperfield, he was in Las Vegas.

He did an incredible show, a packed place night after night.

And one night he had done one of his acts and he just blew everybody away with one of his illusions.

And after he finished it, some lady hollered out from the balcony, how did you do that?

And he said, ma'am, if I told you, I'd have to kill you.

and she said, tell my husband.

How did Jesus conquer the grave?

How did he pull off the most spectacular of all of his miracles?

How did he do that?

Well, I just want us to realize that while we would like to know how he did that, it probably is more important to realize why he did it, and he did it because he loved you.

He loved you more than he loved himself.

He did it to become a perfect sacrifice, to pay for our sins, to save us.

And then he conquered the grave so that someday we could too.

And if we put our complete faith in him, we have that promise.

Now the title of this message is, How Can I Meet the Jesus Who Offers the Hope of the Resurrection?

And yes, we are wrapping up the Hope Beyond series today, but it's my life mission to introduce people to Jesus Christ, the only one who can give hope to the hopeless.

And I believe that when you have an encounter with Jesus, when you become aware of what he's done for you, your life will never be the same.

And while a physical encounter with him may have to wait until we get to heaven, you can still have a spiritual encounter with him right now where you know and feel his comfort and his love and his presence.

And so today what we're going to do is we're going to travel back in time to the very first Easter Sunday, and we're going to pick up right where Jeff left off last week.

And there are a lot of different moments we could look at on that first Easter Sunday, but we're going to limit it to two separate encounters with Jesus.

And we begin with the disciples'encounter with Jesus that evening.

They are terrified.

They are in hiding.

They've heard a confusing emotional report that some of the ladies who visited the tomb saw an angelic being saying that Jesus wasn't there and that he had risen.

Even Mary Magdalene.

said that she had personally seen Jesus.

And the disciples are thinking, you know, she's so grief-stricken, she's actually seeing and hearing things because she misses Jesus so much.

Now, the disciples, they're hiding behind locked doors and thinking that this missing body thing is a setup from the Jewish leaders and the Roman authorities to pin the disappearance on the disciples.

Their master has just died the most horrific death imaginable.

And they're probably thinking, well, we're going to be next.

as the Jewish leaders are just trying to wipe out any sign of Jesus or any of his teaching.

And so they were scared, they were confused, they were hopeless.

But that night, while they were hiding behind closed doors, something will change their mind.

It's an encounter with the resurrected Lord, and it can have an effect on you like it did them that night.

We pick it up in John chapter 20, verses 19 through 21.

Jesus came and he stood among them and said, Peace, be with you.

And after he said this, he showed them his hands and his side.

And the disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.

Again, Jesus said, Peace, be with you.

As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.

I find it really interesting that the very thing that they needed the most was the very thing that Jesus offered to them.

Peace.

That's what he gave.

And just to make certain that they know that this isn't some apparition or this is some dream, Jesus has them touch his wrists and touch his side, all of which were pierced for our sins.

Look at the next two verses, verses 24 and 25.

Now Thomas, who is also known as Didymus, one of the 12, was not with the disciples when Jesus came.

So the other disciples told him, we have seen the Lord.

But he said to them, unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.

Thomas always gets a bum rap.

Forever being painted as Doubting Thomas.

That's going to get really old for him in heaven when everybody starts coming up to him.

Hey, Doubting Thomas, Doubting Thomas.

He's probably going to say, hey, just call me Tom.

Let's just call me Tom up here, all right?

I'm going by Tom now, okay?

Because everything was always a reminder.

But really, think about it.

All that Thomas asked was the same thing that they had experienced.

That's all he wanted.

He just wanted what they had experienced.

He said, and if I have that, that's enough evidence for me.

And we would have doubted too.

We talk about him and say he's a doubting Thomas, but we would have come in those doors and been the exact same way.

And they would have been jabbering a mile a minute and said, oh man, Jesus was just here.

Jesus was right here.

And they're like, yeah.

Thomas is going, right, right.

He was right here.

Yeah, he didn't come through the door.

Oh, okay.

Well, where is he?

Well, he's not here now, but he went out the same way.

Oh yeah.

How convenient, right?

And we would have had a hard time with that.

We would have walked in the door and we would have been thinking, what have you guys been smoking?

Right?

I mean, this makes absolutely no sense because we would play that out in our own minds and we would say, that's impossible.

I'm going to give you four expectations.

if you are to have an encounter with Jesus.

Here's expectation number one, and that is be willing to examine the evidence concerning Jesus.

That's all Thomas wanted.

He just wanted to see some tangible physical evidence, to see and to touch these fresh wounds.

He's a level-headed guy, right?

He's a just-the-facts realist.

Maybe you can relate.

He wanted to believe in the resurrection.

He really did.

It just didn't fit in the box that he had in his mind.

Thomas had a philosophical objection.

Here it was.

Dead people stay dead.

kind of tough to fault him for that one, right?

It's a pretty good principle and doesn't seem very far-fetched if that's all you've ever seen and known.

Thomas says, unless, unless I see the wounds with my own eyes and touch them with my own hands, I will not believe.

And I love this about Thomas.

He was honest about his doubts and it's okay to be honest about your doubts and your questions too.

and I think sometimes we have this idea that in church we have to pretend that we don't have any questions and that we don't have any doubts, and we have this faith that can never be shaken, and yet if you've never had any doubts about your faith, then you may not have much of a faith.

because the truth is that most every one of us has had some doubts at some time, at least some seasons where we just questioned where God was.

In fact, you might be here today, one of our campuses, because you're investigating Christianity.

You came at Easter, and now you just want to find out more about this Jesus and the claims of Christ.

And you're just checking into all this.

Let me assure you that One and All is a safe place where you can come and search for truth and listen and study.

And the disciples were okay with Thomas doing that, seeking the evidence and just hanging out there.

And so I want you to catch this about Thomas.

It wasn't that he didn't want to believe, right?

He wanted to believe.

He just wanted some evidence.

Back when my kids were young, there was a day I was running some different errands, and my two girls were with me at the time.

And I stopped at a funeral home, and I said to them, I said, Hey, girls, you all stay in here.

Daddy's going to be in here for just maybe eight to ten minutes.

There was a man that died, and I'm going to go and encourage his family.

But you all stay in the van, and I'll be right back.

So I went inside.

As soon as I got inside and saw the names there, I realized, Oh, I'm at the wrong funeral home.

he's not here, right?

So I came back immediately.

I got in the van.

I said, girls, guess what happened?

And my five-year-old said, he's alive.

I'm like, no, no.

Talk about a downer.

No, no, he's dead.

He's dead someplace else, you know.

Thomas wasn't like my daughter.

his faith demanded more evidence than what it would take to convince a five-year-old.

And I like what Henry Drummond says.

He says, Christ always distinguished between doubt and unbelief.

Doubt is can't believe.

Unbelief is won't believe.

And there's a difference.

investigators will always say that what makes sense is to take a step in the same direction that the evidence is pointing.

And that's true.

That's also true with the, what the Lord says in Jeremiah 29 verse 13, he says, you will seek me and you will find me when you seek me with all of your heart.

And that certainly seems to be the spirit of Thomas as he is, is seeking after Jesus.

He hasn't, he hasn't gone anywhere.

He's still waiting for more evidence right there in that room.

We're going to pick it up in John 20, verses 26 through 28.

A week later, his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them.

Thomas probably didn't move all week, right?

Wherever the disciples went, he was right there with them.

Thomas was there with them.

Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, Peace be with you.

And then he said to Thomas, Put your finger here.

See my hands?

reach out your hand and put it in my side.

Stop doubting and believe.

And Thomas says to him, my Lord and my God.

Can you imagine that moment?

Peace be with you.

Same speech that Jesus has given before because he knows Thomas needs that peace too.

and he knows that Thomas needs that touch, and so he says, you know, touch, look with your eyes, touch with your hand, stop doubting and believe, and Thomas's response just is saying, man, you are who you say you are.

you're alive, you're the son of the living God, you're my Lord.

And then Jesus goes on to give each of us today, he gives each of us who are alive an encouragement and a blessing.

Listen to what he says to Thomas in the next verse, verse 29.

Then Jesus told him, because you have seen me, you have believed.

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

That's you.

that's me, that's us.

And so Thomas had his doubts, but he examined the evidence, and he took a step in the same direction that the evidence was pointing.

And here's my second expectation.

Have the integrity to make an intelligent and intentional decision.

When Thomas believed, he fully believed.

He said, well, you know, we don't know that much about Thomas.

How do we know that?

Well, church history...

tells us what happened to Thomas.

Thomas went out west to evangelize, and he preached throughout India, and he died a martyr's death.

He was speared to death in a place called Calamine in India, because he chose to believe in Christ rather than reject him.

And he became so convinced of Jesus'resurrection that he went from doubting to giving up his life because of Jesus.

Well, let's turn our attention to now another encounter, and this one takes place probably early afternoon on Resurrection Sunday.

You might know this story.

Luke chapter 24 is where we're going to camp out, and it tells about two men who were followers of Christ.

They weren't in the 12, but they were probably in the group of 70 or of 120.

that at the time were believers in Jesus.

It says that these two have left Jerusalem.

They're on a road to a town called Emmaus, and the Bible tells us that it's about seven miles away from Jerusalem.

And while they're walking and talking, and they're discussing all that has happened the past few days, the arrests, the trials, the cross, while they're doing this, they're talking about how Christ's followers are having a very difficult time dealing with all of this.

And you can understand why for good reason, right?

Crucifixions and sealed tombs have a way of dousing our hopes rather quickly.

And the disciples are disappointed and they're depressed.

They're frightened.

They're fearful.

They're hopeless.

They're hurting.

And on that Sunday morning, there are a lot of different stories that are circulating.

And they are hearing these stories that the soldiers are no longer standing guard at the tomb.

And others are saying that the stone has been rolled away.

And Jesus isn't in the tomb.

Well, did somebody rob the grave?

They don't know.

Look in your Bible at Luke 24, verses 15 and 16.

As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up, walked along with them.

But they were kept from recognizing him.

Now, that had to be a little strange and a little awkward for Jesus to come walking up, and they're actually talking about him, right?

But the Bible says that these two were kept from recognizing him.

Now, that word kept, it literally means to seize.

It means to arrest, to hold back.

And that's what's happening here.

And so somehow, God didn't allow these two men who were well acquainted with Jesus to know that it was Jesus walking beside them.

But in addition, I think that their grief and their confusion affected their eyesight as well.

I've discovered that our vision gets blurry when our hope has been buried.

And that's what was taking place there.

You ever been there?

when it feels like you can't even see what's in front of you because of the sorrow, because of the anxiety of your own circumstances.

The pain, the worry is just so great.

You're in shock, so much shock that you just can't even see straight.

Look at verse 17.

Jesus asked them, hey, what are you discussing together as you walk along?

And they stood still, their faces downcast.

there was this connection that they had felt with Jesus, but now he was dead and they felt that the connection had been forever severed.

Verse 18, one of them...

Cleopas asked him, are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?

And I love Jesus here.

The omniscient God, the all-knowing God just plays dumb and says, what things?

I just love it.

I just, I can't wait to watch that on the video when we get to heaven, just to see Jesus playing that part.

Oh, I don't know what things are you talking about, right?

about Jesus of Nazareth.

Verse 20, they replied, he was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people, the chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death and they crucified him.

They just felt so discouraged and hopeless.

They had big plans.

Jesus was going to come be the leader and things were going to change.

And we've all had things at times when our expectations were high.

Everything seemed great, and then in an instant, everything changed.

That's what happened at my 10-year high school reunion.

I had really high expectations.

I thought, this is going to be an awesome night.

I'm showing off my wife.

My wife didn't go to high school with me.

I'm proud of her.

I'm introducing her to everybody.

And it started off as a pretty great night.

But then later in the night, I got talking with a friend of mine, Frank Plunert.

Frank and I were pretty decent friends.

His wife was there with him.

She didn't know anybody.

My wife didn't know anybody.

There was a lull in the conversation.

And for my personality type, I have a hard time with lulls in conversation and silence.

So being a Christian, I thought, hey, I'm just going to pull her into the conversation.

And so I said, I see that you're pregnant.

When is your baby due?

and she said, I'm not pregnant, and I said, are you sure?

No, I didn't say it.

I thought it, but I didn't say it, all right?

It was terrible.

It was terrible.

I didn't say anything because I had a foot in my mouth, and needless to say, Frank's wife was not real happy with me.

My wife was not real happy with me either.

and we finished the conversation, my wife, I cannot believe you said that.

The only good thing is that if you make that mistake once, you will never, ever again make that mistake.

I mean, you might be two weeks past your due date with triplets.

I'm not going to bite.

All right?

I mean, I'm just going to say, what's new with you?

Okay?

But that day of the reunion, everything changed in an instant.

Excitement turned to anxiety, and I couldn't wait to get out of there.

On that first Good Friday, everything changed rather quickly for the disciples, too.

I mean, think about it.

The Sunday before, the crowds are lining up, and they got their palm branches, and they're saying, Hosanna, Hosanna, which is adoration.

It's worship.

And now, a week later, he's dead?

the religious leaders had turned the tide and from Thursday night to Friday, everything changed.

And now Sunday morning, these two men are totally hopeless walking along the road to Emmaus.

Following Jesus had seemed so promising.

How did it become so painful?

Verses 20 and 21 give us a glimpse as to what they felt in their hearts as they look back at all that had taken place.

verse 20, the chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death and they crucified him.

But we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.

They couldn't bring themselves to even say the word Messiah.

They had been expecting a political coup, but Jesus was planning a spiritual revolution because he knew it was better for his people to be temporarily oppressed rather than eternally lost.

Did you ever see that phrase in that verse before?

But we had hoped.

They didn't have hope beyond.

Not yet anyway, but they're about to.

We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.

We had hoped past tense.

And all of us can relate to that feeling.

I had hoped for the relationship by now to be going somewhere.

I had hoped that I could retire at the end of this year.

I had hoped that my business partner and I would have reconciled by now.

I had hoped that the tumor would be shrinking.

I had hoped that we would have a child by now.

But things don't always turn out the way we hope they will.

And back here in Luke chapter 24, these two men are walking and they're talking with Jesus, and they're so disoriented from despair.

We pick it up with verses 22 and 24.

In addition, some of our women amazed us.

They went to the tomb early this morning.

They're talking to Jesus, telling him this.

But they didn't find his body.

They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels who said he was alive.

And then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see Jesus.

Now, this should be good news, right?

But sadly, back in the first century, a woman was seen more as property than as a person.

She could not even give eyewitness testimony in a court of law.

And so these two men dismissed the women's testimony as the hallucinations of emotional women.

And they're trying to make sense of what seems senseless.

And if you want to have an encounter with Jesus, here's my third expectation.

Expect that Jesus will walk beside you when you're in pain.

And that's what Jesus does with these two guys.

He overhears them.

He comes up to them.

You see, he never wants you to endure suffering by yourself.

he's involved.

He's both powerful and personal.

And it's at this point in the conversation in Luke 24, where Jesus is now going to speak up and Jesus is going to enter into the dialogue.

We turn our attention to Christ's words in verse 25 through 27.

He said to them, how foolish you are and how slow to believe in all the prophets have spoken.

Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?

and the Bible says, and beginning with Moses and all the prophets, Jesus explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself.

Is that crazy?

And so he's talking about the Messiah, but he's talking about himself, of course, and they don't have a clue.

What a verse.

So Jesus goes back in Jewish history, thousands of years, and he rewinds time and he reminds these two gentlemen of God's story of providential care throughout all time, throughout all of humanity.

And the Bible tells us that Jesus began with Moses.

So maybe he took them back to the moment in time when Moses was fleeing from the Israelites from Pharaoh.

and things seem hopeless.

They're pinned in against the Red Sea.

There's no escape, and here comes Pharaoh and his army marching down on them, and they said to Moses back then, hey, didn't they have enough graves back in Egypt?

Is that why you brought us here, Moses?

And Jesus looks at these two men, and he calmly continues his conversation, but God dramatically intervened, and he parted the waters.

Perhaps Jesus began to walk through the Messianic prophecies from the Old Testament.

That's a fancy way for saying the predictions and prophecies and promises concerning who was going to be the Messiah, the Son of God.

And so he starts stepping through some of those perhaps with them.

Maybe he camped out in Psalm chapter 22, a Psalm that graphically depicts a crucifixion from the vantage point of the one who is hanging on the cross.

It talks about the people gambling for his garment.

It talks about how you can see every one of his ribs.

It's all from the perspective of the person hanging on the cross.

What's unique is that David wrote that hundreds of years before Christ's birth.

And oh yeah.

It was also decades before they had even invented the form of death by crucifixion.

And yet God, in his infinite wisdom, inspired David to meticulously describe all that takes place at a crucifixion, Christ's crucifixion.

Maybe Jesus spoke in third person about the cross.

Perhaps Jesus took a page from Pastor Jeff's Easter sermon and he said to the men, It was Friday.

But Sunday's coming.

I don't know what he said.

We'll find out someday when we get to heaven.

I want to watch that video too.

But maybe the very last thing that Jesus shared as he talked to them, as they approached Emmaus, was that passage in Isaiah 53.

He was pierced for our transgressions.

He was crushed for our iniquities.

The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.

God can bring good out of what appears to be bad.

Be reminded that God is still in control in your life too.

That despair is not the last word in any story that God writes.

And when it comes to your goals and dreams, Jesus is reminding these two followers that the story isn't over just yet.

Never let Satan put a period where God has chosen to place a comma.

the story isn't over.

It's not over until God says it's over.

Not even death has the final say.

And Jesus pretends that he has to go further.

And so when they get to Emmaus, Jesus just keeps on walking.

And they're like, whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Hey, you got a long journey ahead of you.

Why don't you just come eat dinner with us?

Eat dinner with us.

Please, please just eat with us.

Why don't you stay here and hang out with us for overnight?

And then you can start on your journey tomorrow and be all fresh.

And they beg him to stay and to eat dinner.

And so Jesus goes in with them in Emmaus and they sit down and eat.

And here's the fourth and final takeaway that I want you to remember.

Know this.

Know that when you invite Jesus in, he will always say yes.

He will always say yes.

Don't ever forget that.

And I want you to look at what happens when he comes in to eat with them.

Verses 30 and 31.

When he was at the table with them, he took the bread and he blessed it and he broke it and he gave it to them.

And their eyes were opened.

and they recognized him, and he vanished from their sight.

What is going on?

For seven miles, they have been walking and talking with Jesus in close proximity, and suddenly at this meal, the Lord intervenes and allows them to recognize what happened in that moment.

Some theologians think that Christ's identity was revealed through the way he prayed because of his close relationship with his heavenly father.

And when he prayed for the food, they just heard it in what he said.

Other people think that it was maybe some distinctive way.

Rabbis had a distinctive way that was unique to them for how they broke the bread.

Maybe that's what tipped them off.

But you know what I think?

I think...

that when he broke the bread and gave it to him, his sleeves came out.

They saw the nail prints.

And when they saw the nail prints, that's when God allowed them to put it all together.

Bible scholar J.W.

McGarvey explained, Jesus himself purposely restrained their vision so they might see the resurrection of Jesus in the scriptures before they saw it in reality.

In other words, let Jesus walk through the Old Testament.

so that you understand that, the power of prophecy, before I open your eyes.

And in that instant, when their eyes were open, they knew, this is Jesus.

This is a guy we've been talking about.

And as they look at him, I think Jesus has this big smile on his face, and he's looking at him like, hey, I've been here all along.

What a moment.

And you know what else?

He's been there all along for you, too.

even those times when you didn't think he was there, he was there.

When all hope was lost, he was there.

When you felt like you were the only Christian in your work environment, he's there.

When you received the test results from the doctor or the divorce papers from an attorney, he's there.

You're not alone.

And once these two men realize this is Jesus, instantly he vanishes, and they're left sitting there looking at each other.

I love this next verse.

Verse 32, they asked each other, were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the scriptures to us?

Their souls were on fire as he taught them from God's word.

You can probably think of some times when you really sense the spirit of the Lord being present.

And the Bible says the two of them, they immediately left.

You know where they went?

They went seven miles.

back to Jerusalem, right where they came from.

But I promise you, they ran as far as they could.

They couldn't wait to get back to the disciples and tell them the good news.

We just spent time with Jesus.

The one who we thought was dead was now alive.

They had left Jerusalem with heads down and hopeless, but now they are returning with heads high and hopeful.

And throughout this entire sermon series of Hope Beyond, you've been learning all about hope.

And you see hope will motivate you to make some passionate journeys that are much farther than seven miles.

Hope will motivate you to do some things boldly to stand against the tide of our culture.

Jesus is alive.

that changes everything.

It gives us hope.

You see, the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ is irrefutable.

The prophecies are undeniable.

The facts are indisputable.

The implications are inconceivable.

And these were just two eyewitnesses out of over 500 people who saw the resurrected Lord.

And what about the nearly 300 prophecies that Jeff referred to last week in the message that Jesus fulfilled?

And perhaps the most compelling evidence is the number of his closest followers who died for their faith rather than deny the resurrection.

I mean, it just doesn't, it would seem ridiculous to think think that these guys got together and they gathered and said, you know what, let's keep this thing going that Jesus is alive.

Yeah, I know they want to kill us, but let's just keep the charade going, okay?

Even if we die, you know, it's okay.

People don't do that.

Now, occasionally someone's willing to die for what they believe is true, but no one is willing to die for something that they know is a lie.

And if he really raised from the dead...

then we can too.

And if he didn't, then as Paul said, we are fools to be pitied for believing all this stuff.

Hopeful is an exciting stage of anticipation.

Apologist Norm Geisler says it like this.

He said, God doesn't ask us to take a blind leap of faith into the darkness, but he does ask us to take a step of faith into the light.

And I'm telling you, Christ can conquer anything.

If he can conquer a grave, he can conquer any fears that you experience.

Christ can give you purpose.

You see, Jesus didn't just conquer the grave on that first Easter.

He wants to bring life where there is death in your life.

He wants to resurrect a relationship that's been alienated.

He wants to resurrect a career that's been jobless.

He wants to resurrect a purpose where there's been no direction.

A confidence has been destroyed.

He wants to resurrect a marriage where you feel more like roommates.

Christ can give your life purpose and hope and meaning in the midst of grief, fear, and doubt.

Back a few years ago, the community where I live in Kentucky lost an exceptional teenager.

Her name was Amzie Smith.

She was a junior in high school who had valiantly battled a terminal liver cancer, and she was deeply involved in the student ministry at our church.

I watched Amzie use her final months to point people to Jesus.

I think it was two months before she passed away, I saw her in the baptistry baptizing someone.

She was always encouraging her classmates.

She was loved by all of them.

I attended her funeral.

I don't think I've ever been to a funeral like it.

And there was a young gal.

I think Hannah was maybe a year and a half older than Amzie, and they were great friends, and they were in a small group together.

And her friend Hannah Edds spoke at the funeral, and I just want to play for you a two-minute segment from the funeral which reminds us of where we can find hope.

So watch this with me.

I close my eyes and ask the Lord to allow me to absorb the moments we spent together into my memory.

But perhaps the greatest thing I took from Amzie were the lessons that she taught me along the way.

The lessons that she taught all of us, really.

She taught me the value in authenticity as she leveraged her scars and her pain to see the name of Christ proclaimed.

She taught me that those things we worry about, like money and the future, they fall flat in the face of eternity.

She taught me that sometimes the most courageous thing you can do is be a voice for the vulnerable.

She taught me that kindness costs us nothing, but Christ will cost us everything.

We get one shot at this thing down here and to live it for ourselves is to waste it entirely.

But more secure than her confidence in herself was her confidence in Christ and her certainty in where she was headed at the end of her earthly days.

There was one night this past summer we were driving to my house and Amzie told me she was feeling a little bit scared and she asked if I was too.

I told her I wasn't, but I lied a little.

The truth is on that night in particular, I felt my heart crumbling under the pressure to always wear a brave face.

And I was held captive by the anxiousness that our friendship was experiencing some of its last.

As we pulled up to my house and walked through the hallway, we passed three pictures that have been fixtures in my home for as long as I can remember.

and they're just simple photos inside of frames that say faith, hope, and love.

And as she made her way down the hallway, her shoulder brushed up against one of the frames, knocking it from the wall and shattering it to pieces on the floor.

She apologized profusely as we bent over to pick up the glass, and she turned it over and said, I broke hope.

but I pulled the picture from the glass and I said, no, you didn't.

It was just the frame.

And I have no doubt today that the Lord used that moment to speak something over my life and to calm my anxious heart and teach it something it will never forget.

Frames are fragile and our frames are fragile, but when hope is inside of us, everything else around us can break, but not our hope.

Why could Amzie's hope grow stronger the closer she came to death?

Well, it's because of Romans chapter 5, verse 5.

It says, there is a hope that does not disappoint.

and her hope was in the one who had conquered the grave.

On Friday, Satan thought that he had won the victory at Calvary, and he was salivating with joy as he watched Jesus'body take his last breath.

Satan thought that he had destroyed Christ, and with him all hope.

But he merely broke the frame.

And our hope is alive, and our hope is well.

And there will come a day for each and every one of us when our frames will be broken.

You might be 17, you might be 70.

But on that day, the only thing that will matter is whether your hope is in Jesus Christ, whether you have a hope beyond this world.

A tomb may be an unusual place to look for hope, but once you find it there, you'll start seeing hope show up in all parts of your life.

Let's pray together.

Lord, I thank you that you are a God who brings hope to the hopeless.

And Lord, it's my prayer that we will have an encounter with you, a personal encounter with you.

For some of us, it might be to renew our faith or to revive our faith.

For others, it might be to find our faith and to realize that there is hope.

If Jesus can conquer the grave, then he can do anything that he says.

And Lord, we ask that you would give us that hope for those who are hurting right now today at every campus.

Lord, I know that there are people who are hurting and their hope, they're just hanging on by a thread.

Will you help them to hold on and let them know that they are not alone, that you will walk with them in their pain?

and that you will be there when they invite you into their life.

So, Lord, make a difference in our lives.

Help us to find our hope in you.

It's in Jesus'name, the name of the one who conquered the grave.

It's in Jesus'name that we pray.

And all God's people said.

We are so thankful for Pastor Dave Stone to come and give us that message.

While you were listening to that message, if you had a tug on your heart to say, Hey, I want to know this Jesus.

I want to follow Jesus.

Will you go to oneandall.church.com?

From there, we just want to walk alongside you on this journey.

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A lot of times, God puts a lot of people on our hearts.

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And with that, we hope you have a great week, and we'll end as we always do, with one hope, one life in Christ.