Awesome, awesome. Well, good morning and welcome to Church at the Grove. Happy Easter. One of the things that the ancient church used to say all the time is that the speaker would say, He uh uh He is risen, and then the crowd says, He is risen indeed. Went mind fog right there. Uh so I'm gonna say it. So ready? He is risen? Good. Y'all picked up that much better than the first service did, so thank you for that. Uh my name's Nathan. If I had a chance to meet you, uh if you are a guest or a visitor with us, I just want to say a special thank you uh for spending your Easter with us. We know you could have been anywhere uh this morning, but it means the world that you've spent your time with us. And if you happen to pass by our ne uh new here kind of table in the lobby on the way in, um you we would love to still have a record of your visit. Um you can actually use your phone and tap the little tags on the chair in front of you, and uh you can fill out what we call our connection card. It's an opportunity for you just to let us know that you're here. And for every new guest card that we get, we make a donation in your honor to um Fish Ministries, an incredible ministry here in Walton County that serves the least of these. And so we would love to have a record of your visit. And we would also love for you to come back next week. Um, we'd love for you to join us next week. We're kicking off a brand new series. It's a great time to get connected in the life of uh church at the Grove. But this morning, it's all about Easter. Now, for me, I I have this tendency where I can be guilty of uh making promises um but then breaking those promises where I can over-promise and under-deliver. It's supposed to be the other way around where you under-promise and over-deliver, but I I fall short of that so often. And there can be things that I know that I need to do, or I've been told to do, or asked to do, and I fail to do them. Um Caitlin can have a list of things for me to do that she needs me to accomplish or things around the house, and I'll say, Yeah, I'll get to it this weekend. But then the weekend rolls around and the weather has been difficult or the week's been hard, I'm tired, I'm exhausted, things pop up on the schedule, and things just simply don't get done. And it can be weeks or it can be months before it happens. That the kids can ask, hey, can we stay up late this weekend? And I go, Yeah, that sounds great. But then when Friday night rolls around and I think about what's gonna what the kids are gonna be like on Saturday morning after they've stayed up all night, like I think to myself, no, that can't happen. I break the promise. Um, I I can do this in a lot of areas. I can do this here at church. There's people that I'm talking to in the lobby, and um just full admission here. A lot of times when people are talking to me in the lobby, my mind is so full of all the things that have to get done and all the people that are coming in the doors and the message I'm about to preach that half the time I'm actually listening to the person that's talking to me. I'm just kind of shaking my head going, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. And then they walk away and I don't even remember what we just talked about. So if that's ever been our conversation, I apologize in advance. Um, but people will talk to me in the lobby and they'll say, hey, this is going on or this needs to happen or whatever, and I'll say, Yeah, yeah, I'll do that. But then because I'm not listening all that well, like I'll kind of move on and I'll promise something, but then under deliver. And it's not just with other people, I can do this with myself. And I'm sure that you guys probably have never fallen into this trap, but I I lie to myself at times. Um, I tell myself, hey, Monday morning, first thing, we're gonna start some new morning routines, we're gonna get up early, we're gonna go for a five-mile run, we're gonna eat healthy all day long. The diet starts on Monday, things are going really, really well. And then Monday rolls around, and it might have been one good morning, but then the double-stuffed Oreos are calling my name that night. We've been there, right? We we can make promises to others and to ourselves that we can fail to keep. And if you live long enough, um, you will just be kind of at have to admit to the reality that people and ourselves included, we break promises. Um, it's it's almost kind of become to the point where we can become cynical and we can become kind of just uh numb to the fact that promises are being made, but rarely do promises get fulfilled or kept. Even with people that have really great intentions, that they have all the intentions of the world to follow through in the promises that are being made, but yet they still fail to keep their word. And as a result, over time, that just begins to make us cynical. It begins us to question all the promises that we get. And I believe that oftentimes it gets us to believe that maybe God is not faithful to his promises. That translates into our relationship with our Heavenly Father, that because other people aren't faithful, because we aren't faithful a lot of times, then that means that maybe God isn't faithful. That we can maybe believe that he's capable of doing things, but maybe he just doesn't do things. Or maybe he's faithful in somebody else's life, but he's certainly not faithful in my life. And we can doubt whether God can, not whether he can, but whether he will. If you're just joining us this morning, we are coming to the end of this series that we're finishing today, that's been the God you can know. And it's all a bit about talking about this God that we can have a personal relationship with, and we've been talking on some of the character attributes that he has. And so we've talked about him being an all-powerful God that spoke creation into existence, that as we sit in this room this morning, that he didn't just create us, but he's actually sustaining us, that he's holding you together right now, that he's causing your heart to beat and your lungs to inhale and exhale oxygen. But then he's also an all-loving God, that he loves you and me so much that he sent his one and only Son to die on our behalf, that he gave his son so that we could have life. And this morning I want us to talk about God being faithful. And I think that this is an important thing to talk about on Resurrection Sunday because ultimately the resurrection proves that God keeps his promises. The resurrection proves that God keeps his promises. And so, with that, I'd love for us to pray and then we'll jump into the word this morning. And so, Lord Jesus, we thank you. Lord, that we can gather in a room like this. Uh, Lord, we know that there are so many uh churches and people all around the world today that aren't able to do what we're doing. And so, Lord, we don't take that for granted that we are able to come and worship you this morning and celebrate the greatest news that the world has ever known. And so, Lord, I pray that right now, Lord, that your spirit would come and that you would speak to each and every one of us right where we're at. Some of us that are coming in with pain and hurt and disappointment, frustration. Others of us that seem to be joyful and things are going kind of our way in our direction. Lord, wherever we're at on the spectrum, Lord, would you just speak to us right where we're at? We don't need a word from a person, we need a word from you. And so, Holy Spirit, would you come now? We wish to not just meet about you, but to meet with you. And so would you speak and give us ears to hear your voice this morning? And it's in your name we pray. Amen. So God is faithful. If God promises something, he will perform. That God ties himself to his word from beginning to end, from the very first book of the Bible in Genesis to the end of the Bible in Revelation, God speaks promises time and time again, and he always keeps his word. From eternity past to eternity future, God is a God that keeps his word. I was reading this past week in the book of Numbers, in Numbers 23, 19. It says that God is God, God is not human that he should lie, not a human being that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill? He's the guy that's speaking here as he's saying that God is a God that cannot lie. He's not human. He is not someone that breaks his promises. He is always faithful to the end. And the Bible is really a book all of promises. Scholars estimate that there's about 7,000 promises that are found in Scripture, some of which God has already fulfilled, some of them he is currently fulfilling, and some of them he will fulfill in the days to come. But today is a proof that God keeps his promises. And so we've got to start at the very beginning if we're gonna understand this idea. And in the very beginning, God spoke the world into creation. He spoke, and it was. And he created this beautiful garden for the first man and the first woman to dwell in. And they lived in this garden, and they could eat any fruit from any tree except for one. And the best thing about this garden was that God was present with his people in the midst of this garden. They walked hand in hand with one another. There was this intimate connection and relationship with one another. And everything's going great for them until one day the serpent, this enemy that had rejected God, had chosen pride over God, that wanted to make much of himself and push back against the creator. He comes into the picture in the form of a serpent and he tempts Adam and Eve to eat the fruit off of the forbidden tree. And when they take a bite of the fruit, they're rebelling against God, rebelling against his command. But when they take the bite, death and sin entered into the world. And as a result of death and sin entering into the world, there's a separation that takes place. Where God, in this intimate relationship that he has with his creation, is now severed because the people have rejected him and chosen to go their own way. And so God, in his great mercy, doesn't kill his creation, but he does bring consequences for their action, and sin and death do enter into the picture. And so he, at the end of Genesis chapter 3, God is speaking judgment against the serpent, the enemy, the woman, and the man for their disobedience. But I want us to look at the very first promise of the Bible in Genesis chapter 3, starting in verse 15. He's speaking to the serpent here, and God says, I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel. Some translations don't use the word strike, they use the word crush. But there's a promise here that there's a day coming when God is going to send his son, that he's going to be fulfilling this promise, that he's going to crush the enemy's head, that he's going to defeat the enemy, that he's going to crush the serpent's head, and the serpent will bruise his heel. And so here we are see, 4,000 years ago, that we see that God has given a promise to his people that he is going to send a rescuer and a deliverer to set them free from the powers of the enemy. And the rest of scripture plays out where God's writing out this redemption story of how he's sending out this rescue plan. But it all comes to fruition in Luke chapter 24. And that's where we're going to look this morning. If you have a Bible, you can turn there. But in Luke chapter 24, we see that Jesus has already come down to earth. He's born of a virgin. He lives a perfect, sinless life. He does miracles. He heals people. He does these incredible teachings. And it comes to the end of his life. And because of what he's teaching, because he's what he's doing, the religious leaders hate him. And so as a result, they're looking for any way they can to kill him and to end his ministry. But Jesus willingly gives his life and he sacrifices himself on a cross for your sins and for mine. And that's what we celebrated on Friday. On Friday, we remembered the death and the sacrifice of Jesus. And in that moment, when Jesus took his last breath on that cross and he endured a horrible, horrible, excruciating pain, and he took his last breath, all of his followers and all the disciples and all the people that had seen his ministry in person were suddenly despaired. They were depressed. They were broken. This man that they had put their faith in, this man that they thought would maybe be the fulfillment of the promise that was given in the very beginning, has now taken his last breath. He has died. He is no more. His body is in the grave, and there is sorrow that is full in these people's lives. And I think that for some of us, we might be in that same boat where sorrow is something that is in our life, and it's something that causes us to lose the hope of what the resurrection stands for. But you got to remember that these women, as they come to the tomb that we're about to read in a second, they weren't coming to find and to look for a resurrected body. They were coming to anoint their friend for burial. They were coming full of grief and pain, tears probably in their eyes as they approached the tomb. And this is what it says in Luke chapter 24. It says, On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came to the tomb, bringing the spices they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb. They went in, but did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men stood by them in dazzling clothes. So the women were terrified and bowed down to the ground. Why are you looking for the living among the dead? asked the men. Remember how he spoke to you when he was still in Galilee, saying, It is necessary that the Son of Man be betrayed into the hands of a sinful of sinful men be crucified and raised again on the third day. And they remembered his words. So this is an incredible sight. These women that are full of sorrow and grief, they come to the tomb, the tombstone has been rolled away, not so that Jesus could get out, so that they could get in. And then they go in, he's not there. The body is gone. And I'm sure that the first thing that pops into their mind is not that he's now resurrected. It's not that he's risen from the grave. They're thinking, hey, someone probably stole his body, but then these two angels appear and they say, Why are you looking for the living among the dead? He is not here, he has risen. And in those words, that statement and that phrase, the promises of God from the very beginning were being fulfilled. That Jesus not only went to the cross and gave his life and suffered immensely and given his life for our sins, but yet at the same time, three days later, he got up from the grave and he rose again. It was the promises of God being fulfilled. And this is what Jesus does. This is what God does. God is a God that keeps his promises. But what's interesting to me as I read through the book of Luke is that these disciples, these women that come to the tomb, they should have expected to see the resurrected Jesus, quite honestly. Because Jesus tells them three different times that this is what is going to happen. Let me show you. In Luke chapter 9, Peter, this disciple that constantly is sticking his foot in his mouth, has just made this bold claim that Jesus is the Messiah. It's this massive claim that God just commends him in making. They're at Caesarea Philippi. And then right after this, right after Peter makes this claim, Jesus says these words in verse 21. It says, But he strictly warned and instructed them to tell this to no one, saying, It is necessary that the Son of Man suffer many things, be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, be killed, and be raised on the third day. So Jesus has told them straight up, like, hey guys, this is what's coming. This is what awaits me in just a few weeks or months in the future. But yet they don't quite comprehend. He says it to them again. And then a third time in Luke chapter 18, he's getting close to the end here. And in verse 31, it says, He took the twelve aside and told them, See, we are going up to Jerusalem. Everything that is written through the prophets about the Son of Man will be accomplished. So what he's saying here is that everything, not just what he has said here, but also everything that has set been said in the prophets and in the Old Testament, all the promises that have been made, everything that has pointed towards Jesus to this point, will be accomplished. For he will be handed over to the Gentiles, and he will be mocked and insulted, spit on, and after they flog him, they will kill him, and he will rise on the third day. So Jesus has now told his disciples three different times that he is going to be brutally murdered, that he's going to give his life, but then on the third day he's going to rise again, but yet they still don't believe the promises that have been made. It actually says in verse 34, this isn't on the screen, but it says, They understood none of these things. The meaning of the saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said. There's promises that are made, but they don't believe the promises that were going to come to fruition. But see, God had made a promise, and God is always faithful to his word. And so God did not just make a promise in the very beginning that a Messiah would come, but God has continually repeated the promise. God repeats his promise all throughout the Old Testament. If you will go with me for just a minute and to some Old Testament passages, in Isaiah chapter 25, or in uh Isaiah chapter 53, we read uh this incredible statement talking about the sacrifice that Jesus would make. In Isaiah 53, verse 4, it says, Yet he, being Jesus, himself bore our sickness and he carried our pains. But we in turn regarded him stricken, struck down by God and afflicted. These were things that were written hundreds of years before Jesus showed up on the scene. But he was pierced because of our rebellion, crushed because of our iniquities. Punishment for our peace was on him, and we are healed by his wounds. We all went astray like sheep. We all have turned to our own way, and the Lord has punished him for the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth like a lamb led to the slaughter, and like a sheep silent before her shears. He did not open his mouth. He was taken away because of oppression and judgment, and who considered his fate, for he was cut off from the land of the living. He was struck because of my people's rebellion. So hundreds of years before Jesus shows up on the scene, there's this prophecy that is written that there would be a suffering servant, the Messiah, that would come, and he would be crushed because of the iniquities of his people. Again, God is a God that doesn't just make a promise, but he repeats the promise. He's double or nothing here. He's putting all the chips to the center of the table. But it's not just a prediction, it's not just a promise of the pain that Jesus would suffer. There's also promises that he would one day resurrect as well, that he would come back from the dead. In Isaiah chapter 25, verse 8, it says, When he, pointing again to Jesus, has swallowed up death once and for all, the Lord God will wipe away the tears from every face and remove his people's disgrace from the whole earth, for the Lord has spoken. I love that last part, for the Lord has spoken. If the Lord speaks, then it is, then it will happen, it will come to pass, that he makes a promise, and the promises are always kept. And so he says, It will be swallowed up by death, that death will be swallowed up, it will be no more, that he will wipe the tears from their eyes. He says in Hosea chapter 13, he says, I will ransom them from the power of Sheol, which is hell. So I will ransom them from the power of hell, I will redeem them from death. Death, where are your barbs? Sheol, hell, where is your sting? Paul would eventually quote these two passages in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, talking about how there was a promise that was made that the Messiah would come, that he would die, a sinner's death, but then he would give his life in such a way, but then he would also be risen from the grave. And he would defeat death. The promise that was made in the beginning would be fulfilled. Jesus fulfilled the promise. So go back with me to Luke chapter 24, verse 5. It says, So the women were terrified and bowed to the ground. Why are you looking for the living among the dead? asked the men. He is not here, but he has risen. Remember how he spoke to you when he was still in Galilee, saying, It is necessary that the Son of Man be betrayed into the hands of sinful man, be crucified. And rise again on the third day. And they remembered his words. They came looking for a body that morning, but instead of a body, they found a promise fulfilled. This was not just a miracle, but this was a promise kept. The resurrection is not just proof that God is powerful, it is proof that He is faithful. Jesus is the fulfilled promise. So God is all-powerful. He is the creator of all things. God is all-loving that he willingly gave his son. But what the resurrection also shows is that God is a God that keeps his promises. He is always faithful. Now, I don't know if there's anybody in the room that knows what this is. Anyone know what this is? It's a checkbook. Anybody know what a check is? Raise your hand if you have a checkbook. Okay, that's more than the first service, shockingly. Raise your hand if you have your checkbook on you. Okay, yeah, okay. One person in the back I see. Okay, cool. A check, for those of you that don't know, a check was how people used to pay for things. You don't really see it a whole lot anymore. Um now we've got the debit card that replaces this. But I I can remember my mom going when I was little. I can remember her going to the gas station, and there was a full service gas station in Loganville, and they allowed her to pay with a check. And so she would write a check and give it to the thing, and it was like for $5 of gas, which come on, well, we would love to have that nowadays, right? Um but she would write out the check and she'd hand it to the guy. And what what she was doing when she wrote a check was that she was promising that the money was in her account and that it could be debited to pay her bill. See, anytime you write a check, a check is a form of a promise. Now, that there's no way to know if the money was there. I mean, my mom could have very well gotten the gas, filled up her car, went home, and the guy could have never seen her again, and he would have been out of the whatever amount of money that she spent on gas that day because she paid with a check. But the check was a promise. Now they put holds on your account. They want to make sure you have tons of money to be able to fill up your gas tank. That's not how it used to be. But if you were to come up to me today and I pulled out my pen and I got my checkbook out, and I said, hey, I want to give you a gift. And I wrote your name out and put the date in there and started to fill in the number account and the spelling out, you know, all the words and stuff, and then sign my name on the bottom, I I could give you a check maybe for a couple hundred bucks. But if if I wrote a check out for a million dollars, you're probably not gonna believe that that check is a valid promise, right? I I don't know how much you think pastors make, but I guarantee you it's not in that realm of the of the feasibility there. So if I were to write a million-dollar check and hand it to you, you would probably just laugh, tear it up, or throw it away. Because it's not worth a whole lot because I'm the one that's written it. Now, if if Elon Musk was here and he pulled out his checkbook, which he probably doesn't have a checkbook, he's probably got some futuristic, you know, kind of card thing, chip, whatever. But if he was to pay you with a check and he wrote out a million dollars and handed it to you, would you believe that the check was valid? Well, yeah. Why? Because he's worth like a quadrillion billion dollars. And a million dollars to him is absolutely nothing. It is pennies to him. And so a check, the validity of a check and the promise behind a check is really all about the person that has written the check. And if they're good for the amount that it's been written for. And when we think about the resurrection here this morning, when Jesus has written a check, and the resurrection was that check clearing. There was a promise that was made in the very beginning that he would conquer the enemy, that he would defeat the enemy, that he would stomp and to crush his head, and he did that in the resurrection. There was no insufficient funds that were showing up. There was no bouncing of a check. He was saying, everything I promised is back, it's real, that you can trust it. And when Jesus writes on a check, he's not writing it with a dollar amount, but he's writing it to forgiven. That you're forgiven, and he signs his name. And it's not written in pen, it's written in his blood. It's showing that he is true to his promises. He promises, he writes the check that says that you can have freedom in your life, that you can walk in the abundant life, the eternal life, that you can be reconciled with your heavenly Father, that your life can be changed, that you can become a new creation, that you can be adopted into the family of God, that you can be a son or daughter of the king. It's written on the check, it's signed in his blood, and we can take it to the bank because we know that it is true. Because God keeps his promises. I'm not the one writing that check. He's the one that's written that check, and the resurrection is proof that he keeps his promises. So, what does this mean for us, this Easter Sunday 2026? If God kept his biggest promise, then you can trust him with every part of your life. Since God keeps his promises, since the resurrection is real and evidence of him keeping his promises, you can trust God with your sin. You are forgiven. Romans 4 25 says, He was handed over to die because of our sins, and he was raised to life to make us right with God. So because of his death and his resurrection, we can be made right with God. We can trust him with our sin because we're forgiven. Psalm 103, 12 tells us that he separates our sin as far as the east is from the west and remembers them no more. That we don't, when he looks at us, he's not looking at sinful Nathan, but he's looking at righteous Nathan that has been covered in the blood of his son, that I'm identifying now with him. That my debt has been paid in full. He has provided a way for me to return to the Father. But yet so many of us continue and choose to walk around in shame and in guilt, believing the lie that God's not faithful to his promises and that he hasn't forgiven me, or that he can't forgive me because I've done too many bad things. Not just in my past, but currently. There's too many things that are affecting me. There's too many addictions, there's so much shame, there's so many things that are pulling at my soul, and I just can't get it right. There's no way that God could forgive me. Well, every time you believe that God doesn't forgive you, it's like you saying that God is not faithful because God is faithful to his promises, and his promises say it has nothing to do with you and your goodness, but it has everything to do with the death of his son and the resurrection from the grave. And because of that, we can be made right with God. It's paid in full. If God is faithful, if he keeps his promises, then you can trust God with your future because death is not the end. Death is not the end. We had a kind of a distant family member by marriage that just randomly passed away last week. Um wasn't super old, um, but just went to sleep in his chair and didn't wake up the next day. And that could happen to any of us, no matter what age we are. Life is so temporary and short, but for those that have put their faith and trust in Jesus, there's no fear in death. Because we can trust God with our future because death is not the end. Listen to what the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 40 54. He says, Then, when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die, this scripture will be fulfilled. So the scriptures we just read, he's putting these two verses together, and he says, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? For sin is the sting that results in death, and the law gives sin its power. But thank God, he gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ. He's taunting death here. He's saying, listen, death has nothing on me because of the resurrection, because Jesus has come back to life, because he is faithful to his promises, death doesn't win. Those that put their faith and trust in Jesus, they may experience physical death, but they will never taste spiritual death. The closest they will ever get to death is right now in this moment. But what awaits them is life. I love what Billy Graham said. This is such a powerful quote. He says, Someday you will read or hear that Billy Graham is dead. Don't you believe a word of it? I shall be more alive than I am now. I will just have changed my address. I will have gone into the presence of God. Death is not the end for those that have put their faith and trust in Jesus because of the resurrection and because God is faithful to his promises. If God is faithful to his promises and the resurrection is real, then you can trust God with your presence, that he's still working in the midst of whatever you're walking through. In Romans chapter 8, verse 11, there's this promise that's been made. It says, the Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you. The spirit of God that raised Christ from the dead lives in you. That might not be a big deal for you guys. But the very spirit that raised Jesus and brought him back to life is not something that was just given to him. It is given to those that have put their faith and their trust in him. That you have the Spirit of God within you, which means not that you won't have to go through hardship. It doesn't mean that you won't have to go through suffering. It doesn't mean that you won't struggle in this life, but it means that in every situation, no matter what you're going through, that the spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, which means you have power. You have the power to overcome. You have the power to continue fighting. You have the power to continue to move forward. So if you're struggling right now, if you're suffering, if you're waiting on the promises of God to be fulfilled in your life, I've got good news that because God keeps his promises and because the resurrection is real, the same spirit that raised him from the dead lives in you. If God keeps his promises and the resurrection is real, then you can trust God with your life. Because he keeps his word. What might feel dead in this moment, Easter and the resurrection tells us that what seems like it might be dead is not final. It's just a means of getting and seeing the promise fulfilled. It tells us in Romans chapter 8, verse 28, it says that he's working all things out for the good of those that love him and are called according to his purposes, that God's working out a master plan for your life and for mine. It might not be what we chose, it might not be what we wanted out of life, but he is working out a plan. And so it doesn't make life easy, but it does make us trust in a God that is with us wherever we go, trusting that he's working out a plan that is much bigger than we can see. Easter shows us that God keeps his promises. He forgives through the cross and he gives new life in Christ through the resurrection. God has never and will never break a promise, and the empty tomb proves it. The resurrection proves that God keeps his promises. And so in a minute we're going to respond to the Lord, but there's an invitation for us all this morning. For some of you in the room today, you've never put your faith and your trust in Jesus, and there is an invitation for you to do that today. If we want to walk in the promises of God in our life, we have to be willing to submit and to surrender ourselves to him fully and completely. And it's not done by our performance, it's done by our faith. And so it's us simply coming before him with open hands, empty hands, and we just simply say, God, I'm a sinner. I've rebelled against your ways, and I need a savior. I need someone that can rescue me from my sin. I believe that you sent your one and only Son to die on my behalf so that I could have a relationship with you. And I believe that you rose, He rose again on the third day so that I can have life. And so, Lord, today I'm surrendering myself to you to make you my Lord and Savior. And that's a long prayer. It doesn't have to be that long. It can be just, God, help me. I need you. It's the desperation, it's the authenticity behind the prayer that matters. And it's the prayer of faith. And it says that if we will surrender our lives to Him, that we can become new creations, that the old has passed away and the new has come, that we can walk in eternal life, that we can be adopted into His family, that we can be the sons and daughters of the King. But it starts with our surrender. And so maybe Easter Sunday 2026 is the day of salvation for you when you turn and surrender your life fully to him. For others of us in the room, maybe we've made that decision at one time or another in our lives, but just over the years, because of the broken promises that people have made to us or the promises that we've made to others and have been unable to keep, we've just become critical. We've become cynical to the world around us, and we just believe that, man, God's like everybody else, and he doesn't keep his promises. And today, Resurrection Sunday is a day when we come back to the truth of remembering that God is a God that keeps his promises, and the resurrection is proof of that. And this morning, you need to re-engage. You need to set the foundation once again for your life and saying, I'm building my life on the promises of God, because if he said it, then it will be done. And so let's pray together this morning as we just respond to him. Lord Jesus, we thank you. We thank you, Lord, for what we celebrate today. We thank you that today is a day when you showed your promises to be real. That it's not something you just said, but it's something you did. And Lord, we come into a room like this and we remember the sacrifice that you have made, but more importantly, we we remember that the tomb is empty. And as a result, it shows us that you are faithful to your word. You are faithful to your promises. And so, Lord, we just rejoice in that truth this morning. And Lord, I pray for individuals in the room who have maybe never put their faith and their trust in you that today would be the day that they would do that. It's praying that prayer that we just kind of walk through. I'm sinful, I need a savior. Lord, would you save me from my sins? I believe that you are who you said you are, that you died on a cross for my sins, that you rose again on the third day, and I'm putting all my faith and trust in you as my Lord and Savior. And if you truly mean that, man, the promises that you are a new creation. The old has passed away, the new has come. You've been adopted into the family. And so if that's you in the room this morning, you can just pray to the Lord yourself. We would love to pray for you and with you if you would like. We'd love to definitely have just a record of your decision this morning, and you can tap those little tags in front of you and fill out a little information card, and that will just give us a record to follow up with you later in this week to help you kind of begin your relationship with Jesus. But don't leave here without making that decision. And then for the rest of us in this room that have maybe made that decision, but somewhere along the way, Lord, we've we've wondered. We've doubted, we've questioned your promises. Because they didn't come in the timing that we thought they should. They didn't look the way that we wanted them to look. We've had to walk through pain and hardship. And today, Lord, we think about the resurrection, we celebrate the resurrection, and we just come back to the place of knowing that you are a God that keeps his promises. And so, Lord, let us build our lives upon your word and your truth. Let us build our lives on the promises that you have made, because you are a faithful God and the resurrection proves it. Lord, we love you. We thank you again for this moment and this time. It's in your name we pray. Amen. We have uh we're gonna move into just a time where we're responding to the Lord. If you want somebody to pray for you, we'd love to have that opportunity. You can come forward and pray at the altar by yourself or just at your seat. But this is the time for us to respond to the faithfulness of the Lord together this morning.