Easter at the Met

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Thanks for tuning in to the Met Church podcast. Here at the Met, we are all about connecting people to God and one another. If you have any questions or want more information about what's happening here at the church, then head to our [email protected] we would love to stay connected with you throughout the week through social media, so be sure to connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter now. Enjoy the message. [00:00:24] Speaker B: I heard about a young pastor, and he was going to perform or officiate. [00:00:28] Speaker C: His very first funeral service. [00:00:30] Speaker B: It was going to be a graveside service out in a little country cemetery. But he was a little anxious because. [00:00:35] Speaker C: He had never done that before. [00:00:38] Speaker B: And so he made his way out. If you've ever been to one of those little country cemeteries, you know the roads will wind around and finally, eventually, you find it. And he was told by the funeral director, now, this guy that had passed. [00:00:49] Speaker C: Away is a pauper, and I don't. [00:00:50] Speaker B: Know that he'll have any family or any friends there. You may be the only one there. And sure enough, he finally found the place, and he saw a backhoe, and he saw a crew that were having. [00:00:59] Speaker C: Their lunch under the tree next to. [00:01:00] Speaker B: The hole that they had dug. [00:01:02] Speaker C: And sure enough, there was no one there. [00:01:04] Speaker B: So he made his way over to the little graveside, and he did the very best he could. He preached this message. And he got so caught up in his message that at one point he actually cried a little bit. And then he had prayer. And after he prayed, after that message that he delivered, he was walking away. And as he walked past the crew that were sitting by the backhoe under the tree, he heard one of the people say to the other guys, you know, I've been burying these septic tanks. [00:01:29] Speaker C: For 30 years, and I've never seen anything like that. [00:01:33] Speaker B: There's just something that's a little unsettling about the topic of death. People don't want to talk about it. They don't want to even think about it. It's the last thing that you ever want to consider is the fact you might die. And yet, the most encouraging news I can give you about that inevitable reality that you and I all face is. [00:01:53] Speaker C: The fact that because of Easter, there. [00:01:56] Speaker B: Is hope beyond that experience. In fact, when the psalmist David wrote about it in Psalm 23, he said, Yea, though I walk through, he didn't say into, but through the valley of the shadow of death, I'll fear no evil. And he said, I'll fear no evil. [00:02:13] Speaker C: Because you are with me. [00:02:14] Speaker B: Jesus removed the fear of death. Now, there's a certain amount of fear that I know we have when we think about death. I know that when that moment comes. But the Bible promised there'll be no fear. And I think as long as I have fear, I'm not at that moment. So that's good. I think if I ever got dying grace, it just scared me to death. So I'm grateful for that, and I'm thankful for that because of the price that Jesus paid. He took that off the board. He took that off the table. And so really, the story of Easter, when you think about it, it answers the deepest concern that all mankind has. Is there life beyond the grave? [00:02:52] Speaker C: Is there hope beyond this existence? [00:02:54] Speaker B: So the Easter story becomes the center point of. Of all human history and the focal. [00:03:00] Speaker C: Point of all scripture. [00:03:02] Speaker B: Everything in the Old Testament looks forward to this event. Everything in the New Testament, right up to our day, looks back at that event. And so the cross and the empty tomb becomes the focal point of all human history. And so everywhere Jesus went in his ministry, he drew crowds. People were curious about him. They still are. Even today, he still draws crowds. In fact, I saw where at Christmas and Easter, we will, as Americans, we'll spend over $700 billion at those two events where we celebrate Jesus. Jesus is good for business. People still draw. Jesus still draws crowds even today. Some of the largest attendances that any church will have will be on these two weekends where we really celebrate those events of his birth, his death, and his relationship resurrection. But that wasn't unlike Jesus to draw crowds, because in his earthly ministry, you remember the story of the feeding of the 5,000, when John had gathered the group together and handed them off to Jesus. And when Jesus stepped on the stage out of anonymity into that spotlight until he went to the cross, he drew crowds. In fact, just on Palm Sunday, there were thousands of people that were welcoming him into the city. Hosanna, they said. And that same group a few days later would be shouting, crucify him. [00:04:21] Speaker C: As he hung on a cross on Good Friday. But he always drew crowds. [00:04:26] Speaker B: And as I thought about the crowd at the cross, I thought I could center my talk to you just for. [00:04:32] Speaker C: A few moments this morning before we receive communion about the crowd that gathered at the cross. [00:04:39] Speaker B: Because the crowd that gathered at that cross that day are not unlike the crowds that gather every weekend in services. [00:04:46] Speaker C: Just like this one. [00:04:48] Speaker B: You had one group in the crowd that I would call the cynical. The cynical. They're the people that had respect for the event, and they had Respect for Jesus, but they were just unemotional about it. They were irreligious concerning it. They had never bought into it. And it's really illustrated by Pilate. Pilate had to confront the reality of Jesus because he was the Roman authority placed in charge over the people in that region. And when the religious group brings Jesus before Pilate, they want Jesus stoned to death because they say Jesus was guilty of blasphemy. And they say he was guilty of blasphemy because he claimed to be God. And according to the Old Testament, no one could claim to be God without being put to death. And so the Sanhedrin had already decided, Jesus needs to die. We need to stone him to death because he says he's God. Well, that doesn't move the needle at all with Pilate because Pilate being a Roman citizen and a Roman leader, he was polytheistic. Pilate believed in many gods. He was very tolerant. In fact, he probably had a coexist sticker on his chariot. He was not a bigot. He was very open minded. And he said, you know, maybe he is a God. I don't know, maybe Jesus is a God. Maybe he's just one of the many gods. And so Pilate wasn't going to offend Jesus in case he was a God. In fact, even his wife told her husband Pilate, she said, I had bad dreams last night concerning this man. You need to get away from him. I don't think you need to be dealing with him. I don't think you need to be caught up in this. And yet Pilate had to. He was confronted with Jesus and he had to deal with him. And so Pilate was struggling. In fact, he was trying to find some cause to appease these Jewish religious leaders that wanted Jesus dead. And so he sends out all the investigative people of the then known day to try to find anything they could on Jesus. [00:06:42] Speaker C: Just dig up dirt. [00:06:44] Speaker B: And the best investigators of that day were going everywhere, probably to the elementary school where he went, probably to the middle school where he went. They were trying to find anything they could on Jesus. And let me ask you this morning, if the finest investigators in our land were to begin to go out and try to find something you've done wrong, starting with your elementary school, how far do you think they would go before they found something? All right, I'll confess. They wouldn't have gotten out of my kindergarten class, and my mother taught my kindergarten class. It was old school when you got in trouble. My mom would take. We had this chalkboard and she would take a circle, and I was probably this tall. She would take this circle and put it on the chalkboard. And you had to stick your nose in the circle. Isn't that awful? And have to. That's what's wrong with me. And had to stay at that place until she decided, you know, you've repented or whatever. And I remember what I did. I still remember. I could smell chalk right now when he's telling about this story, I'd take my nose and erase the circle. No hope, right? No hope. But I'm just saying they came back after this thorough investigation of Jesus, and you know what they said? Pilate looks at him and said, I. [00:07:56] Speaker C: Can'T find a thing wrong with him. [00:07:59] Speaker B: There's nobody he ever did business with that had anything bad to say about him. Even his family haven't said anything bad about him. Wow. [00:08:08] Speaker C: You know, real happiness is having a large, loving, caring family in another city. You know that, right? [00:08:14] Speaker B: They couldn't find anything bad. No friend. I mean, the neighbors. No one had anything bad to say about Jesus. So Pilate says, I don't find any fault with him. And so the Sanhedrin quickly said, okay, we got one for you to consider. [00:08:27] Speaker C: He claims to be a king. And Pilate said, okay, Jesus, now that's gonna give me some heartburn, because there's. [00:08:33] Speaker B: No one higher than Caesar. [00:08:35] Speaker C: And, boy, if you claim to be. [00:08:36] Speaker B: A king, that's the threat to the. [00:08:38] Speaker C: Rule of Caesar, and that's treason. [00:08:40] Speaker B: And you can't claim to be a king. And they said, well, you remember the wise man that came when he was born? And they said, where is this 1 in Matthew 2? [00:08:47] Speaker C: Where is he who is born king? And when Pilate confronted Jesus, he doesn't refute the fact that he's a king. And so Pilate signs off on his execution and places over the cross, this is Jesus, King of the Jews. So Jesus is crucified by Pilate for treason against Caesar. [00:09:06] Speaker B: And I'm just suggesting you that Pilate really didn't have a dog in the hunt. He really wasn't emotionally connected to Jesus. He believed that he was a historical figure. He even believed that he was a strong religious leader, but he didn't have any faith or confidence in him. And I talked to people every week that are kind of there. You know, they get the plot. They understand that the big cross on our building isn't a plus sign that we're just into math here. They understand what it's about, and they don't quarrel with that. They get. They're very tolerant and very accepting and all the above, but they just never bought into the reality that Jesus is one they need to place their faith in. [00:09:44] Speaker C: So the cynical were there. [00:09:46] Speaker B: And not only that, when I look at the crowd, there were also the compromise. The compromise were there that represented a group that were closest to him, some. [00:09:56] Speaker C: Of his own apostles. [00:09:57] Speaker B: And they were compromised in the sense that they had a faith in who he was. But the minute their faith was tried and tested, their faith didn't stand up to the test, and they walked away. Simon Peter walks away, Thomas walks away. I mean, Jesus at his most desperate and crucial hour there at the cross. And yet most of his friends and most of those apostles, they walk away. I tried to think about that, and I thought maybe a lot of their faith was kind of a commercial faith, that they were in this relationship with Jesus and in fellowship with him for what they could get out of it. And the moment they're not getting anything out of it, then they're not into it anymore. [00:10:40] Speaker C: It was more of a commercial faith. [00:10:43] Speaker B: And I could tell you this morning, you really, and I really don't know how strong our faith is until that faith gets tested. And sooner or later, I have to tell you, your faith is going to get tested. Probably the biggest test of my faith was when my wife Cindy, who had a terminal illness when she faced that. And as a church, we had thousands of people who were praying that God would heal her. And we had people in other churches around this country praying that God would heal her. And she was the strongest Christian that I ever knew. And I believe that at any moment, even the 21 days I stayed by her bedside in the hospital, I really. [00:11:24] Speaker C: Really believed that God would heal her. I prayed over other families in the hospital, and I saw them get to take their loved ones home. And I thought, why wouldn't God do that for me? [00:11:41] Speaker B: I mean, you check yourself and you say, well, I mean, I can't find anything in my life or her life, certainly that would prohibit God from doing that. Surely he would. [00:11:53] Speaker C: And all of a sudden, man, I hit this crossroads of my faith, for God basically said to me, no, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to heal her, but I'm going to heal her in heaven and not on the earth. [00:12:07] Speaker B: In order to get my equilibrium back under me where I could do what. [00:12:11] Speaker C: I'm doing, even this morning, I had to do some heart searching. [00:12:16] Speaker B: And I came upon verses like the Apostle Paul when he talked about in First Corinthians 12, when he said, I had this thorn in my flesh, and it was disabling and it was difficult to deal with. And he said, I went to God on three different times, and I asked God to remove the thorn from me. And God just said no. [00:12:36] Speaker C: He said, my grace will be sufficient. [00:12:38] Speaker B: I'm gonna get you what you need. [00:12:40] Speaker C: To get through what you're going through, but you're gonna go through this. I found a verse, like in Daniel, Chapter three, when those young teenagers were faced with the prospects of recanting their. [00:12:49] Speaker B: Faith or being thrown into a furnace. And they said, In Daniel chapter 3, verse 17, they said, Nebuchadnezzar, sir, we will not bow. Our God. Hear this. Our God is able to deliver us. Now put a pin there. Our God is able to heal us. Our God is able to deliver us. I believed all of that and still believe all of that. And they said that God is able. And then they went on to say, now here's the test of faith. [00:13:15] Speaker C: But if he doesn't, we still won't recant our faith. Your faith, ladies and gentlemen, has to be big enough to say, I pray that he will. But if he doesn't, that's the test of faith. [00:13:31] Speaker B: You see, the big test of faith I found is not, do I have enough faith to be healed? The big test of faith is, do I have enough faith not to be healed? What if God says no? And I'm just suggesting that when that happened, remember the apostles that walked away? Let me give you what I think, the reasoning, them walking away, it's free. [00:13:52] Speaker C: Like the rest of it. So let me share this. [00:13:56] Speaker B: I think they mistook the second coming. [00:13:59] Speaker C: Of Lord with the first coming of the Lord. [00:14:02] Speaker B: When they signed on to follow Jesus, they thought part of what he was gonna do is establish his kingdom on the earth, overthrow the oppressive government of that day, and rule where the lion would lie down with the Lamb and we'd study war no more. And all those things that are in the Bible and foretold and prophecy talks about it, and I think they thought that was what was going to happen. And all of a sudden, he's betrayed, he's arrested, he's beaten, and now he hangs on a cross. And they're going, what just happened? And they walked away. You see, all of those things I've just described are things that are gonna happen in the second coming of the Lord. But the first coming of the Lord, he wasn't coming to rule and reign. The first coming of Christ, he was coming to suffer and die. It's speculative, but I think it makes sense to me that maybe they misunderstood the second coming for the first coming. The theology messed up. Can I run this rabbit a little farther? What will mess your faith up sometimes is when your theology doesn't square with your reality, when what you're going through doesn't exactly add up with what you think thought God said about what you're going through. And you fail to realize that he's never said life would be easy. [00:15:19] Speaker C: In fact, he said all of those who will live godly in Christ Jesus are going to suffer some persecution. [00:15:26] Speaker B: And these guys kind of spun out. And I talk to people, guys every. [00:15:29] Speaker C: Week that do that. We have thousands of people on our church row and many of those people have gone through something and it's been so difficult and they became so disillusioned that they just kind of walked away. I'm not critical of that. I understand that. [00:15:48] Speaker B: I understand. But here's what I know about God. [00:15:50] Speaker C: If they belong to him, he'll bring him home. You remember the story of Ruth, a. [00:15:56] Speaker B: Little four chapter book in the Old Testament. It's back there where the pages of. [00:16:00] Speaker C: Your Bible are stuck together. But it's a beautiful love story. [00:16:03] Speaker B: And, and in Ruth, Naomi left Jerusalem, Judea because of the famine and lost everything. She moved away from God. And she said concerning the experience, and. [00:16:13] Speaker C: This is what I want you to hear. [00:16:14] Speaker B: She said, I went out full, but. [00:16:17] Speaker C: God brought me home empty. [00:16:20] Speaker B: And so a child of God that wanders away thinking that's the right option, eventually God loves him and he's going to bring his kids home. He doesn't give up on his kids and he certainly did that. But it took the resurrection of the dead to bring both of those boys back. When Thomas saw Jesus in his resurrected form, Thomas then said, my Lord and my God. But there was a little period of time when he walked away. Simon Peter in John 21 said, I'm going fishing. Literally. What that means is he was a commercial fisherman by trade. And he basically was saying, I'm gonna go back and I'm gonna do what I did before I ever got messed up with this Jesus St. And all this church stuff. [00:17:03] Speaker C: And I'm telling you something, man, if. [00:17:06] Speaker B: You live very long and you've known. [00:17:08] Speaker C: Christ very long, you've had those crises of your faith. [00:17:11] Speaker B: I tell you all the time, if you hadn't been hurt in church, you. [00:17:14] Speaker C: Just didn't go long enough, somebody will run you down to the glory of God. [00:17:20] Speaker B: And I'm just saying these boys had gone through some stuff. And when Jesus went after John, I'm sorry, Simon Peter, in John 21, I talked about it last weekend. He said to him, you're hungry. I've got fish on the fire. [00:17:32] Speaker C: You're tired. Sit down and rest. And he got him back in the game. But there was a period of time when he was compromised. Thirdly and hurriedly. The third group there is what I'm calling the confused. And the confused represent the Roman centurion that was posted at the foot of Jesus cross. [00:17:55] Speaker B: He was confused because he recognized that Jesus is the son of God, but he never received him as his savior. And I think what may have convinced. [00:18:07] Speaker C: Him that Jesus was the son of. [00:18:08] Speaker B: God is this centurion had been a part of crucifixions before. And by the way, if you've studied history of Roman crucifixion, they had perfected it. They were good at it. There's some liberal theology, schools of thought that believe that Jesus didn't physically die on the cross, that he lapsed into. [00:18:26] Speaker C: Some comatose state and that in the. [00:18:29] Speaker B: Coolness and the dampness of the tomb. [00:18:30] Speaker C: He resuscitated and came back to life. [00:18:32] Speaker B: And they explained it that way. But that flies in the face of. [00:18:35] Speaker C: What history tells us about crucifixion. [00:18:38] Speaker B: Romans were good at that. And what they would typically do to make sure the person was dead is they would break the legs of the person on the cross, making it impossible for them to breathe. [00:18:50] Speaker C: Because when you're nailed to the cross, your feet are nailed and your arms are nailed, and so you have to. [00:18:54] Speaker B: Push up on your feet and allow your diaphragm to expand so you can. [00:18:58] Speaker C: Take a breath and you relax on your arms so you can exhale. [00:19:01] Speaker B: And that motion has to go constantly of relaxing and pressing up and relaxing and pressing up, until finally, out of exhaustion, they die. [00:19:09] Speaker C: Or the Roman centurion, before sundown, will take that spear and break the legs, making it impossible for them to breathe. But when they came to Jesus, it was different. [00:19:21] Speaker B: This centurion had heard Jesus say something. [00:19:23] Speaker C: He had never heard anyone that was executed on a cross say. [00:19:26] Speaker B: He had never heard anyone say, father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. [00:19:33] Speaker C: He had heard people curse people from the cross. [00:19:37] Speaker B: He had heard people curse God from. [00:19:39] Speaker C: The cross, but he had never heard somebody say, forgive them, my executioners, my. [00:19:46] Speaker B: Persecutioners, these people who are shouting insults at me, these people who have betrayed me, are you kidding me? And he's looking at that group who are there celebrating their death. And he's looking at them saying, father, they just. They don't know what they do. [00:20:02] Speaker C: Please forgive them. And then when it came time to break the legs of Jesus, the centurion realized he's already dead. And he remembered the last thing he heard him say, father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. It is done. It is finished. And he died. So to make certain that Jesus was dead, they took the spear and they thrust the spear into his side. And the Bible says, out of that wound there came a substance that looked like blood mingled with water. I heard a medical doctor who had. [00:20:34] Speaker B: Studied that scene, and he said, around. [00:20:36] Speaker C: Our heart, there's like a sack called a pericardium. And when the heart receives trauma, the pericardium will be filled with, like, a clear substance that works almost like an airbag that will cushion the heart from further trauma. And they said when the heart is traumatized, that pericardium will fill with that liquid. And what they literally believe happened was Jesus heart literally ruptured. Someone said he died of a broken heart. And when the spear pierces his side, it pierced the pericardium. And out of it, they said it looked like blood mingled with water. And you have this poor man saying, this man, there was something special about him. He was the Son of God, but he never, ever committed his life to him. And I thought about that group. I thought, man, I talk to people every Sunday. I move them as close to the cross as I can get them. I'll walk them right down there. Because the eternal destiny of someone isn't determined by their religion. It's not determined by how good of a life they've lived or how much money they've been able to accumulate or what kind of family they've raised. [00:21:41] Speaker B: All those things are well and good in their place. [00:21:43] Speaker C: And I hope you're successful in every aspect of your life. But what determines eternity and heaven for a person is, what did you do with Jesus? And Jesus said in John 14:6, I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the Father except by me. So it's not the religion, but it's the relationship. [00:22:03] Speaker B: And I take people by the hand, metaphorically, and I just bring them right to the cross every weekend. And I even lead them in a prayer. [00:22:08] Speaker C: I'm gonna pray for you in a few moments. [00:22:11] Speaker B: I get them as close as I can. I've done everything except say it for them. [00:22:16] Speaker C: And yet they just walk away. Kind of like Paul standing before King agrippa in Acts 26. And Paul just poured his heart out to King Agrippa. And he said, this is what Jesus did for me. You know what the king said to him? Paul, you've almost persuaded me to become a Christian. He was right there, right there, right on the edge. He was confused. And finally the last group was there. They were the convinced, absolutely convinced. His mother stood at the foot of his cross. Can you imagine, moms, what that must have been like? His mother stood there and next to his mother was John the apostle, who claimed to love Jesus more than all the others. And give the boys some credit, he's there when they took off, John's still there. And they were absolutely convinced that Jesus was who he said he was. And even in death they followed him all the way to the grave. Absolutely convinced. Good times and bad times, happy times and sad times, we will not walk away, we will not recant our faith. They were convinced. We sang a moment ago about a hard fought hallelujah. And I guarantee you everybody in this room has gone through something in your life where you had to fight through it, you had to fight through it in order to give God praise. And don't you know, there was just a little moment of hesitation they had when Jesus was in the tomb where they had to wonder, have you ever doubted a little bit? Can I confess a sin? Well, that got quiet. Er, I had some doubts just in. [00:23:53] Speaker B: The back of my. Just for a moment I had these. [00:23:54] Speaker C: Flashes when Cindy went to heaven of man. I hope that's real. [00:24:00] Speaker B: Is that crazy to admit that? I mean, I had those moments when I said, you know, I know the Bible is true, it's God's inerrant, infallible word. And I know Jesus is, I know all of that. But man, when your soul is crushed and your heart is broken and all of a sudden your faith is stretched that thin, you just have these little dark moments when you think, God, I. [00:24:20] Speaker C: Hope that's true, man. I hope that's true. [00:24:24] Speaker B: And I really believe that that's kind of where they were in those moments. [00:24:27] Speaker C: When Jesus was in the tomb. [00:24:29] Speaker B: And all of a sudden when Mary sees him and she goes to complete the burial process at the tomb and the stone is rolled away and he. [00:24:36] Speaker C: Calls her by name and she goes and gathers the apostles into the upper room. And there, as I said a moment ago, Thomas, who had doubted Thomas, is in the upper room. And Jesus said, thomas, reach out and touch me. A ghost, a spirit doesn't have flesh and bone like you. You see me have, you say, what are the resurrected bodies like? They're bodies of flesh and bone. When Cindy left us a few years ago, her spirit and soul, that part of her that was eternal, left her body and became home with God, absent from her body, present with her Lord. And in this very room, we had her memorial service. She was there, and I sat right there with my kids. And we went to the cemetery. And many of you were there to say goodbye. But we just said goodbye to that body. Cause her spirit and soul are at home with God, just like your loved ones. And because Jesus stepped out of that grave. You know what that means? That means one day. First Thessalonians 4 says, One day the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God. And those who've died in Christ will be raised first. And then we which are alive and remain will be caught up together. We get the idea of rapture from being caught up. We'll be caught up together in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so shall we ever be with the Lord. That spirit and soul that are home with God will be reunited with that body that'll be recreated, a body of flesh and bone. And we'll forever be with the Lord. You say, bill, will I know my loved ones when I get to heaven? I love what that country preacher said. Might have been the same one I started out with talking about out there at the grave. He said, I'd hate to think in heaven we'll have less sense than we had on the earth. We'll know them there like we knew them here. We'll just pick up where we left off. One day these broken circles will be broken no more. That's the hope of Easter. Let me give you this, and we'll go to communion. In the Louvre Museum in Paris, there is a. There are beautiful works of art. And there's one particular work of art that I wanted to call your attention as I close this morning. And the artist depicts this scene of the devil playing chess with this man. And the title of his masterpiece here is Checkmate. [00:26:48] Speaker B: And the story is that the devil has put the man in such a. [00:26:53] Speaker C: Position that he has no more moves. There's no way he can get away from what he's facing. He's going to be defeated. And so, in desperation, you see his head and his hands, and the devil is smugly looking at him as the angel is looking sympathetically on the scene. And there's nothing anyone can do. Checkmate. [00:27:11] Speaker B: And I thought about it as I read the story of that painting. [00:27:14] Speaker C: And I thought, that's probably what the devil thought those three days Jesus was in the tomb. And when the Louvre was doing tours years ago, they had a group of particularly gifted people who had great achievements in their professional life and in their fields of endeavor. [00:27:34] Speaker B: And one of them happened to be the chess grandmaster of that year. [00:27:38] Speaker C: He was the champion chess player. And so he was particularly drawn to this painting. [00:27:44] Speaker B: And long after the group had walked. [00:27:46] Speaker C: Away, he stayed behind, and he was studying this painting, and he was looking at the painting, and the guide came. [00:27:52] Speaker B: Back to him and he said, sir, we need to move on. There's a lot of art here you. [00:27:55] Speaker C: Still want to see. [00:27:56] Speaker B: And he goes, well, you know, I'm a chess grand champion. And he said, I'm fascinated by this painting. And the title of it is Checkmate, which indicates there's nothing that this person can do to win the game. But he said, what I've seen in. [00:28:08] Speaker C: Studying the painting is the king still has one more move. [00:28:14] Speaker B: The king has one more move, and the king could take the move and win the game. [00:28:18] Speaker C: It is not checkmate. And I thought about that as I thought about this. When the devil had Jesus in the tomb, he probably thought, checkmate, and he forgot, hey, the king still has one more move. And all of a sudden, he walked out of that grave with the keys of death and hell hanging by his side. And no matter how desperate your situation may feel this morning, can I tell you, this morning, the king still has one more move. You're not so far he can't reach you. You haven't done so bad that he cannot love you. There's not a sin you've committed that he will not forgive. There's not a burden you have that he cannot lift. There's not a problem you're facing that he will not solve. He still has one move. You're in his hands. You can trust him. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for your word that always challenges us in our thinking and in our life. And, Lord, as we prepare to close with communion and then singing. Just a couple of more songs before we go, I pray for my friends here today and many watching online and many in the overflow areas, and those that will catch this podcast that may have never trusted you as savior, that on this Easter Sunday morning, this might be the day, this might be the moment when they finally, once and for all settle that issue. I want to lead them to the foot of your cross, and I pray, Lord, that they might pray a prayer, something like this, where they might pray. Pray. Lord Jesus, with everything I know about me, I now trust everything I know about you. Come into my heart. Forgive my sin. I believe you died on a cross, and I believe you rose on Easter. And with all that I am, I trust you. And then, Father, I pray for Communion. I pray you'll prepare our hearts and that you'll receive our worship. Make us mindful that these elements represent your body and your blood that were shed on the cross that day. Bless these elements and bless this time of worship as we honor you in this way. In Jesus name I pray. Amen. [00:30:38] Speaker A: Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you have any questions or prayer requests, please contact us by visiting metchurch.com so that we can follow up with you this week. We look forward to seeing you next week.