Man, it is so nice when we're all here together. If it's your first time here, I hope you can tell. You can just relax and be yourself. I'm going to talk here for a little bit, so we should probably all ask God for help. So, Father, Abba, first we just praise you and we thank you. We thank you for adopting us as your very own children. Holy Spirit, we thank you for being our teacher. And we do ask you to teach us today that each of us would leave having something that was directly given to us from you. And Jesus, we praise you. We thank you for your love. We thank you for coming and dying and saving us. It's in your name we pray. Amen. So have you ever thought about what really makes Jesus tick? You know, what motivated him, what got him up in the morning, what motivates him now. You know, especially in how he died. You know, he didn't have to die such a horrible death. You know, watching that uh that video is tough, but it is what it is what happened. You know, when he was thinking about it, it stressed him out. You know, it says that he was in great distress. We would say he was really stressed out, but he did it. He went through so much in such a short time, and he could have stopped it at any time in an instant. You know, Jesus had gone with his disciples to this place they liked. It was an olive grove. And Judas knew that they were going to be there, and so he went and brought a gang with him. In John 18, it says, the leading priests and Pharisees had given Judas a contingent of Roman soldiers and temple guards to accompany him. Now, with blazing torches, lanterns, and weapons, they arrived at the olive grove. Jesus fully realized all that was going to happen to him, so he stepped forward to meet them. Who are you looking for? He asked. Jesus the Nazarene. They replied, I am he, Jesus said. Now the I am and the I am he was actually the word Yahweh he used. God's very own name. Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them. As Jesus said, I am he, they all drew back and fell to the ground. One word, Yahweh, and they were all knocked to the ground. Once more he asked them, and I'm guessing there was a slightly different tone. Who are you looking for? Uh Jesus the Nazarene. I told you that I am He, Jesus said, and since I'm the one you want, let these others go. I share that just to, I guess, reinforce the obvious. That he could have stopped it. And it it was Jesus, you know, in a way, one final big statement to the priest and to the Roman soldiers, you know, just so you know, I am letting this happen. I am letting this happen. He was committed to seeing it through. What kind of motivation would that take? What got him through? In Hebrews 12 and 2, it says, Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. And the joy for Jesus might not be what it seems. We might think of the glory, the praise, the vindication, being ruler over all, but that's not Jesus. Jesus is gentle and he's humble and he came to serve, not to be served. His joy is not personal glory. His joy is you. It's a relationship with you. You know, I grew up in church. We went uh at least three times a week, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, many other nights. And I knew why we were there. We were there because God expected it. It was one of the rules, and it was a way to express our commitment to God. But it wasn't until I was 32 years old when I was in a desperate situation and I cried out to God, if you're real, if you're real, help me. That he opened my eyes and I began to see that we could actually have a relationship with the living God. And that might sound a little bit like Christian ease, you know, a relationship with Jesus. But it's actually similar to other relationships. You know, when I turned with him or turned to him, there was a connection. And it was different and powerful because it's a supernatural and a spiritual connection. You know, he created us with the spirit, and our spirit comes alive, and it connects with his spirit. And I started learning about him, like in any relationship. I learned uh from the Bible, I learned from other people, sharing what he's like. I started by asking for help, and then I'd ask for advice, and before long I could understand his response. And then I'd be started to ask him about everything. You know, first it's the big things, marriage and problems and the kids, but but then it was work and business and hobbies and my secrets and my hopes, you know, my dreams. And our relationship just keeps growing and growing and growing. And it's never gonna stop. We're gonna get closer and closer and closer because we've got forever to become closer. Jesus endured the cross and disrescarded his shame for a relationship with you. You know, if you've ever felt unlovable or maybe just unloved, Jesus was thinking of you. Jesus loves the unlovable. When Jesus lived on earth, there was no one considered more unlovable than someone who was afflicted with leprosy. In the men's group a couple weeks ago, we watched John Eldridge on a video. He was talking about an occasion when Jesus sought out a man who had leprosy. And said, Mark 1, a man with leprosy came and knelt in front of Jesus, begging to be healed. If you are willing, you can heal me and make me clean, he said. Moved with compassion, Jesus reached out and touched him. I am willing, he said, Be healed. Instantly the leprosy disappeared and the man was healed. Now the beauty of the story is a seemingly small thing. To have leprosy was to be a complete outcast. Leprosy was a very scary, a highly contagious disease. Someone with leprosy had to live alone outside of the village. If they ever came into the village, they had to walk on one side of the street, and the whole time they had to yell, unclean, unclean, unclean. It was to make sure that no one touched them. Because if someone accidentally touched them, they might contract the disease. But not only that, legally, if you were to touch someone with leprosy, you yourself were unclean and defiled. Jesus could have healed this man with a word, like he healed other people. He healed this man with a touch. He had to be starving for a human touch. He'd probably not been touched by a person in years. And so he gets a touch from God and a touch from man in a single moment. Jesus was now defiled by Jewish law and would be considered unclean to the religious leaders. He didn't care about that. He cared about this man. He loves the unlovable. No one here is actually unlovable. But you might feel that way or feel unloved. Jesus was thinking of you, befriending you. Jesus said, When I'm raised to life again, you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. The joy of a real relationship with you. I don't know if any of you have ever felt ashamed. I certainly have. Jesus is eating dinner at a religious leader's house, and in walks a prostitute. And she falls at Jesus' feet and she starts kissing his feet, and then she starts bawling, you know, and she's weeping, and the tears are falling on his feet, and she takes her hair and she wipes the tears, and the religious leader just can't stand it. He's thinking to himself, if this man were a prophet, he would know what kind of woman is touching him. She's a sinner. Jesus says, I tell you, her sins, and they are many, have been forgiven. So she has shown me much love. But a person who has forgiven little shows only little love. Then Jesus said to the woman, Your sins are forgiven. The men at the table said amongst themselves, Who is this man that goes around forgiving sins? And Jesus said to the woman, Your faith has saved you. Go in peace. Your sins are forgiven. Go in peace, he tells her. In Hebrews 2, it says, So now Jesus and the ones he makes holy have the same Father. Okay, that's us. He's talking about us. That is why Jesus is not ashamed to call them his brothers and sisters. You know, if you've ever been ashamed or maybe for some reason feel ashamed now, it is why Jesus endured the cross. The joy of being able to call you his sister and his brother, the joy of letting you put that all behind you, and so you can move forward with him. You know if you've ever been unpopular, Jesus endured the cross for you. You know who was unpopular during the time that Jesus lived on earth? It was the Samaritans. Jewish people hated Samaritans. I mean, the racial discrimination and the hate was deep. And it went both ways. The Samaritan leaders would not allow a Samaritan to talk to a Jewish person. A Jewish leader would not allow a Jewish person to even talk to a Samaritan person. If the Jewish religious leaders were going somewhere and Samaria was in the way, they would go around because they weren't even going to step foot in Samaria. The Jewish people had once destroyed the Samaritan temple. And the Samaritans took human bones, snuck into the temple, and spread them all over the place during the Passover in the Jewish temple. They hated each other. It was intense. And so when Jesus is talking to a Jewish religious leader about loving his neighbor as himself, the leader says, Who is my neighbor? And Jesus tells a story. A man is beaten, he's left for dead. Along comes a priest, and then a Levite walks by, and then comes the hero of the story, the good Samaritan, the one who showed what loving our neighbor looks like. But more dramatic is the time when Jesus is tired and he's thirsty, and he walks into Samaria. He goes to a well there. Soon a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, Please give me a drink. He was alone at the time because his disciples had gone into the village to buy some food. The woman was surprised, for Jews refused to have anything to do with Samaritans. She said to Jesus, You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. Why are you asking me for a drink? And so they proceed to have a conversation. They talk about God and they talk about worship and they talk about the Messiah. And Jesus asks about her husband, and she says, I'm not married. And he says, I know. You've been married five times, and the person you're living with now is not your husband. And he's not condemning her. What he's doing is he's showing her that he knows her. And then he uses the same word, Yahweh. He says, I am the Messiah. She runs back and tells the whole village. And in John 4, it says, Many Samaritans from the village believed in Jesus because the woman had said, He told me everything I ever did. When they came out to see him, they begged him to stay in their village. So he stayed for two days, long enough for many more to hear his message and believe. Then they said to the woman, Now we believe. Not just because of what you told us, but because we have heard him ourselves. Now we know that he is indeed the Savior of the world. Jesus goes into Samaria and spends two days with them. If you've ever felt unpopular or maybe like you didn't fill in with the church crowd, Jesus endured the cross for you. The joy of being with you. If we've ever gotten off track, maybe a little lost, thinking bad, acting bad, it was for us. There was a man Jesus sought out who was pretty off track. His name was Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus was a very wealthy guy. And he had gotten all his money because he was a tax collector. In fact, he was in charge of all the tax collection for the entire region where he lived. Rome had conquered Israel. And so one of the first things they did was require huge taxes from the Jewish people. Zacchaeus was a Jewish man that went over to the Roman side. And not only did he take the taxes that Rome required, but he added more on top and extorted it from the people. And so the people hated Zacchaeus. He was a traitor and he was a crook, bad thinking, bad behavior. He was way off track. Jesus entered Jericho and made his way through the town. There was a man there named Zacchaeus. He was the chief tax collector in the region, and he'd become very rich. He tried to get a look at Jesus, but he was too short to see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore fig tree beside the road, for Jesus was going to pass that way. When Jesus came by, he looked up at Zacchaeus and called him by name. Zacchaeus, he said, Quick, come down. I must be a guest in your home today. Zacchaeus quickly climbed down and took Jesus to his house in great excitement and joy. But the people were displeased. He is gone to be the guest of a notorious sinner, they grumbled. You know when Jesus calls his name? I wonder what he thought. I mean, was he about to be called out? Was he about to be corrected? But instead he says, I want to have dinner with you now, in your home. Jesus never condemned Zacchaeus. Yet Zacchaeus was so moved by their interaction that he told Jesus he was going to give half of his money to the poor, and he was going to repay four times the money that he had extorted from people. Jesus responded, Salvation has come to this home today, for this man has shown himself to be a true son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost. If you've ever gotten off track, ended up a little lost, it was you Jesus was thinking about. That's how he endured the cross. The joy of a relationship with you, the joy of seeing your life put back together and back on track. In Titus 3, it says, It wasn't so long ago that we ourselves were stupid and stubborn, dupes of sin, ordered every which way by our glands, going around with a chip on our shoulder, hated and hating back. But when God, our kind and loving Savior God, stepped in, he saved us from all that. It was all his doing. We had nothing to do with it. He gave us a good bath, and we came out of it new people, washed inside and out by the Holy Spirit. Our Savior Jesus poured out new life so generously. God's gift has restored our relationship with him and has given us back our lives. And there's more life to come. An eternity of life, you can count on this. And so Jesus takes joy in getting us back on track. But there's more to come. An eternity of life, he says, you can count on this. If you've ever been afraid of dying, Jesus was thinking of you. The joy of taking away all of your fear. The joy of a relationship with you. Three of Jesus' closest friends were Mary and Martha and Lazarus. Jesus was out of town when Lazarus died. Martha sort of blamed Jesus, like we do sometimes. Martha said, Master, if you'd been here, my brother wouldn't have died. Even now I know that whatever you ask God, he will give you. Jesus said, Your brother will be raised up. Martha replied, I know that he'll be raised up in the resurrection at the end of time. You don't have to wait for the end. I am right now, resurrection and life. The one who believes in me, even though he or she dies, will live. And everyone who lives believing in me does not ultimately die at all. Do you believe this? Do we believe this? It's true. It is absolutely true. If you feared dying, or maybe more your loved ones or friends dying before you, Jesus was thinking of you. In Hebrews 2 it says, Because God's children are human beings made of flesh and blood, the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the devil who had the power of death. Only in this way could he set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying. The joy of setting us free. You know, heaven is not what many of us have been told it is. Over and over in the New Testament, heaven is described as a completely renewed and completely restored earth. The way that God had created it, the way that He had intended it to be. There'll be cities and there'll be responsibilities. We won't be wearing dresses and playing harps. Jeff might be playing the best electric guitar he's ever seen. But we'll be understanding. Us. I mean, we'll be us without the baggage and without the woundings, but with our personalities. We'll have new better bodies. We'll have great relationships. We'll have fun. And we will never ever think again about being separated from someone we love. If you've had a child or a spouse or a friend die, that is, I think, the deepest pain we can feel. It's the pain our Abba Father felt when Jesus was killed. That pain, even though it's hard to imagine, won't last forever. Life is short, and before long your loved ones will be in your arms, and you'll never have to be apart again. Jesus was thinking of the joy of sharing that moment with you. He was thinking of the joy of being able to physically wrap his arms around you, to hug you, to hold you. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross. 1 Corinthians 15 it says, but let me reveal to you a wonderful secret. We will not all die, but we will all be transformed. It will happen in a moment, in the blink of an eye, when the last trumpet is blown, for when the trumpet sounds, those who have died will be raised to live forever, and we who are living will also be transformed. You know, if you've ever felt unlovable or unloved, if we've been ashamed, felt unpopular, like we didn't fit in, maybe we've gotten off track. If you've ever had the pain or the fear of us or a loved one dying. Or maybe you just feel like there's got to be something more. God has to have created me for something more. What got Jesus through that Friday and to Sunday was you. It was the joy of a relationship with you. At the crack of dawn on Sunday, the woman came to the tomb carrying the barrel spices they had prepared. They found the entrance stone rolled back from the tomb, so they walked in. But once inside they couldn't find the body of the Master Jesus. They were puzzled, wondering what to make of this. Then out of nowhere it seemed, two men, light cascading over them, stood there. The women were awestruck and bowed down in worship. The men said, Why are you looking for the living one in a cemetery? He is not here, but raised up. A little over 2,000 years ago, Jesus, powerful, loving, humble Jesus, allowed himself to be beaten, to be made fun of, to be nailed to a cross. That Sunday morning he was raised up. And everything changed forever. He did it because of the joy awaiting him. You. So if the worship team will come up, in a minute we'll stand and we'll pray and then we'll sing one more song together. All Jesus asks is that we trust him, allow him to lead our lives. We do that in our own words, in our own way. You know, whatever they are, Jesus, I need you. Jesus, help me. Jesus, I'm sorry. Jesus, put my life back together, please. Jesus, I don't understand all this, but would you show me? You know, he created us in God's image with a spirit inside of us. And so when we turn to him, that spirit comes alive, it connects with God's spirit, and we start that relationship. There's that connection, and it grows and it grows and it grows, and it'll keep on growing forever. You know, if you haven't done that, you could do that today. Let's stand and pray. Hope you all have a wonderful, wonderful Easter. Jesus, we praise you, we thank you. Thank you so much for coming to earth to show us what God, our Father, is really like, to show us what you're really like, to show us what love is and how to be loved. Jesus, please draw us all close into an intimate relationship with you. Jesus, thank you that we are your joy. You're our joy too. Amen.