Well, amen, amen. Heights, it is so good to be with you today. Can you believe that it was snowing two days ago? Like, what is going on right now? You guys can go ahead and grab a seat. Man, I am so excited to be with you today, to welcome you from wherever you are coming from. Welcome those of you from our Prescott Valley location here with us today. Come on, we can be excited for Prescott Valley location. There we go. Welcome those that are from our Prescott location that
are here with us today. Come on. Welcome those who are from our online family that are joining us in person here today. We can welcome them as well as welcoming those that are on our online family as well. And then a special, special welcome to any of our guests that are here with us today. We're just so glad that you decided to come and be a part of this today as we can be one family. celebrating a risen Savior. Celebrating a risen Savior, man. And I'm excited. Some of you were
like, I'm not sure if we should be excited. We can be excited about that. And we're gonna talk more about that. Just to let you know, I'm gonna try to say this as quick as I can because my hair doesn't allow for much sun protection. And so we're gonna try to get through this as quick as we can, man. But super excited. I love Easter. I absolutely love just being able to celebrate a risen Savior. And I wish I could say that. I've always loved Easter because of Jesus, but
it's because of the candy. I gotta be honest. It's because of the candy, right? Because here's the deal. Reese's does this thing around this time of year where they find the perfect ratio between chocolate and peanut butter in their Reese's eggs. Come on, that is proof that God exists. I'm just saying, I'm just saying. We have proof. God exists, man. But here's the deal. When I was younger, we would do Easter egg hunts. And this was my time to shine because it wasn't
just about getting the candy. It was about dominating and finding every possible egg. Like I would turn into Sherlock Holmes, man. I could find them anywhere. I could find eggs anywhere. I love it. But here's the thing. A lot of times when you go out to do an Easter egg hunt, parents that are smart will give a limit on how many eggs so that everyone gets their fair share.
My parents. We're not that smart. But I remember one year we went out and they said, okay, here, the easy ones leave for the younger kids, but the harder ones you can find. The problem with that though is that they don't actually put a distinction between what's the easy and what's the hard. So every egg that I saw, I'm like, I don't know, seems a little easy. I'm not gonna keep going. And so I was searching for the hard eggs the whole time until we got to the end of
the Easter egg hunt. And everyone else that was doing the Easter egg hunt had a basket full of like 30 eggs. And I had like five eggs in my basket. And I'm like, man, I thought they were all too easy. And I remember the first time realizing that Easter is supposed to be exciting, but man, I was full of disappointment when I realized I didn't get what I was expecting. So I feel like some of us may have walked in here today and the only way you can characterize how you're
feeling is a sense of disappointment. Maybe life just isn't going the way that you had set out for it to go. Maybe you walked in today and the only thing that you can say is, man, I really am feeling this disappointment. Maybe you're at a place in life where you just want to quit. Maybe you're at a place in life where you're kind of at the end of your rope. Maybe you're only here today because it's what you do on Easter. You just show up to church and that's why you
came here today. But you're at a place where this is what you're feeling. And I think sometimes what we put our faith in fails us. What we put our hope in fails us. See, I understand this very well because I'm a San Diego Padres fan. And right now, just side note, you need to know they do have the best record in all of baseball right now. But I've put my faith in them and I know that at some point they will fail me.
All right, they're gonna fail me. All right, listen, Dodger fans, I don't need to hear it right now. I'm not talking to you. Listen, Jesus loves you. I just don't like you, all right? But it's okay because the worst of people are welcome here today. It's okay, we're glad you're here. We're glad you're here. I'm just kidding. I'm just kind of kidding on that. All right. Man, but the truth is that things let us down,
right? I love Reese's. I love them. And then I look in the mirror and I realize they've let me down a little bit. They've let me down. All right, sometimes we put our faith in things that let us down. It lets us down when we go, man, this is what I'm putting my faith in, what I'm putting my trust in, right? That friend that apparently. isn't as much of a friend as you thought they were. At that marriage that you thought would survive, and either it didn't or
it's looking like it's not going to. Maybe it's your health that you said, well, nothing's gonna happen, and then your health starts going downhill. Maybe it's the stress or pressure of taking care of somebody else. So I don't know what it is, but a lot of us, we put our faith in things that end up disappointing us, they end up failing us, they end up letting us down, and we arrive to a place where we go, man. I'm just feeling
disappointed. And I think that's a place that's pretty natural because life has ups and downs, and that's how they felt on the first Easter as well. Resurrection Sunday in the Bible, if you look at the first Easter, they were feeling pretty much the same thing. If you have your Bibles, we're going to be looking in the Bible today, and we're going to be in the book of Luke. But here's the thing is, is things didn't go as planned for the people that we see in Scripture.
The nation of Israel where God's chosen people, he said, man, you are chosen. There's prophecy saying, hey, you're gonna be amazing. Great things are gonna come from you. And then all of a sudden they find themselves in the midst of all of these prophecies that are supposed to happen. They find themselves under Roman oppression, under Roman rule. And they're going, okay, this isn't how it's supposed to be. And then they get a little bit of hope because this guy named Jesus
shows up on the scene. And Jesus starts doing miracles. And Jesus starts doing things that's attracting crowds. And he's teaching people. And crowds start following Jesus. And they start going, I want to know what this man has to say. And he has disciples. And disciples start showing up, which are followers that followed him closely and learned from him. They were his students. And all this is happening and they're getting this glimmer of hope. But then all of a sudden
their hope is completely smashed. Because the person that rode in on a donkey a week before and they've laid down their coats and they laid down palm branches and they said, Hosanna, which means save us or save now. As he rides in one week later, their hope is crushed because Jesus is arrested. Because Jesus is sentenced to death and Jesus is nailed to a cross. And Jesus then dies on a cross as they poke a spear in his side and blood and water pours out symbolizing he
is dead. And they take him off of this cross and put him in a tomb. And they seal him in this tomb. And all of their hope was completely smashed. And we pick up in Luke chapter 24, starting in verse 13. It says this, now that same day, two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened.
As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them, but they were kept from recognizing him. They are walking away from everything that had happened. They're walking away from it. They're walking away in disappointment. And I think some of you are on that walk today. Some of you, that's the walk that you're in. You're just walking in this disappointment. You think it's over.
You think it's too late for you, either by something you've done or something that was done to you or the situation you find yourself in. You're walking in going, it's just over for me. It doesn't matter. It's too late. I'm too far gone. I'm too broken. And you came in carrying this major disappointment and discouragement. See, we have disappointment when our expectation doesn't meet our reality. When we expect something different
than what actually happens in reality. All right, have you ever ordered something online before that doesn't show up the way that you thought it would? You know what I'm talking about? My wife, she ordered this amazing giant, this dresser that was gonna be amazing, and it shows up, and I think it was made for Barbies, I'm not sure, but it was like this big, and we're like, what is this thing? All right, there's an expectation,
and then there's a reality. I remember when my first two kids were born, they were twins, and so. I don't know why I didn't expect this, but we were going in, and I had this picture in my head of what it was going to be like, taking my kids home from the hospital and how great it would be. And I was completely shocked when the doctor said, hey, no, they need to go straight to the NICU, the neonatal intensive care unit,
and they need to stay there for weeks. And I remember the disappointment, the extreme disappointment for being like, but God, why? This isn't what I had pictured. Maybe some of you are on that walk that these people were on here walking away from Jerusalem going, this isn't how it was supposed
to go. This isn't where I wanted to find myself, but here I am and I'm on this same walk and you're discouraged and you're walking in this discouragement, but I need you to know that sometimes our discouragement leads us away from our destiny. And today God wants to speak to you. In the middle of whatever it is that you brought in with you, God wants to speak to you because he has conquered all of that. And as Jesus is walking with these people here, verse 17, it says he asked them, what are
you discussing together as you walk along? I love this. Jesus is asking them about his own story. It says they stood still, their faces downcast. One of them named Cleopas asked him, are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who doesn't know the things that have happened here in these days? What things, he asked. About Jesus of Nazareth, they replied. They said he was a prophet. He was powerful in word and deed. He was the chief
priest and the rulers. They handed him over to be sentenced to death and they crucified him. We had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since this took place. In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning, but did not find his body. They came and told us that they had seen
a vision of angels who said he was alive. Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it, just as the woman had said, but they did not see Jesus. They're telling Jesus the story of exactly what happened to him. And Jesus, as he's walking alongside of them, as he's walking beside them, he's listening to tell the story and tell exactly what was prophesied. See, sometimes we're in a place where even the truth in our life, when the truth is told to us, it doesn't
get through. We've heard the truth. Maybe you've seen the truth. Maybe someone has spoken the truth to you, but sometimes we don't see the truth even when it's right in front of us. And I think what a lot of times we like to do is we like to put people in our life that will just tell us the lie that we want to hear. We need people in our life that will speak truth to us, but we surround ourselves with people that just reinforce the lie that we've told ourself. My
youngest daughter, she's two. Every night when we say, hey, it's time for bed, it becomes an argument and a fight for bedtime. Because she goes, no, no, it's not time for bed. It's not night -night time yet. And so we have to take her over to the door and we have to let her look outside and say, look, it's dark outside. It's night -night time. And she's looking outside into a completely dark sky, into a completely dark world. And she looks back and she goes,
it's not dark outside. It's not night -night time. Which is a lie. We see it. We're like, we can see it with our eyes. We know. And then she does something very strategic. She goes and she gets her doll and she brings her doll over and she looks out the door with her doll and she has a little quick conversation with her doll and then she looks at us and she goes, yeah, she says it's not dark outside either. I'm like, awesome. Two against one here. This is going
well. All right, but see, that's what we like to do. We like to surround ourself with people that will reinforce the lie that we've told ourself instead of hearing the truth that's right in front of us. We need to surround ourselves with people that are gonna speak truth to us, right? That's why it's important that we're a part of a family that can speak truth. Listen, we call Heights a family because we are people that wanna
walk alongside one another. And every single one of you invited to be a part of this family, we'd love for you to continue to walk with this family, to join us at one of our services, at one of our locations, to be a part of what we're doing, to say, hey, I wanna be a part of a family because I need people that are gonna walk alongside of me when things get difficult and aren't afraid to speak truth. to me. Jesus is not afraid to
speak truth to them. I love this. After they say this to Jesus, it says in verse 25, he said to them, how foolish are you? Jesus is just like, hey, we ain't messing around. How foolish are you right here? And how slow to believe all the prophets have spoken. Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory? And beginning with Moses and the prophets, beginning in the beginning of the book, he explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning
himself. See, sometimes we just need truth spoken over us. Jesus reminded them of God's promises. That's what he was doing. He said, I wanna remind you of God's promises right now. We need truth spoken over us. Can I just speak truth and remind you of God's promises? Because some of you have believed a lie for too long and you need to understand that what God says is true. And God says in Psalm 34, 18, the Lord is close to the brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit. He says in Romans 8, 28, in all things, God's works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. In Psalm 23, 4, it says, even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. And I need you to know this, God is not done with you. It doesn't matter what the disappointment you're feeling. It doesn't matter what you walked in with. God is not done
with you. If you're not dead, God's not done. God has a purpose for you. God has a calling for you. God wants more for you. And a lot of times we believe the lie that we've been told, the lie that we live around in our culture, the lie that we tell ourself, the lie that the people we surround ourself with are telling us, but we need to start listening to the truth that only comes from him. Jesus speaks truth to them.
It says this. In verse 28, as they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going further. Jesus wanted to continue to walk by, but they urged him strongly, stay with us, for it is nearly evening. The day is almost over. So he went in to stay with them. See, I wonder how many times we let Jesus walk right past us instead of reaching out for him. I wonder how many times we've been in proximity. And instead of reaching out for Jesus, we just
let him slip right past. One of the privileges that I have in my life is I get to be an assistant coach for Embry -Riddle University. I get to coach baseball over there. And we have some of the Embry -Riddle baseball eagles in the house with us today right now. Come on, can we support the local boys right now? Let's go. Shout out to them. I'm glad that they're here with us.
But one of the things we do every year is we get to go to a spring training game and we take the team there to have some team bonding and to be able to watch a game. And so we went down and we got to watch a spring training game. And as I was sitting there, I noticed that in the section right next to me, a famous Hall of Fame manager was sitting right there. And so I nudged some of the players next to me. I'm like, hey, that's a famous Hall of Fame manager right there.
And they go, hey, you should go talk to him. I'm like, I'm not going to talk to him. He doesn't want to hear from me. I had to come up with every excuse right then. I'm like, well, he doesn't have time for me. I'm not going to go talk to him. He's not going to want to talk to someone like me anyway. Why would he want to talk to me? So we waited until the end of the game, and finally my player, he's the one that had the
courage to go up and talk to him. And he goes to talk to him, and he goes, hey, I know who you are, and this is really exciting. Can we take a picture with you? And I'm sitting there. I'm standing there. I'm like, this is awesome. And so my player then turns to me and hands the phone, and he goes, hey, coach, will you take a picture of us? I'm like, bro, I wanted to be in the picture. What the heck, man? But then in that moment, I was identified as the coach.
And so this Hall of Fame manager realized and he walks over to me and he shakes my hand and he says, hey, coach, you're doing a great job with these boys. And he talks to me for a few minutes there and I get the conversation with him right there. And I was like, all right, I won. I'll take your picture now, it's okay. All right, but see, I would have let him slip right past without saying anything, without reaching
out. See, Jesus was just walking past. Jesus was gonna continue on going and these people reached out and they said, no, no, no, hey, stay with us. Hey, stick with us. And as Jesus was doing this, as Jesus was reaching out, he's saying, hey, I wanna just keep going. And he looked at them and he stayed with them. And Jesus stayed with them at that moment, right then, right then and there. And Jesus sits down with them. See, here's the invitation. Jesus wants to sit down
with you. Jesus wants to sit down with you. And you know why I know that? Because Jesus went to a cross for you. We celebrate Jesus. We remember what he did on Good Friday when Jesus went to a cross. And sometimes we frame it up in our mind that Jesus went to a cross because they sent him to a cross. But the Bible says, no, he laid his life down. Why did he go to a cross? He went to a cross. Because he loves you. And Jesus decided to pay the price for you on the
cross. And when Jesus was nailed to a cross, when Jesus was beaten and he was bloodied and he was bruised and he was crucified on that cross, what Jesus did was he made a way for you to have a relationship with God. That is the good news. The good news today is that Jesus made a way. He paid the price and Jesus went to a grave,
but Jesus did not stay in the grave. And when Jesus rose from that grave, what he did is he conquered sin and he conquered death and he made a way for you and I to have a relationship with God. And it's a free gift. It's a free gift. And I talk about my love of Reese's quite often. And so I got lots of people that are, they're kind of my suppliers. I have my friend Dory. She shows up in the office almost every day and goes, hey, here you go. Here's some Reese's.
So just so you know, this message is brought to you powered by Reese's. And then I have my friend Deb. My friend Deb, she'll show up to me and she did a couple weeks ago at church and she just comes up and she goes, hey, this is for you. And I already know what's in it before she even says it. I know what she's brought me. I said, why do I get this? Why do I need this? She looked at me and said, you don't need that. I'm just kidding. She didn't say that. She didn't
say that. But she said, no, you didn't do anything. I just want to give it to you. It's a free gift. See, as Jesus went and he sat down and he started eating with these people, as Jesus was sitting with them, it says that they shared a meal. And they talked about all the things that had happened. They talked about what was going on. They talked about their walk there. And they still didn't know it was Jesus. And then it says this, their eyes were opened to him. My prayer for you is
this. My prayer is that your eyes are opened to him today. Maybe you've been around the message of Jesus, but you've never put your faith in Jesus. Maybe you've heard it before, but today is the day that you say, I'm gonna take a stand. Today is the day that you say, I am going to make a decision. Because today is my day. And it doesn't matter what disappointment you walked in with. It doesn't matter with what pain you walked in with. It doesn't matter with brokenness
you walked in with. You're gonna leave a new life today. So here's the thing. Salvation. Salvation through Jesus is a free gift. But if I never went and took this gift, it wouldn't be mine. And if my friend Deb just sat it down and said, okay, hey, there you go. And I just walked away and left it there. Somebody else would steal it and they would eat my Reese's. That's what happened. It does not become yours until you reach for it, until you grab it, until you take
hold of it. See, the free gift of Jesus is offered to you. The free gift of salvation is offered to you, but it is your job to reach out and to take it. How do you accept this? It's simply telling God, listen, I surrender. I'm tired of trying to do this on my own. I'm tired of trying to push my will instead of bending and understanding that your will is what matters. And I believe
that there are some people in here today. I believe there are some people here right now that it's time for you to get to a place where you say, I give my life to Jesus. Because as their eyes were open to Jesus, as they were sitting at this meal with Jesus and they were right there, it says while he was speaking and while he was going through the scriptures, didn't you feel that burning inside your heart? So I think some of you today have felt that. And that's nothing
I've said, but it's all of the Holy Spirit. It's God working in you. It's God working in your heart right now. And I believe that you are feeling that burn inside of you right now because God is speaking to you and he's saying, hey, today is your day. Today is your day. It says in the book of 2 Corinthians, the day of salvation has come. Today is my day. If that's you today, And today, maybe you walked in with disappointment.
You walked in with discouragement. You walked in feeling like this whole life was on your shoulders. You can leave with new life because the tomb is empty. And the tomb being empty, this is the best part, is that tombs are designed to hold dead things. They're designed to not be escapable because what's inside of them is dead. But Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus is alive. And because he is alive, you and I can escape the tomb. You
and I can run out in glorious victory. We do not have to walk in shame of disappointment. We can walk in victory because Jesus conquered the grave and he provided the victory for you and for me. And listen. There are so many in here today that need to step into that victory. And it's as simple as this. It's as simple as saying, God, I know that I've messed up. I know that I've sinned, but I trust what you have done.
I'm not doing this for myself. I'm trusting in you and putting our faith and trust in Jesus. I'm gonna pray right now and I wanna give an opportunity for that. I wanna give you an opportunity to give your life to Jesus today. I'm gonna pray and if you're here right now and you know that today is your day, today is your day to accept the good news that Jesus died for your sins, but he did not stay dead. He conquered the grave so that you have a path to life. I want you to
just pray this after me. Dear God, I know that I'm a sinner. But God, I know that you loved me enough to die for me. I place my faith and my trust in you. I want the new life that comes only through you. Amen. Listen, if you prayed that prayer, yeah, let's give it up for Jesus. Let's give it up for those that prayed that prayer right now. Listen, if you prayed that prayer, I need you to know that you are not alone in
this journey. I need you to know that there are people that wanna come walk alongside of you, that there are people that are going through this same journey that have been on this journey for years, that wanna come alongside of you. And if you're somebody who prayed that prayer today, We have people all over this park that are walking around that wanna give you something
right now. They wanna give you a bag and in that, there'll be a QR code that you can scan and it'll take you to a place where you can just say, today is my day and let us know that you made a decision. You can also go over here. There's a tent with a big sign that says prayer right there. If you wanna talk to someone specifically, there'll be people there. But right now, is there people around this park that wanna give you something to help you? Let us know, hey, I made this decision.
If you prayed that prayer today for the first time to say, God, I'm giving my life to you, would you just put your hand up right now? Would you just put your hand up? We see those hands all over. People are gonna be bringing you things. People will be handing you bags that you can do. Let's praise God for what is happening right now. Let's praise God for the people that have crossed from death into life. You can go on our
app or the website. If you've made that decision today and there's a button there that says, today is my day. If you click that, it'll let us know and we wanna reach out to you. We wanna contact you. We wanna help you along this journey because saying yes to Jesus doesn't mean that everything's easy now. It means it even gets harder, but you don't have to walk it alone because death is
defeated because Jesus reigns victorious. If you need to talk more about the decision that you've made today, or maybe you're not quite ready to make that decision, there'll be people under this tent over here that wanna talk with you. You can head over there. You can talk with them. But I just wanna praise God right now. God, we love you. God, we praise you. God, we are so grateful that you stayed. that you stayed long enough to pay for our sin, but you did not
stay forever. You rose from the grave, God, and we praise you for that, God. We honor you. We glorify you for the work that was done in this park today. This is a normal park, but God, the presence of Jesus is here with us today, and we thank you for that, God. We thank you for everything that you've done. We thank you for the lives that have crossed from death into life today. And God, we are so grateful, and we praise you, God. We worship you, God. We sing your praises
now. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Let's praise him.