Easter at North Place from Durban to Wiley to Garland to men and women in correctional facilities across this country. Welcome to Easter at North Place. Yeah. We are so glad that we're all worshiping together for Easter. And while we're together, let me just say this. Um, we we always try to do something special with our Easter generosity, something we know that's near and dear the heart of God, it changes. But because of this being April, it was easy for us. April is Child Abuse Awareness Month. And for almost two decades now, we have been running camps all summer long for children that are in the Texas foster system because of abuse, neglect, or abandonment. This year we're going to run more camps for more kids than we've ever run. Hundreds of kids are going to be impacted this year through these camps. And what's the beautiful thing now is kids that started coming to our camps when they were six, seven, and eight are now adults, and they're coming back to serve at our camps because it made such a profound impact in their life. And for a lot of these kids, we train the families that adopt them. And they are in forever families, and we connected them together from their caseworker to the family. It's just this beautiful image of the gospel. And all those kids come to our camps for free. They're donor supported, whether they come from a boys' home or a girl's home or a Texas foster care caseworker, or whether they have been adopted out of foster care and their family brings them, there's no charge. We don't take state money. It's a donor funded because it's faith-based. It's donor funded. And so what we're doing on Easter this weekend is if there's any undesignated offering online or in the in the house, uh if it's loose or undesignated, it goes to sponsor kids. If you have a tithe, a gift, you know, you're bringing in your tithe that's designated, it'll go there, make a room campaign, it'll go there, all that stuff that's designated. But if it is loose, we're gonna take those off undesignated offerings, we're gonna sponsor kids today. So if you just drop something in, no, that's where it's going. Um if if um you want to designate, like he's like, I want to give to that, that's all you gotta do. There are envelopes in the seat back pockets in front of you, um, and there are giving centers when you leave the building today, just write foster camps on it, and it will go specifically to sponsor those kids to camp. We're gonna do something unique today, okay? Like um, this is where the sermon begins. So we're gonna jump off the deep end really quick. It's gonna be creative at first with a video, and then we're gonna go back into a song, and then I'll come and land the sermon with the words uh at the end. We felt something this year all over America today. Easter, Easter's a big deal in churches, and uh, there'll be flying angels and pyrotechnics blowing stones away from the grave and live animals all over the place. And like, hey, nothing wrong with creatively trying to tell the greatest story that ever told that's ever been told. We just didn't we felt like the Lord said don't do hype, just pull it back and make it a simple, deep, reflective conversation, and that's what this is gonna be. And there's a part of that conversation I want you to help us with. And the seatbacks in front of you, unless you're on the first row, they were in your seats when you came in, and there is a card that looks like this, and I'm gonna encourage you to get it. Reach into those seatbacks, and if you need to help, pass some around. There should be enough. If there's not, our team will serve you to make sure everybody gets one of these, okay? This is gonna kind of be a part of our journey for the rest of the day, okay. Um it says on the bottom, wait before you open it. It actually opens some of you. Cannot do that. You were the second grader that wanted you to open the first one to open it, okay? If you can, your curiosity doesn't get you wait. And I'll tell you why. This is what I as I prepared for Easter months ago. I felt like we needed something to designate the difference between our shame and his honor. The outside of that card is where we put our shame. We're gonna write it literally, whatever it is, we're gonna name it. Our heartache, our grief, our loss, our broken heart, um, our sin, our shame, our regret. We're gonna literally put them here. Later in the service, we're gonna open it because the inside is the promise where he exchanges his honor for our shame. The video's gonna lead us through that literally. We're gonna be given a moment to write early in the service whatever we want to put under the mercy of God. Like, what do I need him to cover in my life? When the song starts, at the end of the video, I'm gonna take mine's already written on it because I've had some time to contemplate before you. I'm literally in the song. We're gonna sing a song about the blood of Christ. I'm literally gonna give it to him, and I'm bringing it to him because I want this stuff covered in my life. I want it healed in my life. So take this journey with us. Turn your eyes towards this.

Imagine a life where you could bring them and someone else could carry them for you. What if the key to releasing those had very little to do with you? The answer is actually in the cross. That precious moment when Jesus gave his life, poured out his blood, not to shame us, but to save us. Even though it communicates death to us, in Scripture, blood often represents life. And when Jesus gave his life, he made a way for ours to be made new. Now, because of the cross, nothing has to stay hidden, nothing has to stay unforgiven, and nothing has to stay the way it's been. When Jesus died, the veil in the temple was torn, and the barrier between God and humanity removed. The blood of Jesus literally made a way for us to come home, for our staining guilt to be cleansed, for our brokenness to be restored. This means that whatever word has been spoken over your life, his blood still speaks a better one. His blood testifies, prophesies, and declares mercy, forgiveness, and a new life. That's why this moment matters. Because his blood isn't something we mourn, it's something we rejoice in. The cross isn't something to advise for the disease.

It's something we run to me.

We believe the blood. We see the blood the blood class. We need the blood. We believe the blood. We see the blood the blood.

But today we've come to put the crown on you in our hearts. Lord, I pray for this room, for our campuses, our online family, men and women in correctional facilities watching from their units, the people that are gathered in our overflow space today. I just pray that this is not an event. As a staff, we sat down this week and felt your rebuke. That we couldn't just be professional event planners putting on an event for people on a holiday weekend, that we had to experience Easter in our own hearts. And I pray today we can't just be churchgoers today that come to check a box on a cultural holiday, but we experience the reality of Easter in our hearts. Make it personal to us today, Lord. Break through the tradition and the culture and the schedule and what comes next. Make this moment sacred and may Christ come alive in us today. Open our hearts to your word. And may we be different because we came. In Jesus' name. A few months ago, I was on an airplane flying to the West Coast engagement there, and I might have had one of the most powerful times of prayer in my entire life. I think I was just feeling the weight of mastering people. That's what was going through my mind. They're getting names and they're uniting name. We have ministry for children in foster care. We have ministry for children with unique developmental challenges. We have men and women in correctional facilities all over the country. And I think in that moment of prayer, I was just exaggerated by the way trying to represent God in all of these different ways. Why can't we bring it? How does this actually work? What makes it possible for me to bring anything, literally anything to God, no matter how dark or how broken or how shameful and be able to actually release it to him and answer lies in the event that we've come to celebrate today? Not in Easter egg, not in Easter, not in the cultural holiday, but the cross and the empty. Here's what the Apostle Paul said to a group of people in the city of Colossae. These were people who understood their shame. They understood the weight of their sin. And Paul wanted to help them understand what Jesus had actually done for them, and he wrote to them and said, He forgave us all our sins. Having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us, he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. Don't miss the imagery of legal indebtedness. Every sin, every secret, every regret, every act of shame, Paul says it's like a certificate of accusation with your name on it. But Jesus took it as his own, nailing it to the cross. What you wrote on this card, or what you should have written on this card, is what he nailed to the cross. But the cross only tells half the story. Because if Jesus had stayed in the grave, we would have a dead Savior and a dead hope. Paul was even so blunt to say, and if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless and you are still guilty of your sins. But the reason we're gathered here today is because he didn't stay in the grave. And because the tomb is empty, sin and shame don't get the final word over your life. You are no longer defined by your worst moments. The cross is where you bring it. The empty tomb is why you can live again. The cross means that sin can be forgiven. The resurrection means your life can be changed. You aren't just forgiven, you can be made new. Paul told the Corinthians, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. And the bridge between bringing it to the cross and living again through the resurrection, the bridge that we stand on that gives us that kind of hope is a bridge called grace. And I just want to take a minute, slow down, and simply show you just how deep, just how far reaching, and maybe even how scandalous the grace of God actually is. A few days ago, some of our team went into our Hughes campus to conduct Easter services. Hughes is a maximum security men's prison here in Texas. And beside the planned service we were going to hold for the general population, we were surprised with an opportunity to facilitate something that has never been done in the history of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. We were given the sacred privilege of spending two hours with 13 men from administrative segregation. Those in ADSEG, as it's known, are considered so dangerous that they are in prison from prison. They live completely isolated from every other inmate. They rarely leave their cells, rarely socialize with each other or anyone else. And when they do have to leave their cells, they are chained from head to foot. And they are guarded on both sides by two guards. They are, by the world's definition, the unreachable, the undeserving, the worst of the worst, the too far gone. But through some of our field ministers on the unit who have been faithfully leading a small group for these men in this segregated unit, something happened. As these men heard the gospel, slowly but surely, in the quietness of their isolation, some of them started putting their faith in Jesus. And several of them started voicing the desire to be baptized. So last week, for the first time in the history of the Texas prison system, we were allowed to bring 13 of these men into the prison chapel at the same time. Never happened. We cleared the room of every chair except for the 13 needed for them to sit in. We held a service just like this for the 13 of them. Our worship team led a full worship moment. I preached an Easter sermon, and then we baptized them. And then we did something that you won't think is significant. It meant the world to them, and it was just as spiritual. We served them pizza. We got permission to bring in boxes of pizza. And we served them what is a delicacy to them, but it wasn't the pizza. We shared a table. We sat down beside them. We talked for a couple hours. We treated them with dignity as image bearers. We gave honor and we added value. And I want you to understand something. I didn't have to change the message I preached in that room. I didn't have to put a caveat or an asterisk beside the gospel when I preached it to those men. Because of the power that is in the blood of Christ, I stood in front of men who have committed some of the most unimaginable acts of human violence, some of them serving multiple life sentences, and I preached the whole gospel full of grace without hesitation. Why? How? Because of the promise that's in the gospel. Listen to what Paul said to Timothy. Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, the grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy, so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life. Paul says the grace that God has shown to me, the worst of the worst, is an example to you. That if he can transform me, he can transform you. And Paul would go on to tell us in the book of Romans that God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. Not after we cleaned up, not after we thought we earned it or deserved it, but while we were still sinners. The gospel isn't for people who think they have it all together. It never has been. Jesus didn't come for the healthy. Sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners. That's what makes the grace of God so scandalous. That's what makes it so offensive to our human sense of fairness. But that's all also what makes it so breathtakingly beautiful. If the blood of Christ is powerful enough to reach into a maximum security, isolation cell and transform the heart of a man who has done the unimaginable, then I can stand here on this Easter weekend and tell you with confidence that whatever you wrote on this card is not beyond his reach. Whatever you should have written on this card is not beyond his reach. You are not too far gone. You have not done too much, you have not waited too long. Why? Because God doesn't grade on a curve, he pays sin debt in full. What did we read a moment ago from Paul? He forgave us all our sin, having canceled, completely canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us. He has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. That kind of grace is not something you earn. That kind of grace is something you receive. And the only thing that is standing between you and his grace right now is your willingness to bring it and release it. Bring whatever it is you need to give to God. Your sin, your shame, your brokenness, your grief and heartbreak, whatever it is, you need to put under his mercy. Bring it. But when you bring it to him, you've got to give it to him. You've got to release it. You gotta let it go. You have to exchange what you brought with you for what he's trying to offer you. And Paul talks about the potential of that exchange when he writes in 1 Corinthians, God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Paul is saying that Jesus takes our sin-stained, soiled, dirty garments, and he puts them on himself, and in exchange, he gives us his robes of righteousness. That's the exchange. The Easter story is not about you trying to work up and put together some kind of righteousness and prove yourself to God. The Easter story is about God putting together a perfect righteousness and he's trying to give it to you. When you put your faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, this is the exchange promised in the gospel. We can exchange our sin for his righteousness, we can exchange our shame for his honor. We get to exchange our rejection, his rejection, for our adoption and his exposure for our covering. And because that kind of exchange is possible, I want to do something right now, a little too early. For those of you that go to church a lot, this is not normally where this happens, but I felt like I needed to stop right now. We got a couple other things we need to do, but I needed to stop right now and lead the room in a really honest prayer. This is not hype, not emotional manipulation, no music. It's the preacher of the gospel, you and the Holy Spirit doing business with God. This is not a religious formality, but a moment between you and a God who already knows everything you wrote or should have written on that card, a God who knows it all and loves you anyway. Maybe you've never surrendered your life to Jesus before, ever. Maybe today is the day that changes. Maybe you've known Jesus for years, but you've been carrying something that you've never fully given over. Maybe today's the day that changes too. Release it. This prayer is for all of us. Because at the foot of the cross we all come the same way with sin-stained lives in need of grace. This is a bring it and release it prayer. The words will be on the screen, and that's all they are is words on a screen. Until by faith you own them, make them yours, and you mean them in prayer to the Lord. If you do, they could be more than words on a screen. This could be a moment that changes the trajectory of your life, both here, now, and for all of eternity. Jesus, I'm tired of carrying this. I'm tired of pretending I'm okay, tired of hiding, tired of managing what was what I was never meant to carry. You already see it all anyway. Nothing about my life is hidden from you. You see the sin, the shame, the regret, all the things I wish I could undo, and still you love me. Today, I'm done running. I'm done hiding. I'm done trying to hold this together on my own. I bring it all to you. Not just the polished parts of me, but the parts I've been afraid to admit. I truly believe you went to the cross for me. You took my place, you carried my sin. You absorbed the weight of everything I've done and everything that's been done to me. And I truly believe you rose again. You didn't just come to forgive me, you came to give me a new life. So today, I surrender. Not halfway and not just the easy things, everything. My past, my present, my future, my control, my fear, my identity. I give it all to you. Forgive me, heal me, change me, make me new. Teach me how to walk free and live differently. Teach me how to trust you, to serve you as Lord and Savior. I don't want to carry what you've already paid for. So today I release by faith. I leave it with you. Jesus, from this moment forward, all that I am belongs to you. Amen. I want us to go back to the card that you had with you a moment ago. You wrote on. I want you to find that card because I want us to start thinking the shame is on the outside, everything, it's on the outside, but there's a promise on the inside, and we're going to exchange the shame for his honor. So if you would, I want you to open that card with me right now, and I want us to see what's on the inside of that card. This is the declaration that is now possible over your life because of Easter. Because he died, I can bury my shame. Because he lives, I can live again. That's the honor side. That's the truth that is being declared over your life today. It is the exchange that you make when you put your faith in him. He takes the sin and shame and gives you his righteousness and his honor. And if you'll notice the card is perforated in the middle. At some time before you leave this service, right now, or before you go, tear the card. Make the exchange. Separate your shame for his honor and make the trade. And here's what we want you to do: we want you to take the honor portion of the card with you. Take this declaration over your life. Put it in your wallet, on your mirror, in your car, somewhere where you see it, and let it remind you of the promise of the gospel over your life. And then listen, if you would honestly say, maybe today was the first time you ever prayed a meaningful prayer of surrender in your life to Jesus. Maybe for the first time since you were a kid, in your adult life, you felt God in a moment and you truly surrendered your heart to Him in that prayer. If that's true, then when you leave, go to the area out in the lobbies that are labeled next steps because I want to help you. The passion of my life is to help you take the next step spiritually and grow. I've asked them to put a gift together for you. There's a gift out there that has this promise given in a more creative way that actually captures and visualizes what's going on in your heart today. Go stop by next steps and pick that up. But for all of us, all of our shame portions of the card, leave them here. Don't take them with you. Once and for all, release it. There will be receptacles at the back of the room when you leave, accessible to you on the way out. Unburden your soul. Get rid of it. Throw it away. Put it in the receptacles. Give it to God. But listen to me. This is not for everybody. But somebody needs to lean in and listen to this today because for some of you, this moment is more significant than it is for everybody else. You don't need to do the convenient thing and drop it in a receptacle on the way out. You don't need to quietly just go through the back of the building. There's something deep enough happening in your heart today, and you know it, that you need to bring it to an altar. You don't need to do the convenient thing. You need to take the extra time. You need to go against the flow, even if you have to let the aisles clear out, make your way to the front of the room and leave it here. Your physical act of surrender needs to match the spiritual reality of what is happening in the depths of your soul. You need to draw a well-defined line in the sand of your life so that Easter 2026 is a turning point in your life. The men in the Hughes unit did it. In front of their cellmates and their hecklers and their doubters. They didn't care. They're not worried about managing their images. They don't, they just don't want to carry it another day. So they brought it and they left it and they walked out in the hope of living again in the promise of resurrection life. Across the front of all of our campuses, these are their cards. We brought them with us and we're spreading them out in front of you across our campus family today because if they can do it in there, you can do it in here. I'm gonna pray us out in a moment, and our worship team will be in the background, just keeping the environment worshipful for you to reflect and respond as you leave. And for some of us, this is just the kind of the end of an Easter service. This is the, you know, we did it, we checked the box, check, we did, we're going with our life. This is just a normal dismissal. For a lot of us, this will be a moment of meaningful response to God where we put this in a receptacle at the back of the room. It's a meaningful moment. God, I don't want to carry this anymore, and we let go of it. But for some of us, we know, you know who you are. You would be walking away from the tug of the Holy Spirit in your life if you went backwards instead of forward. He's calling you to do the harder thing, the more inconvenient thing today, and leave it in the front. There's just something about making a decision to do the harder thing that is a more significant marker of a new beginning in your life. And if you come, you don't have to rush. You can lay it here and go. If you want to come lay it here and go, that's fine. But if you need to do business with God for a minute, before you let it go or after you let it go, you can kneel. You can stand over it. I watched a lady last night lay it down, pick it up, lay it down, pick it up. I could tell she was wrestling, and finally, after about the fifth time, she laid it down, picked it up, and just tore it up and threw it down and walked out. She was done. And she walked out of here trusting God for her future. Don't feel like you gotta rush it. You've got time today to let you sit in this moment. Before we walk out today, I want to leave you with this. Easter is not just a date on the calendar, it's an announcement of how the rest of your life gets to be lived. The apostle Paul, who himself had a past full of things that he wasn't proud of, he wrote this my old self has been crucified with Christ. Everything Paul would have written on this card, he says, that's been nailed to a cross. It's no longer I that lives, it is Christ that lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. The life you live now, live it in the reality of the empty tomb. Hear me. In Christ, you are not who you were. In Christ, you are not what you did. In Christ, you are not what has been done to you. You were loved, you are forgiven. In Christ, you are free. So go live again. You won't do it perfectly, you won't do it without struggle, but you can do it fully alive in the grace of a God who walked out of a grave to prove that death and shame and sin don't get the final word over your life. He does. And his word over you today is this. He told me to tell you. Just tell him I love him, brother. He loves you. And because he loves you, you can bring it whatever it is. You can leave it, whatever it is, and you can walk out of here and really, really live again. That's the hope of feast. Listen, can I challenge you? I know, I know everybody don't play along. I get that. I know that. But what this is, it's a simple touch point because. There's some of you that looked at it, didn't respond, but it caused things to surface in your heart. You know you need to give to God. Do it. He paid too high a price for you to come to church on an Easter and leave the same way you walked in. There are men and women in this room that felt things they wanted to give to God, but they were afraid to write it down because of everybody or too many eyes, too many eyes. And wait. Let the room clear out. Spend some time with him. And don't take this out of here with you. Bring it and leave it and go live again. I'm gonna do something today that I normally don't do a little different. I always pray a benediction blessing over you. For 21 years, I prayed the exact same one. Bless them, keep them. That's what I prayed, the priestly blessing from number six. Matter of fact, there are kids that have grown up in our church. They see me at Walmart and they say, Bless them and keep them. They quote it back to me at Walmart because they've heard it their whole life. And for those of you that like everything the same, I'm gonna mess you up today because I'm not gonna pray that prayer today. I wanted to pray an Easter benediction that captures the power of resurrection that is available to you when you go today. It says this in Ephesians 3. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever.

Amen.

Go live again. He loves you, I do. God bless. These altars are open.