Church, listen, this morning we celebrate the greatest news in history, that the stone has been rolled away, that the tomb is empty, and Jesus is alive. Can we celebrate that at all of our campuses? I'll tell you. Listen, that news can just never get old. I don't know which Easter number this is for you, but I talked to somebody in the atrium over here at Lincoln Road.

She's 87 years old, and she was still crying. Just about the weight and the joy that Easter brings her. And I'm going to tell you, I don't know what it's like for you. Maybe this is kind of routine, but what I'm going to challenge you with this morning is to maybe let this morning... Maybe it's going to beat your expectations.

And you're going, "Craig, it already did. You guys sang a hymn, 'Adventure.' I didn't know that was coming." So I love that, too, but I'm going to tell you, this is a weird weekend to be a preacher. It just is, man. You kind of feel pressure all weekend. You start praying and you start thinking, "Hey, how can I bring the message a little better than I did last year?

What can we do? What angle can we give this year that maybe someone sees?" And then there's pressure because I'm going to be honest with you, I don't get to speak to a lot of you every week. Some of you, man, I better hit it today because I'm not going to see you again till Christmas. And that's okay. But what I'm telling you is I feel that weight because I want to connect with you today.

And maybe there's a reality that when you hear that, you go, "You know, Craig, let's be honest, I feel some pressure today. Man, I had to get here on time, and I had to get my kids here, and I didn't know if I was going to find a seat." Most people found a seat. And maybe you feel a little bit of weight today, too. Well, I started thinking about some moments in Scripture when Jesus would've spoken to a crowd kind of like today. And you go all the way back to one of the first moments where he spoke to a crowd that's in Luke 8, and he told me something in that passage.

He told all of us something there that we can kind of expect from a crowd. He said, "When you speak to a crowd like this," and he gave them a parable. That's how Jesus taught a lot of times. He said basically people are going to fall in one of three different categories. Some of the people that you're talking to today is kind of like hard ground.

Maybe it's been a difficult season in their life. Maybe they have kind of been church hurt, and I get that. Maybe they've been disappointed in some things, but for whatever reason, it's like you're going to plant some seeds today. You're going to share the Gospel. You're going to open up the Word, but their heart's just not ready yet.

Maybe the reality is, look, you are either going to have to go to your mother-in-law's or you could come to church, and you chose church. That's a great choice. But it may be that today, it may just be a day that we begin to plant some seeds, but it may not be the day for you. And then it says there's other people that are going to be listening when you share the Word and you share the truth, and there's going to be something that happens in them. And I love this because I hear it from so many of you.

It's like, "Craig, I can't come in that place without crying. It's like something happens to me every time I walk in." But Jesus said that for some of you, you're going to plant seeds, and it's going to come out, and it's going to take. You're going to put it in your purse. You're going to hold it in your pocket. But then it's like the worries of the world just choke it out.

And I think what that means is you're like, "Yeah, maybe me, but just not me right now. My life is busy. I got a lot of things I got to do. There's a lot going on." And I get that, too. Then he said there's another category of people, and he said, look, some people, it's like good soil.

When you throw that seed out, which is God's Word and his truth, and you pray, and you ask the Holy Spirit to work in your life, you're going to see people respond. And I just want you to know today that that's what we're praying for, that maybe this would be a day for you that you begin to respond to what God wants to do in your life because I believe that this is good soil. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to open up God's Word today, and we're going to be in a text I think that's incredibly powerful. It is the story.

When you think about it and you go, man, there's believers all over the world. What do we really have in common? Maybe we're a different color. Maybe our education level's different. Maybe we speak a different language.

Maybe we weren't from a two-parent home. Really, what are the things that we share in common? This passage, this reality of Easter is the thing that unites us, that we believe that Jesus died on the cross for us and that he was buried. But three days later, he conquered death, and he's alive. Now, that is the heartbeat of the Gospel.

That is what we all share in common, that we've put our faith in this story. So let's read it together. We're going to be in the very first book of the New Testament. We're going to be in Matthew, but we're going to be in the very last chapter of Matthew because we've gotten to the end of Jesus' ministry, of his life on Earth, and we just experienced the crucifixion. If you were here Friday night with us, we had an incredible night Friday night where we flowered the cross.

It was this visual picture. We brought this symbol of death back to life because we knew what was coming on Sunday. And so now we're going to join the story on Sunday, and let's see how the grave is empty. Let's read it together. Here we go.

I'm going to read for you. Feel free to jump on the app. You can follow along with us. All right, Matthew 28, starting in verse one. It says, "After the Sabbath, at dawn on the very first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.

Now there was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it." Now, I love that little verse because this is just for free. I have a feeling that the Marys were so anxious and worried, like how in the world were they going to prepare the body? How were they going to do anything with this big stone that was there? They were worried about things that never happen. It's almost like God was ahead of them.

Let's keep reading. I believe I'm in verse three. "His appearance," this is talking about the angel, "His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men." Now, many of you, when you worship, you look like a dead man.You're going to have to come alive a little bit. We even gave you a hymn today.

Verse five, "The angel said to the woman, 'Do not be afraid, for I know that you're looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here. He has risen.'" Are you ready? We're going to do this together. I'm going to say, "He has risen," and you're going to say back, "He has risen indeed." You ready?

He has risen. He has risen indeed. Yeah, that's a good word, man. Let's keep reading. "Come and see the place where he lay," verse seven.

"Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead and he is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him. Now I have told you..." And I love that little part, too, because it's like, "Look, it's off my hands, guys. I've told you. Do what you want to do.

He has risen. The angels are out." All right, here we go. "So the woman hurried away from the tomb. She was afraid, yet filled with joy. She ran to tell the disciples.

Now suddenly, Jesus met them. 'Greetings,' he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, 'Do not be afraid.'" Listen, I love that little line right there because can you imagine all the things that she was afraid of in that moment? She had seen people that looked like dead people.

She had seen an angel. She was scared to death about what the reality of her faith was going to be like. Everything she had hoped for had been crucified and put in a tomb, and then Jesus says... See, I don't think he's just calming her down in the moment. I think he's saying, "No, no, there's still hope.

Do not be afraid." I don't know what you're facing today, but you need to hear that. "Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee. There they will see me." Now, let me give you a title for today's message. The title of the message is "The Jesus That Maybe You Didn't See Coming." You ever had a moment like that in your life where it's like, "I've got everything figured out.

We're going to show up at this time. We're going to go have dinner. It's going to be a great date," and then something happens, and it just throws off the whole day? Maybe it happened to you this morning. You were like, "We're going to get here on time.

I know we are. We're going to wear this outfit," and then the baby spits up. Maybe if you've ever had a season where you coached Little League baseball, lots of stuff happens on the baseball field, and one of my favorite seasons was when I got to be the coach of a 9 and 10-year-old baseball team right over here, for all my folks in Hattiesburg, right over here at Optimist Park. And I'll never forget one night at Optimist Park, man, we were playing balls. The playoff time, my team was terrible.

We were terrible. But all of a sudden, we showed up one night. I just knew this was going to be the night we were going to get 10-run ruled, and this was the night that these little boys who had never hit the baseball all of a sudden hit the baseball. And so now every time we go by Optimist Park, we say, "It's the miracle at Optimist Park." It's how we remember it. I want to tell you, these ladies, they had seen the whole crucifixion.

They were there. They had watched as they took Jesus and they put him in the tomb. They were a part of this whole thing. They saw it. They knew what had happened.

So when they showed up the next time with flowers to come honor him, they weren't ready for this. Sure, Jesus had told them. He had called his shot this was going to happen, but they had missed it. And so when they showed up that morning, this was not what they had expected. Her expectations were off for that day.

I want to talk about your expectations for today. Maybe you expected it to be a day that you just showed up like every other Sunday. Maybe you expected it to be a day where you didn't know if you were going to find a seat, but you got one. Maybe you expected just to come in and come out and grab lunch and take a picture with an azalea bush. Man, there's more.

She experienced so much more that day, and I want more for you. I was at lunch a couple weeks ago, and it's a weird thing when you're a pastor. It's really weird when you're leaving a place, and sometimes you hear people say, "Craig." You're like, "Oh, okay, cool." Sometimes they'll say, "Brother Craig," and you're like, "Ooh, I don't know." Sometimes they'll just say, "Preacher," and you're like, "Oh, this is bad." And I was walking out, and I heard a guy say, "Preacher." And so I stopped and came back, and he introduced himself. He told me his name, and he said, "I go to the Jones County campus." And I thought, "Oh, free state of Jones. He's going to have something to say, for sure." You know what he said?

I thought it was the most interesting story. He said, "I've tried so many churches." And he said, "Now me and my kids and my grandkids, we all go to Venture, and what I want to thank you for is that you lead a lively church." Now think about that with me for a minute, because I loved to hear it. It was a cool day for me. It made my lunch. I loved his perspective because I'm going to be honest with you.

I'm not hating on you, brother, but I didn't know if I saw that coming from him. I may have been judging, but he said he loved a lively church. Now, that would mean if it's not lively, then what would he have been expecting? Weird. Dead.

Or even worse, deadly. You ever been in a church and it's dead? Listen, I'll be honest with you guys. I'm here most every week. I don't know what that really means, but I'm assuming that there's places that you would go and it's an environment that's deadly.

Can you see how far off that is from the Scripture that we just read? These ladies came to the tomb, and how was the tomb? It was empty. He's not there anymore. He's alive.

So if he's alive, if you came today expecting to come to a graveside service, you're at the wrong place. If you walk in week after week and it's deadly, then you missed the whole Gospel because he is alive. And because he's alive, me and you, we have hope. We worship a risen saviorNo, I'm speaking to you about your expectations. Maybe for you, you look at your faith, and if you were really honest, it's more dead than it is alive.

Man, I think God's got something different for you today. I think there's a place in this that you've got to begin to ask, "Hey, well, what about me? Like if you were to survey my life and my faith, would you come back and say, 'Man, it's kind of dead'? Or would you be like, 'No, there's a heartbeat here. This thing's alive.'" Here's the first thing I want you to see from this passage, all right?

I'm going to show you just a couple of things. First thing I want you to see is that Jesus shows up in close and personal ways. And maybe that's not what you were expecting, and that's okay because you just grew up in this place where you come to church for an hour and then you go home. It's like categories. It's like a to-do list.

You check it off the box, and then you move on to the next thing. I want you to see Mary's interaction with Jesus and just how different it is than like a box you check off. Watch how this moment's described. "So the woman hurried away from the tomb." This is what we just read. And I love this about you ladies.

I think ladies are so much better at this. Men, I'm going to help you out. Our ladies can feel two things at one time. Men, we struggle with that. But she, in this moment, was afraid.

Yet at the same time, you're the only ones that can do this, you were also filled with joy. "She ran to tell the disciples. Now suddenly Jesus met them. 'Greetings,' he said. They came to him and they clasped his feet and they worshiped him.

And then Jesus said, 'Do not be afraid.'" Do you see how personable that moment is? I mean, she ran to him. She fell at his feet and clasped hold of him, and then he said, of all the different things he could say, he looks at her and says, "Listen, do not be afraid. No, no, I'm here. I'm with you." Now, here's what I want to do.

I want to walk you through something, and hang with me. Don't let me lose you in this moment because this is really cool. When you leave here today and you're telling your mama and them about today, some of you, most of you, you're going to talk about the hymn. It was amazing, y'all. We worshiped.

But then there's another of you that's going to be sitting over here, and if I were to ask you about today, there's going to be something in the message that speaks to you. Then someone else, if I asked you about today, you'd be like, "Y'all, you should have seen it, man. People were beautiful. The place was full. People helped me with my coffee.

It was great." What I'm telling you is there's a different perspective from all of us, and I want you to see this moment in Scripture that we just read from John's perspective because he gives us a different angle, and it still is going to show you how close and personal this was. Now, John, he's kind of a dude's dude because despite this incredible moment about Jesus being alive, he gives us this whole other little narrative, this subplot about how Mary was at the tomb. She leaves the tomb to go find the disciples, just like Jesus said. And on their way back, John gives us all these details about a race. He's like, "Peter and John were racing to get back." Okay?

So we're going to skip the race. Read it later. You'll figure out who wins. Okay? But I want you to see the way he describes this moment when Mary sees Jesus, and I want you to ask yourself, is this like you?

Is there something close and personal in you if you were to hear Jesus do this for you? Okay? Here it is. Let me get over to John real quick. Starting in verse 11.

"But Mary stood outside the tomb crying." Okay, here's his details. Here's how he saw this. "As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb. Now she saw two angels in white. They were seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head, the other at the foot.

They asked her, 'Woman, why are you crying?'" We saw all this in the last interaction. "'They've taken my Lord away,' she said, 'and I don't know where they've put him.' Now at this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus." You're going, "What? How could she not realize? I thought this was close and personal." Well, let's be real. She's kind of had a moment.

She has seen Roman guards that look like dead people. She's had a face-to-face encounter with angels, two of them. And now she hears something, and man, she's emotional. So she turns around like, "What is this? Who could this be?" Now watch.

"'Woman,' he said, 'why are you crying? And who is it that you're looking for?' Thinking he was the gardener, she said to him, 'Sir, if you've carried him away, just tell me. Like where did you put him? And I'll go get him.' And then Jesus said to her," here's the thing I want you to see, "'Mary.'" What do you think it was like for her to hear the person that she had seen down the cross, taken off the cross, buried in the tomb, stone rolled away, the person that she had worshiped for years, the one she had put all her faith in and all her hope in, to be buried, and then in that moment, she hears him say her name? She would have done anything to hear her name again.

Think about someone in your life that you're close to, and you go, "Man, if I could hear my dad say my name again. God, if I could hear my wife say my name one more time." Do you know how powerful that would be to me? Do you see what I'm saying? I don't know your expectations. Like man, I know you're thinking, "Man, God's mad at me.

God's disappointed at me. God would never say, call, love, know me by name." Yeah. No, he does. And he is desiring to call you by name. Do you see how she went from hopeless to hopeful in a moment?

And that's what I want you to hear today because I don't know all the things that you're carrying and weighing, but she had lost hope. And maybe you're there today where you've kind of given up on a little part of your faithOf your life. And in that one moment, to hear Jesus call her name, all of a sudden, everything changed, and maybe that's you today. Now, what I love about this is there's 500 different moments like this. These resurrection narratives is what they call it, where people who saw Jesus before he was crucified to where they see him again after he's crucified.

So there's so many of these that I could pick from. I don't want to give you just one. I want to give you another one, and this one is for anyone who's here today and you feel confused or disappointed. Because that is real. I think we sometimes framed it like all the Christians have everything figured out and life is perfect.

Well, that's just not true. And for these two that are walking back home from Jerusalem, they were disappointed. They had come to Palm Sunday. They were ready to see Jesus take over. They had their own agenda for Jesus, and he didn't meet it.

Last thing they knew, Jesus was buried and dead in the grave. And so Scripture joins in their story. Now, of all the different stories, there's over 500 resurrection narratives. Why do you think Luke chose to put this one in the text? I think it's because he knew we could relate to that.

We're going to hit seasons where we're discouraged, where we're disappointed. We're going to have moments where we have questions. God, why didn't you answer my prayer on my time? That's them. I love the detail they give us, and I'm going to read you some of the story.

But they're walking. They've got a seven-mile journey back home from Jerusalem to Emmaus. And I love the little detail it gives us. He says they were downcast. And a couple of weeks ago, Gray, our campus pastor at The Hunt Club, was preaching, and he said this.

He said, "Sometimes I have to fix my face." I don't know if you're like that. He said his wife has to tell him, "Bro, fix your face." These two, man, they were down. They were discouraged. And in the midst of this journey, this is so wild. I guess I get like this because when things aren't going right in my life, it's like I can't see anything outside of my life.

I get really selfish. And so despite things not going right, they're complaining to each other. They're downcast. All of a sudden, there's somebody else that's walking back from Jerusalem that's right there with them. Scripture says it was just like another bystander joined in with them.

Well, it's Jesus. But they're so wrapped up in how things didn't work out the way they wanted it to work out that they don't even realize that this is Jesus. So they don't even change their tone until later on in the story. Now, watch this verse. Let me show you this.

This describes the way they're feeling in that moment. "We had hoped," and some of you are like, this is the part of the message I connect with. I'd really hoped that I'd have a baby this time of year. I'd really hoped that my row today was going to be full of my family. Man, we had hoped.

I don't know the details for you. They had hoped that he was going to be the Messiah, that he would come to rescue them, and that was three days ago. Some of you are like, "They were disappointed for just three days? I've been disappointed for months." This was a seven-mile journey. I don't know how far along in your journey you are of being disappointed or confused, but I need you to see the way this encounter ends.

Watch what happens when they have a meal together. This is the two that are discouraged. All of a sudden, the third bystander joins them, and now they sit and break bread. You can use that term when you go to lunch today. We're going to break bread.

We're going to eat together. As they sat down to eat, he took the bread, and he blessed it. This is Jesus. They just don't know it. Then he broke it, and he gave it to them.

Now watch. This is what I want for you today. Suddenly, and you know people like this. You know their story, where it was like they raised all kind of H-E-double hockey sticks. But then something happened in their life.

You look up and down your row, there's people on your row that that's your story. You were far from God, but then something happened. It's like the Gospel just dropped from your head to your heart. Suddenly, their eyes were opened. You said, "That wasn't my expectations for today." Yeah, I know.

I think your expectations may have been off. And they recognized him. You mean Jesus was close the whole time? Like this whole seven-mile journey, he was right there? Yeah, he was close to them.

And at that moment, he disappeared. Now, I love that little text. He saw 500 people in 40 days. He raised from the dead. He walked through walls.

He can disappear if he wants to. So in that moment, he disappears. What I need you to see today is that he's closer than you may think. What I need you to see today is that this relationship with Jesus that you feel is absent or kind of secondary or really not personal, watch the way they describe this conversation with him. They said to each other, "Didn't our hearts burn within us as we talked with us?" You're saying, is that possible with a relationship with Jesus?

I felt that with my wife 30 years ago. I felt that one time on a date. I remember, man, it was like something was going on. In fact, the message of this says, "It was like we were on fire." That's the kind of relationship and walk Jesus wants to have with you. When you realize that your sin has been forgiven and that there's a plan for you, that he loves you, and that his grace is radical for you, something burns on the inside of you, and that's the way they describe this moment, and you're like, "Hey, my expectation was just to come and to go, and I hope to find a seat, and we're going to take a picture." But what I'm telling you is there is more for you.

And listen, I need to give it to you really concise because I'm running out of time, but I want you to see this. Here's the third thing I want you to experience today because this is really radical, and I don't know if you're ready for this. He can renew you day by dayMoment by moment. What I'm telling you is you don't have to wait until next Easter to feel this way again. That the whole idea of the resurrection, that it's not just a day in history we celebrate and we dress up once a year, but day by day, this renewal, this rebirth, this rising you up from whatever it is you're facing can be a reality of your life.

Let me show you in Scripture. This is in 2 Corinthians. Watch what Paul says. "We know that God, who raised the Lord Jesus," are you seeing this? "Will also raise us." No, not me.

I'm disqualified from that. Us means the people other places. No, us means us. This is Paul that's writing this, the one that was trying to stomp out the movement of Christianity, and now he's saying the resurrection wasn't just true of Jesus. He's saying, "It's true in my life.

It can be true in your life." That he will raise us up with Jesus and present us to himself together with you. All of this is for whose benefit? For your benefit. For your day and for your family, for your life today, Easter exists. And as God's grace reaches more and more people, man, that's why we do what we do, so we can keep telling this story.

That's why you want to keep being a part of what we're doing. That's why you want to come back, because there's more that need to know this. More and more people. There will be great thanksgiving, and God will receive more and more glory. Watch this.

This is why we never give up. This is why we keep playing the songs, and we keep giving the messages, because there's more grace, there's more stories, there's more people to go from death to life than just Jesus thousands of years ago. It's for you. Now watch this. You can be renewed every single day.

I don't know if that's your expectations with your faith. See, I'm afraid that you just have a Bible somewhere, and you put it on a shelf like this, and then your life exists over here on this side. But what this word is saying is when you begin to have this word in your heart, and you begin to practice his ways, he's going to renew you moment by moment, day by day. Here's where the problem exists, and then I'm done. You're thinking to yourself, "Yeah, but I know a lot of Christians," because this is the Bible Belt, "and that doesn't really feel like what I see in their life." I know them too.

I'm just telling you that doesn't have to be you. And for you to let other Christians that aren't being renewed day by day, and you feel like they're hypocrites, keep you from experiencing a life-changing relationship with Jesus, that's on you. That's just clutter. I hate clutter. Clutter gets in the way.

Don't let other people get in the way. You step into something today that maybe is not what you expected. Think on these three things as you walk out of here today. Three things. Jesus wants to show up in a really close and a personal way in your life, in your journey, in your story, in your marriage, in your faith.

Jesus shows up even when you're confused and when you're discouraged. He's really not into that put on your best face kind of thing. Third thing, Jesus wants to renew you day by day, moment by moment. So here's what I want to do for you. I want to pray for you.

In fact, I want to pray over you, but I want to challenge you because I told you we're going to throw out some seed today. Remember the parable from Jesus? I'm telling you, you are good soil. And maybe there's something in this that hits in your heart that you think, "Man, my life can look different." It can. And so I'm going to lead you through that.

I want you to pray with me. Bow your heads at all of our campuses and, man, I hope you've heard something today that sticks. Maybe it's the song. Maybe it's just the awe of this moment to go, "Man, yeah, something's different about this room." But the heartbeat of today is that you can be renewed. That you can pray, God, come into my heart.

Father, forgive me for my sins. I'm ready to follow you into the new life that you have for me. Renew me. Be close to me. I desire a personal relationship with you.

I thought that maybe I was hard ground. But God, you're softening my heart. I want to know you. I want to follow you. Father, I thank you for what we get to do, that we get to tell about the good news that's the Gospel.

We get to lead people, communities, churches, into relationships where we don't have to look like the rest of the world. That instead, we can have this walk with you where you renew us moment by moment, day by day. God, I just need to tell you, I need you. I need you in my life to renew me. God, the cross and the resurrection is my story.

It's my sin that's on that cross, but you paid for it. And then, God, you conquered it. So God, help me live a life that reflects the Gospel, the good news. God, help me see that despite my mistakes and my sin, that it's good soil. That you're not through with me, and that you're writing a different story in my life.

Father, I love you and I worship you. It's in your name we pray. Amen.