Inspire

Guest (Male): Aloha and welcome to the Inspire Church podcast. Whether you're on a walk, driving to work, or just need to hear a fresh word, this is your spot to get inspired, challenged, and equipped to live a faith-filled life.

Guest (Female): Each episode, you'll hear powerful sermons straight from our weekend services that speak into your life, your leadership, and your legacy. Before we dive in, do us a favor. Hit that subscribe button, leave a review, and share this with someone who needs a word today. And if you want more resources like Pastor Mike's newest book, *Blow Your Mind*, head over to mikekai.tv. All right, let's lean in, open your hearts, and let God speak through this message.

Mike Kai: Anybody watch Sean Ryan? Sean Ryan. Yeah, if you know, you know. Sean Ryan is amazing. So if you're not with Sean Ryan yet, check out his podcast. He is one of the best people that I listen to. There's a few more, but I just wanted to share that one. Jeremiah Johnston, the founder of the Christian Thinkers organization, talks about the resurrection of Jesus and historically how accurate it is, as even the Shroud of Turin.

I thought the Shroud of Turin was just a Catholic relic. I thought it was a Catholic thing that came out in the 70s. They found it in France, now it's in Italy right now, and it is more than a Catholic relic. It is something that you and I can put our faith and trust in, another receipt to validate our faith in Jesus Christ. Can I get an amen? That is why we are here. You and I are here because of a resurrection. We're not here because of a man that is still in a tomb. We're here because a man was risen from the dead. Can I get an amen?

So you're in the right place, I'm in the right place. But we have to start with the Passover meal on Thursday night. Thursday night was that Passover meal. And on that last supper, which is beautifully portrayed in the series called *The Chosen*—stayed up a little bit later watching that version last night—powerful, incredible. That last Passover meal. Why Passover? Because it was the feast of Passover during that time that Jesus on that Thursday night was having his meal with his disciples. It would be his last one, the last time that he would be breaking bread with them until he came into his kingdom or until heaven.

Now he's eating this with them. But before he even begins to eat the food, he has to explain the symbolism of everything that they're eating. So back in the book of Exodus, thousands of years ago, Jesus is now fulfilling what was done in the book of Exodus. In the book of Exodus, if you remember, God picks Moses to lead the people out of Egypt into the promised land before the Red Sea. But before that even happens, Pharaoh is hard-headed, hard-hearted, and won't let God's people go.

So what does he do? God has to send one plague after another for a total of 10 plagues. We're talking about a plague of boils all over the skin. We're talking about blood in the water. We're talking about a plague of frogs, gnats, hail, everything ruining all the crops. And finally, Pharaoh will not change his mind because his heart was hard. So God says, "All right, I'm going to let my people go by doing the last one. It will be the one that hurts the most. It will be the killing of the firstborn of every family by the angel of death."

And so the children of Israel, over a million of them, were warned. And he told them, "I want you to get a lamb. Every family gets a lamb. If you can't finish a lamb, you're going to share—that family's going to share with this family—and you're going to roast the lamb and eat it together." You're going to eat this lamb but you're not going to sit because you're going to remember to put your cloak in. You're going to have to leave that night. You're going to have to leave in haste. We're also not going to wait for the bread to rise. So no yeast in the bread. It will be unleavened bread. And then we're going to eat it flat and we're going to eat it with bitter herbs.

Bitter herbs because of the bitter journey throughout Egypt and the bitter journey of life. Jesus is explaining this to them. "I'm the lamb. I mean, I'm the lamb. I am the lamb of God." John the Baptist pointed to him in the Gospel of John and said, "Look, the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world." It was John the Baptist who said Jesus is a lamb of God. Jesus is the fulfillment of the scripture. And while he's eating this Passover meal with them, explaining it to them, talking about his own body, his own life, the bitter herbs—they're going to eat this.

And then he says, "But the most important part was they needed to take a branch of hyssop and put the branch in the blood because they had to drain the blood from the lamb in order to eat it." So you drain the blood, you capture it, and then you put the branch in it. And then you go to the doorpost of your home and you paint the doorpost with the blood. And then the other house, they take the blood and they paint the doorpost of their house with the blood. And so on and so forth. All these Hebrews are painting the doorpost with the blood and the doorpost is going over the cross over the blood. It is the blood. And so the angel of death passes over their home.

If you did not have the blood, then the firstborn of every family would die. And the wailing and the crying and the weeping of Egypt was so huge that Pharaoh begged them to leave. Leave, leave. After 400 years of captivity, 400 years of enslavement, they finally let God's people go. And it took that last plague to do it. So the Hebrews, the Jewish people, they celebrate Passover. And on this last Passover evening, Jesus was with his disciples. He is eating this meal with them. He knows there's a betrayer amongst them. This is Thursday night.

He eats this meal with them and then he knows his betrayer is with them and it's Judas. So he gives him a piece of bread. And when Judas eats the piece of bread, Jesus looks at him and still loved him and said, "You must go do what you do quickly." Prior to that, he still washed Judas's feet. I would have broken his leg, but he washed. Jesus washed Judas's feet. On Friday night, I washed feet. I haven't washed feet in a long time. To be able to wash feet on a Good Friday, I've always thought, no, maybe not. We'll talk about it, we'll just read about it.

But last Friday night, I felt like I needed to. So I came up here and just by the inspiration of the Lord, who do you want me to wash? Whose feet do you want me to wash? And I was looking through the crowd at that guy right there, that guy sitting over there, and that guy right there. And they all came up and guys, I want you to be proud of your pastor. I washed grown men's feet. Grown men's feet. And I washed, and I mean like, I didn't drop no essential oil in there just to help me out. And I washed their feet. I just washed their feet. And you know what? It was humbling. It was humbling for me. Because if it's your family, you can do your family. But somebody else and another man? If I had my way, I would have gone, "Hey, can you ask so-and-so just go pick out from the list and make sure they go get a pedicure first before they show up because I don't want to feel the rough heel." But I washed the feet. I know some guys, "Bro, I hope he gave massage." Like massage too? No. Just washing. I could see them in the eye, they wanted me for massage. Anyway, moving right along.

Stop it, stop it Mike. Anyway, I began to see that Jesus told his disciples that night that you all want seats of power. I hear you arguing about who's greater than everybody else. But my kingdom is not like that. And he gets down and demonstrates to the people what servant leadership looks like. Later that night, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John with him into the Garden of Gethsemane. Gethsemane means olive press. And he takes them there. Been to Israel, mom's been there, we've been to Israel. If you've been there, going into the Garden of Gethsemane, those trees are over 2,000 years ago. Gethsemane means olive press and then so this is where the pressure Jesus is under in that garden.

And he takes only his inner three. He has to leave the nine behind, really the eight now. Anyway, got the math down. Sorry, it's my last service guys. You've got to help me out here. And so now all of a sudden, he goes deeper into the garden and they stay here and he said, "Pray with me." And when he gets there, the anguish in which he is praying, the weight and the heaviness—you know weight. You carry the weight. You carry the weight of your family, you carry the weight of your business, you carry weight. And he's carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders as he goes deeper into the garden and he prays and he says this, he goes, "Father, if it might be your will, take this cup from me, but nevertheless not my will but your will be done."

He was willing to go to the cross, but he knew the pressure, he knew the pain that was awaiting him. He knew the price that he was going to pay for me and for you and he was still willing to go. And he comes back to his disciples who said, "I got you," and there they were, they were sleeping, they were falling asleep. And he said, "Could you not wait for me even one hour? You couldn't even pray with me even one hour?" And they couldn't pray with him for one hour. And so now all of a sudden, they pray again and now here comes Judas, who had already sold him out for 30 pieces of silver, as the Gospels tell us. And not only sold him out, but comes up and brings the temple guard with him, the temple police and a Roman cohort after him.

And they're standing with their pitchforks and their fires and their spears and they come into the garden. And Judas tells them, "It's the one that I kiss, that's the one." And he goes up to him, "Rabbi," and kisses him on the cheek. And Jesus said, "You would betray me with a kiss?" And so now he's handed over to the, not the Romans, to really the Jewish people, the Sanhedrin. He's handed over to the Pharisees. He's handed over to them because they hated him. Because why? Because he spoke the truth. He came from the Father. He is God incarnate. And they take him to Annas and they trump up charges with fake witnesses, false witnesses.

And they say that he said these things, he said these things. And then they blindfold him and the temple police punch him and they pound him and they beat on him and they say, "Prophesy, who just hit you? Prophesy, who just hit you?" Spin him around, hit him again. Then they take him to the house of Caiaphas, the high priest. And he gets to Caiaphas's house. And the same thing goes there but even next level. And Peter's on the outside warming himself by a fire. All of a sudden the rooster crows three times and Peter denies that he knows Jesus three times. He said, "I do not know the man. I do not know the man. I do not know the man." And the final one, he cursed, he swore. And then Jesus looked at him and Peter fell apart.

That morning, after breaking 17 Jewish laws, now they send him to the Romans. And the Romans oversee the whole region because of Caesar. Now the Roman Pontius Pilate comes in and Pontius Pilate has the final say on crucifixion or not. And Pontius Pilate doesn't want anything to do with him. He's the governor, and he says, "Behold the man." He goes, "People like, crucify him, crucify him." And he says, "Who do you want?" They say, "Barabbas, Barabbas, give us Barabbas." You want a common criminal who's a murderer? "Crucify him." And Pontius Pilate said, "Aren't you going to speak for yourself?" And Jesus does not. He said, "You would not have power if my Father did not give you this power."

And so now all of a sudden, behold the man. They have to crucify him. So they beat him. Cat o' nine tails, rip open his back. 39 because 40 is illegal. 39 times. Beat him. Thorns, make a crown out of it, shove it on his head, mock him, beat him with clubs, beat him. You need to know this so we know the price that he paid. Carries his own cross after all the blood loss, dehydrated, nothing to drink. Carries his cross. The Romans didn't invent crucifixion—and the word excruciating comes from the word crucifixion. They didn't invent it, they perfected it. Now he's nailed to a cross. A thief on one side, a thief on the other side. One mocking him and the other says, "Shame on you. Master, remember me when you get into heaven, when you get into paradise." He goes, "I tell you this day you will be with me in paradise."

And then he says these words, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." He says to John, "Behold your mother," to his mother Mary, "Take care of my mother. Behold your mother." He says all of it and finally he says, "Father, to you I commend my spirit." And then he says, "Tetelestai," paid in full. It's over. And then he dies. And the Bible says that a great earthquake begins to happen. And then tombs open up and dead people come out of the tombs. Like a Michael Jackson video, like *Thriller* or something. And people start coming out and they start prophesying. In the temple, the mighty beautiful temple, the thick curtain rends into two, signifying that man can come boldly before God now. The temple is ripped. And now Jesus is taken down by Joseph of Arimathea.

And says he asks Pontius Pilate for the body of Jesus. "Can I have his body? I want to bury him." Because normally they throw you in a ditch. And said, "Can I bury him?" And they take his body and put it in Joseph's tomb. And Joseph's tomb was for him when he died, for his family, for his kids when they died. Expensive big mausoleum thing. Says, "I want it, I want to put Jesus in it." So he has to hurry because it's almost sundown. And at sundown, if you don't hurry, then you can't work at sundown. So they have to hurry up and hastily prepare his body with spices, put a shroud on it, and then come back. They're going to redo the job later on after the Sabbath. Well, here we find ourselves in the scripture. The Bible tells us right here in Matthew chapter 28. In Matthew chapter 28, verse one, it says early on Sunday morning as the new day was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went out to visit the tomb. There's a lot of Marys in the Bible, just so you know. You've got Mary, Mary Magdalene, Mary and Mary.

Verse two says, "Suddenly"—everyone say suddenly—"there was a great earthquake for an angel of the Lord came down." The second earthquake in three days. "An angel of the Lord came down from heaven, rolled aside the stone, and sat on it. And his face shone like lightning, and his clothes was as white as snow. And the guards, they shook with fear when they saw him, and they fell into a dead faint." And then, verse five, "Then the angel spoke to the women and said, 'Don't be afraid. I know you are looking for Jesus.'" If you're in the lobby, I know you're looking for Jesus. If you're the auditorium, I know you're looking for Jesus. Come on now, if you are in here, I know you're looking for Jesus. "He isn't here. He is risen, just as he said would happen. Come see where his body lay. And now go quickly and tell his disciples that he was risen from the dead and he's going ahead of you to Galilee, and you will see him there. Remember what I have told you." And the ladies go, "Yeah, yeah, yeah." And they were so excited. And here we find ourselves in the scripture today. Four simple truths from the angel. Four simple truths that you and I can live with today. Four powerful things.

Number one: He is not here. Write that down in your notes. He is not here. You know, he is not here. The empty grave is proof for me and for you that Christianity is alive. Christianity is accurate, Christianity is true. Think about this for a moment. If there is no empty grave, then we're a bunch of fools coming to church today. But because of the empty grave, what Jesus did on that cross, there are 333 Old Testament prophecies from all the way from the book of Genesis to the book of Malachi. Those books in between there, 333 that specifically talk about the crucifixion, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. 333. They all talk about his crucifixion. They all talk about it. 333 point to it. That, my friends, is a prediction. That, my friends, is something—he predicted it and it happened 333 times in the Bible. That's crazy. That's better than Babe Ruth pointing to where his home run is going. That's even better than Muhammad Ali saying he's going to knock out Joe Frazier at the Thrilla in Manila. That's the greatest call it of all time. And that's what Jesus did when he raised from the grave. He is not there.

See, in Luke chapter 24, verse one to three. Look everybody in Luke 24:1-3. "But very early on Sunday morning," this is another account. You have Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. I know you know this, but just in case, this is Luke. Luke wrote, "Very early on Sunday morning, the women went to the tomb taking the spices that they had prepared." Why? Because they had to re-dress Jesus's body with spices. What spices? Myrrh, aloe, frankincense. They had to re-spice it. These girls had to re-spice it. That's why these are the original spice girls. I just wanted to see if you're on it. I just wanted to see your age. I'm just calling out your age. "Tell me what you want, what you—" anyway, moving right along. And these girls, they begin to re-dress his body. But when they get there with the spices that they brought with them, he's not there. And they encounter the angel. They were looking for his body, but they couldn't find it.

And sometimes we go through life looking for other things. Throughout our lifetime, we search for the wrong things, looking for love in too many places. We think it's the right thing, we think it's the one thing, it's the only thing. If I can just have her, if I can just have him, if I can just have that. And all along we didn't realize that really what we needed all along was Jesus. And Jesus said, "Yeah, you could probably have that." He said, "But it's got to be a part of my plan for you," because God knows best. But Jesus said, "Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and then all these things will be added unto you. All these things." See, when you look at this, when we come to the tomb of failures, the tomb of shame, the tomb of broken dreams or guilt, expecting to find Jesus there, trapped in condemnation with us—no. We discover an empty grave. He is not there. He is not there. And so he is risen beyond what seeks to imprison us. He's beyond that. He's beyond the grave. He is risen.

Number two: The angel said he is risen from the dead. He is risen from the dead. See, we have a divine guarantee of justification and reconciliation. Big words but easy. Justification. I learned this when I was a new Christian. I've been justified by what Christ did. Okay, here's a word: justification. Just-if-I'd-never-sinned. Justified. Just as if I had never sinned. That's the way God looks at you. Just as if you had never sinned if you give your life to Christ. Just as if you had never sinned. He doesn't look at you according to your sin. He doesn't define you by your whatever you want to define yourself by. He does not define you like that. He looks at you if you know Jesus as just as if you had never sinned. Justified. Not only are you justified, but you've been reconciled. What does it mean to be reconciled? That means to be bought back. That means that Jesus has reconciled the relationship torn between me and God, you and God, and he is the ultimate bridge that reconciled.

Hear the financial terms? Reconciled the receipts of sin that we owed, that we could not pay. That's what he did. When he said, "It is finished. Tetelestai," it was like writing out a receipt when a carpenter would finish building a table or a chair—Tetelestai. Or if you went to a restaurant and you already paid for your meal, you'd write it down and they would write Tetelestai. Paid, ransomed for me and for you. Reconciled like a checking account to balance the books. Come on, somebody's gotta say praise Jesus today. I want to share with you an incredible story of a couple that goes to our Honolulu campus and occasionally come here. Of a great story of this man and a woman that God has done an incredible work in. I don't know, maybe you might see your life that way. They were in the grave, so to speak, individually. Their marriage was just about dead and then Jesus did something powerful. Have a look at this video. I'll be right back.

Brad: Hi, my name is Brad. This is my wife Tanya. We've been attending Inspire Honolulu for one year now. We've been married for 28 years. When I meet my wife, I wasn't in a good place.

Tanya: We both still had drugs in our life. What really kind of made me stop was being pregnant. And then I got pregnant again and we still weren't married. So we were highly encouraged to get married by our moms. And so we did. We just couldn't get it together. I started drinking. That's all I wanted to do basically. We had been on a rollercoaster for years.

Brad: Beginning of COVID, me and my wife had separated and I was hurt in my heart every day. Going to work from Honolulu to Wahiawa, I would be riding in my truck and Pastor Mike was on the radio every morning. It really helped me dealing with the separation with my wife. I think the seed was planted in me.

Tanya: I decided that it was either going to be stopping drinking or pretty much die. I mean, that's how bad it was getting. With the help of Brad, I stopped. He was very supportive and encouraging. I missed my family. I missed Brad and I missed my sons. And I just knew where I was supposed to be. So I stopped. I know, I know for a fact it was Jesus.

Brad: But yet something was still missing. A couple of months of being sober, my son who had been attending Inspire Waikiki told me, "Oh mom, they have a Honolulu location which is right down the street from your house." He would pick me up every Sunday and take me to church with him and it was really good. Since attending Inspire, I finally did connect. I really had that connection with Jesus. From there on, it just took off with him, took off with our family.

Tanya: The youngest son Matthew, he's just on fire and he reads his Bible. With my older son, he just recently started coming. A big part of being at Inspire Honolulu is having my connect group and being able to be on the dream team, making great friends, strong Christian women, and I'm staying focused. And I know that that's what I need to do.

Brad: It's just an unreal feeling that God is doing this in my family.

Mike Kai: He said it's an unreal feeling what God is doing in my family. It's an unreal feeling what God is doing in our family. You know Tanya, I knew Tanya a long time ago when I was in college. What a great lady, things that God has done in her life and her husband, and I praise God for that. He is not here. He is risen from the dead just as he said. Just as he said. You can take Jesus at his word. You can take Jesus at his word. Maybe somebody tore up a contract in front of you one time. Maybe somebody has not paid you back what they said they would owe you. They never paid you back. They say they will, they keep saying it, but they don't pay you back. Maybe there's somebody that you owe money to. You told them, "I got you, I got you," no. Pay them back. There are people all over our lives that have not made good on their word.

But Jesus will—he will never leave you, he will never forsake you. His word is true. His words, you can go to the bank with his word. He predicts, he prophesies. If he said it, he's going to do it. But the problem that I have and you have sometimes is his timing. We don't mess with God's plan too much, it's the timing that we have a problem with. We would all agree, "Jesus, you're right. That's the way my life should go." Right. But it's the timing. It takes too long sometimes, we don't have the patience. But I want you to know that no matter who you are, where you've been, what you've done, no matter what's gone on in your life, no matter if you practice another religion before—maybe you even were close but not quite. You know what I mean? It's here but it's not here. Repetition, you know all the prayers, you know what to say, you say them all the time. But it's still here and your behavior never changes. Because you know why? There's no real transformation that has taken place yet. Transformation comes from Jesus Christ coming into your heart and your life will never be the same again. Never be the same again.

The empty tomb, the empty tomb. One of the greatest presidents, probably the greatest that we've ever had. Maybe one of the greatest—Abraham Lincoln. I think we'd all agree, Abraham Lincoln. He abolished slavery, he was beloved, and then he was shot, assassinated. Assassinated for what he did, assassinated for what he believed. And in 1865 on April 14th, I think his name was John Wilkes Booth took his life at a theater when he was watching a play with his wife. He came from Springfield, Illinois and so when he became the president, they started off at Springfield on a train and went through every stop to celebrate, and finally in D.C. where he was inaugurated.

Well, after he was inaugurated president, years later, now he's assassinated. Now we're taking the train in the opposite direction. 1,700 miles going back in the other direction, stopping at major cities where people would mourn. There are 200 passengers on this train and there are his son that died when he was an infant, his mourning wife, his widow in the front, and 200 people. And taking the body of one of the greatest presidents we've ever had in the United States of America. And then when they get to the city, they take out his coffin, they put it on a horse-drawn carriage and slowly through the cobbled streets of every major city and town, people had the opportunity to express their grief and their sorrow and to thank God for a president like Abraham Lincoln.

He was laid to rest two miles outside of Springfield, Illinois at Oak Ridge Cemetery. And at Oak Ridge Cemetery, that's where the president's body lay. Then in 1901, they were upgrading this tomb, they were repairing it. And so they needed to take the body out. So his son, Robert Todd Lincoln, had heard rumors that people were spreading rumors that his real body wasn't in there. So in order to prove to everybody else that the body was in there, he got 23 different witnesses and handpicked these witnesses to make sure that they told the truth when they saw it in the tomb, if he was still in the coffin or not. 23 handpicked people. They got there to the cemetery, they lifted the lid. You could have heard a pin drop. It was so quiet. And when they lifted the lid, the strong stench of a corpse came out. But they all looked and they held their breath and they looked into the coffin and there in the coffin, there in the coffin. Do you know what they saw? Do you want to know what they saw?

They saw the body of Abraham Lincoln in the grave. 23 eyewitnesses confirmed the body of the president. There was his whiskers, his six-foot-five frame, the wart on his cheek. He was still in the tomb. He was still in the coffin. After Jesus's resurrection and ascension into heaven, there were over 500 witnesses that could testify that they saw him again. And his tomb was empty. And they saw him, they ate with him. He preached to them for 40 days, that's what he did for 40 days. And for 40 days.

Since we're on the funeral note, I wanted to tell you a story. A story of a man that you might find interesting. Remember the song "The Hokey Pokey"? You put your right foot in, you put your right foot out, you put your right foot in and you shake it all about. Very good. And he wrote this song and it went viral before viral was even known, before viral was even used as a medical term or an internet term. This thing went viral. People were doing the Hokey Pokey all over. Chubby Checker, "Come on let's twist," and then he started doing the Hokey Pokey right after that. It was crazy. That's for the older generation. I want to throw some that out to everyone. And so now all of a sudden, this man Larry LaPrise, he's an older man and he's known for the Hokey Pokey. And legend has it his son was so funny. Legend has it that the son said that when the undertaker tried to put dad's body in the coffin, he put his right foot in, he put his right foot... never mind.

Some of us are putting our right foot in with Jesus, taking our right foot out. And Jesus says, "I want you to come all in on this Easter. That he loves you so much that no matter who you've been, what you've done, no matter where you are, no matter if you had another religion, no matter if you were agnostic, no matter if you're an atheist, no matter if you were backslidden, if you were straddling the fence, if you were lukewarm or maybe nothing at all. Maybe today, today would be the day of your salvation." You know, salvation, without salvation, without Jesus, without justification, without reconciliation, you cannot have the gift of eternal life. There's only two places when you die. If I didn't tell you this, I would be lying to you. I gotta tell you this, that there's only two places and I gotta tell you one more thing. I'm not done yet. Everybody wait. Here it is. I'm gonna be done soon.

Here, there's only two places. There's a heaven and a hell. They both exist in the Bible. But in the Bible, you will not find purgatory. In the Bible, you will not find reincarnation. You're not coming back as something else. I'm sorry, you're not coming back. You're not coming back as a spirit animal. You're not coming back as a honu. You're not coming back as a tree. You're not coming back as another person. The Bible says, the Bible says you get one shot at life and after that comes eternity and then the judgment. And you want to be on the right side of eternity, you want to be on the right side that Jesus loves you so much that he died, he bridged the great divide between me and God and you and God. My goodness. You should have seen my life when I was 21. You should have seen me when I was 19. I was feral. Feral. I was wild and I was hurting and I was lonely and I was lost. And that's me. You might be thinking, "Well Mike, I'm doing way better than that, man." Yeah, great, but do you know Jesus? Because Jesus said, "I'm the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me." I want you to know that this Easter, this world is getting crazy. Is it just me? No. I mean look, Lāhainā fires, you better be ready to save yourself. Floods, you better be ready to save yourself.

Ultimately, listen to this: "Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth." You have to be ready. And do you know? See, but Jesus said, "When you go through the fire, I will be with you. When you go through the floods, when the floodwaters rise, when you get that bad news, when you get that catastrophic event news that someone tells you what happened, when you get that, what is your house being built? Is it on the sand or on a sure foundation called Jesus?" We're building on solid rock this day forward, from moving on from this day. No more sand. No more sand. Sand will wash away, sand will erode, sand will blow away. Sand is filler. Sand is not foundation. That's you today. You said, "Mike, that's what I want. I want Jesus in my life." I want to lead you in a prayer. I'm going to go one, two, three. And when you hear me do this, at the count of three, I want you to raise your hand in the lobby, in the imaginarium, in the collab room. Get ready in this room here today from the front row to the back row, from my side to this side, and everybody in between. We're not done yet, get ready. He's going to come into your life, change you forever from this moment forward, and then I'll see you next week. Here it is. Are you ready? With every eye closed, every head bowed, here we go. One: He will never let you down. Two: For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whosoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life. Here we go. One, two, one, two, three. Put your hand up if that's you. Come on, put them up, put them up, put them up. Come on, as high as you can. Don't be ashamed. Here we go. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. God bless you. 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. God bless you. 15, 16, right there. 17, uh-huh, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 41, 42 right there, 43, 44 at the very top, 45 right here, 46 right there straight down the middle at the top, 47, 48, 49, 50, 50, 51, 52, 53. God bless you. 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 67, 60, 66, 67, 68 right there, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92 in the corner, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98 just went up, 99 right there. At least 99 in this room, 26 in overflow, that's 125 minimum.

All right. Everybody repeat after me, especially the 125 minimum people that have given their lives and raised their hands to give their lives to the Lord. Come on. Everybody repeat after me. Say: Jesus, today, I surrender. This Easter Sunday, take my life. It belongs to you. Mold me, shape me, lead me, guide me, heal me, fill me, teach me, send me to fulfill your purpose, your call for my life from this day forward. Thank you that when I pray, the old is passed, the new has begun. I'm a new creation. I'll be in heaven for all eternity. But while I'm here, be my strength for today, my hope for tomorrow, my ever-present help in my time of need. Thank you for loving me before I first loved you and washing my sins as white as snow. Easter 2026, in Jesus' name I pray. On April 5th, and everybody said amen, amen, amen.

Guest (Female): What a powerful word. Come on somebody, if that stirred something in you, don't keep it to yourself. Share it, rate it, and let us know how God is speaking to you through these messages. We believe your best days are ahead and we're honored to be part of the journey. For sermon notes, leadership tools, coaching resources, and more, visit mikekai.tv. Stay inspired, stay planted, and stay ready because God's not done with you yet. Until next time, God bless you and aloha.